#how to write accents

[unboundprompts]

Hello! I’ve never really used this ask thing before— so I’m sorry if I do this wrong. I love your prompts and other works and was wondering if you could help me figure out how to write and describe accents? My characters have very specific accents (Australian accents, British accents, etc.) and I’m having trouble figuring out how to show that. This is a fantasy setting so I couldn’t just describe their accents as an Australian accent and such y’know? I’m so sorry if this doesn’t make sense. Would you be able to help?

How to Write a Character with an Accent

-> How to Write Character Accents

-> How to Convey Accents in Fiction Writing

Make sure your character’s speech isn’t distracting

When writing dialect or a particular accent, it can be tempting to write a character’s dialogue using phonetic spellings. However, this use of dialect can distract your reader. If your character is French and is constantly saying “ze” instead of “the,” the reader will be focusing more on decoding the line of dialogue than they will on plot or character development. When writing fiction, your reader’s attention should always be on the story, and anything that distracts from that probably isn’t worth including.

Slang and Colloquialisms

Incorporate regional slang, colloquialisms, or idioms that reflect the accent. Each accent has its own unique phrases that can suggest the character's background.

Include Snippets of their Native Language

 If you’re writing a character who speaks a foreign language, one way to communicate their accent is to simply include snippets of their native tongue in their lines of dialogue. This will demonstrate the character’s native language and implied accent without resorting to the distracting eyesore of phonetic spelling.

Don't Stereotype

Writing different dialects indelicately can make you appear condescending towards non-native English speakers or people who use the English language differently than you do. One of the most common offenders is the use of “eye dialect,” which refers to using misspellings or nonstandard spellings in order to depict a character’s accent (for instance, writing “fixin’” with an apostrophe instead of “fixing” in order to demonstrate Appalachian or Southern accents). By focusing on the “otherness” of regional dialects and non-native speakers, a writer may give the impression that they are making fun of the way people speak. When writing different accents, keep eye dialect to a minimum.

Rhythm and Intonation

Accents often have distinctive rhythms and intonations. Pay attention to how the accent changes the flow of speech. For instance, British accents might have a more clipped and precise quality, while Australian accents can sound more relaxed and drawn out.

You might describe this in your narrative, saying something like, "Her words rolled out with a casual lilt, the vowels stretching like lazy waves."

Character Reactions and Context

Show how other characters react to the accent. If a character speaks in a heavy accent, others might lean in to listen, nod in confusion, or make a comment. This helps highlight the uniqueness of the speech.

Physical Description

Consider linking the accent to physical traits or background details. Describe the character’s upbringing or location, giving hints about their accent through their surroundings or lifestyle.

Example: “Raised in the bustling markets of Evermere, his accent was a musical blend of the old tongue, softening the hard edges of his words.”

Subtlety in Dialogue Tags

Instead of writing out the accent in every piece of dialogue, you can subtly hint at it through the dialogue tags. For example, “he said, his voice dripping with the easy lilt of the southern coast” can convey the accent without explicit phonetic spelling.

[beloveds-embrace]

Idgaf abt how military works sorry yall but imagine the 141 gang having to do mandatory charity and no, not even Ghost can opt out of it regardless of how he says he’s honest to god not fucking fit to be visiting sick patients. But alas.

But they end up meeting you- frail, fragile, and sick you, no visitors around you. Though you look at them with curiosity and admiration, you keep yourself away, almost as if you don’t want to bother them.

You can’t help looking at them, though. You’ve been sick all your life- born to a mother who left you on the doorsteps of an overcrowded orphanage, left alone often and long for your body to just… fail you. You don’t think you’ve seen outside the orphanage walls and then these hospital grounds since your birth. You would be dead now if it weren’t for the CEO of the hospital taking pity on you after you turned eighteen and the orphanage cleaned their hands off you.

And so, you can’t help but envy them just a little. Strong, agile people in the military, bodies fit and healthy. Despite knowing they are always putting themselves on the line, constantly in danger, you can’t help the longing you feel. Longing you don’t realize is clear as day in your eyes.

The one to approach you first is the man you thought one of the prettiest men you’ve ever seen. He introduces himself as Kyle, and despite your silence- your interactions with others that are not doctors or nurses are far and few, and you are painfully shy- but he is nice. Gentle. Easily keeps the conversation going despite. He is so easy-going he has you grinning and laughing in no time. It catches the attention of a the Scot with a mohawk, who joins in by sharing even wilder stories. And then the man with the scary ghost mask, so often in their stories, comes to your little crowd. He is big, scary if the nurses’ reactions are anything to go by, and yet the only thing you’ve ever truly been afraid of is dying with a life not truly lived. So you don’t flinch or cower from him, merely ask if he has anything interesting to share with you.

The last you speak with is John Price. Captain John Price. If there is a man that can embody a bear, it has to be him. You are sure of it. Especially when you witness him smacking the back of Kyle’s head lightly after a teasing comment.

Maybe your chances of a long, fulfilling life are slim but today, just for today, you allow yourself to envision a life with them. Such a strange desire, a useless and wistful one.

“Thank you, for today.” You tell them quietly, when it’s nearing time to leave. Your hands are held in Kyle and Johnny’s, frail and weak compared to theirs. You smile at them, squeezing lightly. “I think this is the most happy and content I’ve been all my life. I won’t forget today.”

And in return? Neither will they. How could they ever forget you, the sweetheart in the hospital bed, your sickness keeping you away from the joyful life you deserve?

The won’t forget you. Not at all. And when you start receiving gifts, polaroids and letters and texts, you already know who is sending them to you.

It makes things just a little easier- your life just a little brighter.

Other works + help me choose a title for this!

[tubbytarchia]

Missed drawing these two too

Bonuses

[ghostlysoaps]

A Minor Annoyance

They’re back at base again and Ghost has been holed up in his office for the majority of the week in an attempt to get back on track with his ever-increasing backlog of paperwork. The knock on his door is therefore welcome, though surprising. He sits up straighter, wincing when several joints pop in protest, calling for them to come in.

Gaz leans himself against the doorframe. He, too, looks exhausted. Exhausted and irritated.

“I need your help wrangling Soap,” he says without preamble or an arduous attempt at small talk.

Ghost blinks at him.

“What?”

“He’s a stubborn bastard who won’t listen to reason,” Gaz shrugs. “And if it comes down to knocking him out in order to get him to rest, I’d rather have help carrying his leaden arse back to his room.”

Ghost blames sleep deprivation for the way he snorts.

“Alright,” he acquiesces, following behind the sergeant with amused wariness dogging his steps.

-

They find Soap outside surrounded by the scent of petrichor and bleary-eyed recruits. A gust of wind weaves around them, its chilling bite unmistakable where it tugs upon their hair and clothes, rustling through the pine-ridden area like an unexpected whisper. Ghost waits for Soap to send the group out on the track before he approaches, brow furrowed in response to the thickness layered over his voice. He'd sounded as if he spoke from deep in his throat, and with an air of a man pretending as if it didn’t pain him to do so. As he draws closer, Ghost allows the gravel beneath his feet to shift deliberately.

Soap jerks, swings his head around when Ghost comes to stand at his side, looking up at him with bloodshot eyes. The tip of his nose is red too, his cheeks a tad puffy, though he carries himself admirably regardless. Straight-backed and refusing to huddle into the oversized jacket he's wearing.

"Lt.? What're y'doing ‘ere?”

“I'm relieving you of your duties. Garrick can take it from here,” he replies, throwing Gaz a look that is met with surreptitious thumbs-up. He'll ask Price to look into leave for him. Soap's not the only one itching to work himself into an early grave by the looks of it.

It must be a cold day in hell, he muses, if I'm the one with the healthiest work-life balance at the moment.

“What?! Get tae and dinnae talk pish! I'm fine. I can work, Sir, I dinnae need–”

“That was an order, Sergeant. You can either leave on your own two feet or slung over my shoulder. Choice is yours.”

Soap's eyes narrow, his shoulders drawing up defensively, lips pulled back in a sneer. “You wouldn't dare.”

Which is about the worst thing he could've possibly said.

All at once Simon is twelve years old again with a defiant Tommy glaring daggers at him from across the stained rug, those fateful words a hiss through clenched teeth. Even the keen knowledge of their mother’s impending disappointment, how she'd give him a hushed dressing down in the aftermath of their scuffle, hadn't curbed his need to lunge for him. It's like the flip of a switch. Three simple words and suddenly Ghost is vibrating with the desire to prove Soap wrong. Some previously dormant code ingrained deep in his DNA flaring to life with all the speed of an oxygen fire.

Those memories carry him forward and the sudden shift in Johnny’s expression, the moment he realises he’s sealed his fate proper, sends a thrill skittering down his spine.

“Wait, Ghost, I–” is about as far as he comes before the words change into an unintelligible blend of Scottish nonsense, voice strained from having his diaphragm compressed. “Put me doon ye clarty bastard! Gaz!”

“Dream come true for you, huh?” Gaz says with a jaunty wave at their retreating backs, mirth etched into the crinkled lines around his eyes.

“I'll fuckin’ kill ye, ye clipe wopper! Lemme doon so ah can wring ‘is bleedin’ neck!” Soap barks, squirming in Ghost's grasp like a recalcitrant eel. It's a blessing that Soap's already running on fumes since, true to his callsign, it's damn near impossible to keep him securely slung over his shoulder.

By his third attempt to claw Ghost's back to shreds, Ghost sighs and pats him firmly on the rump. Soap instantly stills. Flushed to high-heavens if Ghost were to hazard a guess – not that he can see him from this angle. “Settle down, Sergeant, and I might be convinced to let you walk on your own.”

“Hate you,” Johnny wheezes.

Ghost grunts and maneuvers the door open, settling Johnny back on his feet again when it swings shut with a resounding thud. He steadies him when he wobbles on his feet and Johnny lets him with little fuss. Resigned to his fate he shuffles along after Ghost, who detours briefly to score each of them a cuppa. He ladles honey into Johnny’s mug and presses it into his freezing hands. Gets a muttered, unenthusiastic and intentionally mocking “cheers,” for it.

“You're a right cunt when you're sick.”

“Yer a right cunt all o’ the time,” Soap fires back. He's glaring mutinously into his least preferred beverage, cradled close to his chest while he watches Ghost tidy up after them. “Jus’ hate bein’ sick ‘s all. Feel proper boggin’ no matter how many times ah shower an’ my nose is both runny and stuffed as if th’ physics of tha is s'pose to make sense. Could'a powered through it.”

“That's how you end up forcefully strapped to a bed in medical suffering from pneumonia and severe dehydration.”

Johnny pauses. A small smile graces his face and Ghost hastily turns back to wiping down the counters to keep himself from being blinded.

One shouldn't stare directly into the sun after all.

“Speakin’ from experience, sir?”

Ghost doesn't answer, as if that isn't a reply in-and-of-itself, merely nudges Johnny back into moving. He gets him all the way to his door before Soap's brow creases in confusion. His mouth opens, closes, opens again while Ghost trudges inside with little fanfare, door left gaping in silent invitation. Johnny seizes it with both hands after dithering at his threshold a second longer.

He examines the impersonal space with keen interest, slurping obnoxiously at his tea as if to detract from how his hands flutter over scuffed paint and barren walls, his gaze catching over the miniscule signs someone is living there at all.

“Why'ahm I ‘ere, Ghost?” Soap asks when he's done, pinning him in place with the intensity of his stare. It's the same focus he dedicates to a particularly difficult math equation or sketching up blueprints with the precision of a surgeon's scalpel. It's a heady feeling to be on the receiving end of it. Heady and terrifying.

“Figured you'd appreciate the en-suite,” Ghost says, violently stamping down on the truth until it comes out in a statement easier to digest. “And someone needs to make sure you stay in place. Bloody flight risk that you are.”

You'd look good in my clothes, in my bed, as a permanent fixture here. This is as much for me as it is for you. A taste of what I can't have.

He hopes Soap doesn't read between the lines this time – always too perceptive for Ghost's questionable sanity.

“An’ where d'ye plan on sleeping?” Johnny smiles, a mote amused and as sweet as the honey lingering on his lips.

“Floor. Or Gaz's room if he doesn't delete those pictures he took.”

Johnny’s eyes go dark as sin.

“Oh, that'll be th’ least of his worries.”

“Sleep, MacTavish. You can come up with your convoluted revenge plot later.”

“Yes sir.” He gives a lazy salute and flops down on Ghost's bed with a grunt – boots and all, the absolute heathen. Ghost watches him rearrange himself into a position more befitting a person who's suffered a recent spinal fracture when Johnny peers up at him again from under thick lashes. “Dinnae think you're exempt from those, Lt. Ah know where ye live now.”

Ghost sighs and tosses the hoodie folded over his chair at Johnny’s face, taking great pleasure in closing the bathroom door in the face of Johnny's indignant name-calling.

-

Prompts via @whumperless-whump-event and @seth-whumps

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I meant to post about this back when TTPD was released and never got around to it, but it's so touching to me that Taylor has peppered so many British-isms into the album, and not just in a jokey kind of way like in "London Boy" back in the Lover days.

It's such a beautiful, subtle nod to how much that was her life for years, and to the marks the city and the muse(s) left on her. Because isn't that true of any of us when we've been around a person for so long, or live in a place we've made into our home? You start picking up their speech patterns until they become second nature. (For instance, one of my best friends moved abroad for university, and before long she started dropping in words like "fortnight," "lorry,""shops" (vs. stores) into conversation when we'd speak, which only got stronger along with her accent shifting as the years went by and she stayed there.) Kind of a love language code switching.

It’s sprinkled throughout the album. “For a fortnight” in “Fortnight,” “blokes” on “The Alchemy,” “the shops,”* in “How Did It End?” I think my favourite use of it is in “The Bolter,” because it’s such a classic twangy yeehaw Taylor song, but she’s got these tiny turns of phrase that point to where she spent a large portion of her adult life. (E.g. “best mates,” “out the drive,”* “wish he wouldn’t be sore,”*)(*yes I know these aren’t like, specifically not-American, but as someone who has grown up with North American English in the same generation as Taylor, these definitely feel anachronistic/foreign. Like if I hear someone say “the shops” instead of “the store,” “drive” instead of driveway or “sore” meaning upset, I’m thinking they either watch a lot of 1950s movies or they’re from the UK. And yes I know it’s to make everything rhyme BUT THAT’S THE POINT SHE IS MAKING THEM RHYME ON PURPOSE ok I’m stopping now before the linguistics nerd in me jumps out) It’s such a cool merging of influences, much like the album as a whole fuses together experiences and muses and sounds.

And that gets back to the “I love this place for so long,”of it all. The place is the city, the place is her home, the place is the person, and they are all part of her. To me, these are part of the subtext of the album, of the big love she once felt for all of it, and how it changed her. And, why it hurt so much to leave it all behind. So she’s starting over back home in America, but she’s taking a little bit of London with her for its curtain call on TTPD.

[ccrites]

chokehold

listen, I've had this idea in my wips for a while (since the begnining of the year actually) and the fat reader worms have been wiggling in third gear with all the awesome stuff early ( @391780 ) has been putting out lately. So have 6.4k words of Soap being an absolute pussy eating freak but you know you love him

(also on ao3 if you prefer the formatting there, or if you want to drop a kudo)

.

The second the doors swing back closed behind you, you start feeling the scratchy feeling of doubt at the back of your throat.

It was predictable, really.

A small gym in a small town, heads turn when the hinges creak, not because they’re staring at you specifically, but because it’s a reflex.

Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself to keep the scratchy feeling from turning sour in your mouth. Or make you throw up from embarrassment.

Perhaps your New Year’s resolution should’ve been to start on a home gym type of situation. Buy yourself some girly weights, a mat, and some sort of stepping device, and do those easy exercises every slim, pretty, high-ponytailed YouTube instructor seemed to preconize people out of shape do. Like a hamster on a wheel inside their cage. A rat chasing its own tail, maybe.

No, you promised yourself no more fake promises. Perhaps the money spent on the gym membership (stupid fucking New Year’s promotion) would motivate you to use it, lest it’s just money down the drain. 

You wore the stretchiest, thickest pair of black leggings you owned, hoping no one would see the terrible shape of your underwear through it. On the opposite spectrum of things, you knew the largest hoodie you owned would smother you and make you boil with sweat, so you chose the next best thing: the widest black t-shirt you owned. It was definitely not black enough, the dye faded into a dark gray from use over the years, but it was the only thing that camouflaged your body enough from the others’ sight. God forbid they imagine what your body actually looks like underneath.

The heads pretty quickly turned back around as you started walking towards the empty treadmills. It couldn’t have been more than a second, but the combined weight of at least a dozen pairs of scrutinizing eyes would’ve been enough to make you turn on your heels and back to your car, fuck the membership price.

At the very least, you could convince yourself that walking in place (no better than a hamster on its wheel but oh well) would be enough to get you started. Baby steps, and all.

It doesn’t take long for you to realize the treadmill fucking sucks. Why would anyone suggest looking at a parking lot while suffering instead of the pretty scenery of a park or forest (while also suffering, but still).

The timer you’d set for the warm-up (ten minutes, just like the pretty blonde coach suggested!) crawls by way too slowly for your taste. You’d be all but whooping with joy when it beeps if you weren’t so out of breath and conscious of a gaze on you.

You’d seen him as soon as you walked in.

Between figures of balding men trying to get rid of their beer gut with abs, two thin women whispering to themselves in a corner while trying to look inconspicuous, and a few other, completely average-looking men and women, there he stands, eyes meeting yours in the mirror as he deadlifts an impressive amount of black plates.

He immediately looks straight ahead, correcting his stance, as if there were anything to be corrected, in your unathletic opinion. The muscles in his arms bulge even through the thin, grey hoodie, and the ones in his legs coil tight as the weight is lifted off the ground in a slow, controlled motion. Not even a grunt escapes his lips, at least no one you could hear from where you stood, completely mesmerized.

There was always something almost unappealing about overly muscled men. Their wife’s not feedin’ ‘em enough, your granny would grumble when passing by the rows of magazines at the checkout of the supermarket. 

Yet this man.

Yeah, he was muscled. But in a way, he looked… almost normal. Like he was built for strength, not necessarily vanity. Each bend of his legs, each twist of his arms…

You’d swoon if you hadn’t lowered your standards so low he’d trip on them. Accepted it a long time ago. Fats belong with fats, thins with thins, and if there’s a thin with a fat, either one’s getting fattened up, or the other’s getting dumped. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, and one you’d rather not be a part of.

You walk with shaky legs to the water dispenser, then get ready to grab the second to lightest weights to try some bicep curls.

You try to remember the positioning from the videos. Rotate in… or out? Should the wrists be like this? You go through ten repetitions on each side, before you think that you should’ve gone for the abs straight away. God knows there’s fat to burn there, and that the flab under your arms can wait.

You turn back from the rack and walk straight into a wall.

No, a chest.

Fuck.

“Sorry there, miss,” says a deep voice. You detect some sort of accent, unable to quite place it right away.

Your eyes run up, instinctively stopping for a second at chest level (holy heavens that’s a Chest with a capital C if you’ve ever seen one) before finally meeting that same pair of eyes you met a few minutes ago, through the mirror.

Double fuck.

“S-sorry, it’s me, wasn’t watching,” you stammer out, gesturing to the weights in a panicked way. “Just, y’know, switching exercises,” you sputter with a nervous laugh, like it was a completely normal thing to switch exercises after one rep.

He chuckles, and you really need to start planning your escape, because holy shit the way his pectorals rise and fall as his chest puffs up is getting a bit too much for your poor little humiliated self to handle, but he doesn’t let you as he speaks in a soft tone.

“I’m getting arms aren’t really your thing, eh?” he asks, not unkindly. Gosh, did it have to be a Scottish accent?

You can’t meet his eyes, they’re too blue, too piercing for your liking. “To be fair I don’t know what’s my thing yet, I’m just starting out, y’know?” you shift your weight on your legs, conscious of the size difference, and not in the way you wanted to be. Your neck is very warm all of a sudden.

He laughs again, like it’s the funniest thing in the world, and you almost want the floor to open up and swallow you whole, but the words that come out of his mouth are completely unexpected.

“Figured! A girl with thighs like yours, I’m sure you can deadlift more than me with just a lil’ training. I’m Johnny, by the way,” he adds in passing, as if offering his name is the least of his concerns. “You ever got someone to train you?”

You’re entirely unsure if you’re dreaming or not. Did this Scottish hunk of muscle really just offer to be your personal trainer?

“Never - uh… lifted anything, I guess. Just when moving, my couch and bed and all, but I had a friend help me.” You definitely feel like you’re oversharing and you’re struggling to ignore the weight of the gaze of the two thin women, burning through you as they whisper among themselves, when you realize you hadn't answered the second part. “Oh and, uh– no. I’ve never… trained. Been trained. It’s my first time in a gym since- a while. I don’t want to bother you.”

You finally look up at him, and you’re unable to read his expression. There’s a sort of curiosity, a fascination, that blends fast into a wide-eyed joy that’s so open, so sincere that it makes your head spin as he gently but firmly grabs your wrist and pulls you where his bar stands on the thick mat, ignoring your sputtering protests. “Not a bother at all, lass!” He lets go of you as he bends down and effortlessly racks the barbell, starting to remove plates as he continues. “We can start by measuring your max lift, then the one where you can easily do three reps, then we’ll hike it up till failure, so I can calculate your starting training weight!” he rambles on excitedly. You nervously shift on your feet, conscious of more curious gazes on you, but then he’s back in your bubble, pulling your attention towards him like a magnet.

His smile is like a blazing sun, and you don’t have the heart to tell him to prepare for disappointment.

He’s infinitely patient as he shows you how to place your feet, and the angle of your hips (oh, how you feel your knee weaken at the feel of his light tough through the leggings, nothing short of electrifying, despite being perfectly friendly), the hold on the bar. It’s all a blur till you find yourself bent over in front of him, looking in the mirror at your position and trying not to feel conscious of the way he’s placed behind you. Or let your mind wander in inappropriate places.

“Whenever yer ready, hen.”

You brace yourself, close your eyes for a brief second, wondering how the hell you’d landed on this planet, then breathe in, open your eyes-

The weight is in your hands. Not on the floor. You’re holding it.

You almost drop it when he cheers behind you, warm palms rubbing down from your shoulders to your elbows and back up. “Easy! I told you you’d be a natural! ‘S all in the legs and you’ve got awesome legs, bonnie! Let’s add twenty more.”

It’s a blur of racking and de-racking and lifting once and setting back, and redoing it again and again. You’re out of breath, sweating like a sinner in church, but you’re smiling along with him, finding yourself giving him double high fives, and doing small, excited jumps.

“Next one’s exactly my weight, if y’can lift that, I’ll be losing my bloody mind! D’you realize how well yer doin’ for a first-timer?” He says as he bends next to you, adjusting the bar for the next set of weights. With a wipe of his forearm over his forehead, he crouches slightly down, placing his head right above your shoulder and looking your reflection in the mirror straight in the eyes with a conspiratory grin. “Swear to God, if ye can lift it off the ground, I’m buying you the most expensive drink at the bar next door!” he says, grin blending into a blinding smile, too genuine for your own good.

He’s just friendly, just friendly, just friendly, you say to yourself like a mantra as you position yourself. He stands again to his full height behind you, hands ready under the bar, a safenet.

Deep breath in– hold it…

Slowly but surely, you lift the weight off the floor, your ears ringing from the effort. You see his lips move as he cheers you on, but the blood pumping in your eardrums makes it impossible to hear him. Suddenly, the weight is back on the ground and your feet are off the floor as you’re lifted in a tight embrace and spun around like you weigh nothing.

You yelp and flail but he’s holding you tight, face pressed smack-dab in the middle of your chest, between your tits, rumbling praises about your prowess while you’re trying to figure out whether this can be something that your brain is capable of summoning as a dream.

“Put me down, Johnny, oh my God, put me down!”

He thankfully complies but not before squeezing your ass tighter, and suddenly nothing feels real anymore.

“Jesus, I knew ye were perfect,” he says, pulling back reluctantly to rerack the bar and put back the weights. “I cannot wait to properly start training ye’ tomorrow, but for now, I have a promise ta’ keep, and, uh, let’s just say I wouldn’t mind using those strong thighs as earmuffs with this freezin’ weather. On the way back from the bar, what d’ya say?” he adds, wiggling his eyebrows with a crooked smile that lets you know he’s joking around. (Is he?)

You laugh with him and for a second, you forget what you were here for.

+++

The way to the bar is short. It was just a block away (Good for business, he jokes), but the conversation with Johnny made time really fly by. 

He seems genuinely glad when you tell him you’d decided to head to the gym not just as a New Year’s resolution, but trying to simply become a better you. There’s no condescendence, no talking down, no (God forbid) pity, just an overall nice interaction the whole time. He tells you about being on leave as a soldier (Medical leave, he specifies, a fucked up knee can work in a gym, but it’s a different story out in the field), you tell him about your studies and how that led into a “big girl” job that left you no time for yourself.

“But I’ve always been a big girl,” you feel the need to justify. “Just… gotten bigger as I stopped finding time to move. The desk and the laptop are pretty stationary,” you joke, still trying to make sense of why a man like him (broad, and tall, and strong, and… gosh, just perfect-looking) would even deign to accept being seen with you.

(It’s not a date, you dumbass)

“I happen to like big girls,” is what you don’t expect him to say.

Wait, what?

His blue eyes glue you to your seat, and you respond dumbly. “What?”

“I mean, why do you think I’d offer to train you?” he continues, placing his hand, big and warm over your thigh. It’s squished as you sit, wide and flattened in your seat, yet his hand covers a good amount, almost covering the whole width.

Your brain is short-circuiting but you have to answer something.

“Out of– uh… out of niceness?” you stammer out, feeling your insecurities climb back out of the hole they’d been sleeping in all this time, making you shrink even more, trying to cover yourself as if he didn’t see right through you with that piercing gaze. “To feel good seeing you be the reason I lose weight?”

He chuckles, squeezing your thigh as his head hangs down, almost as if to hide the smile that spreads on his lips.

“Strength training doesn’t work like that, bonnie.” He looks back up, and his eyes are blue, and wide, and so pretty, that you can’t find anything to argue back. “Ye’ think building glutes underneath that fat arse does anything but make it bigger?” He shifts, inching closer as he licks his lips and drops his voice lower. “Ye’ think growing your quads will make this,” he gives an even firmer squeeze, wiggling the fat back and forth, and you tense under his grip, but he’s got you pinned down, “any less wide and soft?”

He presses closer, and the booth has no escape room, you’re practically squeezed into the corner as he pushes his body against yours, bending to whisper lowly in the crook of your neck.

“I did not joke when I said I want yer pretty thighs wrapped tight around my head.”

You can’t be blamed when you don’t remember how you ended up in the back of a cab, Johnny barely taking the time to bark an address to the poor driver and throw fifty quid on the front seat before kissing you absolutely senseless, shamelessly groping your tits with a hand and wrapping the other around your thigh, squeezing you close.

You should probably think more about going home with basically a stranger, no matter how hot, but when he presses his entire palm against your cunt, cupping it over the quickly dampening pair of leggings that didn’t seem so thick anymore, you can’t think at all. He swallows your quiet moans, and hums contently against your lips, taking each gasp for air as an invitation to slither his tongue into your mouth. God, you’d forgotten what a good makeout session was like, and you can’t even find it in you to be embarrassed when you see the cabbie’s eyes in the rearview mirror, instantly looking away when you see him staring. 

Johnny doesn’t seem to mind either, and when he notices you looking in the front again and again, he crowds you against the door behind the driver with a huff, half-climbing over you until his knee is pressed against your core, and the only thing in your field of vision is him.

“Johnny,” you try to say, but it’s getting hard to think, with the way you’re being squeezed in a corner, this hunk of a man of pure muscle pressing against you like a weighted blanket, kissing you like you were a drop of water in the desert and he was a parched man drinking you for his salvation. You feel his excitement pressed against your thigh, and it gives you enough lucidity to try again. “Johnny,” you gasp out again, “aren’t we going a little fast?”

He laughs instead, choosing to focus on the side of your mouth, pressing fervent little kisses down your neck before starting to suckle the delicate skin over where your clavicle is. “I can go as slow as you’d like, bun.” He takes the spot an inch next to the previous one into his mouth and sucks again, this time more forcefully, marking you, and oh God you’re going to have to conceal it before work tomorrow, unless you can find a turtleneck to wear–

The cab driver clears his throat, and you notice that the car is stopped in front of a small apartment complex. Johnny says a cordial thanks as he pulls you out of the car and throws another twenty on the backseat, before wrapping his arm around your shoulders and taking all of the thinking out of the equation as he walks you to the entry.

His flat is pretty well furnished, all things considered, but he doesn’t give you enough time to observe the deco as he presses you against the door and slides his hand under your leggings.

“Got me starin’ at that ass the second you walked in, best fuckin’ thing I’ve seen in months, d’ye realize that, bonnie?” he breathes out against your ear as his entire palm cups your sex, and you can only whine as you press your forehead into the crook of his neck. “And by how wet this pussy is, I think you liked starin’ at me, too.”

“You are–” you say, but he curls his middle finger in, spreading your lips and spreading the wetness to your clit, making you choke on your words, “-very nice to stare at.”

“Yeah?” you hear the grin in his voice.

“Mmhm,” you nod, as he keeps the back and forth of his finger, never dipping in too far, just keeping you hungry for more.

“Then how’d ye like to stare down at me as I taste this wet cunt of yours?” he purrs in your ear as he stops moving completely, letting the words process.

Brain.exe has stopped functioning. 

Had you ever had a boyfriend willing to speak filth like that to you when you were down to do the deed, maybe you would’ve gotten enough practice to know what to answer something sensible and intelligible to that, but as it stands, all you can muster is a very dumb-sounding “Huh?” as you stare back at him.

And that, apparently, is the funniest thing in the world to him, because he dips his head down and laughs, almost like a boyish giggle. Not only does that not stop him from kneeling in front of you, but it also somehow gives him more confidence to keep talking like that.

“How about you look down into my eyes as I eat out your pretty little pussy and make you come around my tongue, how’s that sound?” His baby blues bear no trace of maliciousness, no trace of a joke, as his fingers hook around the waistband and trace it around your stomach. You have to make a very conscious effort not to suck it in immediately in preparation for the letdown, but he doesn’t pull them down yet, only moving his hand alongside the edge. Your silence as you try to process what is happening only seems to spur him on instead. “In fact, how about you close your eyes, I close mine, and you hold my head close as I devour you, would you let me do that, pretty girl?”

“I’m not-” you can’t think of any way to properly let him down, not when he looks up with such pleading eyes, so the words stumble out gracelessly. “I’m sweaty, you don’t wanna–”

But he interrupts as he pulls your leg closer by gripping your thigh and squishing it against his cheek “But I do.” He inhales deeply, and your own breath shakes at the sight of how blissed out he already looks. “God, I want it. Let me have this.”

A voice somewhere inside yells at you that this has to be some sort of weird fetish, and that he most certainly won’t be having the same aura of desperation around him tomorrow, when post-coital rationale shows up and he sees your body past the veil of lust, but for now, you think that getting some with Johnny cannot be that bad compared to any one of your past encounters. Might as well enjoy it when you still can.

You wrap your hand around the one he still has around your waistband, and see his face positively light up as you softly caress his cheek.

In the end, you’re the one that pleads.

“Johnny, please.”

Your pants are off you and your leg is over his shoulder before you realize what is happening.

The feel of his warm tongue against your slit makes any thought, any doubt, any fear positively vanish, and the content sigh that he lets out as he licks at you is the same sigh as finally removing a bra at the end of a long day, it’s the sigh of laying down carelessly onto a soft bed after standing up for hours, it’s the sigh of the first bite of the best meal a man has after starving for weeks.

It should be awkward the way his arm wraps around your thigh and sinks into the softness of your stomach, using it to pin you up as he uses his other hand to spread you out enough for him to work his jaw the same way he did when he was making out with you in the car… Yet it’s not. It’s natural, the way his hand squeezes you as he licks, and sucks, and kisses around your pussy, unhurried yet passionate, languidly but firmly, pressing his tongue in, licking around your lips, and maddeningly avoiding the place you wanted him to touch most.

“Johnny,” you moan as he grazes his teeth around your sensitive nub in response. You almost buck out of his hold, but he’s firmly keeping you in place. “Please, don’t tease.”

He hums in response and dives back in, eyes fluttering closed as he ignores your whines. Every time his tongue or lips graze your clit, he works his mouth the opposite way, holding your thigh harder and pressing his palm up as he counters your hip movements with a clever swipe of the tongue. It’s absolutely maddening. “Johnny, please!”

He chuckles as he pulls back, an obscene string of spit lengthening as he pulls back, only breaking when he runs his tongue against his reddened, swollen lips. “Thought ye’ wanted me ta’ go slow, bun.” His eyes sparkle with challenge, but you can also discern a veil of unhidden desperation, of waiting for you to give the go-ahead for him to let loose.

“I’m fine with faster–” you start, but the words dissolve into a barely restrained moan as he hikes your leg up more, getting you closer to him, and immediately singling onto your neglected clit.

His forehead rests onto your belly now, and if you had more than two functioning neurons you’d wonder how he is that he’s breathing, but his hums and moans let you know that he’s perfectly content burrowing his nose in your pussy, nudging at your clit with the tip of it as he licks you with all the dedication you’ve never been shown from a man of his caliber.

He builds it up, and soothes it down, knowing exactly when to put more pressure, or when to teasingly swirl his tongue around your entrance, or to lave broad strokes of his tongue, so much so that the knee that’s not hooked over his shoulder almost gives out on a particularly forceful suck of your clit.

“Easy there,” he groans almost petulantly, as if you’re interrupting him. “Can’t have you fallin’ over when I’m not done wit’ ye.”

“My legs are gonna give out,” you say honestly, trying to catch your breath and avoid having the perfect man at your feet steal it again. “You’re a bit too good at this.” He grins up at you, “Am I?” and you want to give you a playful swat, but instead decide on carding your fingers through his now disheveled mohawk. “Guess the mess on my face speaks for itself… Shall we take this to the bedroom?”

You throw a glance around the apartment, assessing your options. “Couch is closer.” His smile is blinding. “I like how ye’ think.”

It’s now the second time he surprises you by scooping your legs from under you and picking you up like he couldn’t wait any longer and that carrying you bridal-style was the only way he could think of moving you. You yelp out a protest but he swallows it with another hungry kiss, shamelessly smearing your own wetness over your cheek as he walks you both to the couch.

You sink into the cushions where he places you gently without so much as a grunt of effort, and oh God, there they are, the standards are rising.

You reach over to pull him closer as he straightens up, but he only gives you a peck on the lips in return, like he hadn’t been kissing you sloppily the entire time.

“Come back,” you whine, hoping you can get it done before he comes back to his senses, like they all do, but he just smiles and kneels between your feet, hands pressing your thighs apart. The squelch of your lips parting should be embarrassing were he not looking up at you like you were the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, eyes full of adoration, like a child staring up at the full moon on full display on a clear night’s skies. Maybe you are his moon, his goddess, judging by the lust-clouded look directed at you.

“I did say I was gonna make you come on my face,” he says lowly, the gravel in his voice making you squirm as he places a trail of kisses up your thigh. “And I intend to keep that promise.”

With that, he dives in again, using his forearms to pin your legs open on the couch and his fingers to tease around where his tongue can’t reach. You mewl when you feel his tongue at your entrance, circling it around it briefly before delving in as deep as he could, his right hand stroking your clit rhythmically. The fact that he’s so good at somehow playing all your buttons like a maestro directing an orchestra has you thinking that he must be some sort of womanizer, some freak who does this kind of thing every night, but then his lips wrap around your nub and he gives a firm, long suck, and any restriction that you could’ve conjured up simply vanishes. Your thighs want to close around his head, but you can’t move under the iron grip he has on you.

You fist his hair more forcefully than necessary, and he looks up, wet eyelashes framing his beautiful eyes as he hums in response.

“Please,” you moan, and he hums affirmatively again, closing his eyes to focus on licking and suckling harder. He heard you, he simply doesn’t seem to care. “Johnny.”

“What,” he asks, voice muffled and why is this so hot? 

“I need… I need,” you whine, unable to string the words together, and desperately trying to buck your hips under him, for lack of strength to actually close your thighs how you want to.

That seems to get his attention, and he chuckles, before pulling back with a gentle kiss on your mound. “Guess you’ll have to keep tryin’, pet,” he sussurs, a condescending pat on your thighs before he dives in slower than before.

Oh, the absolute asshole. Now he wants you to work for it?

You think that doing the opposite, relaxing your thighs open and letting him go to town however he wanted would help, but he seems hell-bent on riling you up every once in a while, getting you closer and closer with each lave of his tongue over your poor, overstimulated clit, but never enough to actually push you over the edge.

After what seems like an eternity, and almost, almost starting to think that this was a mistake, halfway ready to let him do this thing before your hip starts to cramp up, you feel a finger nudge at your entrance.

“Fucking finally–” you start, ready to curse him out, but he’s faster than you can think in your blissed-out state, and he slides a second finger alongside the first one, immediately zeroing in on that spot that makes you go cross-eyed and buck under his hold.

“Thassit– there you go, pretty girl,” he murmurs against your clit, and oh, okay, maybe you were closer than you thought, because the rhythmic curl of his fingers doesn’t need to last long before you’re off like an arrow, back arching and thighs squeezing, coming harder than you ever thought was possible. If he were any less skilled at making you completely lose the ability to think, you’d maybe notice that you’d managed to close your thighs almost completely around his head, but he wasn’t, so you don’t, twitching helplessly in the aftershocks of the most wonderful orgasm a man had ever given you.

Limbs that somehow still belong to your body hang uselessly off the side of the couch, and you struggle to catch your breath. You blink lazily, noticing him smugly wipe his face with the back of his hand, his half lidded eyes not any less blissed-out than yours. 

You didn’t believe a man like this ever existed, until now. It aches that this might not be something that would last, so you make grabby hands at him, unable to find the will to speak just yet. 

He laughs softly and gently grabs your arms, kissing from your knuckles slowly up your arm, to the crook of your neck. The patience he has is almost inhuman, as he takes the time to let you regather your senses, matching the marks he made earlier on the other side of your neck. You cup your hand around his head in response, and he smiles at you.

“Ye’ with me, bun?”

“Mmhm.”

“That slow enough fer’ ye’?” He holds himself up, an inch fron your face, and you reach up to kiss him.

“I’m gonna kill you dead,” you mutter against his lips, and he chuckles.

“Let me at least fuck you properly, first,” he whispers, and you notice that he’s long since unbuttoned his pants. You barely get a view of the massive size of him over your belly as he holds himself in his hand, large palm not enough to cover the whole length of him as he strokes himself, angled in such way that his tip rubs against your clit on each downstroke. The word “Please,” is not even halfway out of your mouth when he sinks into you in one swift motion, the rest dissolving into a long, drawn-out moan.

“Fuck-” he grunts, “so tight, cannot believe it.”

He guides one of your legs to wrap around him, keeping it flush against his body with his elbow as his palm grips your ass tightly, the other holding him against the backrest, forearm near your head as he pulls you closer for a sloppy kiss as he starts rolling his hips. You moan into his mouth and he swallows them greedily, leveraging each trust of his hips with a pull with his hand, helping you move in tandem with him, readjusting when your thigh threatens to slip out of his hold. The slaps of his pelvis to yours should sound obscene, his hard muscles hitting against your soft, jiggly skin, but his groans into your mouth are like music to your ears, the fact that he’s vocal about it has you almost reaching your peak again in no time, but he seems to sense it, and slows down immediately.

You try to kiss him harder, but he makes a small noise of protest, muttering something that sounds vaguely like “no, let me, let me just–” and you want to ask what he wants to do, to help him, but he instead reaches down both hands to grab your hips and pull you off the backrest. You yelp as your ass suddenly hangs in the air, his cock speared inside you the only secure point as he pulls you halfway off the couch, but he directs you firmly, “Here, around me,” helping you wrap your legs tightly as he starts thrusting again, harder than before.

“Oh, God, oh God,” you flail around, but each thrust in pushes your back into the cushions, and he reaches behind his back to hold your feet in his hand as he presses his palm near your head for support, spewing more filth as he does.

“That’s it, hold me tight, squeeze my cock like ye’ almost squeezed mah heid off earlier, huh, bonnie? Show me what those thighs can do, fuck-”

Your whole body is jiggling with each thrust, and you don’t have it in you to even feel self-conscious with the way each time he fills you, the tip of his cock nudges against the spongey spot inside, making you mewl in tempo with his relentless rhythm.

“Johnny, Johnny,” you moan, and he bends over to kiss you again, swallowing his name like communion while you chant it like a prayer.

“Don’t give up now, bonnie, keep squeezin’, fuck, I can feel ye’, yer so close.”

You try to get some leverage with your upper body, trying to push yourself up the cushions, but his cock suddenly slips out of you as your thighs almost give out, and an apology is already halfway out your mouth when he kneels back down and burrows between your legs, tongue first with a rushed “Need ta’ taste us, fuck, both of us, together-”

One hand wraps around your hip and over your pelvis, reaching up to knead desperately at your stomach, to pull you closer or push you away, you can’t tell, the other pulling your lips apart to settle his entire lower face against your pussy firmly– before letting go as he starts humming.

Your thighs are free to squeeze around his ears, and he nods encouragingly as he keeps licking, and then you hear it: the sounds of wet stroking. You don’t see him fisting his cock, but you hear it, fast and desperate. As your hand tangles in his hair to pull him closer, and another hum– no, another moan vibrates through your core, it’s the last thing you hear before you’re absolutely gone, gasping out a curse as you tense up in his hold, trembling as you come.

It’s even more intense than the first one, and as you buck out of his hold, he stands up shakily, his hand moving faster and faster around his cock, the angry red of his tip at the same level as your face. You gesture for him to sit down, trying to signal to him that you want to reciprocate despite the post-orgasmic haze and exhaustion, but he shakes his head, and, seconds later, you feel warm wetness land on your belly and slowly trickle down as he moans your name when he comes.

You feel like you still have to give something back, and, when he slumps down next to you with a content sigh, you climb over to place a delicate kiss on the tip of his cock, letting out a huff of laughter when it twitches under your touch.

“Ye’ absolute menace,” he whispers fondly as he pulls you up and tips his body to the side to lie down, using his legs to push you up halfway over him, trapping you between his body and the cushions, yet protectively shielding you from falling over. You place another kiss on his stomach, and you see his abs tense under your touch as your warm breath moves his hairs as you hover for a second, before deciding to shift up and use his pectorals as a cushion. He hums softly as his arm wraps around under yours, reaching to pull the plaid off the back of the couch and settle it around you both. Ticklish, eh? That’s a piece of information best stored for later.

You’re still breathless, absolutely done for. God, best decision of your life, going to the gym. “Now what?” you can’t help but ask. It’s the same fear that always creeps up, the fear that he got to try out a fantasy, and now that he was done with it, he had no need to want to continue anything possibly serious. Not that eating a girl out on a first date, if you could even call it a date, was a sign of a one-night stand, you can’t help but feel awkward and insecure now that it’s all done, despite the comforting cuddle.

He chuckles in response, that same chuckle from earlier in the day, a What a silly question chuckle. Like he’d read into your thoughts and insecurities and found them absolutely laughable.

“Same time at the gym, tomorrow? I want you to squeeze my head off next time.”

“Next time, huh?”

He pulls your leg over his pelvis, trapping his still half-mast cock between his belly and the crook of your knee, hand firmly wrapped to shift you up, almost completely on top of him. When both of you are comfortable and you start feeling the tendrils of sleep pull you deeper, he gives a last, playful squeeze to your ass.

“Next time.”

[livecrow]

You've been kidnapped by the local butcher and he convinces you he's going to fucking eat you.

Dark!Ghost x fat fem reader drabble

CWs: rape, dehumanization, gaslighting, bondage, undiscussed kink(?), animal play(?), threats and talk of cannibalism but no actual cannibalism. The details are gone into extensively, but it’s all a game to Ghost and he never intends to follow through on any of the threats. 

(A tidied up and extended ramble I subjected @391780 to on anon. Inspired directly from their post where Butcher!Simon draws a diagram of beef cuts on you.)

_____________________________________________________________

It’s pretty immediately obvious he’s a murderer. He’s probably a serial killer for all you know.

In reality, Simon doesn’t consider himself a serial killer, despite his body count. He’s just someone who doesn’t have qualms dealing with nuisances. He’s a retired vet, after you’d killed enough people, what’s a few more? 

No, his kills were just business, practical. They were men who made the mistake of getting in his way, of being inconvenient. Most, anyway—there’s at least one or two whose only crime was being an especially annoying cunt. Sometimes, some people  “jus’ need killin’”. 

As a butcher, he does find the implication funny, but no, he’s not eaten any of the scum he’s off’ed. “Don’t serve ‘em up to customers, neither”. After all, Simon’s got far higher standards than that. They weren’t even fit for dog food and he has a reputation to uphold. No one can compete with his quality. 

No, you’re nothing like them. You’re special.

Never in his life had he seen a prettier creature—and you’re absolutely prime. He’s salivating just looking at you, plump and oh so soft. He can see it in the way your skin wobbles gently as you move about. Simon couldn't find a straight line on you. And he’s looked. He’s been transfixed watching you, aching.

You live your life meandering obliviously, no brand in sight, not even a tag on your ear. He's surprised no one else snatched you up. Poor thing left to fend for itself ‘s cruel. Nothing else to it. 

Wrangling you was simple, it’s not like your large form actually offered you anything towards your defense. It was easy, really. Your lack of instincts was staggering, it was even more shocking that you lasted this long, he almost couldn’t stop himself from laughing.

You were clueless to the danger, even when it was directly in front of you, it only endeared you to him. Your eyes roved over him, not paying him any mind, just carrying on about your undoubtedly inane business. Only when he was on you and it was too late did you start to kick up a fuss.

The look of panic on your face was just priceless. All this crying and babbling nonsense like, “What are you doing?!” and “Stop!”.

Simon's main concern was not damaging you too much, he was careful. Just a single huge bicep around your neck and any fight you had seemingly evaporated with fright. You're bent over in a headlock, his grip as rigid as a pillory, but he’s not applying enough pressure to actually choke you. You’re just forced helplessly to come along or be dragged.

Not that it would have mattered if you were too wild to be led, he would simply tighten his hold, and allow up a quick nap. He’d pull out the dolly, load up the truck and be on his way.

On the big stainless steel work table the metal stings you even through your clothes. Unfortunately for you, even that scant protection doesn't last. The sight of the shears was enough to paralyze you again, and with a handful of strategic snips, Simon rips your last vestiges of humanity from you. All your skin transforms to gooseflesh, shivering on the table, but your nipples is where his roaming gaze finally settles.

He’ll have to remember to adjust the heat later. After all, “‘s a bit early to start chillin’ you”, he’d chuckle. You were a bit of silly thing, he thought. Maybe it’d be a minute till you’d actually catch on.

You're his little prize. Simon will coddle you, give you plenty of softness and warmth. You’ll not want for blankets, pillows, and other such treats, but not a stitch of clothing will ever touch your skin again. There would be no hiding your nakedness.

“Clothes? Clothes ‘re for people, what y’ need clothes for?” he scoffed. You don’t make the mistake of thinking it’s a question, because he doesn’t want you to answer. A dog doesn’t answer “who's a good boy?” does he? 

He’s measuring you, jotting things down. You think distantly that the pencil looks puny in his fist. While he's at it, he's feeling and squeezing every inch of you. You’re groped and prodded like some saran wrapped package of beef at the grocery store.

Only when you think there’s finally a reprieve, you’re being hogtied. You’re trussed up in practically half a roll of twine, fat bulging between the strands, desperate to escape its bite. Simon says it looks good on you, can’t resist taking one of your new little rolls between his fingers, giving you a teasing pinch. You struggle of course, but the terrifying man commands you to “Settle”, says the only thing your fussing will get you is rope burn. 

He claps you on the ass affectionately, assuring you that the scratchy string is only temporary. He knows a guy for leather, does good work. All hand stitched. Simon will have a proper harness made for you. Something with a lot of d-rings. It will be more comfortable for you and he can situate you how he likes with minimal bruising or chaffing. 

As he admires your skin, he’ll remark offhandedly that he’ll have to ""'ave somethin' from you" too. He’s not usually one to bother, but it’d be a travesty to waste hide like yours. Couldn’t find more supple could y’? He hasn’t decided what’ll be yet, he’ll need to do some maths to figure out how much material you'll make. Behind his mask and the façade of impassivity, he savors your reaction. That’d be about the first time your consciousness flees from you.

Simon will lay it on thick, praise how "well-marbled" you are. Delectable. So plump and well-fed, you can't blame him for any of this, really. He'll say something about kobe beef and taking good care of you. He’ll massage you daily, knead every inch of you between his huge oiled hands. He'd take his time, temple t' toes. You couldn’t get a knot in a muscle if you tried.

Your more delicate bits don’t escape his tender ministrations either. He takes painstaking work in rubbing your insides down with thick fingers, wringing orgasms from you until you're limp and still as the rest of the meat in his shop. Says it’s good for the flavor, will make you even sweeter.

It’s all completely horrifying, it has to be a nightmare. He says all this so casually, like he’s telling you the time of day. This man is truly completely deranged. 

His hands are always on you, it’s never fucking ending. He's taken it upon himself that you never “exert” yourself and you have no choice in the matter. Bastard won’t even let your hands free to eat or bathe. He "grooms" you. Brushes your hair, trims your nails, cleans your teeth, brushes, lathers, rinses, dries, moisturizes your skin. It’s humiliating and you hate every second of it.

The juxtaposition is too much, the horror and absurdity of it all. All the restraints and manhandling, your looming demise, while insisting on soft surfaces for you, water temperature just right, food carefully curated and cut up just so. He won’t let anything happen to spoil the meat.

He doesn’t spare any expense on your “feed” either. You eat what he eats, might as well be eating off his plate. Albeit simple, it’s good food, you don't see a point in denying it. It's fresh and flavorful and to no one’s surprise it includes a lot of meat. Always from his shop of course, only the best for you.

He’ll bring out some new parcel every night for dinner, unfolding the brown paper wrapping, holding up to you to admire his work. “‘S a ribeye”. He goes on about the marbling, the even color of the meat. “Couldn’t find fresher” he’d say, "was only jus' bleedin' this mornin'".

You’re his captive audience. There’s nothing else you can do but warily watch him make dinner, even if seeing a blade in his hand gives your heart palpitations. Steak, sautéed mushrooms, jacket potatoes, roasted broccoli.

You’ve long since stopped fighting him when it comes to meals. Because it can always get worse. After being bent over on the floor, forced to eat off a dish without the use of your hands, you’d resigned yourself to the fact that eating off his fork was a sufferable compromise. Still, if he’s in a mood he won’t even allow that. You'll eat off his fingers, and he’ll laugh at your expense and chide you when you inevitably “make a mess”. 

The food was prepared, but this time the kitchen knife didn’t leave his grasp. It wasn’t a steak knife. It was too big and not serrated, but that didn’t seem to bother Simon. It certainly bothered you. Its presence loomed like a guillotine in your peripheral.

He feeds you bites between his own. Every mouthful and he looks so pleased. You desperately missed his mask at meal times. At least then you couldn’t see his smug fucking face.

On the plate the steam billows and curls. The meat gives easily under your molars, practically melts in your mouth. Hot and rich and juicy, it’s basted in butter, with garlic cloves and sprigs of rosemary, seasoned with cracked peppercorn and flakey sea salt. It’s a touch rarer than you’d like. 

You wish you were capable of escaping the horror of it all for even a second, pretend you were anywhere else, with anyone else.

Simon punctuated his first bite with a low rumble of approval, watching you with those dark, cavernous eyes. He’d continued in that way, a man content in silence.

”...you'll taste better.”

He waited until your last bite to say it, maybe that was mercy on his part. The meat transformed in your mouth, became sinewy and bitter. You couldn’t swallow, and went to spit it out. But he expected that apparently, was on you in a second. Giant rough hand sealed over your lips, practically enclosing the bottom half of your face, smooshing your cheeks up into your eyes. 

“Chew.”

It takes longer than usual, but you try to obey. His hand hasn’t moved from your mouth.

“Swallow.”

His eyes move from yours to your neck, his thumb grazing your throat lightly, tracing the bite’s trajectory as you force it down. His eyes are back on you then. 

With Simon’s free hand he deftly pierces the last drippy morsel off the plate with the knife, popping it between his scarred lips. The hand still on you moves, migrates to cup your jaw, gradually starting to squeeze. You don’t have any fight left and open before it becomes painful.

Fear paralyzes you again, when he brings the knife towards you.

The movement is slow, as if he’s actually concerned about frightening you. He’s holding it longwise, pointed off to the side.

Then it’s on your tongue.

He drags the flat of the blade’s length across the trembling muscle, leisurely, only moving it away to flip it and clean the other side, myoglobin discarded on your tongue 

“They’ll say ’m ‘spoilin’ ‘er rotten’. Eatin’ off my own plate, sleepin' in my own bed, warm under my roof. Keepin’ you safe indoors. Such a sweet, tame thing, are you?”. He strokes your cheek, wiping at a drip at the corner of your mouth with a thumb before popping that in his mouth too.

Whenever Simon’s put up enough with your smart mouth, he enjoys the look of your wide wet eyes and your trembling lips stretched around a padded ring gag.

The sounds you make when gagged are special little nonsense noises, almost like you're trying to talk like a person would. Sweet, pitiful sounds. He also loves when wet, choked sobs that cascade out of your open mouth, forcing you to drool. “You’re so messy, sweet’eart. Nose runnin’, too.” Says you're leaking from practically every hole. Eyes, nose, mouth, cunt.

Sometimes, you might almost be fooled into thinking he feels sorry for you in those moments when you're hyperventilating and hysterical, or wailing so mournfully. He always hushes you when you're crying, pets and hold you, dries your face, as if he’s not the cause of your tears. Despite how much Simon adores the taste of them, adores the soft jingling of the little cow bell tied ‘round your throat when your whole body quivers with sobs, the stress will sour the meat. He’ll say as much, but surprisingly it doesn’t help calm you down.

If it was necessary, he's not opposed to sedation. After all, he's done the research to find one that won't affect your flavor. But most of the time, his solution to your despair is yet another thorough fucking. Dopamine to counteract the stress.

Simon forces the orgasms out of your body as easily as he forces his cock into it, you're utterly helpless to stop either. His livelihood is working with his hands and unfortunately he’s damn good at it. When all's said and done and you're spent, he’ll lightly chastise you for working yourself up, for fussing.

He loves the heft of you in his hands, weighs your heavy tits in his palms, grips your ample belly. Simon can't resist taking mouthfuls of you into his mouth, worrying your supple fat with his incisors. Your tits, ass, thighs, arms, belly, back fat, hell, your double chin. It doesn't matter, any squishy bit of you. You're always afraid he might be getting impatient, that he’ll take a bite out of you, but he never does. Simon says he's just sampling, maybe tenderizing you a little. 

His favorite taste of yours is still between your legs. He has you thank him for being so careful there. Past you inner thighs and plump mons, the pressure of his teeth yields, feeling barely a graze. 

He likes putting mirrors in front of you, says he wants you to see how lovely you are. Your hands are clipped together, chain snagged in one of the shop's many meathooks, just low enough that you don’t strain your shoulders or quite have to stand on your tiptoes.

He directs you to watch, popping the lid off of a permanent marker with a squeak.

He maneuvers you this way and that as he works, dragging the marker down your body. His lines are surprisingly clean considering his canvas is such a pliant, organic shape. Hand are as steady as a surgeon. The marker tickled terribly on skin, the ethanol smell burning your nose, making it hard to think.

It only took a minute to recognize what he was doing. Your skin itches under the felt tip. You flail, trying desperately to smear it, to muss his work, but the ink dries too quickly.

Simon wouldn't let you keep your eyes closed, so in that moment you were grateful for the onslaught of tears blurring your vision somewhat.

That day, he showed you all your different cuts, as if you cared, as if you were together enough to pay attention.

Chuck, rib, loin, sirloin, rump, round, flank, plate, brisket, shank.

He tells you which are his favorite. Tells you which of his mates he’ll have over to enjoy you, ponders what pieces he’ll think they’ll like best. How to cook different cuts to get the best effect, that some cuts are naturally tougher and have to be cooked slowly, while the other cuts are tender and fatty, can be cooked at a higher temperature, quicker. 

From the very beginning, he’s referenced the “Big Day”.

He’ll ask if you're excited over the shinnnnk of a knife against a whetstone. Simon always keeps his tools in order, clean and sharpened expertly, but he thinks he'll polish them up extra shiny for the occasion. To a mirror finish, so you can see yourself. You're so beautiful, it'd be a cryin' shame for you to miss it. 

It’s been months now you’ve been with him and the day never comes. 

...

You didn't dare question it.

But if you did, Simon would just chuckle, amused that you're so eager. Maybe he'll say that he decided he wants some milk from you instead.

[deerspherestudios]

How does Mychael know how to correctly pronounce words if he has been isolating himself from people??

Oh, fun question! For the sake of brevity, he's lived a long time. Starting out he definitely couldn't speak English at all, but he started out eavesdropping on others' conversations, especially paying attention on children talking to their mothers.

Once the world grew modern, he started listening and picking up words through radio broadcasts and television through shop windows. That's also when he started visiting the library too, struggling to grasp vocab and grammar with basic kid books (like Peter and Jane, for example).

I'd say he doesn't start talking confidently well into his late teens and even then his grammar is real awkward. It's only better once he figured out how to read and fixed his own pronunciation.

[pinkanonwrites]

Washrack Academy

Jetstorm and Jetfire have a lot of questions about humans. But you? You just want to take your shower in peace.

TFA Jetfire, TFA Jetstorm, and Reader, no ships but it's implied Jetfire has a little crush on the reader, human reader, non-sexual nudity, is it still voyeurism if it's mostly fueled by curiosity? probably, AFAB Reader with GN Pronouns, alien anatomy discussions

"You know, humans are being much more hygienic than Sentinel says they are being."

You rolled your eyes, hefting your small duffel bag further up your shoulder. "Yeah, well Sentinel doesn't know as much about humans as he thinks he does. Most people I know shower every other day at the very least. We aren't big fans of being dirty."

"But now you are being extra dirty!" Jetstorm loomed over you with a cheeky grin, running a huge metal digit over the top of your head. A slick of motor oil came with it, sending another disgusted shiver down your spine at the gooey sensation. "Bumblebee maybe needs to working on power steering! And not splashing human friends with drinks of celebration."

Being a human liaison representing the city of Detroit on Cybertron was already a job way outside of the normal parameters of your career, and the stress was leaving you pretty wired. But Bumblebee accidentally tipping an oversized can of motor oil off a table and directly onto your head while showing off just had to be the final nail in the coffin. In front of a whole bunch of big important Autobots and everything.

Now you were being flanked on either side by Sentinel Prime's personal squadron (a gig they eagerly volunteered for and a choice both you and Sentinel had little say in) as they showed you to whatever the Cybertronian equivalent of an army base locker room was so you could get cleaned up. 

"And motor oil not to be damaging your fluffy organic fibers?" Great, now Jetfire was poking at your greasy hair too. At least he had half a processor to keep his igniters off while he did.

"It's called hair. And it'll only damage it if I leave it in too long. Plus, it's really bad for my skin."

"Good for it not to be doing badness to hair! Yikes for it to be doing badness to skin. So sensitive, little organics. Must be very hard!"

"You're telling me, bud."

"Here! Coming this way." Jetstorm gestured for you to follow him through a tiled doorway. The room beyond looked remarkably similar to the locker room you'd had in high school, though blown up to a cartoonish scale. "We have tiny washrack for mini-bot sizes. Maybe too big for you still, but is better than nothing!"

He wasn't exaggerating, the handles for the mini-bot sized faucets were still a good two or three feet out of your reach. 

"Where do you even put your towels? Your soap?" You glanced around but failed to find any bench or wall divot suitably placed for setting your things down. "Is there anywhere I can set my bag?"

"Just be putting bag into subspace! Easy for peasy!" A small compartment popped open on Jetstorm's chest, and from it he procured… a metal scouring pad? A giant one, about the size of a large restaurant platter. If the situation weren't so incredibly absurd already, you might've gotten a chuckle out of the idea of a robot using a Brillo pad as a loofah.

"Yeah, we don't… humans don't have that." You said instead. Because this situation was, in fact, incredibly absurd.

Jetfire and Jetstorm looked at each other, mirrored expressions of visible confusion. Then, they both shrugged.

"Being a human…"

"...Is very difficult!"

"Look, just- can one of you hold it for me? Please?"

"For certain! I will be best at human wash rack supplies holder job! Be counting on me." You dropped your duffel bag into Jetfire's cupped hands and wrenched it open. Grabbing your various bottles of hair product and a large towel from within, you lined them up on the floor along the wall and hopefully just beyond the reach of the shower's spray. But as you moved for the bottom of your shirt to pull it off, you felt the prickle of two pairs of optics staring just a little bit too hard at your body.

"Are you two just gonna… watch me? You can wait outside, you know."

"We are to be protecting you from curious bots! And make sure you do not do the snooping or the wandering off." Jetstorm insisted.

"Are you gonna do that while staring me down? A little privacy, please." Was it ironic to ask for privacy in a locker room? Probably. But most people had the decency not to stare while someone was getting undressed. 

Most people. Maybe that sentiment didn't extend to twelve foot tall transforming robot soldiers.

"Staring? Who is doing the staring? Certainly not us goodness bots!" 

"No, no! We would never be the staring! Especially not at soft and squishy little human frame!"

Both brothers rushed to cup a servo over their optics, continuously asserting their supposed innocence all the while. You sighed, peeling your way out of your slick and permanently stained clothes and letting them fall to the ground in an oily heap.

"Well I don't know how it is on Cybertron, but on Earth staring at people in the locker room is what we call 'bad manners.' You two ever heard of those?"

"We will being so very manners-filled! No staring from us at you, big promise." Jetfire insisted, carefully depositing your bag into his subspace as he brought his other servo up so they were both covering his faceplate.

"Though do not be trying to do the sneaking off while we are look-away! That would be also called 'bad manners.'" Added Jetstorm with a cheeky thumbs-up.

"I'm not going to go sneaking around your base naked, so you don't need to worry about that. Now could one of you get the water for me, please?"

As Jetstorm felt along the wall and cranked the water to partial blast, you swear you heard him ask his brother 'But what is "naked" meaning?' The hiss of the showerhead quickly covered it, though, and you decided you'd rather focus on getting clean before you struggled to explain the foreign concept to the pair of ridiculous twins. The water ran just hot enough to make your skin tingle as you lathered your hair with shampoo, vigorously scrubbing the motor oil free from your scalp. It'd probably take more than a few rinses to get everything out, you'd have to ask Professor Sumdac to bridge you some more toiletries way sooner than you'd originally planned. Maybe Sari could pick some up for you on her next trip home?

But as you lathered your hair up for the fourth (maybe fifth?) time, you couldn't help but notice a quiet, metallic buzzing that could just barely be heard over the hiss of water. It paused and fizzed in a rhythmic pattern, not all too dissimilar from Morse Code. It would stop for a moment, before picking up again, slightly lower pitched this time. It sounded almost like… a conversation.

"If you've got something to say, you can say it out loud." You called them out. Jetfire startled at the sound of your voice, his own sounding slightly strained. 

"What? But we are such quiet being!"

"You're doing that… that 'EM field' thing. Where you talk to each other with your brains? I've heard Bee and Bulkhead do it before. So, c'mon. What do you want to know?"

He clammed up, absentmindedly scuffing one of his pedes against the tiled floor. Jetstorm, meanwhile, had a sly grin growing across his faceplate. He raised his free servo up in the air like a student waiting to be called on.

"Actually, Jetfire is having a question!"

"I-I am not! Do not listen, brother is merely making funny joke!"

"No, no! Do not listen to him! Jetfire is very, very curious about human not having sp-MRMPH!"

A cacophony of metal on metal echoed through the wash racks as Jetfire tackled his brother to the wet tile, wrestling his servos over the other's intake to keep him quiet. Jetstorm grabbed for his brother's goggles and pulled him into a shaky headlock, even as Jetfire repeatedly kicked him in the knees with the flat of his pede. You scrambled to grab your towel, clutching it to your front as the two bots collapsed to the ground in an ear-splitting crash.

"Hey, HEY! Quit it! What the hell are you two doing?!"

Both of their heads snapped up at your tone, Jetstorm still looking mischievous while his brother had the decency to look a bit sheepish. He quickly pried Jetfire's servo off of his intake.

"Jetfire is wanting to know why humans do not have spike! You know, since he was doing the peeking."

"Y-You were also doing peeking! I know you were curious too!" Jetfire shot back.

"Maybe curious, yes, but you are obsessed! 'Oh, little humans are so soft and so squishy being! Why so warm? I want to be holding one!'"

"I am not sounding like that! You are making exaggeration!"

Jetfire seemed on the verge of tackling his brother again, so you quickly stepped in. "Okay, geez, look. I will answer one, ONE! Question each. And only if you stop hitting each other. That's it. I don't have the energy for this today."

The two bots awkwardly clambered back to their feet, Jetstorm looking down at you with a playful grin while Jetfire seemed to be looking anywhere but your unclothed frame.

"Brotherrrrr?" Jetstorm teased. "Would you like to be going first?" 

Jetfire dignified his brother's teasing with a sharp elbow to the side, but spoke anyway. "S-Sorry to be peeking when you said not, but, um, do humans not have- uh, not have spike? Or is it hidden? Maybe not pressurized? If embarrassing you don't have to say. No biggee."

You furrowed your brow. 'Spike.' You don't think you'd heard any of the Autobots use that term before, at least not around you. Maybe it was a built-in weapon? Or some sort of specialized armor plating?

"I, uh, I don't know what a spike is. Sorry. Can you be… more specific?"

Jetfire let out a high-pitched sound, similar to heat escaping a tea kettle, while his brother only seemed to beam even brighter at his humiliated suffering.

"Ah, you know! Spike!" Jetstorm grinned. "Right here, above valve? Comes out like 'fssshh'? No modesty panel on you, so maybe just hidden away!" He made a bunch of vague motions in front of his crotch, and with a looming horror you started to catch on as he mimed the motion of something growing and rising up in front of his crotch plate. His modesty panel.

Holy shit they had robot dicks.

"N-No? No, I don't have a- a spike." You were doing your absolute best to stay focused on the conversation at hand, not think about… about the robot penis that apparently all Cybertronians had? "Humans, uh, most humans just have one or the other. The, um, the spike or the… the…"

"Valve?" Jetstorm happily supplied.

"Sure? I guess?!"

"Something new to be learned every day! Right, brother?" Jetstorm thumped his brother on the back with an open servo, while Jetfire was openly refusing to make eye contact with you. The temperature in the room seemed to peak by a few degrees, and based on the heat waves rolling off of Jetfire's body you had an inkling suspicion it was his doing, however unintentional it may be. "Anyways, my turn, yes? You said word 'naked'. What is 'naked' meaning?"

"Uh, y-yeah. Um, yeah. Sure." God, you did not have the mental fortitude to deal with these revelations today. "Naked just means you're not… covered up? Wearing clothes. There are some parts on a human that have to be covered in public, otherwise it's uh… inappropriate." Your only solace was that now you had some sort of comparison to make between Cybertronians and humans. "Like, you guys wouldn't walk around with your… your spike out? Same for humans."

"Ohhh…" They even had stunned realizations in unison. You'd almost consider it cute, if you weren't already so burnt-out.

"Yep, well, class is over. Can I please get dressed now? Preferably without being watched?"

"A-Ah! Yes, of course! So sorry! Here is things." Jetfire quickly fumbled your duffel out of his subspace, only for it to slip through his digits and hit the floor with a thud. Wincing, he turned to shove his brother from the room, calling over his shoulder to you as they went. "We will be watching door so no bots do peeking! Then there is no way we be seeing you naked, not even little bit! Seeing you in moment- but not naked! Just normal seeing!"

"O-Okay? I'll be out in… a bit." But they were already gone. Weird. Weird couple of bots. But hey, at least now you could dry your hair in peace.

~  ~  ~  ~  ~  

"Very bumpy landing, brother." Jetstorm couldn't fight his mirthful grin as he stared down at his spark-twin, who was currently sitting with his back to the wall outside the wash racks, knee-joints pulled up tight to his chassis and faceplate hidden from view. "I may not be seeing exact same appeal you do, but humans are verrrrrry entertaining being. That human especially so!"

"I wish to be offline." Jetfire lamented. "So awkward, very very uncool. They will never be speaking to me again."

"Do not be so downer, brother! They answer questions very nice, and do not even yell when you peeking at their array!"

Jetfire let out another pathetic wail. "Do not be reminding me! Me, caught peeking? Would rather scrub every rivet on Omega Supreme than be that embarrassing again." He slammed his helm against the tops of his knee-joints a few times for good measure, a loud, echoing clanking reverberating down the hall. "Why are little humans being so soft? A-And when covering self, why are little peeks of soft bits around towel so- so erotic?"

Jetstorm cackled, patting his brother atop the helm with his servo. "And to think, we thought being human is hard. Sounds like liking human is much, much harder!"

[starry-bi-sky]

more clone^2 memes because i think they're funny

[max-nico]

It's Tails first birthday with Sonic. Sonic estimates the kid is turning about 4, maybe 5 today. They're sitting at a little diner in some middle-of-nowhere town, partially because they don't have the funds for much more, but also because Tails only said he would like to go to a restaurant for his birthday.

It seemed like an odd choice for a kid, Sonic is pretty sure kids usually ask to go to things like amusement parks, or trampoline parks, or... Regular parks. He's not quite sure what kids like outside of parks, so maybe he's overthinking it.

Still, he asks Tails why he would want to go out to eat anyways. It seems like an odd choice for a rambunctious 4 (5?) year old.

"Oh." He mumbles, "Well I dunno what people do for birthdays, but one time I heard people back at the island talkin'bout going to dinner! I thought that's what people are s'posed to do, am I wrong?"

Sonic frowns for a moment, unsure of how to answer his question. It takes a little work to make the words he's looking for bubble up from his throat, still pretty unused to talking more than what's absolutely necessary.

"No, not really. You're-You are supposed to do what you want for your birthday. Whatever you want." Sonic's words drag in all the wrong places, and linger when he chokes on vowels. "Like, go to the park or.. something. Would you want to go to the park?"

Tails thinks for a moment and shakes his head.

"No, you don't play with me at the park, and I wanna spend my birthday with you, Sonic!"

Way to hit a hedgehog in his heart strings, huh? Normally when they're at a park there's other kids, so he lets them entertain themselves while he takes a nap on a nearby bench. He's not playing because he doesn't want to play, he's trying to encourage Tails to make friends. It seems, he may have screwed up somehow, not in any unfixable way though.

Sonic frowns, "If we go to the park I'm happy to play with you. Do you want to go?"

Tails shakes his head again, "I'm hungry."

Sonic laughs.

The diner staff are polite. They all have slow drawls that make it practically impossible for Sonic to actually listen to them, but by Gaia does he try. They just ask general questions; drinks, food, sauce, sides. Things like that. Sonic makes sure to mention Tails birthday as well, and the lady promises to come back with two free cupcakes.

The entire dinner flies by in no time at all. Tails does most of the talking, as usual, but Sonic tries harder to contribute to the conversations and ask engaging questions. Even when the fox starts going on and on about plane parts and upgrades that Sonic can't even begin to pronounce, let alone grasp what they do.

Soon enough, their dessert is out. Sonic has never been big on any types of sweets, so as soon as the happy birthday song the waiters sing is over he slides his cupcake to Tails side of the booth. It's more than worth it, even if he would've wanted the cupcake, because the kids eyes light up like Sonic has just handed him the stars.

"Are you gonna blow out your candle first?" Sonic chuckles, pointing at Tails own still sparking cupcake.

"Well duh!" He sasses, grinning.

"What're you gonna wish for?"

Again, Tails thinks, wrinkling his nose as if this is the most important question he's ever had to answer.

"It has t'be small." He says. "Just in case."

An eyebrow raise is shot Tails' way. "In case of what?"

"Well, the elders at the island always said wishin' comes at a price, that's why I was born with two tails y'see? So it can't be big, just in case, cuz I can't accidentally trade ya'up! You're more important to me than any wish ever!"

Before Sonic can respond, Tails has blown out his candle. The hedgehog's eyes are a little misty, and his nose is a little runny, unbeknownst to the little fox across from him. Never in Sonic's life has he had anyone be so.. so genuine to him. He's so beside himself with fondness he isn't quite sure what to do with it all, he feels so swollen with love he might explode.

Quietly, Sonic asks him what he wished for.

"Your long and pro-prosperous health! That means ya get to stay healthy for a long long time." Tails smiles but his face is deadly determined, as if he's truly trying to will his wish into existence by sheer force of will alone.

Sonic supposes he'll have to wish for the same thing on his birthday, just to make sure they're even.

Heyyyy y'all !! Should I probably wait until Tails actual birthday to post a birthday fic? Maybe. Do I care? Nope !! Come talk to me !! I don't bite I swear !!!

Sonic, in this fic for some reason: do you want to go to the park?

Tails: no I do not

Sonic: Have you ever gone to the park?

Tails: no I have not

Sonic: will you go to the park?

Tails: maybe...

Sonic: when will you go to the park?

Tails:

[bonefall]

This AU is basically the Dungeon Meshi of Warrior Cats. This is a high compliment.

It's so funny, I get that a lot and I totally see it + appreciate it, but BB actually predates me being a fan of Dungeon Meshi! I've been getting that compliment since even before the anime dropped.

It makes perfect sense though. Dungeon Meshi uses food as a metaphor for communication across individuals, class, and most relevantly culture. It's something that brings people together, even when that's being addressed as a sinister thing when.......

Ah. No spoilers. You should go and read the manga to find out what I'm teasing ;)

I do something with a lot of overlap in BB. Food is an extension of the culture of the five Clans. I use it to characterize individuals too and as a metaphor for things at times (like Darkstripe's growth or cultural friction in Heartstar's Rise), but most of all, I try to emphasize the food as the product of the society that makes it. The biome, the diet, the behaviors of its chefs... so Dungeon Meshi and BB are naturally going to draw some interesting similarities.

Plus, Dungeon Meshi's a good ass series man, it's downright awe-inspiring. I hope I can make a narrative as satisfying as Ryoko Kui can, lmao. I love how much that girlie loves food

[the-broken-pen]

Hello! Heard you were open for writing request? Had this idea in mind about a villain who's Russian and a hero who's falling for villain's accent? Maybe a bit of flirty banter as they fight 👀 your choice tho! Have a fun spring break ☀

The hero was pretty sure the villain was actually trying to kill them this time.

“Hey, don’t aim for the face, okay? It’s the money maker.”

The villain raised one eyebrow–and aimed for the hero’s face.

“Oh come on,” the hero groaned. “That’s just uncalled for.”

“Really? Is it now?”

If the hero had better judgment, they would have said something snarky back, or attempted to get the upper hand. Instead, in a move uncoordinated and wrought with embarrassment, they tripped over their own feet and blushed.

The hero was used to pretty. They were used to gorgeous.

But they had never expected to be attracted to someone’s accent of all things, and it was driving them mad.

“Yep, pretty sure it is,” they managed. They had to dodge halfway up the wall to avoid the villain’s next blow.

“You’re awfully chatty today,” the villain said, and the hero was going to lose their mind–

“Is this affection?” The hero blurted, and contemplated throwing themself off the building to spare both of them. “Because it feels like affection.”

“I don’t know,” the villain shrugged. Their mouth tipped up slightly, gone in a flash between one second and the next. “Do you want it to be?”

The hero froze. “You–I–” and found themself blinking up at the sky, the villain’s hand around their wrist. “Did you just judo flip me?” They wheezed, and the villain grinned.

“You’re blushing.”

“Yeah, because you just knocked the wind out of me. Excuse me for going red with oxygen loss–” the hero cut themself off with a cough, lungs protesting every word, and tugged the villain down to crash into the pavement beside them.

“Let me rephrase; You’ve been blushing this entire time.”

“It’s cold.”

“It’s July.”

“A very cold July.”

“If you’re going to lie,” the villain said, and truly, the hero was lucky they hadn’t had a knife pulled on them yet, “Do it well.”

The hero buckled the villain’s knees. Petty? Yes.

Satisfying? A good reprieve to try and get the blush that flared every time the villain spoke to subside? Also yes.

“Real smooth,” the villain rolled their eyes, pushing themself to their feet. “So, what is it.”

“Was that a question, or–”

“My winning personality?”

The villain was studying them with far too much care.

“Aren’t you supposed to be robbing a bank or something?” They said half-desperately.

“Smile? Laugh?” The villain paused for a moment, catching the hero’s punch as if it was nothing more than a mosquito–which was insulting, to say the least–before their face cleared of any confusion.

“Ah,” the villain said, and oh the hero was so screwed, because they knew that look. That look appeared regularly in their dreams. It was the villain’s signature ‘I figured something out and I’m going to use it to do nefarious things’ look. Their ‘I’m smarter than you and I’m about to prove it in an effortlessly ruthless maneuver’ look.

The hero saw it far too often.

“‘Ah’ what.”

The villain, damn them, grinned, releasing the hero’s hand.

“Accent.”

Any air that the hero had managed to regain after the judo flip escaped from them like they were a sinking ship.

“I’m right, aren’t I?”

“No,” the hero said, cursing every single moment of their life that had led up to this one. Maybe they really should have become a lawyer– “I’m just flabbergasted by how dumb that sentence was.”

Flabbergasted. Flabbergasted. Who the hell says flabbergasted?!

“This is cute,” the villain remarked as they drew a knife. They gestured with it towards the hero’s undoubtedly fire engine red face. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this flustered.”

“I’m not flustered, I’m–”

“Flabbergasted?” The villain suggested wryly, and truly, the fact that this situation was funny in a hopeless and pathetic way was not helping. The accent absolutely was not helping either.

The hero truly had nothing to say to that, staring at the villain, the two of them impromptu statues.

“You like me,” the villain teased. “And my accent.”

The hero was not proud of what they did next.

Considering their life, it wasn’t the worst thing they had ever done out of embarrassment.

A close second, though.

The villain smirked, and in a move far more elegant than they had ever thought themself possible, the hero slid under the villain’s arm, snagging the knife from the villain’s hand as they went—and planted it into the villain’s side.

The villain blinked, hand going to their side. The hero blushed—

Finally, in the single coherent thought they had managed in seemingly their entire life, they did something not embarrassingly pathetic.

The hero bolted away, into side streets and alleys, to the sound of the villain’s pained and endlessly amused laughter.

“Real smooth,” the villain called after them, voice echoing between the buildings. “You’re handling this quite well.”

The villain was never going to let them live this down.

[pygmi-says-hi]

writing tips - dialects

By dialects I mean characters with a noticeable accent.

Unintentionally, you will assign a basic 'dialect' to all of your characters that they end up using in the story. British, American, Desi, Italian...idk, but it usually is about the same as the accent you speak with.

If you have a character that has an accent different from the others and you'd like to make it noticeable, here are some pointers!

Research! Listen to people talk with that accent, and maybe spell out a few words with the twang. In Southern USA, some people say 'boil' like 'bowl'. or 'pen' like 'peeyun'.

Understand where and how the vowel + consonant sounds change so you know where to switch. if you're just throwing in dropped t's and ing's like crazy then it'll be confusing.

for example, a Frenchman speaking English won't look like a Texan speaking English. "Vat is thees kind of perfumerie?" versus "What's this kinda perfume?" type shi

2. make it legible. If you try to edit every word to sound like an accent, it'll confuse readers who maybe aren't familiar. Edgar Allan Poe's "why the little frenchman wears his hand in a sling" is a perfect example of a kinda illegible accent. If you don't know what a thick brogue sounds like or how it might affect the words, it sounds like a bunch of craziness. pick a few words here and there and make sure that the edit is still legible.

example: (Mississippi character making mashed potatoes)

og: 'I take the potatoes and boil them for ten minutes, then I salt them and begin mashing until they're soft and fluffy."

overedited (phonetically accurate, but illegible): "Ah tayke the potaters an' bowl them fer tehn min'ts, then ah sawlt and begin mashin' 'till ther sawft an' fluhffy."

dialing it back (keeping the dialect but preserving the text): "I take the 'taters and boil them fer ten minutes. Then, I salt 'em an' begin mashin' 'til they're soft an' fluffy."

difference, eh?

3. keep it consistent! the character might have a personal affect as well as their home dialect. make sure you're remembering to use it when necessary. otherwise the accent will get lost, as well as the effect. keep a little excerpt of dialogue with the necessary reminders to make it easier on yourself.

writing dialects is tricky but not impossible. don't fry the readers' brains to try and add a bit of spice.

xox keep writing!

[batbirdies]

You know what is my biggest pet peeve about comics? The thing that makes me more insane than anything else??

All of bolded dialogue!! Because why! Do they need to bold so many words?? And they always bold the WRONG ONES forcing my brain to do weird gymnastics to try to read this dialogue in the correct tones until I eventually completely ignore the boldedness of the words and read it how I initially did in my head. Because whoever decides which words to bold is TERRIBLE at it.

[chaotic-neutral-knitter]

guy at work today was being kind of weird about Midwestern accents at me during team lunch ("can you say something in your accent?" "explain it to me") and then of course he dropped the "I don't think we [Californians] have accents, we speak with the correct pronunciation, so we don't have an accent."

and I swear to god the other coworker (wonderful Persian woman who tells me about her cats and her garden, I knew two weeks into the job that I loved her) eating lunch with us saw the fucking health bar pop up over my head and heard my fight music start. bc she laughed right as I leaned in with the polite smile of someone who is about to be a menace and asked him who gets to decide which way of speaking is the "correct" one.