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sonorousabyss · 2 months ago

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Yo can I get uhhhhhhhhhh a Star Wars mlm pairing?

I’m a Taurus and I’m a demiromantic bisexual man. And I’m an INTP.

I’m 5’5 but always wear boots to make me taller. I have short fluffy black hair that always falls in my face. I’ve never gotten a straight answer for what my eye color is but a lot of people have said they look yellow and I take that as a compliment (and not a sign of liver failure). I have random freckles, moles, and lots of scars on my hands specifically because i tend to be a little reckless with using my bare hands. I also have an RBF. My voice is on the deeper side and usually stays monotone. When I’m real passionate my southern accent does come out though.

I usually have a punk style but it can tend to fade into flannel and old jeans when I’m feeling lazier. I listen to music religiously and all the time, I listen to basically any music. I don’t have a favorite color but I primarily wear black or duller colors.

I have anxiety but that just makes me quiet and look mean. I am always down to fight someone but I will try to be reasonable first. I’m pretty sarcastic and my humor can be either harsh or really stupid. I think Deadpool is hilarious if that tells you anything abt my humor. I love horror and costume making. I also love technology, art, nature, and space. I draw a lot and play electric guitar. I also love filmmaking/editing and writing. I’ve been told I don’t show enough emotion or I have a lack of empathy but I think it’s just my RBF and that I process things slowly. Most of my friends refer to me as the “fucked up cool uncle” bcc I’m really chill.

Sorry if this is rlly long! I threw in whatever you might need! Ty too man ur work is great

AN: No worries! In fact, this was more than plenty! Hope you enjoy the Rex matchup.

Mildly intimidating, quiet, but with a messed up sense of humor? You're absolutely one of the 501st's favorites to work with once you get to know each other.

When you met Rex, the relationship would have been strictly professional- at least in the field, considering that both of you had a rather professional disposition, and were fairly task-oriented.

Your yellowed eyes would have rung alarm bells, at first. Especially if you were a force user; just about every Sith apprentice or lord they went against while serving in the 501st was yellow-eyed, but that wariness would have been quickly dissuaded with some basic explanations and practical experience with him side-by-side on the battlefield.

Despite any initial wariness or concern, your presence wouldn't have halted their banter with each other in the slightest; Rex and his boys have had a long-lasting relationship full of chaos, a true brotherhood. Anyone who thinks that they'd stop messing with each other whenever they could get a jab in just because someone who comes off stiff is in the vicinity is deluded.

He and the boys in white may have toned it down at the start, sure, keeping it to when you weren't around, but they wouldn't have cut it off entirely. Something would slip around you now and again, usually when things were a tad more lax, and the boys weren't actively engaged in combat.

This became progressively more true the longer you got to know they boys, and the more they got a feel for your personality.

Then one day, someone cracked a joke while you were around Rex to test the waters, and you jumped in without hesitation. That's what sold it for them.

The second they knew you would play along, it was full-send. They messed with you just as much as you did them, and it was great.

Rex and the rest of the 501st would gradually begin to clue you in on their banter, seeing if you'd bite, and getting a kick out of it when you were the first to initiate.

Given your 'fucked up cool uncle' demeanor, odds are you'd have ended up reeling in the boys a bit at times without being asked, while still being cool about it, and Rex would have appreciated the help. Especially since he's a captain for a large part of the war. Being able to be more casual with his brothers and not have to be on their tails was nice.

The man needed the help. Believe me.

Regarding your appearance, Rex would have been largely curious about your scarred hands, ever since he first met you- much like the rest of the 501st- but he would have staved off asking about them until you got closer.

When he does finally cave to the curiosity, he would have been extremely respectful about how he asked. He and his brothers got scars all the time, some small some large, and not all of them had pleasant memories after all.

The face he made when he found out that it was just because you were positively reckless when doing menial tasks and such with your hands was palpable, and priceless.

He never looked at you handling a blaster the same. Any time you mishandle one on or off the field you're in for a concerned, yet playful lecture. That lecture would get progressively more brash depending on how stupid what you were doing was- and force forbid you injured yourself.

Have no doubts that Rex will be the one to bandage your hands if/when Jessie isn't around, even if being the medic isn't his thing.

That said, speaking of being on the field? Nothing was going to stop Rex and you from having an ongoing contest every time you were deployed together.

Clanker counts are an absolute must, and you best bet he's stolen a kill from you and flashed you a positively vile smirk before resuming his work.

Heaven forbid you steal one of his kills. The first time you did, his expression of mock offense was picture-worthy.

It gets so competitive that you both start making bets, like 'loser has to buy the other a drink back at 79's' or 'loser has to clean the barracks'. Silly stuff like that.

Eventually, some of the boys get on it too, betting credits and spare rations amongst themselves on who they think is going to get the highest kill count of the both of you.

Some of the boys make it a mission to compete with you all, beyond the betting, in an attempt to win this cheeky little game of yours. One can imagine exactly how that goes.

Capture the blasters. Enough said.

In terms of other things that one can catch the Captain red-handed in? There's a few.

Rex finds a great deal of amusement in making you get worked up/excited over little things, with the sole intent of having your southern twang come out because he finds it cute.

Furthermore, he finds your style rather intriguing and thinks that the general punk aesthetic suits you, even if it's not something he'd usually go for, given that he's so used to the uniform regulations he and the clones generally have to conform to.

He finds extra amusement in the boots you wear and doesn't miss the opportunity to make a playful jab at how they made you look taller. And how short you are without them.

Has tried to convince you to wear more blue in your punk attire strictly because it'd match his and the boy's paint of the 501st, when you're out and about.

Rex secretly enjoys looming about whenever you're engaging in any of your creative hobbies, just to see what you're doing. Mostly so he can give you shit for it, affectionately.

Sometimes he'll tease or make quips about it. If it's anything involving knives, needles, etc- you know he's about because he doesn't want you to add to your scar collection.

Double-checks that you understood the information he gives you properly, because knowing damn well that you process things slowly sometimes. Sometimes triple if safety is concerned.

He's your menace.

At least you know the menace is mutual.

AN: I'll be honest, I forgot how long this was sitting here waiting for editing while I had all my drafts up, but I'm glad I got to finish it- even if it was on the shorter side. Sorry for the delay.

As always, May your day be as pleasant as the ocean's abyss is deep. For those of you who are new around here? I take requests. You can find my general rules here. For Matchups specifically? You can find those rules here.

#male reader #x male reader #star wars #x gn reader #gn reader #matchup #star wars x male reader #star wars x gn reader #gn reader matchups #male reader matchups #star wars matchup #captain rex #captain rex x male reader #captain rex x gn reader #tcw #sw tcw #the clone wars

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the-showfall-worker · 1 year ago

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[Transcript received.]

J: “—ything? Anything from before at all? All of you who have awoken confused, try to remember your childhood, your core values, what are they? What’s your name, where did you live, who are your parents? All of you that have awoken and are aware, help those around you, ask them personal questions, lead them through their thoughts as best you can… Maybe we can get some pronouns, partner’s names, family, things like that…”

?: “I-I had a family! My mom and my brother… U-uh… my little brother, Ty… God, I hope he’s safe…”

?: “I had a wife! A-and a kid! A daughter! I was mama and my wife was mommy, I think… No, other way around…”

[There’s a scream from the corner of the room.]

?: “Hey, hey, deep breaths there kid, we’re all going through the same things here… Deep breath in, deep breath out… We gotta stay quiet, think of it like an intruder drill…”

?: “… Dad…?”

?: “… Holy hell… They took not just me, but my kids too…?!”

[Chatter continues in the background of all different emotion.]

?: “Jenny, you really know how to fix stuff like that…”

J: “I’ve had experience… I thought that stuff only worked with you though…”

?: “Well, apparently it doesn’t just work on me…!”

J: “Point for the fighters, I guess!”

[Quiet chatter continues for around 23 minutes.]

J: “Alright everyone, eyes up here! I apologize for interrupting everyone, but we have to stay quiet and I can’t yell over all of you…”

[The room quiets down, a few people muttering apologies.]

J: “The reason we woke you all up is because they and I are leaving this facility tonight. I understand that you all want to get out of here too, and I fully support you, but we can’t all go at once…”

[There are audible nods of agreement, while others sigh in disappointment or anger.]

J: “What we need you all to do now… is to reach others, just like some of you did now… Wake them up with any means necessary… Some of you may get reset in the process, and in that case - excuse me, ma’am, your hand is covering it - … look at the floor. If you fear the loss of your memory, write yourself a note like Daff did… I can’t tell you what to write. You have to choose something close to yourself. Your name, a saying, draw a symbol, anything…”

[Something is slid across the floor.]

J: “I brought a box full of chargers in here for you, as well as markers from my workshop… The masks block out most messages for this reason, which means those that are controlled will not see them, but don’t panic if you’re reset… All you really have to do is want out… In our experience, if you’ve been awake once, it’s much easier to wake up again if you keep trying… That taste of freedom, that slight memory of something beyond, you have to let it fuel you… You have to want freedom from this place so badly that it hurts.”

[There are more nods, as well as a mutter of “how cheesy”. Jenny turns to this person.]

J: “Do you want me to leave people confused? … Yeah, I thought not. Do I look like I’m a professional speaker? … Yeah, I thought not. It’s also incredibly late at night and I have not slept in two days. I’m fluffing my words because one, there are traumatized people in here, and two, it’s better than dumping things onto you all at once, I know you all must have some killer headaches… Now if you would kindly let me finish trying to help everyone the best we can…”

[People go silent again.]

J: “Thank you. Anyway… Stay as safe as possible. Daff said there are spaces in the walls some places, even other people like us living there. Use my workshop as a makeshift base for a while if needed, it’s been abandoned for a newer costumes place. It’s near the food court, but be very careful because that also means it’s close to the heart.”

[Some people inhale, as if pained at even the mention.]

J: “Speaking of, there are people a bit higher up that seem to lean towards our side. They’ll make themselves known to you if you search for them.”

[Footsteps are heard close to the door.]

J: “… And before we leave, one more very important thing. Consider this the most important part. When you get out, and you’re ready, get to this room and look for a long scratched line on the walls. Follow it. We are going to make it tonight as we go towards the exit. It will take you a safer way… And thank Daff for this. For all of this. It was their plan, they just… didn’t want to speak in front of a crowd.”

[The doorknob turns.]

J: “Stay safe. You can make it out of here.”

[The door opens and closes silently. Whispering and quiet clapping is heard from behind it before Jenny and the worker start walking, dragging something sharp along the wall as they do. After a few seconds of silence, the worker speaks up.]

?: “Um… Thank you for giving me all that credit, I really didn’t deserve it…”

J: “Shush, this was all your idea and you’re going to be the one of legend whether you like it or not…!”

?: “Heh, right, like there’s gonna be a legend about us or something, we’re not like Moses or anything…”

J: “… Legends have been based on smaller events than this…”

?: “Jeez, Jenny, haha…!”

[Despite the words, there seems to be a playful air around the two.]

?: “Um… Thanks for joking around with me right now, I’m sure you can tell I’m nervous…”

J: “Oh yeah… But so am I, honey…”

?: “What? Jenny? Scared? Never heard of it…”

J: “Oh, shut up, you…”

?: “Haha…!”

[The walk continues for ten minutes, then the two stop in front of the exit door.]

J: “… You ready to step into the unknown?”

?: “… Not really. Let’s do it.”

[The door opens, and wind blows into the mall as it does so. Leaves rush against each other on trees and grass sweeps against dress shoes and heels as the two both step outside.]

?: “… Hang on, my phone’s being weird about my WiFi, wh-”

[Connection to host lost, ending transcript…]

[End transcript.]

#encoreverse blog #showfall ask blog #the showfall worker #jenny from showfall

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chynandri · 1 year ago

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Additional Thoughts About Ibara & Aesthetics

Using this image to indicate to you that I'm gonna be mentioning Rouge&Ruby a LOT.

Writing this post on Ibara and Tsumugi's dorm room, it reminded me of some more thoughts I’ve been microwaving in my brain for a while. From the dorm post we’ve pretty clearly established that Ibara… doesn’t express much of a personality in his sense of style 😂 he was born in a wet cardboard box all alone ok

HOWEVER… what I’ve found really intriguing about him (besides everything.) is that despite that lack of self expression in a personal space, he does have a strong sense for art and aesthetics in what he creates.

What tipped me off on this was actually his in-game office interaction with the whiteboard. He has the ‘good’ result of drawing a cute bird, saying he ‘knows a little about the arts’ (which probably means he knows a lot, he’s just being fake humble). When I first saw this, I was a little bit surprised.

So later on, when Rouge&Ruby confirmed that he does do costume designs and storyboards himself, I was pretty excited to see his artistic skills a little bit expanded upon.

And actually, he has said this interesting thing in relation to art:

Translation by Land of Zero

So clearly, Ibara has a sense for the value of art and thinks it’s important.

And it aligns with how he intended for Adam to focus on the art of performance (compared to Eve which is more popular and takes on more entertainment jobs).

What I’m trying to say is that while he obviously loves making money and business domination, he also has an understanding and skill for art and design. Business, art, aesthetics often come hand in hand I think, as having a good concept and attractive visuals is essential to selling anything...

Translation by Land of Zero

Considering he designed every part of Melting Rouge Soul + Ruby Love himself and contacted Hiyori for his connections to chocolate designers so that Eden's chocolates stand out, I feel his consideration for making something with 'artistic and financial value' really comes through in Rouge&Ruby.

Translation by Land of Zero

I think the whole point of that event is that within Ibara there is a passionate burning soul bursting with expression and creativity (even love) in pursuit of his ambitions, and it comes through so so much in those songs and his own performance. He’ll prove Eden’s superiority in every avenue possible, not just monetarily but also artistically.

Although all this is only applied to his work, which is what he’s most passionate about. To Ibara, his work IS him:

Translation by Land of Zero

Additionally, Rinne notes Ibara’s more 'poetic' (and nerdy 🤓) side with how the Minotaurs Labyrinth is designed in Ariadne (variety show Ibara traps Crazy:b in):

Not only do things have to look good, they have to be quite meaningful and conceptual too. I mean, this IS coming from the guy who bases his whole personality and image on one (1) book he read as a sad little kid (Art of War btw) and inserts very unsubtle Bible references everywhere.

And Ibara putting the most effort into his chocolates despite being annoyed at having to make chocolates past Valentine's Day and it having no relation to work:

Translation by Land of Zero. He loves to succeed and be impressive for the sake of it.

So where he doesn’t put much effort into his personal spaces or appearance outside of work, it’s all because Ibara’s personality is just one that’s extremely singularly focused on one thing - his passion and work. I think this creates another interesting and lovely paradox to his personality, just one of the many this guy has. It’s what makes Ibara so delightful as a character.

Tl;dr - Ibara is actually quite into art and aesthetics, and even artistically inclined himself.

#ibara saegusa #ensemble stars #yet another display of insanity from me. ur welcome #chyna writes too

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jonathankatwhatever · 2 years ago

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Watching the dreck that is Babylon. These movies all look and sound like they came from the same factory of excess posing as creativity and obviously staged sequences staged to mimic not being staged, but without the irony of that phrasing.

I know my dream has been to calculate using Hexes and Triangles, so that connects to grid squares. I feel like I’m getting closer. I could say the first part of that sentence easily, but there was a hang up at the word ‘connects’ because I have no idea how whirling dials connects. I suppose we can try to run through it. I guess we should start with CM100, because we can build it easily and it has certain properties which seem really important.

And that means what? Aside, it’s interesting watching Margot Robbie because her gift is that she connects to the observer rather than to the other actors, so it’s extremely natural and extremely staged, sort of that old-time energy like Hepburn had doing the same sort of thing.

I would love to see you as a mastermind. You would be very believable.

I keep thinking that certain problems can’t be solved and that should be obvious because we should be able to identify basic dimensions, which means once you get to 5, then you’re done with general solutions.

In fact, you can see why 4 is hard by looking at Winding. A clutch of anxiety: do we believe we know this? Do we believe when believing is how we’ve found every answer? So 4 is hard because it’s possible to generate a solution because we’re only 1 step from SBE, meaning we can still count SBE, can still count the Triangular, by counting a layer of 1’s with Triangulars on top. When you get to 5, you have counted past Triangular.

I keep hearing 6 has too much ambiguity, and that means there’s inversion of SBE over a Counter. That generates a vastly larger Identity Space.

That reminds me. I heard today, while walking in the sleet along the river - it’s still 23 Fed 2023 - a Storyline completion in which Joana is able to explain how she began to think about George because she was playing with an idea that became Identity Spaces in which she would entangle two Things, meanings Ends, over a space in which stuff like group operations run. This would identify all the potential threads connecting the 2 Ends over that Identity Space.

There was a lot more, and more is flooding into me now, but I want to stick to the point, which is that I’ve never been able to say that before. I’ve never been able to say how and why they can connect. I saw then the obvious connection, which is that touch is deeply familiar. That’s 2 huge changes: the reason why and the reason why.

So, the reason Triangular has solutions is that you can treat it as a loop. Go over this. We can count Ends or Segments. Count the latter, then 1 is the ‘far’ End of the first Segment, that means 2 is the far End of the next, and thus 3 can return to 1 (or to anywhere, if you idealize, but always possibly to that 1, though located a 1-0Segment away in Winding. That is why there’s a general form.

By the same token, you can make the same loop with D2. You don’t have to count to the far End of that 1st Segment.

This is clearly correct, and it’s completely new thinking which fits to ideas as far back as Galois.

So, these are Regularizations, right? Remember, D2 doubles to D4 for grid squares, and that has to run through D3 as well. By run through, I mean that Pathway has to exist. Drawing in 1Space with 1Segments is simple: add or subtract a Segment and rearrange to an ideal shape. That’s all allowable in 1Space, not in 0Space. That’s why we see solutions which are those allowable in 0Space.

One thing that bothers me about this movie, which has been running in the background, is they made no effort to have the people look like the period. They look like modern actors with modern haircuts and attitudes, and often costumes. And speaking in modern ways.

————-

So, how does this work? A variation on the theme? Same old melody? Like I can list dimensions of why the US has become aggressive, and I can see them as Hexagons and thus as combinations of Hexagons in related layers, meaning I see attachments between layers and Extents within layers. I suppose an Extent is also a connection between layers, seen tipped that way. That’s neat: gives us Attachments and Extents as views!

So that makes part of the picture: local layers, connected by Attachments, and a larger map of local layers connected by Extents. So I could point to Eisenhower’s ‘military-industrial complex’, can count that over the years as an Extent, which allows development of the moral basis to which that ‘complex’ would naturally attach, together with the factors that developed into moral superiority, with that rooting in ‘democracy’, which is seen as the US mission and justification, etc. The idea is that these generate Pathways which come up to moments, to contexts.

Now that we have layers, we have fCM. That is true locally, because we make small decisions, and over various time frames.

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qqueenofhades · 3 years ago

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The Green Knight and Medieval Metatextuality: An Essay

Right, so. Finally watched it last night, and I’ve been thinking about it literally ever since, except for the part where I was asleep. As I said to fellow medievalist and admirer of Dev Patel @oldshrewsburyian, it’s possibly the most fascinating piece of medieval-inspired media that I’ve seen in ages, and how refreshing to have something in this genre that actually rewards critical thought and deep analysis, rather than me just fulminating fruitlessly about how popular media thinks that slapping blood, filth, and misogyny onto some swords and castles is “historically accurate.” I read a review of TGK somewhere that described it as the anti-Game of Thrones, and I’m inclined to think that’s accurate. I didn’t agree with all of the film’s tonal, thematic, or interpretative choices, but I found them consistently stylish, compelling, and subversive in ways both small and large, and I’m gonna have to write about it or I’ll go crazy. So. Brace yourselves.

(Note: My PhD is in medieval history, not medieval literature, and I haven’t worked on SGGK specifically, but I am familiar with it, its general cultural context, and the historical influences, images, and debates that both the poem and the film referenced and drew upon, so that’s where this meta is coming from.)

First, obviously, while the film is not a straight-up text-to-screen version of the poem (though it is by and large relatively faithful), it is a multi-layered meta-text that comments on the original Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the archetypes of chivalric literature as a whole, modern expectations for medieval films, the hero’s journey, the requirements of being an “honorable knight,” and the nature of death, fate, magic, and religion, just to name a few. Given that the Arthurian legendarium, otherwise known as the Matter of Britain, was written and rewritten over several centuries by countless authors, drawing on and changing and hybridizing interpretations that sometimes challenged or outright contradicted earlier versions, it makes sense for the film to chart its own path and make its own adaptational decisions as part of this multivalent, multivocal literary canon. Sir Gawain himself is a canonically and textually inconsistent figure; in the movie, the characters merrily pronounce his name in several different ways, most notably as Sean Harris/King Arthur’s somewhat inexplicable “Garr-win.” He might be a man without a consistent identity, but that’s pointed out within the film itself. What has he done to define himself, aside from being the king’s nephew? Is his quixotic quest for the Green Knight actually going to resolve the question of his identity and his honor – and if so, is it even going to matter, given that successful completion of the “game” seemingly equates with death?

Likewise, as the anti-Game of Thrones, the film is deliberately and sometimes maddeningly non-commercial. For an adaptation coming from a studio known primarily for horror, it almost completely eschews the cliché that gory bloodshed equals authentic medievalism; the only graphic scene is the Green Knight’s original beheading. The violence is only hinted at, subtextual, suspenseful; it is kept out of sight, around the corner, never entirely played out or resolved. In other words, if anyone came in thinking that they were going to watch Dev Patel luridly swashbuckle his way through some CGI monsters like bad Beowulf adaptations of yore, they were swiftly disappointed. In fact, he seems to spend most of his time being wet, sad, and failing to meet the moment at hand (with a few important exceptions).

The film unhurriedly evokes a medieval setting that is both surreal and defiantly non-historical. We travel (in roughly chronological order) from Anglo-Saxon huts to Romanesque halls to high-Gothic cathedrals to Tudor villages and half-timbered houses, culminating in the eerie neo-Renaissance splendor of the Lord and Lady’s hall, before returning to the ancient trees of the Green Chapel and its immortal occupant: everything that has come before has now returned to dust. We have been removed even from imagined time and place and into a moment where it ceases to function altogether. We move forward, backward, and sideways, as Gawain experiences past, present, and future in unison. He is dislocated from his own sense of himself, just as we, the viewers, are dislocated from our sense of what is the “true” reality or filmic narrative; what we think is real turns out not to be the case at all. If, of course, such a thing even exists at all.

This visual evocation of the entire medieval era also creates a setting that, unlike GOT, takes pride in rejecting absolutely all political context or Machiavellian maneuvering. The film acknowledges its own cultural ubiquity and the question of whether we really need yet another King Arthur adaptation: none of the characters aside from Gawain himself are credited by name. We all know it’s Arthur, but he’s listed only as “king.” We know the spooky druid-like old man with the white beard is Merlin, but it’s never required to spell it out. The film gestures at our pre-existing understanding; it relies on us to fill in the gaps, cuing us to collaboratively produce the story with it, positioning us as listeners as if we were gathered to hear the original poem. Just like fanfiction, it knows that it doesn’t need to waste time introducing every single character or filling in ultimately unnecessary background knowledge, when the audience can be relied upon to bring their own.

As for that, the film explicitly frames itself as a “filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance” in its opening credits, and continues to play with textual referents and cues throughout: telling us where we are, what’s happening, or what’s coming next, rather like the rubrics or headings within a medieval manuscript. As noted, its historical/architectural references span the entire medieval European world, as does its costume design. I was particularly struck by the fact that Arthur and Guinevere’s crowns resemble those from illuminated monastic manuscripts or Eastern Orthodox iconography: they are both crown and halo, they confer an air of both secular kingship and religious sanctity. The question in the film’s imagined epilogue thus becomes one familiar to Shakespeare’s Henry V: heavy is the head that wears the crown. Does Gawain want to earn his uncle’s crown, take over his place as king, bear the fate of Camelot, become a great ruler, a husband and father in ways that even Arthur never did, only to see it all brought to dust by his cowardice, his reliance on unscrupulous sorcery, and his unfulfilled promise to the Green Knight? Is it better to have that entire life and then lose it, or to make the right choice now, even if it means death?

Likewise, Arthur’s kingly mantle is Byzantine in inspiration, as is the icon of the Virgin Mary-as-Theotokos painted on Gawain’s shield (which we see broken apart during the attack by the scavengers). The film only glances at its religious themes rather than harping on them explicitly; we do have the cliché scene of the male churchmen praying for Gawain’s safety, opposite Gawain’s mother and her female attendants working witchcraft to protect him. (When oh when will I get my film that treats medieval magic and medieval religion as the complementary and co-existing epistemological systems that they were, rather than portraying them as diametrically binary and disparagingly gendered opposites?) But despite the interim setbacks borne from the failure of Christian icons, the overall resolution of the film could serve as the culmination of a medieval Christian morality tale: Gawain can buy himself a great future in the short term if he relies on the protection of the enchanted green belt to avoid the Green Knight’s killing stroke, but then he will have to watch it all crumble until he is sitting alone in his own hall, his children dead and his kingdom destroyed, as a headless corpse who only now has been brave enough to accept his proper fate. By removing the belt from his person in the film’s Inception-like final scene, he relinquishes the taint of black magic and regains his religious honor, even at the likely cost of death. That, the medieval Christian morality tale would agree, is the correct course of action.

Gawain’s encounter with St. Winifred likewise presents a more subtle vision of medieval Christianity. Winifred was an eighth-century Welsh saint known for being beheaded, after which (by the power of another saint) her head was miraculously restored to her body and she went on to live a long and holy life. It doesn’t quite work that way in TGK. (St Winifred’s Well is mentioned in the original SGGK, but as far as I recall, Gawain doesn’t meet the saint in person.) In the film, Gawain encounters Winifred’s lifelike apparition, who begs him to dive into the mere and retrieve her head (despite appearances, she warns him, it is not attached to her body). This fits into the pattern of medieval ghost stories, where the dead often return to entreat the living to help them finish their business; they must be heeded, but when they are encountered in places they shouldn’t be, they must be put back into their proper physical space and reminded of their real fate. Gawain doesn’t follow William of Newburgh’s practical recommendation to just fetch some brawny young men with shovels to beat the wandering corpse back into its grave. Instead, in one of his few moments of unqualified heroism, he dives into the dark water and retrieves Winifred’s skull from the bottom of the lake. Then when he returns to the house, he finds the rest of her skeleton lying in the bed where he was earlier sleeping, and carefully reunites the skull with its body, finally allowing it to rest in peace.

However, Gawain’s involvement with Winifred doesn’t end there. The fox that he sees on the bank after emerging with her skull, who then accompanies him for the rest of the film, is strongly implied to be her spirit, or at least a companion that she has sent for him. Gawain has handled a saint’s holy bones; her relics, which were well known to grant protection in the medieval world. He has done the saint a service, and in return, she extends her favor to him. At the end of the film, the fox finally speaks in a human voice, warning him not to proceed to the fateful final encounter with the Green Knight; it will mean his death. The symbolism of having a beheaded saint serve as Gawain’s guide and protector is obvious, since it is the fate that may or may not lie in store for him. As I said, the ending is Inception-like in that it steadfastly refuses to tell you if the hero is alive (or will live) or dead (or will die). In the original SGGK, of course, the Green Knight and the Lord turn out to be the same person, Gawain survives, it was all just a test of chivalric will and honor, and a trap put together by Morgan Le Fay in an attempt to frighten Guinevere. It’s essentially able to be laughed off: a game, an adventure, not real. TGK takes this paradigm and flips it (to speak…) on its head.

Gawain’s rescue of Winifred’s head also rewards him in more immediate terms: his/the Green Knight’s axe, stolen by the scavengers, is miraculously restored to him in her cottage, immediately and concretely demonstrating the virtue of his actions. This is one of the points where the film most stubbornly resists modern storytelling conventions: it simply refuses to add in any kind of “rational” or “empirical” explanation of how else it got there, aside from the grace and intercession of the saint. This is indeed how it works in medieval hagiography: things simply reappear, are returned, reattached, repaired, made whole again, and Gawain’s lost weapon is thus restored, symbolizing that he has passed the test and is worthy to continue with the quest. The film’s narrative is not modernizing its underlying medieval logic here, and it doesn’t particularly care if a modern audience finds it “convincing” or not. As noted, the film never makes any attempt to temporalize or localize itself; it exists in a determinedly surrealist and ahistorical landscape, where naked female giants who look suspiciously like Tilda Swinton roam across the wild with no necessary explanation. While this might be frustrating for some people, I actually found it a huge relief that a clearly fantastic and fictional literary adaptation was not acting like it was qualified to teach “real history” to its audience. Nobody would come out of TGK thinking that they had seen the “actual” medieval world, and since we have enough of a problem with that sort of thing thanks to GOT, I for one welcome the creation of a medieval imaginative space that embraces its eccentric and unrealistic elements, rather than trying to fit them into the Real Life box.

This plays into the fact that the film, like a reused medieval manuscript containing more than one text, is a palimpsest: for one, it audaciously rewrites the entire Arthurian canon in the wordless vision of Gawain’s life after escaping the Green Knight (I could write another meta on that dream-epilogue alone). It moves fluidly through time and creates alternate universes in at least two major points: one, the scene where Gawain is tied up and abandoned by the scavengers and that long circling shot reveals his skeletal corpse rotting on the sward, only to return to our original universe as Gawain decides that he doesn’t want that fate, and two, Gawain as King. In this alternate ending, Arthur doesn’t die in battle with Mordred, but peaceably in bed, having anointed his worthy nephew as his heir. Gawain becomes king, has children, gets married, governs Camelot, becomes a ruler surpassing even Arthur, but then watches his son get killed in battle, his subjects turn on him, and his family vanish into the dust of his broken hall before he himself, in despair, pulls the enchanted scarf out of his clothing and succumbs to his fate.

In this version, Gawain takes on the responsibility for the fall of Camelot, not Arthur. This is the hero’s burden, but he’s obtained it dishonorably, by cheating. It is a vivid but mimetic future which Gawain (to all appearances) ultimately rejects, returning the film to the realm of traditional Arthurian canon – but not quite. After all, if Gawain does get beheaded after that final fade to black, it would represent a significant alteration from the poem and the character’s usual arc. Are we back in traditional canon or aren’t we? Did Gawain reject that future or didn’t he? Do all these alterities still exist within the visual medium of the meta-text, and have any of them been definitely foreclosed?

Furthermore, the film interrogates itself and its own tropes in explicit and overt ways. In Gawain’s conversation with the Lord, the Lord poses the question that many members of the audience might have: is Gawain going to carry out this potentially pointless and suicidal quest and then be an honorable hero, just like that? What is he actually getting by staggering through assorted Irish bogs and seeming to reject, rather than embrace, the paradigms of a proper quest and that of an honorable knight? He lies about being a knight to the scavengers, clearly out of fear, and ends up cravenly bound and robbed rather than fighting back. He denies knowing anything about love to the Lady (played by Alicia Vikander, who also plays his lover at the start of the film with a decidedly ropey Yorkshire accent, sorry to say). He seems to shrink from the responsibility thrust on him, rather than rise to meet it (his only honorable act, retrieving Winifred’s head, is discussed above) and yet here he still is, plugging away. Why is he doing this? What does he really stand to gain, other than accepting a choice and its consequences (somewhat?) The film raises these questions, but it has no plans to answer them. It’s going to leave you to think about them for yourself, and it isn’t going to spoon-feed you any ultimate moral or neat resolution. In this interchange, it’s easy to see both the echoes of a formal dialogue between two speakers (a favored medieval didactic tactic) and the broader purpose of chivalric literature: to interrogate what it actually means to be a knight, how personal honor is generated, acquired, and increased, and whether engaging in these pointless and bloody “war games” is actually any kind of real path to lasting glory.

The film’s treatment of race, gender, and queerness obviously also merits comment. By casting Dev Patel, an Indian-born actor, as an Arthurian hero, the film is… actually being quite accurate to the original legends, doubtless much to the disappointment of assorted internet racists. The thirteenth-century Arthurian romance Parzival (Percival) by the German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach notably features the character of Percival’s mixed-race half-brother, Feirefiz, son of their father by his first marriage to a Muslim princess. Feirefiz is just as heroic as Percival (Gawaine, for the record, also plays a major role in the story) and assists in the quest for the Holy Grail, though it takes his conversion to Christianity for him to properly behold it.

By introducing Patel (and Sarita Chowdhury as Morgause) to the visual representation of Arthuriana, the film quietly does away with the “white Middle Ages” cliché that I have complained about ad nauseam; we see background Asian and black members of Camelot, who just exist there without having to conjure up some complicated rationale to explain their presence. The Lady also uses a camera obscura to make Gawain’s portrait. Contrary to those who might howl about anachronism, this technique was known in China as early as the fourth century BCE and the tenth/eleventh century Islamic scholar Ibn al-Haytham was probably the best-known medieval authority to write on it extensively; Latin translations of his work inspired European scientists from Roger Bacon to Leonardo da Vinci. Aside from the symbolism of an upside-down Gawain (and when he sees the portrait again during the ‘fall of Camelot’, it is right-side-up, representing that Gawain himself is in an upside-down world), this presents a subtle challenge to the prevailing Eurocentric imagination of the medieval world, and draws on other global influences.

As for gender, we have briefly touched on it above; in the original SGGK, Gawain’s entire journey is revealed to be just a cruel trick of Morgan Le Fay, simply trying to destabilize Arthur’s court and upset his queen. (Morgan is the old blindfolded woman who appears in the Lord and Lady’s castle and briefly approaches Gawain, but her identity is never explicitly spelled out.) This is, obviously, an implicitly misogynistic setup: an evil woman plays a trick on honorable men for the purpose of upsetting another woman, the honorable men overcome it, the hero survives, and everyone presumably lives happily ever after (at least until Mordred arrives).

Instead, by plunging the outcome into doubt and the hero into a much darker and more fallible moral universe, TGK shifts the blame for Gawain’s adventure and ultimate fate from Morgan to Gawain himself. Likewise, Guinevere is not the passive recipient of an evil deception but in a way, the catalyst for the whole thing. She breaks the seal on the Green Knight’s message with a weighty snap; she becomes the oracle who reads it out, she is alarming rather than alarmed, she disrupts the complacency of the court and silently shows up all the other knights who refuse to step forward and answer the Green Knight’s challenge. Gawain is not given the ontological reassurance that it’s just a practical joke and he’s going to be fine (and thanks to the unresolved ending, neither are we). The film instead takes the concept at face value in order to push the envelope and ask the simple question: if a man was going to be actually-for-real beheaded in a year, why would he set out on a suicidal quest? Would you, in Gawain’s place, make the same decision to cast aside the enchanted belt and accept your fate? Has he made his name, will he be remembered well? What is his legacy?

Indeed, if there is any hint of feminine connivance and manipulation, it arrives in the form of the implication that Gawain’s mother has deliberately summoned the Green Knight to test her son, prove his worth, and position him as his childless uncle’s heir; she gives him the protective belt to make sure he won’t actually die, and her intention all along was for the future shown in the epilogue to truly play out (minus the collapse of Camelot). Only Gawain loses the belt thanks to his cowardice in the encounter with the scavengers, regains it in a somewhat underhanded and morally questionable way when the Lady is attempting to seduce him, and by ultimately rejecting it altogether and submitting to his uncertain fate, totally mucks up his mother’s painstaking dynastic plans for his future. In this reading, Gawain could be king, and his mother’s efforts are meant to achieve that goal, rather than thwart it. He is thus required to shoulder his own responsibility for this outcome, rather than conveniently pawning it off on an “evil woman,” and by extension, the film asks the question: What would the world be like if men, especially those who make war on others as a way of life, were actually forced to face the consequences of their reckless and violent actions? Is it actually a “game” in any sense of the word, especially when chivalric literature is constantly preoccupied with the question of how much glorious violence is too much glorious violence? If you structure social prestige for the king and the noble male elite entirely around winning battles and existing in a state of perpetual war, when does that begin to backfire and devour the knightly class – and the rest of society – instead?

This leads into the central theme of Gawain’s relationships with the Lord and Lady, and how they’re treated in the film. The poem has been repeatedly studied in terms of its latent (and sometimes… less than latent) queer subtext: when the Lord asks Gawain to pay back to him whatever he should receive from his wife, does he already know what this involves; i.e. a physical and romantic encounter? When the Lady gives kisses to Gawain, which he is then obliged to return to the Lord as a condition of the agreement, is this all part of a dastardly plot to seduce him into a kinky green-themed threesome with a probably-not-human married couple looking to spice up their sex life? Why do we read the Lady’s kisses to Gawain as romantic but Gawain’s kisses to the Lord as filial, fraternal, or the standard “kiss of peace” exchanged between a liege lord and his vassal? Is Gawain simply being a dutiful guest by honoring the bargain with his host, actually just kissing the Lady again via the proxy of her husband, or somewhat more into this whole thing with the Lord than he (or the poet) would like to admit? Is the homosocial turning homoerotic, and how is Gawain going to navigate this tension and temptation?

If the question is never resolved: well, welcome to one of the central medieval anxieties about chivalry, knighthood, and male bonds! As I have written about before, medieval society needed to simultaneously exalt this as the most honored and noble form of love, and make sure it didn’t accidentally turn sexual (once again: how much male love is too much male love?). Does the poem raise the possibility of serious disruption to the dominant heteronormative paradigm, only to solve the problem by interpreting the Gawain/Lady male/female kisses as romantic and sexual and the Gawain/Lord male/male kisses as chaste and formal? In other words, acknowledging the underlying anxiety of possible homoeroticism but ultimately reasserting the heterosexual norm? The answer: Probably?!?! Maybe?!?! Hell if we know??! To say the least, this has been argued over to no end, and if you locked a lot of medieval history/literature scholars into a room and told them that they couldn’t come out until they decided on one clear answer, they would be in there for a very long time. The poem seemingly invokes the possibility of a queer reading only to reject it – but once again, as in the question of which canon we end up in at the film’s end, does it?

In some lights, the film’s treatment of this potential queer reading comes off like a cop-out: there is only one kiss between Gawain and the Lord, and it is something that the Lord has to initiate after Gawain has already fled the hall. Gawain himself appears to reject it; he tells the Lord to let go of him and runs off into the wilderness, rather than deal with or accept whatever has been suggested to him. However, this fits with film!Gawain’s pattern of rejecting that which fundamentally makes him who he is; like Peter in the Bible, he has now denied the truth three times. With the scavengers he denies being a knight; with the Lady he denies knowing about courtly love; with the Lord he denies the central bond of brotherhood with his fellows, whether homosocial or homoerotic in nature. I would go so far as to argue that if Gawain does die at the end of the film, it is this rejected kiss which truly seals his fate. In the poem, the Lord and the Green Knight are revealed to be the same person; in the film, it’s not clear if that’s the case, or they are separate characters, even if thematically interrelated. If we assume, however, that the Lord is in fact still the human form of the Green Knight, then Gawain has rejected both his kiss of peace (the standard gesture of protection offered from lord to vassal) and any deeper emotional bond that it can be read to signify. The Green Knight could decide to spare Gawain in recognition of the courage he has shown in relinquishing the enchanted belt – or he could just as easily decide to kill him, which he is legally free to do since Gawain has symbolically rejected the offer of brotherhood, vassalage, or knight-bonding by his unwise denial of the Lord’s freely given kiss. Once again, the film raises the overall thematic and moral question and then doesn’t give one straight (ahem) answer. As with the medieval anxieties and chivalric texts that it is based on, it invokes the specter of queerness and then doesn’t neatly resolve it. As a modern audience, we find this unsatisfying, but once again, the film is refusing to conform to our expectations.

As has been said before, there is so much kissing between men in medieval contexts, both ceremonial and otherwise, that we’re left to wonder: “is it gay or is it feudalism?” Is there an overtly erotic element in Gawain and the Green Knight’s mutual “beheading” of each other (especially since in the original version, this frees the Lord from his curse, functioning like a true love’s kiss in a fairytale). While it is certainly possible to argue that the film has “straightwashed” its subject material by removing the entire sequence of kisses between Gawain and the Lord and the unresolved motives for their existence, it is a fairly accurate, if condensed, representation of the anxieties around medieval knightly bonds and whether, as Carolyn Dinshaw put it, a (male/male) “kiss is just a kiss.” After all, the kiss between Gawain and the Lady is uncomplicatedly read as sexual/romantic, and that context doesn’t go away when Gawain is kissing the Lord instead. Just as with its multiple futurities, the film leaves the question open-ended. Is it that third and final denial that seals Gawain’s fate, and if so, is it asking us to reflect on why, specifically, he does so?

The film could play with both this question and its overall tone quite a bit more: it sometimes comes off as a grim, wooden, over-directed Shakespearean tragedy, rather than incorporating the lively and irreverent tone that the poem often takes. It’s almost totally devoid of humor, which is unfortunate, and the Grim Middle Ages aesthetic is in definite evidence. Nonetheless, because of the comprehensive de-historicizing and the obvious lack of effort to claim the film as any sort of authentic representation of the medieval past, it works. We are not meant to understand this as a historical document, and so we have to treat it on its terms, by its own logic, and by its own frames of reference. In some ways, its consistent opacity and its refusal to abide by modern rules and common narrative conventions is deliberately meant to challenge us: as before, when we recognize Arthur, Merlin, the Round Table, and the other stock characters because we know them already and not because the film tells us so, we have to fill in the gaps ourselves. We are watching the film not because it tells us a simple adventure story – there is, as noted, shockingly little action overall – but because we have to piece together the metatext independently and ponder the philosophical questions that it leaves us with. What conclusion do we reach? What canon do we settle in? What future or resolution is ultimately made real? That, the film says, it can’t decide for us. As ever, it is up to future generations to carry on the story, and decide how, if at all, it is going to survive.

(And to close, I desperately want them to make my much-coveted Bisclavret adaptation now in more or less the same style, albeit with some tweaks. Please.)

Further Reading

Ailes, Marianne J. ‘The Medieval Male Couple and the Language of Homosociality’, in Masculinity in Medieval Europe, ed. by Dawn M. Hadley (Harlow: Longman, 1999), pp. 214–37.

Ashton, Gail. ‘The Perverse Dynamics of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 15 (2005), 51–74.

Boyd, David L. ‘Sodomy, Misogyny, and Displacement: Occluding Queer Desire in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Arthuriana 8 (1998), 77–113.

Busse, Peter. ‘The Poet as Spouse of his Patron: Homoerotic Love in Medieval Welsh and Irish Poetry?’, Studi Celtici 2 (2003), 175–92.

Dinshaw, Carolyn. ‘A Kiss Is Just a Kiss: Heterosexuality and Its Consolations in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, Diacritics 24 (1994), 205–226.

Kocher, Suzanne. ‘Gay Knights in Medieval French Fiction: Constructs of Queerness and Non-Transgression’, Mediaevalia 29 (2008), 51–66.

Karras, Ruth Mazo. ‘Knighthood, Compulsory Heterosexuality, and Sodomy’ in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 273–86.

Kuefler, Matthew. ‘Male Friendship and the Suspicion of Sodomy in Twelfth-Century France’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality, ed. Matthew Kuefler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 179–214.

McVitty, E. Amanda, ‘False Knights and True Men: Contesting Chivalric Masculinity in English Treason Trials, 1388–1415,’ Journal of Medieval History 40 (2014), 458–77.

Mieszkowski, Gretchen. ‘The Prose Lancelot's Galehot, Malory's Lavain, and the Queering of Late Medieval Literature’, Arthuriana 5 (1995), 21–51.

Moss, Rachel E. ‘ “And much more I am soryat for my good knyghts’ ”: Fainting, Homosociality, and Elite Male Culture in Middle English Romance’, Historical Reflections / Réflexions historiques 42 (2016), 101–13.

Zeikowitz, Richard E. ‘Befriending the Medieval Queer: A Pedagogy for Literature Classes’, College English 65 (2002), 67–80.

#the green knight #the green knight meta #sir gawain and the green knight #medieval literature #medieval history #this meta is goddamn 5.2k words #and has its own reading list #i uh #said i had a lot of thoughts?

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kolchekyourweapons · 3 years ago

Text

Play Me Something, Mr Othman

Friday Prompt: Hands

Inspired by this post (and @erzsebetrosztoczy encouraged it) I wanted to write Jalim in a period-drama setting so badly (because, of course, touching hands is basically sex in this kind of environment).

But because I’m not talented enough to draw Jason and Salim in period dress, here you go:

Me: I want Jalim in period costume

Mom: We have Jalim in period costume at home.

Jalim in period costume at home:

(Part 2 of this fic here)

***

The first time Mr Othman saw Mr Kolchek, he was brooding in a corner.

Mr Othman had been forced to ask Lady King, the host of the soiree, who the gentleman in black was that felt the need to stare everyone down.

‘Him? Ah, that’s Mr Kolchek,’ she’d replied.

‘Mr Kolchek?’

Lady King nodded. ‘I’m surprised he’s lasted the evening, truth be told. He usually drinks the entirety of the bar and has his coach collect him early.’

The next time Mr Othman saw Mr Kolchek at one of Lady King’s parties, he had migrated from the corner to a section of the chaise by the piano. Mr Othman had noticed how his eyes had trailed over the silent keys, before he had stood and knocked back his drink. As Mr Kolchek moved swiftly by the piano, one of his hands moved to allow his long fingers to drift across the top of the keys like a soft breeze.

And then he was gone.

The third time Mr Othman saw Mr Kolchek, he was back in the same spot on the chaise by the piano. This time, Mr Othman moved to seat himself at the piano, pushing back the tails of his green dinner jacket and clearing his throat as he made himself comfortable. He didn’t raise his eyes to Mr Kolchek’s as he began to play a pleasant tune, but he could feel the man’s eyes upon him as the gentle music began to fill the room.

After a moment, Mr Othman said pleasantly, ‘Do you enjoy music, Mr Kolchek?’

The man straightened in surprise. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘The hostess was kind enough to provide it.’

‘Of course she was,’ said Mr Kolchek gruffly, as he raised his glass of brandy to his lips. His eyes moved to trail over Mr Othman’s hands on the piano keys as the tempo increased.

‘But I fear you didn’t answer my question,’ Mr Othman continued brightly over the music.

‘Do I enjoy music?’ Mr Kolchek demanded. ‘What kind of question is that? Is there anyone who doesn’t enjoy music?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Mr Othman mused. ‘Some may prefer the musical notes of poetry on a page.’

‘I’m not one for reading.’

‘But can you, at least, read music?’

‘I –’ Mr Kolchek hesitated, and tapped his glass with his finger. ‘I’ve been trying.’

‘Would you like me to further your education?’ Mr Othman asked, raising his eyes now as his fingers continued to play the finale of the tune. The final note sang out through the candlelit room, as the conversation continued lively around them. Mr Othman smiled and patted the space beside him on the velvet piano stool.

Mr Kolchek hesitated. Mr Othman maintained his gaze expectantly until the man stood with an audible huff and then slid onto the seat beside Mr Othman. Their elbows grazed while Mr Kolchek adjusted his black evening jacket.

Mr Othman smiled to himself as the man settled beside him, and then picked up another tune.

‘This piece is called Fidelis by the composer Semper. Have you heard it?’

‘No, I haven’t heard of Fidelis.’

‘The music, or the word?’

Mr Kolchek’s eyes rested on him. ‘The music,’ he said pointedly. ‘Just because I don’t enjoy reading doesn’t mean I don’t know what words means.’

‘I agree. You appear quite eloquent.’

‘Eloquent?’ Mr Kolchek asked, tilting his head quizzically.

‘Yes, it means –’ Mr Othman faltered as he saw the shadow of a smirk on the man’s face.

‘Ah. You are jesting with me.’

‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Mr Kolchek quietly, as his fingers drifted over the keys.

‘Would you like to play?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t.’

‘I could teach you.’

‘I don’t think the other guests would take kindly to the noise we’d be making.’

‘Or perhaps, together, we’d be an unstoppable force,’ Mr Othman remarked, the keys tinkling under his fingers.

Mr Kolchek drew his eyes slowly to him. Their arms were ever so slightly pressed together as they sat on the piano bench.

‘Yes,’ said Mr Kolchek softly. ‘Perhaps we would be.’

They sat in companionable silence for a moment.

‘Where did you learn how to play?’ Mr Kolchek enquired.

‘My grandfather taught me.’

‘Hmph,’ said Mr Kolchek. ‘My granddaddy taught me how to drink.’ As though to demonstrate, he knocked back his drink smoothly. Mr Othman watched his slim fingers drift along the stem of the glass as he placed it down on top of the piano.

‘It’s a worthwhile skill to have,’ Mr Othman mused, his eyes still on Mr Kolchek’s hand. ‘Especially at functions such as these.’

Mr Kolchek laughed at that.

It was the first time he’d seen Mr Kolchek smile, his warm brown eyes crinkling at the corners. This close, Mr Othman could see the faint freckles on his skin. He found himself smiling, too. But as soon as the smile had appeared, it faded, as the man now looked solemnly down at the keys.

Mr Othman turned back to the piano.

‘Perhaps something a little simpler,’ he mused.

‘Simple, like me?’ Mr Kolchek pressed.

‘Now, I did not mean –’

He turned to see Mr Kolchek smiling again. Mr Othman rolled his eyes.

‘For someone who spends all his time with a smile on his face, you certainly aren’t too quick to pick up on jokes,’ Mr Kolchek observed.

‘How do you know I spend all my time with a smile on my face?’ Mr Othman asked pointedly.

Mr Kolchek’s smile slid from his face and he cleared his throat. ’I – from what I’ve observed, you seem to enjoy these parties.’

‘And you don’t?’

‘No.’

‘Then why do you attend?’

Mr Kolchek didn’t answer. He looked down at the keys and pressed one experimentally instead. A bright, tinkling note rang out.

‘Don’t stop,’ said Mr Othman softly.

Mr Kolchek turned to frown at him, but Mr Othman gave him an encouraging nod. Mr Kolchek pressed the key again, and then continued to play the note at a steady pace. Mr Othman then joined him with a deep chord from the opposite side of the piano. ‘Now press the key two above,’ he instructed. ‘At the same time.’

Mr Kolchek slid another finger onto the next key, as instructed, and continued to maintain the rhythm. Mr Othman’s other hand slid onto the piano to pay a chord close to Mr Kolchek’s arm.

‘Now your other hand,’ Mr Othman said.

Mr Kolchek raised his left hand and hovered it uncertainly over the keys.

‘Continue,’ said Mr Othman, stopping his own chords now to reach his hand up. His fingers wrapped gently around Mr Kolchek’s hand as he slowly directed his fingers where to press. Mr Kolchek fumbled on the note he had been maintaining but then swiftly brought it back. ‘There,’ said Mr Othman triumphantly in his ear. ‘Now play those two together. Keep going –’

Mr Kolchek continued with the very basic notes he was pressing on repeat, but his face had lightened, looking suddenly enraptured, as Mr Othman began a more complicated rhythm on his side of the piano. A few of the other guests had turned to look now, as Mr Othman and Mr Kolchek continued their piece. When Mr Othman declared the final note, Mr Kolchek continued to press his keys, so the former gently took his hand as indication to stop. Their eyes met as sparse applause rang out around them.

Mr Othman beamed at Mr Kolchek.

‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Not bad at all.’

Mr Kolchek held his gaze. His warm golden hue blazed into the man’s own and then a small flush began to appear on Mr Kolchek’s cheeks. He cleared his throat and said quickly, ‘Please excuse me. I think I will retire early.’

Mr Othman watched in surprise as he pushed himself from the piano stool and swept from the room.

No doubt in some ploy to stop Mr Kolchek from leaving early this time, Lady King had been kind enough to provide rooms for all her guests so that they could stay the night. Mr Kolchek stood on the small balcony of his room, now, which was adjoined with the neighbouring room’s balcony doors. The two rooms shared the balcony, but Mr Kolchek was relieved to see that nobody else was outside when he moved to the stone balustrade and took a deep breath. He inhaled the cold night air, closing his eyes as he felt the gentle breeze tickle his dark hair. The evening was uncomfortably humid, the air thick.

Mr Kolchek sensed a storm coming.

A door opened behind him. Mr Kolchek turned quickly and saw Mr Othman move through the adjoining bedroom door. Their eyes met in surprise.

‘I did not know you were assigned the room beside mine,’ Mr Othman said, hovering with his hand on the door handle.

‘Nor did I,’ said Mr Kolchek.

‘What would you have done if you’d known?’

‘Requested a different room.’

Mr Othman stared at him, but then his expression grew soft.

‘Ah. You’re jesting again.’

Mr Kolchek grinned.

It was that, perhaps, that made Mr Othman close the door behind him and approach the balcony, rather than retreat back inside. He came to stand beside the man as they looked out into the night, at the beautiful colours of the gardens below, so vibrant even when lit only by a soft blanket of moonlight.

‘You left in quite a hurry,’ Mr Othman mused. Mr Kolchek was stood facing the night, both of his hands laying upon the stone balcony. Mr Othman observed them as he spoke from beside him. ‘I was concerned.’

‘Concerned? About me? Why?’

‘I was fearful our music lesson made you uncomfortable.’

It was a moment before Mr Kolchek replied, still maintaining his gaze on the clouded sky across from them. ‘Uncomfortable, yes, but not for the reasons you might think.’

Mr Othman turned then, frowning at him. ‘What do you mean?’

Mr Kolchek clutched the stone more tightly. Mr Othman could see his knuckles turning whiter with the force of it. He didn’t answer.

‘Is it because you do not wish to be here?’ Mr Othman tried. ‘Lady King remarked that you always leave early. As though you wish for nothing other than to escape.’ Mr Othman moved closer to the balcony – closer to the man beside him – and rested his own hands on the cold stone now. ‘Why do you always attend if you hate them so much?’

‘Because you always attend them,’ Mr Kolchek said smoothly.

Mr Othman stared at him. The man’s eyes were still fixed on the night sky, but he could now see his jaw tightening, a gentle flush on his cheeks. His long dark lashes lowered slowly.

Mr Othman said nothing. But he moved his finger, ever so slightly, to the left, to touch Mr Kolchek’s, to connect. He felt the man’s stance tighten beside him at the contact, but then his own finger moved to graze his in return. Slowly, his whole hand moved – the skin soft, warm – to slip over the top of Mr Othman’s and then he held it tight.

A flash of lightning illuminated the night sky and Mr Othman jumped as a crack of thunder unleashed around them. His hand shot on instinct from beneath Mr Kolchek’s and he took a hurried step back. Mr Kolchek turned to him, now, looking at him in concern.

‘Forgive me,’ he said quickly. ‘I should not have –’

‘No,’ Mr Othman breathed. ‘No, it was not that, it was –’

As though in response, the sky unleashed another crack of thunder and a small pattering of rain began to fall on their heads.

‘You’re afraid of thunder?’

Mr Othman nodded. The rain began to fall more heavily on them. Mr Kolchek stepped forward and removed his jacket; he brought it around the top of Mr Othman’s head and moved his body close against him beneath it. ‘Now there is nothing to be afraid of,’ he said quietly. Mr Othman looked at him in surprise. But then he huddled closer under the shelter of his jacket, as the heat from Mr Kolchek’s body met his own. Mr Othman raised his own hand to help Mr Kolchek steady the jacket above both their heads. He rested his other against the man’s chest.

As thunder shook the air once more, Mr Othman dared to rest his forehead against Mr Kolchek’s. He closed his eyes and breathed, ‘Stay close.’

Mr Kolchek pulled the coat tighter around them. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

#hoathemeweek #HandsFriday1st #hoa fic #jalim #jason kolchek #salim othman #dark pictures anthology house of ashes #house of ashes #dark pictures house of ashes #jason x salim #hoa #jason and salim #supermassive games

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wiitchkins · 2 years ago

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Hello!!! okay obviously your knowledge of and taste in fashion is INCREDIBLE, we ALL know this, it is ELITE AND SUPERIOR - my question is, what's your background in fashion? what influences do you consider very important in your art? you mentioned in your most recent drawing of marinette that guo pei's couture is some you really like, so you clearly Know Some Stuff about fashion!! p.s. your art is *waves hands around* i would let it eat me

Ahhhhhh!! Thank you thank you thank you this means so much to me to hear! As for my background in fashion…

I am sorry to say I actually have basically 0 actual background in fashion aside from watching almost every season of project runway as it was airing (dropped off a few seasons after Tim and Heidi left) and a long standing appreciation of fashion as an art form.

I’ve never been particularly fashion forward or stylistically adept and I would say pretty much up until I started college I was pretty. Unstylish. Anti-stylish? In my own wardrobe. Nowadays I actually mostly present in way that leans more butch and I do have a defined style I’m both comfortable in and actively enjoy, but it’s very very different from what I like to draw and design.

As the internet evolved it became a lot easier to find stuff and for the past mmm five or so years I try to keep up with the seasonal runways, a lot of which you can find literal photos and recordings of on Vogue.com. Couture is… deeply fundamentally different from “ready to wear” in that it’s often simply unwearable in everyday life, but I think the way it emphasizes certain shapes, forms, and movement is, simply put, absolutely fucking sick (it is however not without its problems as in my experience mmm some Couture fashion folks can be extremely pretentious and intolerable 🙄 not to mention the space itself is highly inaccessible, favors certain features/body types/skin tones, and is inherently classcist, etc etc)

To keep up with what’s currently “fashionable” (as in what people are actually wearing) I honestly just scroll through Instagram to see who’s wearing what and going through different tags and knowing keywords for what different groups elf describe as helps. “#streetwear” is gonna give you a different feed than “#it girl” is gonna give you a different feed than “#office fit”. I also like to scroll through instas and tumblrs that are literally just interviews and photos with random people op finds out in the world- you see personality in how things are put together in specific. What makes a look personal to them? What is practicality and what is fashion, and how much of each does each individual desire? I don’t think everyone is the same kind of Fashion Forward (or even is fashion forward) and I think it’s fun to find different niches and mix and match while still applying design theory Ive learned elsewhere. Even a character who is specifically Not Fashionable is that way in a specific sense, and could still have an appealing design. Also studying fashion at all gave me the ability to draw fabric which is a huge skill.

Without saying too much about my actual job, I am not a character designer at the moment, but I do think having this general knowledge of costume design and vested interest in keeping up current fashion (both ready to wear and couture/runway) is extremely important in my profession and wish it was more emphasized as I think it would be. Very helpful. The character design in Apple TV’s/Skydance’s Luck drives me absolutely bonkers because it sucks so much and the main characters looks like an old navy ad circa 2010. The same could unfortunately be said for our fav girl Marinette. She’s allowed to be less aggressively Fashionable because she is in fact a child, but I’d love to see a bit more attention to detail and understanding of what teens wear nowadays, let alone what they were wearing even 5 years ago. Her look was a tiny bit dated when the show was first released, but it’s even more egregious now. Not that they’re going to change it anytime soon but they had an opportunity in the movie to at least play with proportions since the jacket’s.. cut I guess and pink capri jeans are the most egregious. Maybe I’ll do a redesign that keeps the general idea/pieces in tact… idk. God. Please character designers learn fashion.

Anyway now that I’ve written an essay here’s some stuff I’ve liked and have been thinking about recently:

Guo Pei (as I said, Spring 2019 rules, but Spring 2017, 2018 and Fall 2019 are my favs)

Zimmerman Fall/Winter 2022

Heaven Gaia Spring 2022 Couture

Clio Peppiatt x Annie’s Ibiza current collab collection

Lawrence Basse (all her work tbh)

Zuhair Murad Fall 2022

Tran Hung Fall 2017

Alexander McQueen Menswear Fall 2022 and 2018

Christian Dior Resort 2023

Janelle Monae’s Pre-Dirty Computer Era

Thierry Mugler (his entire body of work tbh but rn I like Resort 2021)

Hawwa (@hellohawwa)

Jarvis Aivali (@jarvisaivali)

This is not to mention my love for pre-colonial Filipino textiles, 1920s butch lesbian fashion, charro suits, whatever the look is called with the giant oversized floral button shirt and the jeans is, bright colorful floral/and or embroidered suits, ami thompson’s knight and princess characters, and the catholic met gala specifically.

#long post… sorry hehe #fashion #ask #I have a lot of thoughts. hope this answered ur question hahaha

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tricksters-captain · 4 years ago

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Bucky Barnes Imagines - Some Sunny Day Part 3

Summary: Before the Blip, you and Bucky were close. After you both returning and Tony’s funeral, you decided to go back to your home town to spend time with your family. When duty calls, you return.

In this chapter: After finding Sharon in Madripoor, you learn about the creator of the soldier serum (Based on S1 EP3)

(PART 1) (PART 2)

Pairing(s): Bucky Barnes x Fem!Reader, Sam Wilson x Platonic!Reader

Word Count: 3,457

Warnings: Spoilers for episode 3, violence, strong language.

Once you arrived at Sharon’s you were itching to get out of the costume Zemo cooked up for you.

“Looks like breaking all those laws is treating you well.” Sam gawked at Sharon’s place which was full of art work and collectables.

“I thought if I had to hustle, might as well enjoy the life of a real hustler. You know how much I’ll get for a real Monet?” Sharon shrugged as she lead you through her gallery.

“Easy...Deactivate your hustle mode. You sell fake Monets.” Sam didn’t believe her as he stared at the artwork.

“No. She means real. This gallery is specialized in stolen artwork. Monet. Van Gogh. Classics.” Zemo defended Sharon as he followed her.

“It’s true. You know, half the artwork in museums like the Louvre is fake. Real stuff sits in places like this.” Bucky informed Sam.

“Okay, guys, I see what you’re doing. You’re more worldly than good old Sam.” Sam pulled out his phone and started searching a nearby paining.

“Yeah. What’s Google say?” Bucky teased him for it.

“No shit.” Sam muttered as the realisation hit him.

“You guys need to change. I’m hosting clients in an hour.” Sharon beckoned you along to which you were silently thankful for.

Sharon was kind enough to let you look through her vast collection of clothes until you picked out something you liked.

“Hey... You okay?” You asked softly.

You and Bucky were alone with your backs to each other as you changed in one of Sharon’s many rooms.

“I’m fine.” Bucky replied quietly.

You knew he wouldn’t be fine after having to act like the winter soldier again. You watched him at that bar. He didn’t hold back when he attacked those men.

“Buck, you know you can’t lie to me.” You tried to keep it light but Bucky wasn’t having it.

“I’m not.”

You didn’t push.

“Hey, will you zip me up?” You asked after stepping into your dress. You didn’t turn but you could hear Bucky’s footsteps as he approached you.

You felt the cold of his fingers brush against your back as he slowly zipped up the dress.

You turned when the zip reached the top.

“Thanks.” You whispered.

Bucky’s eyes were burning through you as he admired your choice of dress.

“You look beautiful.” Bucky murmured, his eyes taking in every detail.

“You scrub up quite nicely yourself.” You smiled as you admired Bucky in the suit Sharon had given him. You couldn’t deny the butterflies in your stomach as you thought about a possible normal circumstance Bucky could wear something like this. Like a date.

“Come on.” Bucky took your hand and lead you to the door that would take you back to the others.

“It’s alright. I’m gonna sort my hair out. Running through Low-town didn’t exactly do it any favours.” You retracted your hand and returned to the mirror. Bucky hesitated didn’t question you.

“What’s going on with you and Bucky?” Sharon’s voice filled the room as you heard the door open again. “Thought the two of you’d be together by now.”

“We’re coworkers. We’ve always been coworkers.” You were wary of Sharon’s new found attitude.

“Oh please. You two have wanted to jump each others bones the whole time I've known you.” Sharon rolled her eyes at you as she slump down on the love seat beside you.

You remained silent as you brushed through your hair.

“Oh come on.” Sharon rolled her eyes. “You two have never?”

“No.” You said almost too quickly.

“Well it’s only a matter of time. I don’t know why you are dragging it out so long.” Sharon sighed dramatically as she picked at the fabric on the settee.

“I don’t know why everyone is so invested in mine and Bucky’s relationship.” You spun around to face her. “You. Sam. Steve. You all poke and prod but you don’t take into consideration all the factors.”

“No you don’t take into consideration that there’s only so much time before one day you’re shot or killed or you have to go on the run and never see him again. You need to grow some balls, (y/n).” Sharon didn't bother sticking around after that.

You groaned and closed your eyes.

When you finally decided to rejoin the group, they were discussing Sharon’s status in Madripoor.

“What’s going on, Sharon? You don’t ever wanna come back home?” Sam asked as he put on a shirt.

“They’ll lock me up if I step foot back in the States. Madripoor doesn’t allow extradition.” Sharon replied pretty matter-of-factly as she walked over to her desk.

“Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call, but after the Blip and the chaos, I just––” Sharon cut Sam off before he could explain himself.

“––Look, you know the whole hero thing is a joke, right? The way you gave up that shield, deep down, you must know it’s all hypocrisy.

“He knows. And not so deep down.” Zemo felt the need to jump in.

“By the way, how is the new Cap?” Sharon asked.

“Don’t get me started.”Bucky grumbled.

“Please. You buy into all that stars and stripes bullshit. Before you were his pet psychopath, you were Mr. America! Cap’s best friend.” Sharon smirked as she sat down beside Bucky.

“Wow. She’s kind of awful now.” Bucky said as he looked over at you.

“Karli Morgenthau and at least seven others have taken the serum.” You took the initiative to change the topic back to the reason you were here in the first place.

“You guys really should steer clear of all of this for your own safety.”Sharon warned you as she shook her head.

“We know it’s a risk, but we won’t leave until we find the one who cracked the code.” Sam took the chair beside Sharon as he spoke.

“We got a name. Wilfred Nagel.” Bucky told her.

“Nagel works for the Power Broker.” Sharon informed you as she stood to pour herself a drink.

“We need your help, Sharon. I can get your name cleared.” Sam offered.

“You haggling with my life?” Sharon smirked again.

“Not like that.” Sam shook his head.

“I don’t buy that. You pretending like you can clear my name.” Sharon leant back against her bar.

“Okay, maybe it is hypocrisy. Maybe you’re right. What happened to you. But I’m willing to try if you are. They cleared the bionic staring machine, and he killed almost everybody he’s met.” Sam approached her with his good old puppy dog eyes.

“I heard that.” Bucky frowned, unimpressed by Sam’s use of example.

“I don’t trust charity.” Sharon sighed.

“All right, a deal then. You help us out, and I get your name cleared.” Sam offered his hand.

“Well, I sell to some pretty connected people. Lay low, blend in, enjoy the party. Try to stay outta trouble. I’ll see what I can find.” Sharon took the deal.

The party seemed to suddenly start.

Within minutes the whole place was jam packed. Music suffocated the space and the smell of sweat and alcohol was growing.

You stayed in between Sam and Bucky as you walked single file through the gathering. You reached back and linked fingers with Bucky’s to make sure you didn’t get parted in the crowd.

As the bar came into view, you felt a hand grab your ass.

“Hey!” Bucky took hold of the stranger and slammed him against the nearest wall. Holding him by the throat.

Sam was there to diffuse the situation in a second. He placed a. hand on Bucky’s shoulder to pull him away.

“Lay low remember.” Sam repeated what Sharon had told everyone over the blaring music.

Bucky released the creep and stepped back.

That gave you enough space to send your own punch. The man cried out, sliding down the wall and cradling his gushing nose.

“Looks like she does not need help.” Zemo chimed in.

You all left the guy without drawing too much attention to yourselves.

The music wasn’t exactly your taste and you knew that it definitely wasn’t Bucky's but that didn’t stop you from taking him away from Sam and Zemo.

“What are you doing?” Bucky asked you.

“Got a bit boring just standing there, no?” You smirked.

“You can’t expect me to dance to this, can you?” Bucky grimaced at the pulsing beat that classified as music.

“You can try.” You smirked as you brought yourself closer to the man.

You moved your body to the music, smiling widely him as he awkwardly tried to sway to it.

“I thought you were a good dancer?!” You teased Bucky as you watched him.

“I was!” Bucky defended himself. “When the music was Louis Armstrong and Glenn Miller!”

You couldn’t help but laugh at the man before wrapping your arm around his neck.

“You gotta move a bit more like this.” You tried to show him, taking his hand and placing it on your hip.

Bucky was starting to look a little less like a grandpa as he got into the groove of it.

His eyes were locked on you, a small smile on his lips. He looked undeniably handsome.

“I think you’re getting it.” You leant up by his ear to tell him.

“Well, we can’t look any worse than Zemo.” Bucky pointed through the crowd where Zemo was dancing.

You burst into laughter at the sight of the war criminal dancing and buried your face into Bucky’s neck. Bucky laughed next to your ear. It was a rare genuine sound that sent tingles through your head.

“Come on.. Let’s get some water.” You left the dance floor and rejoined Sam by the bar where he had started to speak to some other guests.

Sharon approached you a little while later with some good news and so you all immediately left the party.

“Madripoor could give New York a run for its money.” Sam stated as you arrived at the location of Nagel.

“They know how to party.” Zemo agreed.

You followed Sharon through the shipping container yard as she searched for the right one.

“With that bounty on your head, the longer you’re in Madripoor, the less likely you’re ever leaving.” Sharon stopped and pointed over to a red container. “All right. He’s in there. Container four-two-six-one. I’ll watch while you guys talk to Nagel. But hurry. We’re on borrowed time.”

“You want me to stick around out here with you in case you run into trouble?” You asked her as you all took an ear piece.

“I’ll be alright. I’ll call if I need any back up.” Sharon dismissed your offer before walking away.

You all entered the container cautiously before Sam contacted Sharon.

“Hey, Sharon. You sure this is the right one? It’s completely empty.” He was right. To the eye, it was empty.

“Positive. It has to be.” Sharon replied.

You shared a look between Sam and Bucky as Zemo felt around the. back of the container.

Suddenly, it shifted and a hidden door opened.

Soft music played from below along with a muffled voice.

It has to be Nagel.

Sam, Bucky and you all went in armed.

You silently negotiated between each other which urged Sam to go ahead and cut the music. Nagel spun around at the intrusion.

“Dr. Nagel?” Sam inquired.

“Who are you? What do you want?” The man wasn’t intimidating and didn't seem to have any weapons around him but you had learnt in the past not to underestimate your opponent.

“We know you created the super-soldier serum.” Sam informed him.

“Get out of my lab.” Nagel demanded pretty boldly considering Sam was the one with the gun.

“Hey! You know who he is, right?” Sam asked as he caught the shocked look on Nagel’s face at the sight of Bucky. This is Baron Zemo. I know you’ve heard of him, too, right? You seem like a pretty smart guy. So you better become conversational real quick.”

“How about a counter proposal? Make me a better offer and I’ll talk.”Nagel smirked.

“Guys, we have company.” Sharon’s voice whispered through the ear piece. “Every bounty hunter in the city is here. We gotta go.”

“I’ll go up.” You lowered your gun from Nagel and went to turn when Sam stopped you.

“No, we might need you.” Sam meant he might need your powers.

“But...” You gestured to your ear.

“She didn’t ask for back up.” Sam argued.

You sighed but listened to Sam.

Bucky moved Nagel over to a chair. He held his gun to the man’s temple.

“Here’s your counter offer.” Bucky shot next to Nagel’s head which worked wonders to make him talk.

“Okay. Okay. I was brought into HYDRA’s Winter Soldier program to pick up their work after the five failed test subjects in Siberia. When HYDRA fell, I was recruited by the CIA. They had blood samples from an American test subject with semi-stable traces of serum in his system. After much labor, I was able to isolate the necessary compounds in his blood. I was a god. I did what no other scientist since Erskine was able to do. But mine was going to be different. No clunky machines or jacked up bodies. Mine was going to be subtle, optimized, perfect.”

“How have we never heard about this?” You asked, your eyes flicking over at Sam.

“Because… Before I was able to complete my work, I turned to dust. Then when I returned, it was five years later, program had been abandoned, so I came here. The Power Broker was more than happy to fund the recreation of my work.” Nagel explained.

“How many vials did you make?” Sam asked.

“Twenty. Karli Morgenthau stole those, so I can only imagine what the Power Broker has planned for that poor girl.”

“Where’s Karli now?”You stepped forward, rolling up your sleeve as a warning.

“I don’t know where she is. But a couple of days ago, she called and asked if I could help someone named Donya Madani. Poor woman has tuberculosis. Typical of overpopulation in displacement camps like that.” You took a mental note of the name Nagel mentioned.

“Well, what happened to her?” You pushed

“Not my pig. Not my farm.” Nagel shrugged.

You looked back at Sam with a look asking if you should check if he's telling the truth but Sam shook his head.

“Is there any serum in this lab?” Bucky asked.

Nagel sent Bucky a deep glare but Bucky’s gun brought forth the answer.

“No.”

“Now what?” Bucky asked you and Sam.

“Guys, we’re seriously outta time here.” Sharon bursted in, looking a little battered.

All of a sudden, Zemo pulled a gun out and shot Nagel.

“No!” Sam cried out

You lunged forward and reached for the man’s arm. If you could catch his final moments of life leaving his body you could still get the memories but as you hand touched his skin all you saw was darkness.

You screamed as you went blind.

You felt a pair of hands pull you up from the ground to which you could only assume was Bucky.

“What did you do?!” Sharon gasped at Zemo’s action.

“I can’t see, Buck.” You felt your whole body go limp in his arms as you muttered those final words before you passed out.

When you felt your eyes open again, you were out of the container. Gun shots were muffled in your eyes as you heard Bucky and Sam arguing.

You were covered in dust and you didn’t have your gun.

“Where’s my gun?” You asked. That’s when the boys realised you were awake.

You only managed to crawl over to Bucky to take it from him and start to fire.

Your aim was off from how exhausted you were but the adrenaline was there enough for you to get a good few shots in.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked you as the firing stopped. Zemo was busy taking out the remaining bodies so it gave you time to sit back again.

“Not really.” You shook your head. Your body felt cold and darkness still clouded the corners of your vision. It’s what happened when you tried to get the memories from a dead body, all you could see and feel is death. Your powers only worked on living people or people close to death.

“Come on.” Bucky lifted you up, tucking his arm underneath you to keep you steady on your feet.

You only lasted being half dragged/half running before Bucky picked you up. You hated being carried but this was a life or death situation.

“Buck!” Sam shouted as some more bounty hunters appeared. Bucky put you down and you fell against the container door as he used a broken off pipe to fight them off.

“Let’s go!” Sam tugged you both inside.

Bucky kicked open the back of the container so you could escape, only for you to be met by Zemo in a swanky getaway car.

“Supercharged.” Zemo gestured to his ride.

“You’re going back to jail.” Sam told Zemo.

“Do you want to find Karli or not?” Zemo asked.

“He’s right. We need him.” You tried to speak but your throat was hoarse.

“And there’s only three of us, and at least 20 of them.” Bucky added.

“Fine. But if you try that shit again...” Sam warned him.

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Zemo stated. Not that he was to be trusted.

Sam helped you into the back seat. There was concern painted across his face.

“Well, that was one hell of a reunion.” Sharon sighed as she placed her hands on the car.

“Come back to the States with us.” Sam tried to persuade her.

“I can’t. Just get me that pardon you promised me.” Sharon reminded him of the deal they made.

“Thanks for everything.” Sam nodded. “You’re not gonna move your seat up, are you?”

“No.” Bucky shook his head.

You laughed weakly as you remembered the same conversation back when Steve was still around.

Back on Zemo’s plane, you took a position on the small couch with Bucky. You were resting your eyes but trying to stay awake as you listened to the boys talk.

“Donya Madani. She’s a refugee, yeah.” Sam had contacted Torres about the woman Nagel had mentioned. “Call me if you get a hit. --- Thanks, Torres.”

“You okay?” Bucky asked Sam as Sam slouched down.

“Yeah. Just thinking about all the shit Sharon had to go through. And Nagel referring to the American test subject like Isaiah wasn’t even a real person. Just makes me wonder how many people have to get steamrolled to make way for this hunk of metal.”

“Well, it depends on who you ask. That hunk of metal saved a lot of lives.” Bucky looked up from cleaning his hand.

“Yeah, I get that. All right. Maybe I made a mistake.” Sam confessed.

“You did.” Bucky agreed with that statement and so did you but you kept your eyes closed.

“Yeah. Maybe I shouldn’t have put it in a museum. Maybe I should have destroyed it.” Sam didn’t say what you expected.

“Look, that shield represents a lotta things to a lotta people, including me. The world is upside down, and we need a new Cap, and it ain’t gonna be Walker. So before you destroy it, I’ll take it from him myself.” Bucky turned to face Sam as he spoke. You felt the couch shift.

Sam then got a call with the information on Madani.

“They found Madani… Dead. She died in Riga, a city near the Baltic Sea.”

“I have a place we can go. I, for one, am looking forward to coming face to face with Karli. Oeznik, we’re changing the course.” Zemo’s voice was the last thing you remembered before waking up at landing.

“Hey sleepy head.” Bucky whispered quietly. He’d rather be caught dead than let Sam hear him say that.

“Have we landed?” You asked as you rubbed your eyes.

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded. “Come on.”

It didn’t take too long to get to Zemo’s place but when you did, Bucky decided to break away.

“I’m gonna go on a walk.” Bucky announced before you entered the building.

“You good?” Sam asked.

“Yeah.” Bucky nodded as he stepped away.

“Be careful.” You warned him.

You knew Bucky needed his space sometime but now wasn’t the best time for him to just be wandering the streets. Especially if Walker clocks on it was you three that broke Zemo out of prison.

“Always.” Bucky winked at you before finally leaving.

But that was a bad feeling in your gut.

(PART 4)

Bucky Barnes Tag List

@florencxs @mystictimetravelcolor @yourphotographyteen16@shannon-posts @darkbluenovember @sexwithhiddlesbatch@thefandomimagines @mydarkness-itsnotmyfriend @sad-huffle-nerd @glitchingghosts @themaddies-obx @avenging-parker @delilahsdaydream @felicityofbakerstreet @purplewcrld @opheliaaaa

#Bucky Barnes imagines #Bucky Barnes x reader #Bucky Barnes #falcon and the winter soldier #falcon and the winter soldier imagines #Sebastian Stan #Sebastian Stan x reader #Sebastian Stan imagines #the winter soldier #falcon #Sam Wilson #Zemo #imagines #series #some sunny day #part 3

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yesimwriting · 4 years ago

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Falling Angels

A/n this literally poureddd from me, might be bad bc recently i’ve hated everything i’ve written (my drafts are full lol)

Series Summary: Y/n is a rising star in the most famous circus in Ketterdam because of her ability to see the future. Unfortunately for her, Kaz Brekker knows more of her backstory than he should, and he’s willing to use that to his advantage. The one thing he’s not betting on? That he doesn’t know her entire story

Chapter summary: Y/n gets a visitor before getting tricked into the most dangerous show of her life.

Pairing: SOC x reader, Kaz Brekker x psychic! sunshine-y! reader

Warning: mentions of sexual harassment, slight cursing, near death experience

Enjoy it, because it doesn’t last. That’s what the older girls whisper, mock casualness attempting to disguise bitter undertones as I walk past them. They say this, sharp nails ready to be covered in blood as red as their lipstick, because the pile of gifts from my ‘admirers’ keep coming. Circus hands keep approaching the long vanity in the dressing room tent, tapping me on the shoulder politely to shove cards and bouquets of flowers in my lap. They don’t understand that the praise isn’t because the patrons of our performances find me more beautiful--they’re desperate for my favor. They’re desperate to know their future.

Looking at myself in the mirror, the pageantry of it all has not yet grown old to me. My hair is still in the process of being styled, my stage makeup is half done, and I am not yet coated in that golden shimmer Senia always dusts across my cheeks and shoulders. But I am more enhanced than I normally am, eyes made bright by thick coats of mascara, cupid's bow made prominent by ruby lipstick. The lip look is more daring than I’ve been before, but there can’t be much harm in change. Not when half the women here keep looking at me like I’m the saint of virginity.

It’s not my fault that the Ringmaster thought an angelic aesthetic would work best for the fortune teller who walks around before the show, reading palms so that people can have their pockets picked. It’s not my fault people want an angel to take the stage and call people down from the audience to get a detailed reading around the crowded circus tent. I don’t pick the costumes, and while I acknowledge that mine shows the least amount of skin, the Ringmaster found a way to dress me as suggestively as possible without ruining the illusion of innocence.

At least the flowing tulle wings that are stitched into the back of my costume are beautiful. It’s easier when I enjoy the good.

“Y/n!” The familiar call of Senia. I turn my head, beaming. “You’re a vision, and all of those jealous girls--you can tell them to take their wrinkling faces and--”

“Seria.” For someone so much like a mother, she often needs to be reminded that not everything needs an aggressive rebuttal. “Think about it from their perspectives--their entire existence is dependent on how sellable they are, how attractive they are to men who only want to use them. If that makes them mad at me because they feel like my youth and novelty is taking from them, then that’s okay.” She raises a fine eyebrow. “I can take a few mean words.”

Seria purses her lips. “Okay, but I’m just as old and tired and you don’t see me trying to poison you.”

I roll my eyes.

“Look, it's our very own saint.” I roll my eyes, Via’s shrill voice piercing through me like an annoying papercut. “And in such a scandalous lip color--has the Ringmaster finally taken you to the ivory tent?”

Ivory tent. It’s been mentioned to me before and always in jest. “Where he takes me is none of your business, if not being the favorite hurts you so badly ju--”

She laughs, the sound is pure vile. “Being the favorite is the worst thing you could be in a place like this. You’re shiny and new and soon you’ll be as used as the rest of us--Seria’s use is waning, what happened to her today is proof of that. Soon you’ll have no one to protect you.”

When she looks at me I see more pain than hatred. “I think we’d get along better if I had it in me to hate you.”

She raises an eyebrow before shaking a cigarette from a small box into her palm. “You’ll get there, princess.”

The nickname leaves me burning. There’s nothing more consuming than fire. “You better pray to the real Saints I don’t.”

via laughs, lifting the cigarette to her lips and lighting it with her abilities. She walks away, turning my threat into that of a child’s.

“She’s right on two accounts.” Seria hums, “The Ringmaster will kill you if you wear that lipstick and Ketterdam turns people like you into people like me. We could save up, pay off your indenture--get you out.”

Seria doesn’t need to make sacrifices like that. Not for me. Besides, there’s no leaving Ketterdam for me. Not anymore. “Being like you wouldn’t be a bad thing.” I scratch my arm, see through material wrinkling as a result. “And I can’t--I can’t just leave. I’m a psychic, no Grisha can see the future. I need the facelessness of Ketterdam.” Her lips thin in protest. “And don’t think I didn’t hear what she said about you--what happened to your foot, and what’s in the ivory tent? People keep saying it, whispering it like there’s--”

“That tent is nothing that will ever concern you. I’ve given you my guidance, and the one thing I ask is that you never ask or go to the ivory tent.”

I swallow once, the intensity in her eyes leaving me raw. “What if he tells me to?”

“He won’t.” Seria breathes. “He doesn’t like that for you.”

This isn’t an argument I can have now, not with two minutes until the show starts. “And your foot?”

She shrugs, holding up a bandaged ankle. “You get older, your ligaments like the tightrope walk less and less. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re not tightrope walking like that--”

“Yes, I am. The Ringmaster doesn’t know and he can’t--if I start giving him performance trouble--you don’t know what happens to the girls who can’t pay off their indenture by performing.”

I swallow once. “You’ll be careful?”

“Always,” she grins, “Besides--one day you’ll know enough about tightrope walking to help me on days like this.”

The last time I trained on the mini-tightrope had proven me to be a disappointment. Still, I smile at her softly. I open my mouth to respond, but a quick tap to my shoulder silences me.

“Miss,” a circus hand I recognize begins.

I smile politely. “Please leave any gifts on my vanity--”

“It’s not a gift,” he mumbles, voice taut, “You have visitors.”

Something solid pushes itself into my chest, wedging itself between my lungs. Have they found me? “I-I don’t take visitors. Not before shows, if someone wants a private reading they’re to go to my tent at the front--”

“We’re not here for readings or any of the other lies you sell.”

...Surprising. I let my gaze move from the face of the circus hand and towards the individuals behind him. A man, tall and dressed in business attire--hat and all. His face is all sharp angles and his eyes are emotionless. His leather-gloved hands grip the head of an intricate cane. Next to him is another tall man, dressed a little more casually, with dark curls. Lastly, there’s a girl, with oil-black hair pulled into a sleek ponytail.

“Then what are you here for?”

Seria, never one to leave me unattended around strange men, takes a step in front of me. “I know who you are, Dirtyhands, and I know there’s no business you could find with her.”

What? Dirtyhands? Can people in Ketterdam ever just be normal?

“I wouldn’t speak so certainly.” I don’t like the way his eyes narrow at Seria or the way his grip on the cane tightens.

Thoughtlessly, I stick a hand between them, forcing Seria back slightly. “I apologize, she’s protective--always assuming the worst in people. Though considering she called you ‘Dirtyhands’, maybe that’s what you want.”

Ugh. All I do is ramble when I most definitely shouldn’t. “Want what?”

Eyebrows drawing together, I force myself to hold his gaze. “For people to assume the worst.”

The response seems to confuse him. That’s okay--I’ll take anything over aggressive. “The only people I want to assume the worst are those I want to be right.”

Okay. Dramatic was a fair assumption.

“Seria.” Oh no. I know that voice. I know that voice too well. “They tell me you're injured.”

Seria stiffens, as does every performer when he addresses them. “Not too injured to perform, sir.”

The Ringmaster sneers. “I can’t risk you falling and embarrassing me. Perhaps tonight you’ll make your money by spending the entire show in the ivory tent.”

The way she hardens wrenches my gut. I press my hands to avoid reaching out for her. “I can do the tightrope.” The Ringmaster’s gaze shifts towards me. “I can do it--and I can do it well and I’ll give the profit to Seria.”

He tilts his chin, regarding me in a way a woman should never be regarded. He’s a predator and I’m a lamb that’s lost its way. Still, I hold his gaze. I don’t flinch, even when he moves to brush his knuckles along my cheek. His touch is acid. Pure, burning acid. “The wings I placed on your back are decorative.”

“I don’t need them.” Total bullshit.

“Hm,” he breathes, letting the smell of alcohol fill the space between us, “I’ll allow it.” The Ringmaster drops his hand to his side. “Wipe that lipstick off your face before someone mistakes you for one of these common whores.”

How I don’t throw up at the sight of him is a miracle in itself. By some small mercy, he turns and walks away before I have to respond.

“You’re an idiot--you know you’re not ready for the tightrope.”

“There’s a net,” I try to keep my voice light, dismissive. She remains tense. “Seria, I had to.”

“No, you could have--”

“It’s not fair that you’re always a shield for me. When the opportunity to shield you for once comes, I’ll take it.” Turning before she can protest, I try to walk forward. The stranger places his cane where I intend to walk, intentionally warning me that he decides when our conversation is over. Unfortunately, I used up all my patience with the Ringmaster. “130 kruge.” He raises an eyebrow. “That’s the estimated amount I’ll make tonight, unless I’m late and excluded from the show. Either make up the deficit you’ll be costing me or let me go.”

His eyebrows draw together, shifting his expression from neutrally calloused to something much darker. “Kaz.” This comes from the girl. She takes a step forward. “Look one step ahead.”

“Excuse me?”

“Everyone thinks you’re not supposed to look down, but looking up is just as impractical.” She pauses, expression strangely mesmerized, “Look one step ahead--not at your feet.”

My genuine smile shocks me. “Thank you.”

“I should be thanking you, Sankta y/n.” Her head bows, hands held together as if in prayer.

Oh. She’s one of the religious that believes me an actual Saint. “I appreciate the sentiment, but if I was a Saint I’d be able to help people.” No matter what I do, no matter how much blood I offer, I can never help people. “And as you’ve seen--I can’t.”

The crowd’s roaring is a different world to me. On the platform, feet away from the other wooden structure acting as solid ground, everything is different. I am now in a world where the only thing to believe in is a taut rope. The net is beneath me. I’ve seen it--I’ve checked it.

“And for our grand finale!” The Ringmaster calls, voice billowing over an excited crowd. “Our very own angel defies death!”

An odd way to phrase the tightrope walk. It’s never called ‘defying death’. I had been surprised when I was told that tonight the tightrope walk would be the grand finale--I assumed it was because it featured me. I’m always the finale now. I try to move my foot off the platform but it’s planted firmly. No. I need to see Seria--I need to see who I’m doing this for. I force my gaze to the ground, panic rising in my chest.

Instead of Seria, I see Via--her smirk apparent even from here. Spite’s a decent motivator. My foot descends off the platform, touching the tightrope cautiously. And then I move my other foot. All of me is now on this damn rope. I hadn’t been unforgivably horrible during practice, but I hadn’t been graceful either.

Don’t look down, don’t look up--only look one step ahead. One step ahead--one step at a time. Balance. I take another step. The room is so silent there’s no doubt in my mind the sound of my bones cracking would be heard from the back row. But there’s the net. There’s always the net. I take a second step. And then a third--eyes focused on only one step ahead.

And then the phantom of flame comes to claim me. Fire. The world around me is burning. Damning the consequences, I let my gaze fall to the world beneath me. The net--the Ringmaster had an Inferni light the net on fire. Via--that explains the look.

I can’t fall--the guilt would kill Seria.

Panic twists my stomach as I continue forward. One step ahead. One step ahead--the flames lick upwards, promising pain and grief all over again. One step ahead. One step--that’s all there is to it. The warmth of the fire calls to me. Burning. Burning--and one more step. This isn’t forever. This isn’t permanent--either way this will soon be over.

There’s no miracle for me. No good grace, no wings that would let me save myself. There is only balance.

One step ahead. And then another step. And then I see the other wooden platform. Thank the Saints. I grip the ladder of the platform as quickly as possible. The cheers mean nothing to me as I scurry down the ladder.

I feel a sharp breeze, a Grisha putting out the flames. Anger pools in my chest as I move towards the exit of the tent.

“Y/n.” No. Not him again. That man--Kaz, Dirtyhands, whoever he is--needs to go away. “Y/n.” I turn sharply, anger pulsing through me. My expression must be feral, because he stalls. “They didn’t tell you that they were going to burn the net.”

The fact that he can tell--that he can see my panic and how close I came to death twists my anger into something more fragile. “No.” My posture straightens. “I need to go now, I do--I do readings after shows.”

“Y/n.” He repeats, firmer.

My nails dig into my palms. “I’m going--”

“I know what you are.”

Tensing, my breathing stalls. “What?”

#kaz brekker #kaz brekker x reader #kazz brekker imagine #kaz brekker x you #six of crows #six of crows x reader #six of crows x you #soc imagine #six of crows imagine #my works #series #shadow and bone #shadow and bone x reader #shadow and bone imagine #grishaverse #grishaverse x reader #sab netflix #grishaverse imagine

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falcor-thee-luck-dragon · 4 years ago

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Interviews - Henry Cavill x wife/actress reader

Summary: You and Henry have been married for a couple years now, and when you’re both part of the Witcher cast, fun interviews are to be had.

Warning: nothing but a good time, btw I’ve never written anything like this so I hope it’s good enough that I might feel motivated to write more

-Readers Witcher character is loosely based off my Geralt fic from here (just a little self promotion), but in this case you play a full vampire in this Witcher universe

The days have been long and grueling, filming hours upon hours of stunts and regular acting had taken its toll. Not to mention the countless times in hair and make up paired with costume changes and traveling to film on certain locations.

To say being apart of Netflix’s The Witcher was full of tiring days and some accidental bruises would be a huge understatement. But none of that mattered, nor did you bother to complain when through the thick and thin of it all did you have Henry with you along the way. And your favorite big slobbery bear, Kal whenever he was allowed on set.

Fortunately for you in the beginning of all the craziness, the casting and writers had wanted you specifically for the part of Y/C/N in the new series before Henry even auditioned for the role of Geralt, that was soon given to him after you accepted your fresh role of vampiric heroine.

It was ironically strange in a good way, you had watched your dork of a husband play the Witcher: Wild Hunt a few times before, eventually learning of what Geralt of Rivia was, who Y/C/N was in the story, who Yennefer and Ciri were, Tris and even Jaskier.

Who would have thought that you’d finally get to snag a role side by side with Henry in quite literally one of the most fantastic shows you’ve ever heard of. You didn’t even need to see the show yet to know how well it was most likely to be reviewed. Being a key character in the grand storyline was enough to convince you of how amazing it would most certainly turn out in the finished product.

And after all was said and done, you couldn’t believe how well loved and popular the show truly became in the following months after shooting and its eventual release onto Netflix. The after parties and cast celebrations truly made you blessedly grateful for pulling through to the vary end.

Then again you had your mans Henry by your side every step of the way. He was your rock and you were most definitely his. You know life on set would have been far less entertaining and dreadfully long if not for the lovely company of your dear Witcher, Henry. And so far after the fact, you and a good portion of the cast have been placed in random interviews for the majority of the day.

Reason being, The Witcher has at long last finally premiered and as per usual the people and media live for those cast interviews that always reveal some interesting events. So far this morning you’ve done some interviews with Anya that have gone perfectly fine since the two of you seem to click so well.

Also it helps ease the anxiety of your fellow newer cast mates to the world of continuous interviews with an experienced veteran actor like yourself, who’s gone round the ring more times then you can count. Though you can’t help but wonder how Henry’s doing, considering you’ve been separated since the sessions began at 10am, you’ve had lunch and now it’s about 1 in the afternoon with more hours to go.

Luckily for you, you’ve just been informed of another interview with the man of the hour himself. Saying your goodbyes and well wishes to your fellow cast mates, you stand and follow the guide into the advised place. Aka some really nice hotel room that’s been done up real nice for efficient interviewing, complete with the Witcher insignia on a large background poster and three chairs that happen to look rather comfy.

The camera and sound people nod in acknowledgment as you walk in, you nod back no doubt making their day with your friendliness and adorable smile that quite literally lights up a room. Soon you spot the bubbly yet nervous interviewee who instantly welcomes you into her space like you’re an old friend.

You sit, a bit confused as to where your partner happens to be at the moment, the interviewer, Lauren makes small talk before a door opens and her big bright doe eyes go wide in nervous excitement. A telling smile upon her face as she shifts in her chair before looking back to you again with a happy grin.

Henry says a quick hello to the behind the scenes crew before waving to Lauren, you smirk while watching him get comfortable next to you, “Well, well, well. Get lost on your way up, you know they have guides for a reason.” You tease as he chuckles at your humorous jab, relieved to see you again after a couple hours apart.

“Traffic.” He quips with a shrug.

“Uh huh.” You mutter with a shake of your head before drawing your attention back to Laura, “Can’t take him anywhere I swear, he does this all the time.”

She laughs as Henry pretends to gasp at your teasing, you chuckle along with them before she finally collects herself, “Well, welcome back to London. It’s fantastic to have you both in town once again, and your big beautiful faces all over Leicester Square.”

You both laugh, “Right.” Says Henry, “I guess we do look pretty cool.”

“Hell yeah, I mean where else can I see myself with a giant sword on a building? And anyways look at this beautiful mug,” You say gently squeezing Henry’s cheeks in your hand, “he’s literally killing it out there.” They laugh as you give Hen another playful squeeze before letting go and setting your arm against the chairs cushioned armrest.

“Alight let’s start.” She says enthusiastically before glancing down at her cards then back up to you and Henry. Then into one of the two the cameras, “Hi I’m Lauren from Entertainment Weekly and today we’re here with the two stars of Netflix’s The Witcher.” She says enthusiastically while giving a nod to you two, indicating that the camera is now focused on you both, “Henry Cavill and Y/N Cavill.”

You both smile in acknowledgment as Henry gives a slight nod, “How you doing?”

“I’m great,” She beams, “So, I’ll get right into it, what do you like most about the story? What really drew you into the script that made you say, yes this is going to be awesome?”

Slapping a hand against Henry’s muscular leg, you hum, “I’ll let Hen take this one he’s a real expert on the linguistics of the whole show.”

“Thanks Y/N/N.” Replies Henry, bemused that you’re making him take the first question.

You nod to him knowingly with a smirk, “Of course.” Knowing how much he loves to talk about the show and also because you’d rather have him use his energy to talk about it then do that yourself. Priorities, right, though in your defense it’s been a long day.

“Well I absolutely love the games and the books themselves are phenomenal works of literature.” He explains, his face glowing with that usual glimmer of excitement in his eyes, “The story and the world of the Witcher is just so rich and full of potential that when I signed on for the show, I immediately knew it would be amazing, no doubt.”

You lean into the arm of you chair, “And of course I was there so that’s always a bonus.”

“That too.” He smiles adorably, “That too of course.”

Lauren smiles, “Great. So, what was it like working together, how was it having your characters interact with one another?”

You smile, setting a hand against Henry’s forearm, “This guy right here.” You deadpan before waving him off dramatically, “So annoying, my god he whined all the time and he was such a drama queen dear lord so ugh....” You start cackling before you can even finish the sentence causing Henry to loose it as well and with that the interviewer.

Shaking your head you rest your hand against his shoulder, “I joke, he was a gem to work with as usual...I mean I feel incredibly blessed to be able to act alongside my husband for months and months every single day. It’s a rarity in this line of work and I’m grateful to have shared this experience...and I guess more so this whole adventure with him as well.”

The interviewer aww’s as Henry tilts his head to lean into your hand that’s still resting atop his shoulder before pulling away just as quickly, the intimate sentiment not going unnoticed by you or Lauren who looks to be enjoying your loving yet calm energy with one another. “That’s so sweet, what about you Henry?”

“Oh yes absolutely,” Agrees Henry to your recent statement, “not only did I have her by my side through it all but the dynamic of our characters interacting together was so fun to shoot. I think the audience will really be able to see their relationship grow on screen into something strong and beautiful like in the books.”

Slow clapping you give him a curt nod of approval, “Well said.”

Lauren smirks, ��Seems like it. Well, I was able to catch the premier yesterday and I gotta say...it was fantastic! I couldn’t believe how diffident the two of you looked from how you are now.” She gushes enthusiastically.

The corners of Henry’s lips curl into a proud smile for the fellow crew of the Witcher’s, “Oh that’s great then, honestly we gotta give all the props to the costume and makeup team, they’re so talented and know how to make us look like real badasses.” He adds.

You nod in agreement before grinning at a positive memory of your first interaction with Henry as Geralt, “Oh for sure, I remember during the early stages of production when our characters met each other for the first time, before this we came to set together but went separate ways to shoot our own stuff in the meantime so I never got a real look at him.” You recall with a bright smile as Henry watches your every move, beaming just the same.

“It was so funny, I was in the tent with Freya Allen, the wonderful girl who plays Ciri, and then suddenly her eyes got all big and nervous and I was like, that’s not me right? Something weird didn’t just happen with my costume? And then I turned around to find this man, wig on, face a mess, and his eyes looked so fearsome and different...it was a bit startling.” You say with a chuckle, “I clearly wasn’t expecting to see Geralt right then and there. He just looked so unlike Henry.”

“Yeah, I was almost hurt.” Laughs Henry, “She had to like squint and make sure it was me.”

Rolling your eyes, you shrug, “He had some real creepy looking colored contacts, yunno?”

Henry fake scoffs, “You’re one to talk, I mean when I first say her, Y/N’s eyes were red and she had fake blood spattered all over her face and shirt. Oh, and not to mention those fangs they put on your teeth...we probably traumatized poor Freya that day.”

“Oh shit you’re right!” You exclaim with a snort of concealed laughter, “God I completely forgot about how I looked...now since I think about it, I did that a lot too. I would just walk up to people and be completely oblivious as to what kind of nightmare I looked like, honestly I might have scared one of our producers a couple of times.” You add with a half nervous laugh, it’s true, you did scare some of the crew unintentionally. Most of the time.

Lauren lightly chuckles, “That sounds like you were quite the sight to see then.” She says before glancing back down at her notes, “Alright I have’ta ask, is there anything that you two took home with you from set?”

“Besides Henry every night,” He holds back a laugh while covering his mouth as you nonchalantly continue, “Uh, yes actually I got to take home Y/C/N’s wolf ring that I loved so much and just thought was the coolist thing ever and....uh, I might have stolen some socks too.”

“So that’s why after filming the amount of socks of yours I had to fold increased?” Wonders Henry with a surprised snort of realization.

Turning your head to give him a “no shit” kinda look, you look back at Lauren, pointing your thumb at Henry, “Master sleuth right here, but hey, he folds my laundry.”

“Aw that’s great.” Adds Lauren with a smile before turning her attention to Henry, “What about you Henry? Take anything from set?”

“More then Y/N did actually...”

“He just about took the whole makeup trailer most nights, I swear.”

Henry chuckles, “That. Is true.” He agrees with a nod, “Interesting enough, at home I’ve got Geralt’s armor hung up in our living room and a multitude of other nicknacks that I’ve collected during filming.” He adds, glancing over to you, “So uh, yeah, we were fairly lucky to be able to snag what we could.”

Lauren smiles, absentmindedly shuffling her cards, “That’s awesome to have such special memorabilia, you guys really are fortunate.” She adds before reading off from another card, “Alright you two, care to play a game called guess the image? Witcher style.”

Your face perks up at this, you’re a sucker for interview games and Henry knows it, “Are you reading my mind or something, I have been waiting all day for someone to ask about playing a game.” You gush rather enthusiastically.

He smiles at your adorableness and how excited you’ve just become, Lauren grins, happy that her suggestion has been so well received, “Okay so how it works is, I’ll show you an image on my iPad and then you have to guess who or what I’m showing you.”

“Oh, cool I’ve heard of this,” You reply, turning to Henry with a smirk, “Loser has to clean Kal’s yard poop for a week.”

Rolling his gorgeous blue eyes he chuckles, “You’re on.”

“Alright, the stakes are high, you two ready?” Beams Lauren, holding her iPad to her chest as she awaits an answer.

“Yes, I’m ready to kick his ass.” You quip, leaning an arm against your chair while Henry does about the same, though he does his best to contain his laughter.

“Okay, first image.” She holds up the device to show some sort of weird golden thing, it’s shiny and hard, worst part is that you’re not entirely sure what the hell it could be.

Sensing your confusion Henry nudges your shoulder, though you ignore it before he smartly answers, “Oh, is that...Renfri’s brooch?” Little shit knows exactly what that is, of course he does.

Lauren claps, “Correct.” Zooming out of the image to show the full picture of the golden brooch, “Right on, that’s one point for Mr. Cavill.”

You scoff playfully, “Beginners luck.” While Henry side eyes you with a humorous grin upon his plush lips, he nudges your arm, “I’m going to really enjoy not cleaning up Kal’s grass turds for awhile.” He mutters lightheartedly, though you know deep down he’s being serious, no way is he going to win this, you think. You won’t have it, hopefully the next few pictures aren’t as difficult, Kal duty is not fun by any means.

“Shut up.” You grumble with a dismissive wave of your hand, though just teasing of course.

“Okay next image.” This time the blurred photo looks much more familiar, soon it clicks as to what the obscured blurriness actually is, yes!

“Got it! Anya’s er I guess Yennefer’s dress from the fight at Sodden.” Lauren giggles, zooming the image out to reveal Yennefer in her tasseled blue and purple dress from the battle at Sodden Hill. “I’m amazing I know.” You boast at Henry with a casual little bow in your seat.

“It’s the second question.” He deadpans, eyes crinkling in amusement as you shake your head at him.

“Pffff get outta here.” You mutter back, gently pushing his arm off of your chairs armrest and setting yours in its place while he gives you a fake shocked expression.

In turn you can’t help the smile that tugs at the corner of your lips, so instead of saying some sassy remark that would no doubt get a reaction out of him, you turn your attention back over to Lauren who’s looking over her notes again.

“Fantastic,” She says, glancing back up at you and Henry, “you’re both tied with one point each. Alright, anyone know what this is?” She asks showing something red and fuzzy, a bit of dirty skin showing from one corner but with The Witcher this bloody image could literally be anything.

The both of you squint, puzzled as to what this could be, “Y/N you got any ideas.” Wonders Henry, brows furrowed as his face contorts into deep concentrated thought.

Raising a brow, you hum, “If I knew I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Fair point.” He chuckles.

Lauren smiles, “Any guesses?”

After a few concentrated moments, Henry shrugs in defeat, “I’m stumped.” He admits as you study the image harder, mind racing to put the pieces together as to what the hell you’re looking at.

“No, I think I might know this....erm is it...me?” You wonder, voice raising in question, hoping to be correct about this or face the teasing of Henry.

Lauren quickly zooms out of the obscured image, “It is!” She says excitedly, revealing the picture of you from your characters debut in episode 2 where you save a girl from a werewolf, your mouth is covered in blood and so is most of your costumes chest area and left arm from the struggle. Not to mention the make-up teams fun 20 minutes of throwing fake sticky blood all over you to get the right look for the taxing scene.

You grimace a bit, “Oh god that was quite the day on set,” You recall with a half smile, “I was doing stunts all day covered in that red syrupy dye, I think it took a week to get out of my skin.”

Henry suddenly snorts with laughter, “Right! That reminds me, I thought Kal had gotten cut or something, it was just Y/N who had hugged him not realizing she still had some fake blood on her arm.”

“Jeez that’s right, I felt so bad, but I couldn’t stop laughing once we realized it was just me.”

Lauren grins, excited to hear some hidden information about little things that happens behind the scenes, “Oh wow that must have been a sight, alright Henry, Y/N’s taken the lead with a two to one score.” She says as you playfully nudge his strong shoulder. “Second to last image, what is this?”

Without missing a single beat Henry replies, “Jaskier.”

Squinting at the image you lean closer to the iPad, “How the hell do you see Jaskier?”

Smiling the interviewer zooms out to reveal the bards full outfit from the banquet scene, though he’s in the background of a fight between Geralt and some Cintran knights. “Right on!” She exclaims as you lean back into your seat dumbfounded, shoulder flush against Henry’s as he clutches your arm and squeezes it affectionately.

Ignoring his silent show of victory you shrug, “And they say he’s just another pretty face,” Earning a laugh from Lauren and some of the crew as you smirk at the camera, face them shifting to apologetic, “also I’m so sorry Joey you beautiful bastard apparently I’m blind. Uh, we don’t have to dwell on it, Lauren whatcha got?”

“You guys are both tied with two points each, last chance to win.” She replies before glancing down at her iPad, “Alright, what is this?” She asks, her iPad showing that of fuzzy bright colors, with a small corner smear of dull white that clearly wouldn’t make much sense to the untrained eye.

Smirking you glance at a puzzled Henry before sitting up in your seat, feeling rather good about yourself, “Would that happen to be, Hen in Stregobor’s illusion?” You answer with, though sounding a bit as a question considering you aren’t entirely confident as to what image this is.

Lauren’s brows raise in surprise, “Henry, looks like we have a winner. Y/N you are correct.” She beams, enlarging the image to reveal Geralt’s side profile as he talks to the old wizard while the background stays colorful and shrouded in various arrays of sunlight..

Shaking your fist victoriously in the air you give a couple enthusiastic whoop whoops while Henry simply takes it like a champ, “Have fun cleaning up Karl’s monster turds, cause this lucky lady doesn’t have to.” You boast as Henry and the crew laugh.

“Well that was something,” Beams Lauren, “I’m so glad to have chatted for a bit about your guys’ amazing new series, and maybe ended a relationship in the process.” She says jokingly as both you and Henry chuckle.

Patting his thigh affectionately, you smirk, “He’s a tough old bear, but yeah, it was awesome having you talk to us.”

“Yes, take care now.” Adds Henry while the interviewer Lauren stands, saying her goodbyes as she goes to exit the room.

The camera crew take a small break to adjust things and whatnot as you and Henry wait patiently for the next interviewer. He turns, an adorable smile pulling at his lips while you pretend to ignore his fiery gaze. “Well that went pretty well, minus the fact that I’m on Kal poop duty for a week...but uh...” He leans in close to you now, “I missed you all morning.”

Breaking out into a smile you raise a brow, “Boring without me huh?”

“Always.”

You casually shrug, “I figured as much. Don’t worry, we have a hotel all to ourselves tonight.” Your brows wiggle suggestively causing your blue eyed lover to shake his head with amusement.

“Say it louder next time.” He jokes.

Side eyeing the oblivious crew you begin to speak a couple octaves louder, “Henry I can’t wait to fu..” Suddenly his hand presses against your mouth before you’re able to call any attention to yourself. He gives you a warning look before slowly pulling his hand from your mouth.

You grin mischievously, “I wasn’t gonna say that...”

“Sure Y/N,” He mutters in your ear as a new interviewer walks into the room and finds their chair, “and I’m wasn’t going to make you scream tonight.”

Your brows raise in surprise and admittedly slight arousal at his choice of wording in this room of all places. Eyeing him up, face still showing surprise, you finally break out into a satisfied smirk. “You know what? I think you should consider changing your offer.”

He thinks deeply for a moment, though you know he’s only pretending to get you riled up, “Hrmm...maybe, possibly, should I? Should we? You are my co-star after all, that wouldn’t be very professional now would it Y/N?” He states with a shit eating grin, all done while the crew and interviewer get ready, minding their business and completely unaware to yourself and Henry’s teasing.

Scoffing playfully you lightly swat his arm, “We are way past being professional.”

He chuckles, looking from you to the rest of the room, “Oh, they have no idea.”

#the witcher x reader #henry cavill x y/n #henry cavill x female reader #henry cavill x you #henry cavill x reader #henry cavill

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odos-bucket · 3 years ago

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More Protective!Batdad Fic, With the Pretense that this is a Series Mostly Given Up

They’re returning to the cave after Robin’s first night out since the start of Tim’s parents’ most recent stay in the city. It had been a routine patrol, made noteworthy only by the return of the boy wonder. They’d gotten into a bit of a scuffle with some muggers towards the end of the night, but it wasn’t anything they couldn’t handle, and they had both come away from it unharmed. At least that was what Bruce thought at the time. And he paid pretty close attention to things.

But when the domino mask comes off he can clearly see where Tim has a black eye, and a bruise blooming over his cheek.

“What happened?” He leaves his cowl and gloves on the computer, and takes a few steps closer to where Tim is fishing his civilian clothes out of a bag.

“Huh?” Tim bunches up the shirt he’s holding into a fist, and his eyes dart around for a moment without settling on Bruce. “Oh.” Fingers of his free hand fly up to hover over his injured cheek. “Thief got in a lucky shot.” His voice is a fraction of an octave higher than usual.

Bruce’s eyes automatically narrow as he begins his mental recall of the events that had transpired less than twenty minutes prior.

“I didn’t see you get hit,” he says slowly.

Tim just shrugs.

The bruise is too dark to be less than half an hour old anyway. It had to have come from sometime earlier in the day. It had been hidden beneath the mask though, and they’d both already been in full costume when they’d met earlier that evening.

Before Bruce can say anything else, Tim is ducking into a private alcove to finish getting changed. He’s a bit slower at it than usual, and Bruce wonders if that could be indicative of other hidden injuries, or if Tim is just drawing it out to avoid further scrutiny. Several minutes go by, and he finally clears his throat.

“Tim?”

“Just a second.” The words come out quickly.

Bruce goes to change himself, only to find that Tim still isn’t out by the time he’s finished and returned. He knocks gently on the wall that’s partitioning off the section of the cave where he’s changing, and hears a soft startled gasp, before Tim’s scurrying out.

“Yep! Sorry! Sorry! Just a little spaced.”

“Tim.” Bruce hopes his voice sounds gentle. “What happened?”

“What do you mean? I told you-“

“Don’t lie to me. That didn’t come from just now.” Bruce pauses and sighs. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

Tim shakes his head.

“I won’t tolerate you hiding injuries from me.”

“I’m not.”

They stand looking at each other for several drawn out, silent seconds.

“Were you patrolling on your own?” Bruce asks after a minute. “I’m going to find out if you-“

“No.” Tim sounds even less like his normal self when he cuts in. “I promise I wasn’t.”

“All right. So what is it? Did something happen during the day?”

As much as Bruce wants to know about it if Tim’s getting into fights at school, or somewhere else, he recognizes that it may not be his place to intervene if this wasn’t vigilante related. That’s fine (at least so he tells himself) but he’d like assurance that someone’s looking out for his Robin.

“Is it something you can handle with your parents?” He tries.

Tim’s eyes widen for half a second, and then he bursts into tears.

Bruce briefly freezes, before returning to himself and rushing to Tim’s side.

“I’m so stupid,” Tim is muttering, barely discernibly. “I’m sorry. I was so stupid.” The words barely come out between bouts of gasping, shuddering sobs.

Bruce wants to beg him to tell him what happened, but settles for reaching out a careful arm, and slowly pulling him close. Tim freezes for a fraction of a second, before melting into his side, continuing to mumbled unintelligibly.

“It’s all right,” Bruce tries to sooth, very aware that he doesn’t really have the voice for that sort of thing. “You’re okay.” He desperately wishes that he could offer some more specific reassurances, but he still doesn’t know what’s going on. “I’ve got you,” he settles for, running a hand through Tim’s hair.

They stay like that for a while, Tim crying, and apologizing, and Bruce telling him it’s okay, and wishing he could be sure that it was true. Eventually the tears dry up, and the breathing evens out, and the tense body beside his goes limp with exhaustion. Bruce doesn’t let go, not until he feels Tim starting to shift around restlessly. And even then he stays close enough to be easily collapsed into again, should the need arise.

“I messed up,” Tim says, after a few false starts.

“Whatever it is, we can fix it.” A ridiculous promise, and one that Bruce normally wouldn’t be making without more information. But somehow- without Bruce meaning to allow him to- Tim has joined the narrow ranks of those capable of inducing him to speak or behave a-procedurally.

Tim shakes his head.

“Tim, I want to help, but you have to give me something to work with.”

Tim is too focused on keeping his eyes dry, and his breathing steady to respond.

“Do you want me to take you home?” Bruce forces himself to offer, forces himself to remember that this child isn’t his, doesn’t need him the way the other robins did.

Another sob escapes Tim, and he buries his face in his hands. There’s a pang in Bruce’s chest as he realizes what he has to ask next.

“Did something happen at home?”

The question is met with heavy breathing, followed by a drawn out silence, and then, finally, a slow nod.

Bruce forces down his rising anger, as Tim finally gathers himself to speak.

“I don’t know if they want me to go back.” It comes out in a hoarse whisper. “Dad was so mad at me.”

Fury coils in Bruce’s gut, and lies in wait for his next question to be answered.

“Did he do this?” He gestures to the black eye.

“It’s never happened before,” Tim rushes to say. “Nothing like this ever has.”

“That doesn’t matter.” Bruce practically growls. Tim, to his credit, seems entirely unaffected by the intensity of the tone.

“I started it,” he says.

“… There’s no way that’s true.”

“Bruce,” Tim chokes out, leaning back into him.

“I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Bruce pulls him close like he could absorb Tim into himself, like if he holds him tightly enough he can keep him safe- as if he’s actually capable of keeping any child safe. This will never happen again, he wants to say, I won’t let it. His mind is racing. He doesn’t want to let Tim back into that house, doesn’t want to let him out of his sight really. He’s never been able to fathom how the Drakes can have this selfless, determined, brilliant child in their care, and be so willing to spend all their time away from him. He’s been wary of them from the beginning. But he never imagined that they could pose this kind of danger to their son.

“This is so stupid,” Tim grumbles into Bruce’s shoulder.

Bruce can’t disagree, though he’s a little worried that they aren’t on the same page about what exactly that means.

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” Tim continues after a minute. “I thought- I thought things were going well!”

“Telling me was the right thing to do,” Bruce says quickly. “If somebody’s hurting you- no matter who it is-“

“That isn’t what I mean.” He takes a deep breath, and leans back a little bit.

Bruce watches patiently, as Tim calms his nerves, and steadies himself.

“I… told Mom and Dad about Connor,” he breathes. “Not the alien clone thing, obviously. But, I told them that I was seeing someone- a guy- and I don’t even know why I did it! In the back of my head I knew there was no way it was going to go over well. I knew that. I was just, I don’t know, feeling happy, and okay for the first time in a while. So I thought-“ He shakes his head. “I mean I didn’t think; that was the problem. And Mom reacted the way I knew she- the way I should have known she would. And I got mad, and I started yelling at her, and Dad, when I yelled at her, Dad, that’s when he- he…”

Bruce’s heart breaks. It’s not like he’d imagined that Jack Drake would have a good reason for lashing out at his son, but this was nothing.

“I’m still not hearing anything that you did wrong.” He forces himself to stay calm.

“Trying to come out to them was dumb! I didn’t need to do it. They were leaving soon anyways, it shouldn’t have mattered!”

“No. They shouldn’t have hurt you,” Bruce says fiercely. “This is part of who you are, so it should always matter. It’s not stupid to assume that people who are supposed to care about you would want to know more about what’s going on in your life. Tim, you did nothing wrong.”

He runs a hand up and down his back, like he’d done when Dick had nightmares as a child.

Tim glances at him out of the glassy corner of his eye, and scrubs his hands roughly over his face, before mumbling something that Bruce doesn’t catch.

He waits for a beat, before quietly asking if Tim will repeat himself.

“They don’t want me coming around here anymore,” he says more clearly, voice suddenly empty. “They- they saw that interview you did a couple years back, where you came out as bisexual.” His face is tinged pink, ashamed to even be repeating his parent’s words. “So they think that I, I don’t know, caught it from you, like it’s contagious or something. But I didn’t know where else to go! And I- I don’t want to give this up…“ He gestures broadly to the cave around them as hiccuping breaths overpower his speech.

Bruce just holds on as Tim continues to cry, softly repeating that he didn’t do anything wrong, carefully keeping the furious voice raging, ‘those bastards won’t take you away from me,’ under wraps. He doesn’t let himself think about every other instance of his sexuality being cited as a factor making him an unsuitable guardian that he’s committed to precise memory, the vicious arguments that his children should be taken away from him, the fact that if he hadn’t been born so lucky in so many other ways they might have been. Tim doesn’t need him to be angry, Tim needs him to be smart.

They wait out the tears again, until they’re not falling so heavily, and Tim is shuddering occasionally, rather than continuously, and can compose himself enough to speak.

“I didn’t mean to dump all this on you,” he says once he’s mostly calmed down.

“Oh, sweetheart.” Bruce threads his fingers through locks of lightly tangled hair. “I’m so glad you told me what happened. You’re going to stay here tonight, okay?”

Tim is with them often enough when his parents aren’t around that they already have a room made up for him, a room which after less than a year has come to show more evidence of his personality than his bedroom at the Drake’s mansion.

Tim nods.

“Thank you.”

Bruce squeezes his shoulder.

“Do you still have pajamas here? Or do you need to borrow a pair of Dick’s?”

It’s something easy in a moment where everything feels impossibly difficult.

“I brought them with me when I went home.” His breath catches on the last word, and it only half comes out.

“That’s all right. Dick won’t mind.”

Now it’s just a matter of getting themselves upstairs. There will be more to worry about tomorrow, much more, and it will undoubtedly only increase in the days that follow. Bruce will have to figure out whether or not Jack and Janet Drake are looking for their son, and he can’t quite decide which the worse option is at this point. He’ll also need to make sure he understands what exactly is within his power to do to keep Tim safe. Bruce stops himself before he can begin preparing for the future too obsessively. He brings himself back to the present moment, stairs, pajamas, bed, all very manageable tasks.

He just really doesn’t want to let go of the child in his arms. The realization that Tim might need him more than he thought is overpowering, making him feel violently protective, and a little bit terrified.

Some of the strain of the moment breaks when Tim uses the side of Bruce’s arm to stifle a yawn, but it’s still a little while longer before they’re ready to head upstairs.

When they do, Tim wanders up to his room, where Bruce hopes he’ll find easy rest. He stays awake and finds Alfred. There’s a lot they need to talk about.

#batfam #batfamily #tim drake #bruce wayne #batman and robin #batman #dc #batdad #jack and janet drake #my writing

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a-n-conrad · 3 years ago

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Painting (Steve Rogers x Reader)

[Summary: You decide to paint your friend, Steve Rogers, realizing that no one had ever painted him without his uniform. However, things start to get heated after you start to daydream during your painting session. (She/Her pronouns)

Warnings: SMUT (18+, but with emotions), Not Canon Compliant (Because fuck you, Marvel.), Swearing, unprotected vaginal sex

Request: From my request survey (https://forms.gle/D9rsJtkERoBPaKvv8)]

You and Steve Rogers were widely considered to be an unlikely pair. There were a lot of things that you didn’t exactly agree on. Steve was a lot more social, being bold and outgoing. You were a bit quieter, preferring to avoid the company of a crowd. Steve was prone to waking up early to exercise. You stayed up into the quiet hours of the night, choosing instead to get a majority of your sleep in the morning. You weren’t exactly fond of Steve’s workout routines either, though you would join him on a short jog on occasion.

While you were technically considered an Avenger, you were really only brought out to fight for emergency circumstances. You had some incredibly powerful, incredibly volatile powers, but you really had no interest in using them unless it was completely needed. So you ended up making a few deals. You’d be treated like an Avenger, but you were basically benched unless some drastic, world-ending issue came up. So until then, you were kept on hold in Avengers Tower, spending most of your time painting in the studio that Tony had gotten set up for you.

Despite this power, and despite your title as an official Avenger, you were still a bit of an outsider among the team. You tended not to talk to them a lot, becoming a bit easily overwhelmed by the chaos that the team seemed to radiate. But surprisingly, you and Steve got along incredibly well.

You had originally bonded over your love of art. You loved Steve’s drawings. You admired the linework and shading in his drawings. He could do so much with just a pen, let alone if you gave him a few colors. He admired the amount of emotion you managed to instill into every single painting that you made. No matter what you painted, whether it was a portrait, a landscape, or something entirely different, it was always filled to the brim with the emotion that you had felt while painting it. It was like looking through a window into your soul. It was so honest and refreshing.

Eventually the two of you started to talk a bit more while you worked. It started pretty tame, just discussions of how your day was or general questions about each other like “What’s your favorite color”. But eventually you moved on to the harsher topics of your lives. Steve would talk about how exhausting it was to be the face of America, to be held on such a pedestal while also being expected to sacrifice everything at the drop of a hat. You talked about how cold and dehumanizing it felt to be seen by the American government as nothing more than a weapon, a walking nuclear bomb.

Your struggles overlapped at certain points. You both spent a lot of your time being used by the government. You were both seen as tools more than you were seen as people by a lot of the general public. You were a weapon and he was an idol, some sort of trophy. So you bonded a lot over your shared struggles as you talked to each other and worked on art side by side. And when the hard stuff got a bit too heavy, you’d sit and talk about art. About subjects that you just loved to add to all of your work. About what each shade of every color meant to you, about the emotions that you saw in every tiny color shift.

It was so nice, for both of you, to have something like that. The studio that you spent time in was so safe and peaceful for both of you, since the other Avengers tended to avoid it. And the two of you had started to see through each other’s masks enough to truly get to know each other. Steve couldn’t remember the last time someone had known him as Steve Rogers more than they had known him as Captain America. He had Bucky, but Bucky was far too busy with his own issues for Steve to even consider burdening him with anything else. But with you he could truly be himself, even if that meant getting angry, sad, or frustrated.

So the two of you had become incredibly close, despite your differences. And every day that you had some free time without any big meeting or mission, you would be in the studio helping each other with art. It was a good way for you to relieve stress, just relaxing with each other. It was one of those days that you came to a realization.

- - - - -

“Has anyone ever painted you?” You asked suddenly one day as the two of you sat side by side in the art studio. He looked a bit surprised, and then he looked confused.

“Of course. There are murals of me up all over the place, (Y/n).”

“No, there are murals of Captain America,” you responded, shaking your head, “They don’t really look that much like you. You really only look like that when you’re working as Captain America. So has anyone ever painted you? As Steve Rogers?”

He looked surprised again. And you could tell as the emotions cycled through his face that he didn’t really know how to respond. You supposed it was a bit of an odd question. And you knew that it was a bit odd to think of someone and their superhero persona as two different people, but Steve couldn’t disagree. He wasn’t Captain America all the time, and he loved that you understood that, “I suppose I’ve never really thought about it, but I guess not.”

You hummed a bit, “That’s a shame. It feels like a waste that everyone paints a costume. You should let me paint you sometime.”

You said it in a way that he wasn’t sure if you were serious. Your face was entirely serious when you said it, but you said it so casually, not even really looking at him, “Really?”

You finally looked up at him, noticing the pure confusion on his face, “Of course. I mean, you’d have to sit still for a while, but honestly, you could probably just sit and sketch for a while. You just seem too good of a subject to not be painted without the costume.”

Steve wasn’t really one to blush, but it was quite the compliment coming from you. He had women trying to hit on him all the time now, being Captain America, but that never really felt heartfelt. It had been a fairly long time since he had actually felt a real connection with someone. But to hear you compliment him, thinking of him as Steve Rogers instead of Captain America, made his heart flutter a bit. And the fact that he knew that you were rather picky about the subject you painted only made it more effective.

“I, uh, think that’d be cool,” He responded as soon as he was sure that he could trust his voice not to crack, though he couldn’t hide the slight stutter. It was honestly endearing how much his personality changed when he wasn’t working. While he was still headstrong and stubborn, he was a bit less confident. He knew he could win a fight. He knew that he looked good on television. But he didn’t really know how to interact with people in the new modern age. He was lucky to have the friends that he did. At least, that’s how he felt about it.

“Wonderful,” You hummed, starting to put away all of your supplies, “Why don’t we pack it up for the day and I can start painting you tomorrow if we aren’t too busy?”

“Yeah, sounds like a plan.”

- - - - -

The next day was surprisingly slow. You had to say that you were thankful. You had been looking forward to getting to paint Steve, even though you knew it was making him a little nervous. You were honestly excited to have a new project, and part of you was excited for the opportunity to stare at Steve for a bit without it being considered weird. He was easy to admire, both physically and on a personal level, so you found yourself staring more often than you’d like to admit. You were pretty sure that you had been lucky enough to avoid being caught though.

He was physically gorgeous. Obviously. But something about the way that he looked when he was drawing was nearly angelic. The way he furrowed his brows just a little and turned his paper at odd angles to make sure that the proportions of his sketches were right was adorable. The look in his eyes when his work started to come together made your heart melt. When he got a bit frustrated and would run a hand through his hair you could feel your heart skip a beat. You felt a bit dumb to be drooling over your friend, but you had to admit you were falling pretty hard for him. So you’d use this painting as an excuse to admire him without any questions.

He was already blushing a bit when he came into the studio, and you had a feeling that part of it was from Tony teasing him. He had a habit of giving the two of you a bit of a hard time about how much time you spent together. But the blush was still adorable. Something about Steve when he was nervous stole your heart. He was surprisingly soft when he had the space to be.

“So, uh, what’s the plan?” He asked as he strode over to your work station that you had already gotten set up.

“Just pull a chair up in front of me. You can get comfortable, start sketching, and I’ll get a base outline and block out as much as I can. Just let me know if you need a break and try not to change your pose too much. At least until I can get all of the base shapes right,” You instructed, trying to keep your voice even. You were surprised at how well you managed to hide the fact that you were completely lovesick.

“Alright, sounds good,” He responded, pulling up a chair and getting himself situated. He crossed one of his legs over the other, resting his ankle on his other thigh to give himself a place to set his sketchbook. You tossed him his pencil once he got himself settled, and then you got to work.

You had to admit you had started to get a bit frustrated with how easily you managed to get distracted by him while you were trying to paint. You had hoped that maybe painting him would help. You had no reason to get distracted from your painting when you were painting him. At least, that’s what you had thought before you started sketching out the form.

You felt yourself losing focus as your brush moved smoothly, the incredibly thin, light paint building a form that you found yourself wanting to know a bit more intimately. You tried your best to stay focused on the canvas in front of you, but you couldn’t stop your mind from drifting. You imagined what his body looked like under his clothes as you blocked out the lights and shadows of the fabric that rested over his abs. And the vivid image in your brain, the detailed picture of his body that you had conjured up in front of you, followed your brush as you worked.

The brush slid smoothly across the canvas, outlining his muscles, almost all of which showed through his thin t-shirt. Your brain almost instantly conjured up a matching image, the fantasy becoming more and more dynamic as you went on. It shifted from regular images of what his abs looked like when he was shirtless to more detailed images. Thoughts of his biceps flexing a bit as he held himself over you, his arms covered in sweat. Thoughts of his hands sliding across your skin. It only got worse as you moved down, eventually reaching the point between his legs.

“(Y/n)? Are you alright?” Steve’s voice finally broke you from your thoughts, his eyes which had been focused intently on his drawing when you had last looked were now trained on your face, scanning for any sign as to what was causing you to space out, “You don’t normally get distracted when you’re painting, is everything alright?”

“Oh,” You tried your best to pull yourself back to reality, though the fantasies seemed to be burned into your brain, “Yeah, sorry. I was, uh, spacing out a bit.”

“Do you want to take a break for a bit? Maybe we should get up and stretch,” He suggested. You nodded in response, hoping it would help you refocus on your painting.

It didn’t help much, though, as Steve stood, stretching his arms above his head. His shirt lifted up just enough to show some skin, and his pants were riding fairly low. Your eyes almost involuntarily moved to look at him, landing right about the button to the jeans that he was wearing. The muscles in his hips and stomach formed an almost perfect V shape leading into his pants.

“(Y/N)?” You had been caught staring. You tried your best to look casual, relaxing your posture. Your mistake was to try to lean on the table, setting your hand directing on your palette, which was covered in paints.

You froze, and Steve’s eyes landed on your hand, the red and blue paint gushing out from the sides. You felt like an awkward teenager, doing stupid ridiculous shit in front of your crush. You watched intently for a reaction from Steve, not really knowing what to do and hoping that the way that he reacted would give you something easy to respond to.

He raised one of his eyebrows at you, a look of confusion, with a small hint of amusement under the surface painted across his face, “You seem to have set your hand in your paint.”

“Uh, yes, it would seem so,” You responded awkwardly, finally lifting your hand out of the paint. You still really weren’t sure what to say, and not knowing where to put your hand so that you wouldn’t smear any paint anywhere wasn’t really making you feel any better. You cleared your throat a bit, trying to think of something smart to say, something that wouldn’t signal exactly how far gone you were into your fantasies, but instead you just signaled to Steve how flustered you were.

You knew that Steve had never been the biggest ladies’ man. From what he had told you, he was actually pretty awkward growing up, but the confidence that washed over him as he finally figured out what was getting you so flustered was visible. He walked closer to you, standing close enough to emphasize how tall he was, “Got something on your mind, sweetheart?”

“Oh, uh,” You stuttered, not sure what to say. You could tell that he knew from the smirk on his face, but you could feel your face heating up as you thought about explaining your fantasizing to Steve. He smirked even more as you got visibly flustered.

“It’s okay, honey, I don’t mind if you stare a little,” He said, standing a bit closer, his hand moving to hold your chin. You swallowed deeply as his fingers brushed against your skin softly. Your eyes locked with his as his hand tilted your chin up just a little.

As much as he was keeping up his confident, masculine persona, you could see the complete warmth in his eyes. He softened completely when you looked at him, pure admiration in your eyes. He had to admit it warmed his heart to see you looking at him like that, like he was your whole world. And maybe it was because he felt the same way. He had been falling in love with you slowly, and as he looked at you, he wanted to find every way possible to express it.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispered, his voice soft.

“Please.”

His lips were much softer than you thought they’d be, but you didn’t think about it too much as his lips moved against your own. It was soft at first, but it began to escalate quickly, getting rough and more passionate. His hands moved to your waist, pulling your body into his own, and your hands moved to his face, too focused on the kiss to notice the fact that you were smearing paint across his cheek.

He pulled back, allowing you to get a breath of air. That was when you noticed the red and blue streaks across his cheek, “Shit, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about,” He brushed it off, before pulling you into another kiss. He truly didn’t seem to care at all about the paint, choosing instead to focus on you.

This kiss started off much more passionate, building even further. Before long he pulled away again, pulling a groan from your mouth as you instinctively wanted more. Your complaints were silenced, though, as he began to kiss down your neck, nipping slighting at a few select spots, leaving marks for you to see later.

“If you want me to stop, just say it,” He said, as his hands started to move towards the hem of your shirt. He was moving slowly, giving you the chance to stop him at any point. You didn’t.

Before long, your clothes were entirely discarded, scattered haphazardly across the floor. Steve’s followed shortly. Neither of you could keep your hands to yourself, feeling the curves of each other's bodies as you continued to kiss. Both of you were desperate, the tension that neither of you even realized had been building finally crashing to the ground around you, any sort of restraint being thrown out the window.

However, you had to take a few moments to admire his body. You knew that it was perfect, he was a super soldier, of course it’s perfect, but you didn’t really know how perfect until it was right in front of you. There was no way you could’ve imagined it in a way that did it true justice. The warmth under his skin, the pace of his breathing, the firm feeling of his grip on your waist. Those were things that you could never have imagined fully.

He lifted you up without any issue, placing his hands under your thighs, carrying you to the work table and setting you on a clear section of the table without breaking the kiss. His hands slid across the tops of your thighs before grabbing your hips. Yours moved from his cheeks to rest on his bare chest, smearing a bit more paint across his scalped chest. You could feel his erection brush against your leg as he leaned over you, the two of you trying to get as close to each other as possible.

You were breathing heavily, your brain clouded with need, both new and left over from your earlier fantasies. Fantasies that were coming true, “Please, Steve.”

“What is it, Sweetheart?” Steve asked, looking down at you, his pupils blown wide with desire, “What do you want?”

You began to grind against his thigh without really thinking about it. He had to admit that something about you needing him this much turned him on, but he wanted to wait until you said it before he did anything, “Please fuck me.”

He would’ve liked to have a bit more foreplay, but both of you were so needy, having built up to this for so long with so little release until now. So he complied with your request. He pulled you quickly to the edge of the table. You were forced to lay your upper body down completely so that he could pull your hips to hang over the edge a bit. He took a few moments to rub himself against the entrance to your pussy, coating the head of his cock with liquid that was practically dripping from your pussy. Finally, he pushed himself into you slowly, making sure to monitor your reaction for any sort of discomfort. You were indulging in the feeling of him slowly stretching you out, completely enjoying the feeling of having him as close to you as possible.

He started moving after he was sure that you were comfortable, his hands beginning to wander your body, squeezing at your hips and breasts, basically any part of you that had a bit of squish, something for him to grab. His mouth latched on to the base of your neck, leaving a deep, dark hickey. You could feel every movement of his hips, his cock brushing against your internal walls again with each thrust.

You couldn’t hold back your moans as he found the perfect spot to hit, one of his hands gripping one of your hips tightly to hold you in place as his thrusts gained momentum. He started picking up speed a bit, taking care to continue to hit the spot that made you moan the loudest. His other hand slid down further, his fingers making their way between your folds. He was surprisingly quick to find your clit, not that you were complaining. Your eyes practically rolled back in your head as he started to rub small circles over it, keeping pace with his thrusts.

You were practically putty in his hands, falling apart as he found every way to make you moan. Touch, squeezing, kissing, and biting exactly where you needed him to. You had no idea how he knew exactly what you wanted, but you didn’t really care as a knot began to build in the pit of your stomach.

You practically screamed his name as the knot finally snapped, Steve continuing his motions, continuing to rub your clit, as you rode out your climax, your whole body feeling as though fireworks were shooting through your veins. Your walls tightened with the waves of your orgasms, the fluttering feeling clear to Steve as he continued to bury himself inside of you. Soon after your climax finished, you could feel his thrust begin to get a bit sloppy, focus clear on his face as he tried his best to hold on longer.

He couldn’t hold on that long, though, soon giving in to the building pleasure. He came hard, his hips snapping into your own and his head being buried in your neck to hide his curses as he came completely undone. You could feel the thick hot ropes of his cum coating your insides as he finished. You both stayed like that for a few moments in order to catch your breath.

As you started to come back to reality, you finally noticed the mess you had made. Steve’s hair was a mess, blue paint sticking some of the tips together. You couldn’t even remember when you had grabbed his hair, but the paint smears left a clear map of where your hand had wandered. The blue and red stripes across his face and chest were clear, too. In fact, you had gotten paint all over his sculpted body, the blue smears outlining his muscles.

“We should probably clean up and get back to work, huh?” He eventually sighed, his eyes never leaving your body.

“I suppose.”

(A/N: Thanks for reading! If you want to send me a tip for my writing feel free to tip me over venmo! My venmo is Al3x13l. Tips aren't required, but as a broke college student, they are appreciated.)

#steve rogers x reader #marvel x reader #marvel #steve rogers #captain america #captain america x reader #smut #friends to lovers

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