#reblogging again for maybe more votes? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

navybrat817 · 9 months

Text

Sundresses and Leather

Pairing: Tattoo Artist!Bucky Barnes x Baker!Female Reader Summary: Your first date with Bucky doesn't go as planned, but that makes it all the more special. Word Count: Over 4.7k Warnings: First date, tension, flirting, brief moments of insecurity, slight feels (it's me), Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?). Graphics talent and thanks: Banner by @sgt-seabass. Divider by @firefly-graphics. Bucky edit by Nix. Moodboard by yours truly. Previous Part of AU: Sweet and Strong A/N: More Hottie and Sugar from our Sin on Skin AU. ❤️ Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby (thank you for spitballing), but any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Tonight was the night. You were going out with Bucky Barnes. Excited for the date was a bit of an understatement. You may have told a few customers you had a date when they wished you a good day.

Thank God they were mostly regulars and seemed happy on my behalf.

"Maybe a sundress isn't nice enough," you told Tess, regretting the words the moment they left your mouth. She didn’t need to deal with you and your overthinking. Again.

"It's plenty nice. You’re going to look amazing,” she argued, going to check on the next batch of cookies. “And he can lift the skirt and bury his-"

"I thought you said I didn't have to get laid on my first date with him," you cut her off.

"You don't have to, but the visual alone will give him something for his spank bank later."

"Thank you for the vote of confidence," you smiled, but it quickly faltered.

You weren’t sure why a cloud drifted over your sunny disposition. Bucky was a good guy, a far cry from Richard. Gorgeous, kind, hardworking, the whole package. There was chemistry between the two of you that went beyond mere attraction. Maybe it was the fact that you were falling hard and fast for him that suddenly made you so nervous. You didn’t want to scare him away.

But he said he couldn’t stop thinking about me and he wouldn’t say that if he didn’t mean it.

Tess gave you a pointed look. “Stop overthinking. I’m begging you.”

“I’m not trying to,” you sighed, your nerves almost tempting you to grab a treat from the case. “What if I fall on my face?”

“Like Bucky would let you hit the ground. Even if you do stumble, that’s life. It isn’t going to change the fact that he likes you,” she said as you helped her with the cookies. You still had work to do. “The guy said he can’t get you off his mind and to text him whenever you want. He does not strike me as the type to just say those things and I know he doesn’t strike you as that type either.”

It took a moment, but your smile came back. She was right. Life wasn’t perfect and you were far from it, but Bucky liked you just as you are. Tonight would be unforgettable no matter what.

“I appreciate the pep talk,” you said, thankful that she told you what you needed to hear. “I’ll even tell you the dirty details if anything happens.”

“Hell yeah, you will. Remember, at this point, I’m living vicariously through you until I find my own hunk,” she winked. “But I mean it. Have fun tonight and get your man.”

I will.

After your shift, you rushed to change for your date. You somehow managed to arrive a few minutes early outside of Bucky's shop and took a deep breath to get yourself under control. Catching your reflection in the window, you smiled before you turned away. Since Bucky hadn’t given you any hint for what you were doing, you chose your nicest sundress and kept your makeup minimal. You looked and felt beautiful, though you wished you would’ve brought a jacket with you.

Maybe Bucky will let me borrow his if he has one.

“Holy shit.”

You spun around when you heard Bucky’s voice behind you, your heart fluttering as he met you on the sidewalk. Instead of the jeans you usually saw him in, he wore khakis, a button up shirt, and a blue blazer that matched his eyes. He had his hair down, perfectly parted on the right side. You were so busy staring at the broad, handsome man that it took you a moment to realize he was trying to hand you something.

Flowers.

“Sorry. You just… wow,” he said as you took the small bouquet, sweeping his gaze over you as your cheeks grew warm. “You look so beautiful.”

You giggled and quickly covered your mouth with your hand, butterflies in your stomach when he gently smiled. “Don’t apologize,” you smiled back, taking a moment to smell the flowers. “You look pretty ‘holy shit’ yourself.”

His nose scrunched as he laughed and offered you his hand. “So, you’re telling me I clean up well. Steve insisted on the blazer when I said I wanted to bring my leather jacket.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. Though I wouldn’t have minded the leather jacket,” you said. He would’ve looked gorgeous, as always. “And thank you for suggesting we meet here. We had a last minute order and I was scrambling."

"It's no problem. One of my clients was running a few minutes late and I almost had to take you out in jeans."

"I wouldn't have minded," you said. You both worked hard and understood that things would come up from time to time. "So, where are we headed?"

He cleared his throat as he led you to his car. “Well, do you want the good news or the bad news?”

Your stomach dropped a little. “Mmm. Bad news first,” you said after a moment. “Always better to end on a high note.”

“Bad news was I had planned to take you out on my motorcycle so we could have a picnic in the park. There was going to be live music and I would’ve asked you to dance,” he explained, looking up at the sky. “But…”

“The weather called for a storm tonight, didn’t it?” you mused, a wistful smile on your face when he nodded. The image of being in his arms under the stars as music drifted through the air made your heart skip a beat. It sounded like the perfect evening.

“Yeah. The band is rescheduling,” he said, tucking his hair behind his ear as he looked at the ground. “Then I thought I could take you to this art gallery nearby. They normally have these stunning paintings of landscapes and various statues, but the current exhibit is on human sexuality and reproduction. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but maybe it was too much for a first date.”

“Oh, come on. It couldn’t have been that bad,” you argued as he stopped and took out his phone.

“No?” he asked, tapping his screen before he showed you what you assumed was the page for the gallery.

“…That’s a giant dick,” you said before you could stop yourself, tilting your head as you stared at the phone. “And does that say BALLS?”

An older woman crossing in the opposite direction gave you an amused stare before you and Bucky burst into a fit of laughter. You had to hold on his arm to keep from collapsing on the ground. It was the funniest thing you had seen since you could remember and to think you almost saw it in person.

This date is off to a great start.

“Maybe I wanted to see a giant dick and balls,” you said once you caught your breath, pointing at him when he opened his mouth. “And don’t say ‘all I have to do is pull down my pants’ or something like that.”

But I know he has a big dick. I know.

He smirked as he started walking again. “Only if you ask me nicely, Sugar.”

He’s going to kill my ovaries.

“I’ll ask you very nicely, Hottie,” you teased, wondering exactly where you were going then. “If that was the bad news, what’s the good news?”

“I managed to get us a reservation at one of the nicest restaurants in town,” he said, standing a bit taller.

He’s trying to impress me.

“That's really nice. And I’m sure dinner will be amazing,” you assured him, hoping he didn’t beat himself up over having to change his plans. It wasn’t his fault it was going to rain. He could’ve taken you to a fast food place and it would’ve been fine because you were with him.

“Speaking of, I better get us there so we aren’t late,” he said, opening the door for you to get in. “Maybe if you agree to a second date, I can take you out on my bike and have that picnic.”

“I’d love that,” you smiled, carefully putting the flowers in your lap and trying not to appear too eager that he was already thinking of a second date. You glanced around the car when he got in and drove off, noticing it was cleaner than when he took you home days prior.

Did he clean it for me?

You grinned as he hummed along to the radio, watching as he drummed his fingers along the steering wheel. “You could’ve made it as a musician if you weren’t a tattoo artist.”

“Now you’re just flattering me, Sugar,” he said. “Believe it or not, if I wasn’t a tattoo artist, I would’ve liked to be a science teacher. I loved science and everything space related growing up.”

“Really?” you asked. He would’ve been a wonderful teacher, no matter what age group he taught. “Okay. That’s another date night.”

“What? Playing teacher?” he joked, taking his eyes off the road for a second to wink at you.

“No,” you giggled, carefully shoving his arm since he was driving. “We’re going to a science museum. That's our third date. I’m going to watch you happily geek out over everything.”

“Yeah?” he asked, glancing at you after he parked the car. “You’d do that?”

“Yeah, I would. I think it would be a blast.”

I just want to spend time with you.

A soft expression took over his features when he took your hand and brought it to his mouth. His lips lightly brushed your skin, heat pooling in your gut as he made eye contact with you. The look alone made you want to skip dinner and go right to dessert. Why not throw caution to the wind?

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he promised before he got out.

You exhaled slowly and mentally told your libido to calm down. At the very least, you had to get through dinner. He went through the trouble of getting a reservation at a nice place and you weren’t about to take that away from him.

“Oh, wow. I haven’t been here before,” you said once you got a look at the name. Richard used to brag about the place, but never actually took you. From what you remember, he said the food was supposed to be expensive. You didn’t want Bucky to splurge on you.

“I haven’t either,” Bucky admitted. A fancy place didn’t seem like his style. “But it looked romantic.”

You bit your lip as he opened the door, the flickering candlelight in the entryway alone providing an intimate ambience. The date may not have been what he planned, but he clearly did his research and put thought into doing something nice for you. When was the last time someone tried to do something nice for you? When did anyone go out of their way to make you feel special?

“Hello,” Bucky said as the hostess greeted you. “Reservation for two under James.”

James?

The hostess scanned her screen before she looked up. “I’m sorry. That name isn’t coming up.”

Bucky’s cheeks turned pink when you glanced at him. “It should be under James, miss. James Barnes. Reservation for two for 7pm. I spoke with Charles. He confirmed it.”

You moved closer to Bucky when the hostess searched through her screen again. As calm as he sounded, you sensed he was anything but inside. You hoped he wasn’t embarrassed. Maybe she skipped over his name. A simple mistake.

“Charles did make a reservation for you, but he entered it for 7pm next Friday,” she said as she looked between the two of you. “We’re fully booked tonight. I'm sorry, James.”

Oh, no.

There was a tick in Bucky’s jaw before he shook his head and you wanted nothing more than to hug him. “No, that’s… It’s for tonight.”

“I’m so sorry. I can see if we can squeeze a table in for you, but it’ll be at least an hour,” she said, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. She probably expected one or both of you to make a scene. "I can get my manager?"

Bucky swallowed when he looked at you, his cheeks still pink. The candlelight danced in his eyes, but all you saw was sadness. No. You wouldn't allow that. This was your first date and it was going to be amazing.

You put a hand on his arm, his muscles relaxing under your touch. "It's okay. I know this amazing place that’s right around the corner."

"Are you sure?" he asked, the hostess visibly relaxing when you nodded.

"You have a good evening," you said to the hostess and tugged Bucky back toward the door. "I'm sure. Trust me. We may even beat the rain if we walk now."

“Okay,” he said, avoiding your gaze as you left. “Fuck. This is the worst first date, isn’t it?”

Your heart broke for him. All he wanted was to give you a nice evening and everything he tried fell through. “Not even close. And you have nothing to apologize for. Charles messed up the reservation, Hottie, not you.”

“Yeah, he did,” he said, his lip tugging like he wanted to smile. “I just really wanted tonight to be special and since I couldn’t give you the date I planned, I wanted to at least give you something nice. I couldn't even do that.”

Hearing that made you stop, even when you felt the first raindrop. "Tonight is special because you're spending time with me. That's all I wanted," you promised, squeezing his hand for good measure.

"That's really all?" he asked as he squeezed your hand in return.

"Well, not completely," you teased as another raindrop landed on your shoulder. "Maybe a kiss at the end of our date."

A wide smile formed on his face as he leaned in, not quite kissing you. "Whatever you want, Sugar."

As romantic as it was to stand on the sidewalk with him, the rain began to come down harder and had you rushing with him around the corner. “If you're still disappointed, you’ll feel much better when we eat. Antonia’s has the best food,” you said, holding out your hand in a grand gesture as you arrived. “Tada!”

Antonia's was a bit of a hole-in-the-wall kind of place. Not extraordinary on the outside, but lively and bright on the inside. The food and service were top notch. It was one of your favorite places.

“Wait, Antonia's?” he asked, a twinkle in his eyes. “This is where you’re taking me?”

“Yeah,” you replied, suddenly nervous as you faced him. Did he not like it? “Is this okay?”

“This is one of my new favorite restaurants,” he said.

No way.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. I designed one of Antonia's tattoos. And I decided to check out the place."

He's full of surprises.

"Then you know you're in for a treat," you winked.

The hearty aroma of the restaurant filled the air as you went inside and wiped some of the rain off your dress. Antonia was speaking with the hostess as you went up to the stand. The owner was involved in virtually every part of her restaurant.

"Welcome to…" Antonia began as she looked at you, then at Bucky, then back at you. "Oh! You two… it's a date!"

Antonia looks so happy.

"Hi. And yes. We're on a date," you giggled when Bucky sheepishly smiled. It was sweet. "You wouldn't happen to have a table for two available, would you?"

Antonia put her hand over her heart and flagged down a waiter with the other. "Lover's special for these two. Go."

You exchanged a look with Bucky, who appeared just as confused as you were. "Lover's special?"

"Yes, yes. Come with me," she said, patting Bucky's cheek before she took you through the restaurant. You expected her to seat you at one of the few empty tables, but she passed them to take you to a door in the back. "Tonight is special and that means a special dinner."

Your eyes widened at the sight before you once she opened the door. There was a lone table in the middle of the room, flowers similar to the bouquet Bucky gave you sat in the center. Unlike the bright main room, the dimmed lights gave the room a romantic glow.

Perfect.

"Peter will serve you. And if you need anything, just ask, okay?" Antonia asked, putting her hand over her heart again. Were there tears in her eyes? "Two of my favorite customers. Together! Enjoy!"

You had to pause and swallow the lump in your throat once she left you alone. A restaurant owner showed more enthusiasm for your date than your mom did for anything that involved you. She likely never would.

"You okay?" Bucky asked, pulling out your chair.

"I'm fine," you replied, refusing to let the thought of your mom damper the evening. "A little chilly. I should've brought a sweater with me."

Bucky removed his blazer and put it around you, tenderness in his blue eyes as he rubbed your arms. "I can't wait to see you in my leather jacket," he said, helping you take your seat before he took his.

Oh, he's going to give me his jacket? Am I going to only wear his jacket? Fuck.

"Thank you," you said, inhaling as he rolled up one of his sleeves beneath the elbow and then the other. You reached across the table to lightly trace one of the tattoos on his right arm. "It was nice of Antonia to put us back here."

"Then why did you look so sad when she left?"

He caught that?

"She just looked so happy to see us together and I didn't expect that. It's nice that someone is rooting for us," you said, tracing your finger along his wrist before you stopped. "I'm sorry. I should've asked before I started touching."

"Don't apologize. I like your touch," he said in a low voice.

You lifted your gaze, seeing fire in his eyes that had nothing to do with the dim lighting. When he turned his hand over to hold yours, you made no move to pull away. You wished you could put your hands all over him.

"Hi! I'm Peter!" The waiter greeted as he brought water to the table. Bucky didn't let go of your hand. "I'll be taking care of you tonight."

"Only one taking care of my girl tonight is me," Bucky said. As much as you loved hearing that, you were glad he gave poor Peter a tiny smile so he could relax. "I'm kidding. It's good to see you, Peter."

"Y-You, too, Mr. Barnes. And you, Miss. You have the best cupcakes in town."

"Thanks," you smiled, quickly putting in your order before you gazed at Bucky. "So, James. Tell me more about you. How long have you been friends with Steve?"

"James is my first name. Everyone calls me Bucky," he chuckled before he shook his head. "And that punk."

You smiled softly as you listened to Bucky, not at all surprised by how easily the conversation went. Steve was his best friend since childhood and they served together before they went into business together. It was evident that he took pride in his shop and respected everyone who worked there. He carried the same affection in his tone when he spoke about his sister, Rebecca. He liked to frequent art galleries with Steve, but also enjoyed riding his bike, reading, and everything science in his spare time.

I could listen to him talk for hours.

"You know, you haven't said much about yourself," he pointed out as he set his napkin on his empty plate.

"I haven't?" You asked.

"No, you haven't and I don't want to monopolize the conversation," he said, leaning forward to give you his full attention. "I want to know more about you."

You tightened the blazer around you, unsure of what to say. "My life isn't exactly exciting," you said, wishing you could think of something clever or fun to discuss.

"Doesn't have to be exciting. I just want to know you," he said before Peter showed back up.

"Would you like to look at the desert menu?" he asked as he took your plates away.

"I think you can bring the check. We're going to skip dessert," you answered, giving Bucky an assuring smile when he frowned. "Let's go to my shop instead."

If Bucky wanted to really know you, you had to tell him more of your story. Your bakery was the only place to do it. And it would be the perfect way to end the evening.

After you left the restaurant, with Antonia asking you to come back again, Bucky drove as safely as he could to the bakery. The rain didn't let up at all. You shrieked as you struggled to get the keys out of your purse, Bucky's blazer now soaked the longer you stood there. "Why didn't I get these out when I was still in your car?!" You shouted over the downpour.

"Why didn't I bring an umbrella?!" He yelled back, putting his hands over your head as if they would protect you.

The two of you practically fell through the door once you unlocked it and shut off the alarm. "We made it," you laughed, careful not to slip on the floor. He had his arm around you just in case. Tess was right, He wouldn't let you fall. "I'll get us some towels and you have your pick of any dessert I have in the fridge."

"You have any cupcakes?" He asked.

Your breath caught in your throat when you stepped back and caught the outline of multiple tattoos through his soaked shirt. "Yeah."

"See something you like?" he smirked, running a hand through his wet hair.

Fuck me.

"I do," you said, glancing down at yourself. "But I'm freezing and I owe you dessert."

Tess might also have words if I let Bucky ravage me by the front door.

You took Bucky to the kitchen and grabbed a few towels. It wouldn't dry you off completely, but it would help. You also put on some soft music. Not to set the mood necessarily, but just in case.

"So, this is where the magic happens," Bucky said, running the towel along his exposed skin.

"It is," you said, placing your hand on the counter. "You said you wanted to know me. It starts here."

"In the kitchen?"

"In the kitchen," you repeated, going to the fridge to take a container of cupcakes out. "I used to visit my grandparents every weekend when I was growing up. My dad wasn't around and my mom said it was for family quality time, but she never stuck around. The reality was that I cramped her style and she passed me off to them because she knew they wouldn't say no."

Bucky's jaw clenched as you let him take a cupcake. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," you said, gripping the lid tightly before you closed the container. "I remember crying because I wanted to take dance classes and try and make friends. My mom said I would be a terrible dancer and that it would be a waste of time and money. A great thing for a kid to hear, right?"

"Jesus," he whispered.

It wasn't exactly the happiest conversation to have, but you wanted to show Bucky a part of you that you didn't show to most people. "My grandma wiped my tears away and brought me into her kitchen. Said she had the perfect cure for the blues. Baking. And that's what we did every weekend until I got old enough to look after myself."

"Your grandma sounds amazing," he said, carefully examining the cupcake in his hand. "And baking became your passion."

"It did. She taught me to pour love into every creation I make. And that's what Tess and I do for others. If someone is having a bad day, at least they can have a treat and feel a little better," you said, pride in your eyes as you looked around. "My grandma supported my dream, but my mom almost disowned me for wanting to run this place. It isn't good enough in her eyes."

I'm not good enough.

Bucky's nostrils flared as he set the dessert down. "Your business isn't good enough for her? What the hell? It's flourishing. I can barely find a lull to come in to get some undivided attention. And your customers love you. She should be proud of you."

His defense of you was heartwarming. "Doesn't matter how successful my business is. She wanted me to marry rich, probably so she could get money from me, but I didn't. She berated me when I broke up with Richard. No matter what I do, I'm never going to be good enough in her eyes," you told him, patting the counter with your hand. "But this makes me happy and that's enough."

"That's why you were sad that Antonia was so happy about our date, wasn't it? Because your mom either doesn't or wouldn't support it," he guessed, reaching for you and pulling you into his arms. "She'll probably hate me. I'm not rich. Covered in tattoos."

"I don't care what she thinks of you. I don't need a rich guy or fancy dates. I just want someone who can provide companionship and support. Someone who respects and cares for me," you said, wrapping your arms around him. "A good, hard-working guy like you deserves the same."

It was too soon to voice it, but Bucky was the kind of man you needed in your life. Someone you could share parts of yourself with and know he wouldn't judge. A man who made your heart race beyond lust.

A partnership.

He stared deeply into your eyes and you had no idea what was going through his head, but his gaze told you so much. How could a pair of eyes be so expressive? "You're perfect, Sugar, and more than enough. You hear me?"

Tears welled up in your eyes before you blinked them away. He sounded sincere and unashamed at his declaration. You hadn't done anything to deserve such praise. "No, I'm not," you whispered.

"You are to me. You took a chance and asked me out. Soothed me when tonight didn't go the way I thought it would," he said, gripping your chin to recapture your gaze. "And you trusted me enough to share something vulnerable with me when you didn't have to. It means everything."

"I feel like I can open up to you," you said as the two of you slowly swayed to the beat. You couldn't remember why you were nervous about your date to begin with.

"And I'll take care of you. I mean it."

I hope he knows I'll take care of him, too.

"You know," you began with a soft smile. "Our first kiss was in your shop."

"It was," he smiled.

"So I think it's only fair that we have our second kiss in my shop," you said.

"You did say you wanted a kiss to end our date," he said, bringing a hand to the back of your neck, but giving you a chance to stop him.

You didn't.

Even though you expected it, you still gasped when he molded his mouth against yours. Your heart pounded furiously in your chest, making you both eager and pliant as he licked his way across your lips. When he brushed his tongue against yours and took possession of your mouth, you mewled. Desire nearly blinded you from the taste of him.

I want more.

"I don't want our date to end," you breathed, clutching his arms to steady yourself.

"It doesn't have to," he said, resting a hand on your hip. His eyes were dark and full of want. To have him look at you that way, how could you possibly end the evening with one kiss? Why deny yourself what you both wanted?

"No, it doesn't," you agreed with a coy smile. "So. My place or yours?"

So. How do we think the evening will go? Love and thanks for reading! 💙

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

2K notes · View notes

theminecraftbee · 8 months

Text

sigh okay this year i have actual mob vote opinions. disclaimer: my MAIN opinion is that if i see too much mob vote salt on my dash i'll just block the relevant terms again, and that all three mobs are adorable and i'd like any of them. however, my vague thoughts on them:

crab: i have inherent vault hunters-based crab grudges. the coconut crab appears in my nightmares. however, past that, the crab as an animal is fun, i like crabs alright. the fact it's shown crawling up trees sideways is neat. i'll say mangrove forests are ALREADY one of the loveliest, most alive-feeling biomes, so i don't know if they need an exclusive mob? but it's also realistic for the crab so i'll take it. when it comes to the crab claw itself... many questions. is it an off-hand item? or like create's extendo-reach thing? or what? how MUCH additional reach does it give you? even just two blocks can be wildly useful in my modded experience, but like, is it one or two blocks, or does it double your reach, or what? and does that reach extend to mining at all? the video says it's just block placing, which would make sense from a balance perspective, but does sort of hamstring the claw's usefulness if that's the case; if you misplace a block you're going to have to scaffold over there anyway. if it DOES include mining reach... oh boy, that's a whole new ballgame.

armadillo: cute! i like armadillos! seeing it curled up as a ball, i wonder if it has a block-like form like that? that sounds really fun! like a shulker, or something else you could stand on. (that is PURE speculation, nothing else to suggest that is shown in the video.) it being found in "warm biomes like the savannah" i like more than the mangrove-exclusive crab, especially since the savannah can feel a little sparse and lifeless. i wonder if it's in other warm biomes? as for its effect, it has the most straightforward one: when it gets scared it sheds its scute, and you can use that to make wolf armor. i like wolf armor! wolves have needed some way to make them more survivable for ages! it's not like, got potential to be a massive gamechanger or anything, but it doesn't have to, it's fun!

penguins: by FAR the cutest design. i love that they chose macaroni penguins, excellent choice. the fact they're native to stony shore biomes is also an excellent choice (and far better than choosing a snowy biome; more penguins live in places like the stony shore irl!). the stony shore having penguins also gives it a bit more of the life stony shorelines have irl. their secondary effect, though... honestly, "make boats go faster" doesn't really speak to me? i am enjoying imagining a world where this effect works while iceboating (prepare to rubberband ALL OVER THE PLACE), and i think it would be fun, it just personally compels me the least. which is a shame, because i think the penguins are ABSOLUTELY the cutest!

overall, i think i land towards the armadillo. i like that none of them really have any big, exciting, game changing feature, just nice-to-have. makes it feel less like we miss out on something huge when two of them lose, just miss out on something potentially cute. i still wish the old mob votes could still be added to the game and that the losers here would also be added to the game. i wouldn't be mad if any of these guys won honestly they're all cute and have mildly interesting effects.

and this will be the last time i discuss the mob vote, except maybe to reblog cute art.

#minecraft #wanted to ramble my thoughts #anyway yeah i am Mildly Interested in all of these guys #i think the crab claw has the most potential to be gamebreaking but that it probably won't be lol #and that i understand what the wolf armor would do best #so. armadillo for me i think.#mob vote

679 notes · View notes

autisticempathydaemon · 7 days

Text

Hello... again! Are you hyperfixated on RedactedAudio?

Do you want (need) to know who to follow to cultivate your dashboard and feed your gremlin brain good, good boyfriend roleplay content and my first recommendation post of magnificent fan-artists and fan-writers wasn't enough dopamine for you?

Cool, I’ve got you, and I’ve got even more hyperlinks. Buckle up.

(Note: This is by no means a comprehensive, objective, or complete list, as I have biases and favorites and limited time. If you feel I've missed someone, please feel free to reblog with your additions! I just would have loved a guide like this when I got into the fandom back in August 2022 and wanted to spread some positivity~!)

Fanfiction:

@agentplutonium: they/them

Pluto is just one of the many gorgeous people who've migrated to Tumblr now that Twitter is, ya know, on fire. I've been following them on Tiktok for ages, and I'm so pleased they joined us on tumblr now! Highlights: "Constant" and "Inconvenience" mean the world to me, because there are just not enough aspec headcanons in the fandom, we could always have more.

@angelicaether: they/them

Aether is a fucking gem unto this fandom- not only do they run Sky Side, a friendly, closeknit (hehe) server for 21+ Redacted fans but they also were who we have to thank for Redacted Kinktober 2023, bless them~ Highlights: New Job Posting is magnificent if you’re in the mood for some David/Angel smut today and this cute couple crossover fic if you’re feeling more SFW!

@caelumsnuff: they/them

Phoenix is magnificent, creative, and endlessly sweet. I also respect the hell out of anyone that can take the anon hate that they get with as much grace and attitude as they do /gen /pos Highlights: I love this gift for the Quinn-fuckers they wrote, I do, but I have to admit I'm partial to the Imperium!Vincent/Imperium!Asher piece they did, because their tension and hatred was just too palpable to deny, I needed it.

@empydoc: any pronouns

Empy's Soul Eater AU has not only taken over my life but has also got me deeply wanted a Soul Eater rewatch. God forbid xe succeed because this post has already been delayed enough /j Highlights: I love the Marcus/Asset post, because that's my favorite pairing but also because Asset as both an android and a weapon is so, so interesting. Blake/Bestie's is also a particular gem, because being a meister just gives him a new dimension to his manipulation and I love it.

@floofdeloop: she/her

Not only is Floof a beloved fic writer but she's also one of the adored DJs of the fandom. Are you really a fan if you haven't looked up Redacted on Spotify and saved all her playlists? /j Highlights: Her whole playlist page is literally so good, but I love the cute, domestic vibes of this Geordi one or the tragic, angsty, Britrock vibes of this Porter playlist~!

@joshusten: they/them

Sten is one of if not the writer that comes to mind when you're looking for amazing Guy/Honey content! Highlights: Bitter Melon is my personal favorite of their work; what can I say? I'm a sucker for a little jealousy in my fics. You also can't miss Honeysuckle, their most recent piece which gets into Guy's canonically less-than-pure mind~

@pinksparkl: she/her

Gosh, where would we be without her? Pink never has a bad word or thought for anyone and just persists in being a delightful, sweet presence in the fandom. Highlight: I can't decide what I'm more obsessed with- their Adam-centric fic exploring the Progeny/Maker bond or their nsfw Gavin-centric with his tail exploring Freelancer nudge nudge wink wink

@redlikeredacted: they/them

Just as their blog says, they are the CEO of Dasher. In my head, they are the president of both the David/Asher and the Autistic!David fan clubs, and I'd vote for them a second and third term okay I love Red Highlights: Their "David bottoming for the first time" fic is everything to me okay I am here for nothing but this except maybe this Milo fic where he gets Aggro~

@teafairywithabook: she/they

A lovely writer, voice actor, and person, Cheri does it all! With a whole 34 Redacted works on AO3, they are a must-follow. Highlights: I'll provide the masterlist of previously mentioned works, but I must recommend her nsfw Avior/Starlight fic keeping us sated until we finally get an Avior BA and their fic of Alexis's POV of Sam's turning I couldn't not okay I'm just a person I have biases

@tepid-judas: he/they/it

My favorite Adam stan, my friend, and the person who converted me into an Adam/Brighteyes shipper, I thank Judas every day for that. Highlights: I love their series of epistolary fics, because who doesn’t love a good letter, but I would be remiss if I didn’t rec his DAMN polycule plus Xavier fic cause fuck canon let's add frosty the snowman to the orgy /lh

@themonotonysyndrome: she/her

Lady, my dearest friend and greatest foe~ How else do I describe the gorgeous, sociable, friendly person who bought Alexis/Christian into the world and ruined my life? (affectionate) Highlights: Let these two assholes in love take you on a ride, fall in love with them too. If that's not your vibe, I cannot recommend enough her insane, gen z Bright Eyes being an absolute fucking terror /pos

Fanart:

@androgynouspenguinexpert

Can YOU believe Penguin's only been posting art since, like, December? I certainly can't, because it's like they've drawn every boy at this point and each is as smoochable and adorable as the last. Highlights: Their Porter is one of my favorites; what can I say? Who can resist this high ponytail and cape combo? I also love their Hush, cause look at him~! He's adorable! Penguin gives all these boys such luscious, floofable hair; I love them!

@cute-brainz: she/they/it

Kindly, lovingly, respectfully, Cute's listeners designs reduce me to a sniveling, simpering puddle of a simp. I become nothing but a humble, simple straight man, and none of you came blame me good god their listeners are hotter than all the redacted men- Highlights: Like, look at their Lovely: the hair, the singlet, the VIBES? Fuckin irresistible; like Vincent, I'd give them anything their heart desires. And their ANGEL? The MINUTE David Shaw fumbles that bag, I'm on my knees with a ring hello earth angel will you be mine

@darling-solaire

Darl has been posting art for only a month and a half at the writing of the post, and yet I feel like I've loved their Solaires for forever. They, as a unit, are hot and tragic as fuck, and I love them. Highlights: I am obsessed, particularly, with the Solaire family portraits, but maybe that's because my girl Alexis is up there, and I love her. There's also this bust compilation of more Redacted boys in case you didn't find your favorite in the Solaires~!

@free-boundsoul: she/her

Okay so, like, vibe with me did you ever love Lisa Frank products with the bright, saturated colors and sparkling eyes but wish instead of cuddly animals that there were really hot men? Then Savvie is the artist for you~ Highlights: One, it's fun to see a Regulus that's not blue, okay? It's thinkin outside the box. Two, the CRACKS? WITH THE GOLD PEEKING THROUGH? I'm inconsolable my god. Speaking of daemons, Fool!Gavin is sort of everything to me. He's just really rocking that sweater vest!

@hotmcrodz: he/they

I know for a fact that I'm not the only one obsessed with the way Jai draws human anatomy. I have unironically seen a Jai piece in the tag and gone "WOWZA" like I'm Jim Carrey in The Mask; that's what they do to me. Highlights: This Milo was one of the pieces that made my eyes pop out my head like a cartoon wolf; I think it's the shirtlessness plus the muscle pose. I just couldn't handle it. I also reacted like that to their Babe because I am an equal opportunity pervert /hj

@izzuku: he/they

Izzuku designs characters with the most realistic and gorgeous body types; like, I love the soft jawlines and how warm and touchable they draw skin. Every Izzuku design is kissable as hell. Highlights: I have to recommend his Regulus and Hush designs, obviously, they're my favorite men. However, I can't let the world go by another rotation without recommending this special Halloween version of Vincent~!

@kilarthmac: she/they

In case we needed another reason to love and appreciate the iconic timestamping account we all recognize from the Redacted comments, we cannot neglect their fanart! Highlights: Like, look at this brought-back-wrong Vega! This Hush with his cute face and off-putting air! He's so cute and so weird! I also love this piece they've done for one of my favorite rarepairs, Imperium!Lasko/Adam~

@latenightsleeper: he/they/it/she

My kinfolk and my beloved, one of the few people who understand me and the vision that is beautiful, blonde, dumb and lovable Christian. They will give you so many feelings about Darlin and Christian, and they will cause you agony /pos Highlights: Obviously, I'm obsessed with the Tank/Christian art like this one (Christian is just so cuuute), but we're all obsessed with this Sam/Darlin animatic set to Eat Your Young.

@maxpaulll

An amazing artist that I'm so glad we managed to get to migrate to Tumblr from Twitter so I could put them on this list~ Highlights: I am obsessed always with their Indigenous character designs, especially David. Like, look at him, he's indescribably beautiful, outshone by no one except maybe Max's Imp!Vega, because oh my god look at him~

@nortyourself: she/her

I don't think there's anyone who's not obsessed with at least one of Rachel's pieces; like, I believe she'll get to every Redacted man with the speed and beauty she works. Even Reticuli has gotten the Rachel treatment and been made hot af. Highlights: Technically, this Imperium!Damien just takes me breath away; like, it would be blown up and framed in his palace (for all of his short and tempestuous reign). Personally, her Hush has a dear and special place in my heart. He's just my favorite~!

@penncilkid: any pronouns

One of the most gorgeous and darling and non-stop creators in the space! They're a true triple threat, kicking our hearts in the butt with their art, their writing, and their audio roleplay series~ Highlights: With so many mediums under their belt, it's so hard to choose. If you're looking for purely Redacted content, their art is prolific and so creative, I've got to share the whole gallery. If you're in the market for a new VA to fall in love with, you've got to check out their youtube channel~!

@pycth: any pronouns

I dont have anything creative or profound to say here- all of pycth's designs are smoking hot and would render me selectively mute with a glance, 'nuff said. Highlights: How can I PICK? Ugh, hottest of the hot that comes to mind has got to be their President Moore art; like, this pose isn't FAIR. On the other end of the spectrum, if you want your heart kicked in the butt, I don't think any of us are over this Sam piece or ever will be.

@rainingcatsandjune: any pronouns

Another new artist who's only been here since April, and yet- I would die for his and his fine-ass, touchable Sam. Like, hell, render any man pretty like that, and I'll die for him. That's how pretty this art is. Highlights: Like, look at him. How does one do anything but look at him, especially in this pose? Again, look at him! Look at the hands. The soft, touchable glow and how it lights and shades his and Darlin's skin. The broad shoulders good god~

@sainthowlzon: they/he

You can't turn a corner on tumblr without seeing some of Howl's adorable Scribble Dolls or Icons! (Or any other social media actually. I feel like I've deffo seem some of Howl's icons on Tiktok too.) They're cute, they're iconic, and there's one for almost everyone! Highlights: Here's that full set of icons for your perusal; my personal favorite is Asset's. And here's the full set of Redacted Scribble Dolls; my favorite is Regulus, I think, because of his freaky vibes, but it's so hard to pick!

@sincerelywhistler: any pronouns

Like everyone with a working set of eyes and a beating heart, I am obsessed with all of Wes's designs; like, who wouldn't fall in love at first sight with all those beautiful and often shirtless people? Highlights: There's honestly too many to pick from, but I'll TRY. Their Gavin is an absolute must, I share it with the Discord on sight, he's that it girl if you will. Oh, and one cannot neglect Avior's HBS piece; I'm not even an Avior girlie, and I was like daaaaaamnnnnnnn~

@slushiepizza: they/them

Where would all the guy-lovers be without Slushie and their absolute cornucopia of Guy and Honey delights? Like, where else would we get our homemade, MacGyver'd serotonin? Highlights: The "Everyday" series is everything to me, and I mean everything; Guy has become too relatable and has struck me right in the heart. If you're not in a Guy mood, I'm also in love with their older, cozy Anton~!

@s0lairee: she/they

Jo's style is just so clean, so cute, and I really love it when they play with lighting in their pieces. Like, we are almost, almost there to making me stan Vincent if you're gonna drape him in moonlight like that... Highlights: ...thought, if I had to pick, I'd probably lean more towards Vincent's partner. They're rocking the red eyes, I love them! I'm also obsessed with their freckle-y, sweet Lasko, because who isn't?

@strawberrybouvine: he/they

The artistic equivalent of gourmet candy, I am absolutely obsessed with the gorgeous colors of Jasper's art and cannot get enough of the sweetness! Is this sugar running through my veins or unparalleled cuteness? Highlights: I'm not even a David stan but, like, jesus christ, the long hair and hairy chest makes me want to go feral. Don't even get me started on the cuteness of his chibi art, I really will start foaming at the mouth.

@theflowersaremine

I don't know exactly what medium Haylin uses or what colors or effects they use, but goddamn it makes those men so dreamy. I'm not even a Sam stan, but that's a smoochable man right out of Gilmore Girls /pos Highlights: Like, are you seeing the Gilmore Girls vision? That's a handsome man from a wholesome show geared for women- almost as handsome as this art of David. I see this smile in my dreams; it's so beautiful.

@venuslove-28: any pronouns

Venus's art is strawberry and vanilla soft serve injected straight into my heart; it's so familiar and cute, so charming, and I want to stim and bounce in excitement when I see it. Does that make sense? It'll make sense when you see it. Highlights: Personally, I have never and I will never stop thinking about this Huxley, I am simply not capable. Their Avior is also cuter than all get-out, I must admit.

@wingless-cupid

I don't think anyone does cute and colorful and pastel and kawaii quite like Cupid. You can't help but look and admire all the eye-catching colors and then want to hug their cheery, dynamic characters! Highlights: I'm highkey obsessed with their Freelancer and DAMNily and all their d(a)emons in general. Like, look at this! Minh is such a cutie and a simp, I love them! I'm also constantly thinking about this art in particular, because look at all these PRICELESS EXPRESSIONS!

@yoteako: he/it

Would you like stunning, high quality art and tragic, old man yaoi on your dash? That's a silly question; of course you do which is why we're going to follow and love on Yote. Highlights: See how beautiful, doomed, and intimate this multi-page comic is about two characters who've never canonically spoken? That's devotion. On the less forsaken side of the narrative, their Gavin/Lasko ship art is embedded into my heart.

If you’re reading all the way here, I hope you found the post helpful and smiled while making your way through it! Or both! The RedactedAudio fandom is truly one of my favorite spaces on the internet; it’s so intimate and creative, and I’ve found some amazing, perfect friends here, so I hope you will too 💖

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted

226 notes · View notes

hotvintagepoll · 2 months

Text

Propaganda

Eleanor Parker (Scaramouche, The Sound of Music)— Eulogized as a ravishing beauty whose looks were merely ornamental to her craft, feast your eyes on Eleanor Parker. Listen! I know you're thinking of the Baroness in Sound of Music and saying NO I won't protect the woman who tried to steal him from Maria but forget about that (like you personally wouldn't shoot your shot with Plummer)! The trailer for Scaramouche describes her character Lenore as "The glamourous queen of the nightlife of Paris. A flame-haired wildcat" and this is a woman who was able to pull off that role, and you get the vibe she was like that irl too. There's a story about her changing hair colors that never fails to make me laugh. Take note of her stunning eyes! Her amazing legs! And to see her in motion is to make note of the aura about her, she has an amazing presence. Fall in love with Eleanor Parker today, and make your vote count!

Audrey Hepburn (My Fair Lady, Sabrina, Roman Holiday)—Growing up, Audrey Hepburn desperately wanting to be a professional ballerina, but she was starved during WWII and couldn't pursue her dream due to the effects of malnourishment. After she was cast in Roman Holiday, she skyrocketed to fame, and appeared in classics like My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's. She's gorgeous, and mixes humor and class in all of her performances. After the majority of her acting career came to close, she became a UNICEF ambassador.

This is round 3 of the tournament. (yes I know it says round 2 in the poll. sometimes I post these when I’m sleepy.) All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Eleanor Parker:

“When I’m spotted somewhere, it means that my characterizations haven’t covered up Eleanor Parker the person. I prefer it the other way around.” So shy she was actively nervous about winning awards in person, her personal life remains mostly behind the scenes. But on screen? she was a force majeure. It's a shame the role most people remember her in is the Baroness in The Sound of Music, but then again, it did make Christopher Plummer reminisce upon her passing “I was sure she was enchanted and would live forever.”

Listen we all know Christopher Plummer and Julie Andrews had insane chemistry but the Baroness deserves some love too! She has such a glamorous presence but not in a hard way

She will be known as the fabulous baroness in TSOM, but she was so much more than that. Just as comfortable in westerns or melodrama, the scheming other woman, and the beauty that wins the heart of every man in town.

Audrey Hepburn propaganda:

"She may be a wispy, thin little thing, but when you see that girl, you know you're really in the presence of something. In that league there's only ever been Garbo, and the other Hepburn, and maybe Bergman. It's a rare quality, but boy, do you know when you've found it." - Billy Wilder

Raised money for the resistance in nazi occupied Hungary. Became a humanitarian after retiring. Two very sexy things to do!

where to begin......... i wont her so bad. i literally dont know what to say.

My dude. The big doe eyes, the cheekbones, the voice. The flawless way she carried herself. She was never in a movie where she wasn't drop dead gorgeous. Oh, also the fact she raised funds against the Nazis doing BALLET and she won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her humanitarian work.

"It’s as if she dropped out of the sky into the ’50s, half wood-nymph, half princess, and then disappeared in her golden coach, wearing her glass slippers and leaving no footprints." - Molly Haskell

"All I want for Christmas is to make another movie with Audrey Hepburn." - Cary Grant

64.media.tumblr.com

I know people nowadays are probably sick of seeing her with all the beauty and fashion merch around that depicts her and/or Marilyn Monroe but she is considered a classic Hollywood beauty for a reason. Ironically in her day she was more of the alternative beauty when compared to many of her contemporaries. She always came off with such elegance and grace, and she was so charming. Apparently she was a delight to work with considering how many of her co-stars had wonderful things to say about her. Outside of her beauty and acting ability she was immensely kind. She helped raise funds for the Dutch resistance during WWII by putting on underground dance performances as well as volunteering at hospitals and other small things to help the resistance. During her Hollywood career and later years she worked with UNICEF a lot. Just an all around beautiful person both inside and out.

youtube

No one could wear clothes in this era like she could. She was every major designer's favorite star and as such her films are time capsules of high fashion at the time. But beyond that, she had such an elegance in her screen presence that belied a broad range of ability. From a naive princess, to a confused widow, to a loving and mischievous daughter, she could play it all.

Look at that woman's neck. Don't you want to bite it?

#audrey hepburn #eleanor parker #hotvintagepoll #fuck that old woman #ladies 3 #Youtube

159 notes · View notes

keikikait · 4 months

Text

ʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴀʟʟ (ɢᴏᴊᴏ x ꜰ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ)

this is part 3 of a series. you can find part one here and part two here

pairing: gojo x f!reader (not au, gojo is 29, reader is early-mid 20’s), slight nanami x reader (...)

word count: 3.4k

summary: the first two weeks of teaching again go by quickly. you find yourself right smack in the middle of the annual winter festival. gojo took his own date, and so did you.

warnings: (FOR THIS PART) angst, some self-deprecating stuff, themes of depression, mean gojo, mention of blood, mention of getting eaten (pls don’t ask), cheating???? nickname use [baby, doll (once)], no use of y/n,

a note: this is a repost with an angstier ending, as a lot of angst was voted for (see poll), so here we are, though there is a happy ending. dunno if I'll ever do a part 4.

please reblog and like, it means a lot! let me know what you think!

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧

You and Gojo have a routine.

First, you get ready together, fucking in the shower, trying to push him off as you apply mascara as he greedily rubs up against you. You eat breakfast together, both enjoying your matcha (yours, of course, being a latte. Gojo always goes the more traditional route). He drags on the kiss as you exit your apartment, whining when he finally has to let you go.

Second, he stands a few feet away from you on the train as you make your way outside of Tokyo. He never looks at you, his focus on anyone or anything that catches his eye. You watch him, admiring him, wanting him to just look over so he could admire you too. You want Gojo to see you in the way you see him. You want him to finally care, to beg and plead for you, to feel the way you do. You want him to love you.

Third, you walk towards campus, a few feet behind him just in case anyone is watching. You watch as he effortlessly joins Shoko and Akari’s conversation as they walk up the stairs through the tori gate, not glancing back at you even once. You follow behind them, the sounds of their laughter filling your ears. Surrounding you. Swallowing you whole, only to spit you out broken and battered. The snow crunches under your feet, silencing your thoughts — but only for a second. Your thoughts are like wolves, stalking you and waiting to pounce, waiting for you to be vulnerable.

Your routine takes hold of you, and the days blend together as you relive the same painful day over and over. Maybe this is all a punishment for your hubris, karma from the gods for loving him. You watch him live so effortlessly without you, as you sit around hoping he’ll meet your gaze for just a second. The thoughts come, as they always do, and soon you’re surrounded by wolves, bloodied and battered and waiting to be eaten. And then, the wolves disappear into smoke, and you have Gojo for just a brief second before he pushes you back into the wolf’s den. Maybe this time you’ll let the wolves eat you. Your last words would be Gojo’s name before your mouth fills with blood as you get your throat ripped out. You wonder if you would even be on his mind after.

You’re snapped out of your thoughts when you feel a tap on your shoulder. You look up from your desk to see Nobara standing there, smiling, her books in her arms. You zoned out through the entire lesson, students trying to pile out the door behind her. You look at her again and smile. “Yes?”

She smiles, clutching her books a little tighter. “Are you going to the festival tonight?”

Your eyebrows furrow slightly at the mention of the festival. “Yes, I am. Why?”

Nobara shifts on her feet. “Are you going with Gojo-sensei?”

Gods, even his name causes goosebumps to appear on your body. “No, Kugisaki-san. I’m not taking anyone with me.”

Nobara pouts a little. “Oh come on! You guys would be perfect together!” Your eye twitches and your stomach lurches. “It’s his loss, I guess.” She moves away as quickly as she appears, following Megumi out the classroom door.

You hear a snarl, and just like that the wolves are back. They follow you around as you make your way through your day, biting at your ankles. They follow you as you make your way off campus, heading to the train station. You slide your way into the crowd making its way into the station, pushing your way past students and businessmen. You’re trying to make your train, yes, but you’re also escaping the wolves that are chasing you, foaming at the mouth at the idea of tasting you. You fear that if they catch you you might never make it out alive, your body left cold on the floor of the train station, people stepping over you and moving on with their lives, because, in the end, you didn’t matter.

“Excuse me,” You say softly, pushing past a tall man. Your fingers brush over the light tan colouring of his suit as you put your hand on his arm to steady yourself in the crowd. The man mumbles something before he looks over and tilts his head. He says your name so softly you almost don’t hear him. You finally get a look at his face as he towers over you, and your heart beats a little faster. “Nanami?”

You’ve met Kento Nanami before and spoken in brief conversations, even when he’s been an adjunct professor at the school and taught a lesson. You always noticed that he didn’t speak a lot, at least not to you. You appreciated the silence sometimes, a stark difference from Gojo’s constant running mouth, but the times he would simply just ignore you while you helped him plan lessons and prepare demonstrations left a bad feeling in your stomach. In those moments you didn’t just wonder if you were good enough for Gojo, you wondered if you were good enough for anyone.

He looks deep into your eyes, and the wolves turn to dust. He smiles softly at you, but in your eyes, it looks almost forced. “Hey there. Long time no see. How are you?”

You think this might be the most words he’s ever spoken to you. “I’m doing great. How are you?”

Nanami nods. “Fine, you know how the 7 to 3 life is. Are you still assisting Gojo at the school?”

It’s your turn to nod this time. “Yes. For another year and a half.”

He smiles, and it seems more genuine than the last. “A year and a half of dealing with Gojo… I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone.” You laugh, and it’s the first genuine laugh you’ve had in almost a month.

Instead of catching your usual train home, you opt to sit and chat with Nanami. This is the most extroverted you’ve ever seen him, and this is definitely the most eye contact you’ve ever shared. He leans back on the bench, legs stretched out straight, playing with the end of his tie while he talks to you.

You had noticed it before, but now you’re certain. Kento Nanami is hot. His voice, his face, his hands, his arms…you’re finding yourself squirming on the bench and trying to calm your nerves as he stares at you, almost forcing you to keep eye contact.

You stiffen when you hear the next announcement, the realisation hitting that it’s your next train arriving soon. You stand up, gathering your things. “My train is almost here. I’m sorry that we have to cut this conversation short.”

He waves it off. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll just have more to talk about next time.”

Next time. You feel slight butterflies in your stomach when thinking about your next conversation with him. All you manage to say is, “For sure. I would like that.” You head to your platform, clutching your bag close when Nanami calls your name again, much more confident than before. You turn to face him, the wind from the train approaching whipping through your hair.

He glances down the platform, seemingly nervous. “Are you going to the festival tonight?”

You have to speak a little louder as the train starts to near the station. “Yes, I am.”

Nanami smiles, a look of nervousness still staining his face. “Great. I’m going too. What if we went together?”

The train approaches and you yell over the noise, “I would like that!”

He hears you and smiles, yelling his goodbyes over the train as you enter its doors. You find a seat next to the window, and you wave to each other as the train starts to move. The train pulls out of the station, taking you home, and a smile creeps onto your face as you sink into the seat. Part of you feels guilty, begging you to consider your relationship with Gojo, but the other part of you thinks; what relationship? Plus, you’re going to the festival with Nanami as friends, acquaintances, nothing more. At least, that’s how you view it.

You head home, once again finding yourself vulnerable in the wolf's den. You wonder how it would feel if you let them attack you, how it would feel to be pinned down and scratched and chewed on like a piece of dried octopus. Would Gojo notice you, finally, as you lay dead, your blood leaking out of your shredded throat? Would he turn away, avert his gaze at the sight of his dead lover? Or would he simply stare before stepping over you?

The wolves stalk you as you make your way back to the station, the snow falling softly, sticking to your hair. You feel nervous; nervous about seeing Nanami again, and nervous about seeing Gojo with Himiko. You had almost forgotten her name, but deep down you wish you did. Maybe thinking about her as a faceless, nameless entity would make your throat stop closing up.

You climb your way up the steps of the school, and you start to smile when you see Nanami waiting for you. The sun is setting, casting a beautiful pink glow to him, and in this moment you think he’s the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. The glasses he’s normally wearing are long gone, and he switched out his suit for a black sweater, dark blue slacks, a long brown trenchcoat, and a scarf in the same Rorschach-esque design as his usual tie and sword.

Your stomach flutters as you approach him. “Hey.”

He stares at you for a second before saying, “Hey.” You stare at each other, admiring one another, and butterflies in your stomach won’t stop flying around, bumping into the walls of your intestines. You don’t know what you’re feeling, and you don’t know if you like it.

You clear your throat, stepping towards the gate. “Let’s head in.” Nanami nods and follows you inside the campus. You walk together through the festival, the air around you almost feeling electric, the campus replacing its usual student occupants with a bustling crowd and food carts. Takoyaki, yakitori, yakisoba, everything just smells so delicious. Maybe the wolves won’t be hungry for you tonight.

You and Nanami wander, your hands occasionally brushing as you chat about work and life, lost in the heat of your conversation. You find a stall finally offering drinks, and you both purchase some green tea before sitting down, your back to the festival. You’re in the middle of one of Nanami’s corporate world stories when his eyes drift behind you and he smiles. “There he is!”

Confused, you look over your shoulder, only to be met with the looming figure of Gojo. He stares down at you and Nanami, his blindfold covering his eyes. Right next to him is, you assume, Himiko, a tall woman, dressed to the nines in what might be real fox fur. She’s beautiful. More beautiful than you. You hear another snarl as the wolves come creeping out of the dark classrooms, towards you. Was this your competition? Your replacement? Did she have his heart already, or did he hide it from her like he did you?

Gojo clears his throat, glancing away before turning his gaze back to you and Nanami. “Here I am.”

Even now, you admire him. He’s so effortlessly beautiful, everything he does causes you to lose your breath. The way the wind pushes his hair back, the way his hoodie sits around his hips…you’re in love with him. As much as you hate it, as much as it destroys you, you love him. You can practically feel the wolf pinning you to the cave floor and ripping your beating heart out of your chest, chewing it, and swallowing it in one bite.

Nanami notices your gaze, too. He notices the way you look at Gojo, the absolute adoration in your eyes. The way your breath hitches, the way your thighs subconsciously squeeze together. The way your cheeks change colour and the way your whole body relaxes. Nanami notices Gojo’s body language, too, almost as if he could see his eyes under the blindfold. He puts it together too quickly, and clears his throat, standing up from the table, trying to hide his disappointment that you were in love with someone else. “I’m gonna get another tea.” He moves through the crowd towards the stall and you go to follow him, brushing past Gojo when he suddenly reaches out and grabs your arm, squeezing it tight.

“We need to talk,” he says.

“No, we don’t,” you respond. He squeezes your arm even tighter, before tugging you along behind him as he walks away from Nanami and Himiko.

Gojo drags you into his classroom, closing and locking the door behind him. He stares at you, his arms crossed, before finally speaking, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

You’re confused, and your eyebrows furrow slightly. “Trying to enjoy my time at the festival.”

Gojo’s voice is laced with poisonous anger, and you’re almost afraid to breathe it in. “With Nanami?”

You swallow. “He asked me to come with him.”

Gojo's shoulders relax for a second before tensing up again. “You’re on a date? With Nanami?”

Your face turns red. “This isn’t a date.”

“Yes, it is,” Gojo says firmly. “He asked you on a date. And you agreed.”

You find yourself starting to get angry. “So what if it is a date?”

His jaw clenches. “Excuse me?”

You take a step back. “So what if it is a date, Gojo? You’re on one too, in case you forgot.”

Gojo laughs. “You mean Himiko? This isn’t a date. I’m just doing a favour for Shoko, I’m trying to help her friend get settled into the city. You shouldn’t be mad at me for --”

You interrupt him. “Cut the shit. You’re on a date with a girl who isn’t me.”

“It isn’t a date,” Gojo says.

You feel yourself getting angrier and angrier. “That’s what it looks like.”

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like,” Gojo says. “It isn’t the truth. If you would just let me explain-”

“Explain what?” You snap, the anger threatening to break the surface. “How do you agree to go on a date with another woman?”

There’s a pause before he says, “Don’t interrupt me again, doll. Remember who’s in charge here.”

Your fists clench. “God, can I fucking talk? Sat—Gojo, you have to understand how it makes me feel.”

You fucked up. You know you shouldn’t call him that, that forbidden name, but it just slipped out. Your words die in your throat, and your anger starts to dissolve into anxiety. You don’t know much about Geto, but you do know that Gojo’s first name is reserved for him, and you broke Gojo’s only rule.

He doesn’t say anything, but you can physically feel the shift in the air. A cold shiver runs down your spine. The mask across his eyes doesn’t help, his emotions unreadable.

“Gojo, I’m sorry,” You say. You approach him gently. “I’m sorry.”

You feel yourself getting more and more anxious as he just stands there. He doesn’t move, he doesn’t speak. He just stands there, looking down at you from his imposing height. You can only sit helplessly as he tosses you back into the wolf's den, and you can’t run away as they start tearing at you. You wonder if he’ll keep your head, mouth open and cold and blue, on display on a mantle on his wall, a message to all that watch to never love him.

It feels like an eternity before he speaks. “I trusted you."

Your bottom lip trembles. "You still can. It was an accident--"

"It doesn't matter if it was an accident or not," Gojo says, looking down at the ground. "You know not to call me that. Don't act like you can replace him."

A few tears fall down your face. "No...I know I can't, Gojo, I know I can't replace him. But I swear it was an accident."

"It doesn't matter," Gojo says after a beat. "What matters is you’re mine, and you're on a date with Nanami."

"It's not a date, Gojo," You say. "He and I are just friends."

"You would only be here with him if you had feelings for him," Gojo says.

You start to cry now. "I have feelings for you, Gojo. Not Nanami."

That makes him pause. "I know you do."

"Then why are you here with Himiko?" You ask, starting to feel angry again. "Why aren't you here with me?"

“Himiko means nothing to me.” Gojo says. "You know we couldn't go to the festival together. It would be suspi--"

"Suspicious, yes, I got it." You snap. "You didn't have to go with her. You could've turned down Shoko's offer."

"And what would I look like then?" Gojo asks. "I would look like a bad friend and a bad coworker. I have a reputation to uphold."

"Why does your reputation matter more than me?" You ask, your voice becoming louder.

"Because it's all I have!" Gojo says, his voice matching yours. "I'm Satoru Gojo, I'm the strongest! I can't have any baggage, I can't have anyone be important to me. That's how I become weak, and that's how I lose everything. Including you."

"Why do you treat me like this?” you ask, angry tears running down your cheeks. “Why do you always put me second? Why do you always make me feel so unwanted? Am I not good enough for you? Am I not what you want? Am I not what you need?”

He pauses and remains silent for a long time. He takes a deep breath, his voice stern once again. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You are good enough for me, you’re too good for me. You’re the most beautiful, caring person that I’ve ever met. I treat you like garbage, and yet you always come back to me. I’m mean to you, and you accept it with a smile on your face. But you have to understand that this is more important to me. It's more important than you…if I appear weak, I fail. If I fail, I lose everything and everyone." He gets close to you, grabbing your face. "I already lost someone important to me. I can't lose you too."

"Do you care about me?" You ask softly.

He nods. "Of course I do."

You swallow hard, nervous to ask your next question. "Do you love me?"

He hesitates.

In that moment, even without him speaking, you know your answer. You go to say something else but he interrupts. "I can. Eventually. One day. I just can't love you right now."

"When is eventually?" You ask.

He shakes his head. "I don't know. I care about you, you know that. You know that I love our time together, and I look forward to every single second I get to spend with you. I just can't love you right now, not in the way that you want me to. The way that you need me to."

"Will you ever love me?" You ask.

He doesn't hesitate when he answers, "Yes."

You close your eyes, sighing. "When?"

He strokes your cheekbones. "Soon."

"How close is soon?"

"Close enough."

You pause. You feel the presence of the wolves again, biting on your ankles, threatening to drag you down into the depths of the den and tear you limb from limb. Would they chew on your bones after? Would it be quick, painless? Or would you survive for just long enough to watch them eat you?

Gojo calms the wolves, but only for so long. He’s a protective light as you hide in the walls of the den, stepping over the corpses of those before you. He’s the one, he’s all you’ve ever wanted, and you think you’ll regret this.

You nod, accepting his answer.

He pulls you close and hugs you. He kisses the top of your head and takes a deep breath before saying, “Have I ever told you about Geto?” You shake your head, you know next to nothing about the man. Gojo never told you, and you never asked. He strokes your hair and sighs. “Do you want to hear about him?”

You nod, and Gojo tells you.

He tells you all about Geto — Suguru, as he calls him. You’ve never heard him speak so softly. He recounts his memories, smiling and even laughing at some parts. You listen to every word, and you don’t speak. You can tell, just from his words, that Gojo loved him, but you can also tell that he will always love Geto more than he loves you.

*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ*:･ﾟ✧

part four is here

★taglist: @heijihattorisgf, @strxxberries, @sadmonke, @mo0nforme, @whereflowerswenttodie, @mwtsxri, @tuliptoot, @certainduckanchor, @softhrted (italics mean i couldn't tag you)

#keikiwrites #gojo satoru #gojo satoru x reader #gojo x reader #f!reader #angst #jjk angst #gojo angst #✿: gojo!

228 notes · View notes

gyllenhaalstories · 3 days

Text

AND LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S... SUNDAY MORNING — JAKE GYLLENHAAL

summary: after all the costumes & wigs, the cue cards & laughing fits.. you finally get some time with your man on this eventful saturday night. technically it's sunday, but details.

warnings: reader is gender neutral! fluff & smut (hickeys, marking, groping, handjob). 18+ NO MINORS.

word count: 1340

gif credits: me @/gyllenhaalstories / divider credits: @/firefly-graphics

notes: is neck kink a thing or am i just a vampire in denial? judging by my obsession with mentioning jake's bulging veins, i'm voting for the latter. thank you for reading & REMEMBER TO REBLOG!

"I thought the party would never end." You let out a long, heartfelt, sigh of relief. You wanted to crash on the couch and enjoy some downtime after this hectic day, but you knew that you would fall asleep the second your body would get in contact with something comfortable.

"How many times did we try to excuse ourselves? I lost count after like twelve." Jake gave you a hand to lean on while you removed your shoes. The cold floors relaxed your sore feet. "Thought we'd be stuck in there forever."

"It's your third time hosting, shouldn't you be used to it?"

"Eh, maybe... I think I'm just too old for that." You both laughed.

You were too tired to point out all of the things he was most definitely not too old to do. That list would have made partying and cracking jokes left and right look pretty easy in comparison.

Jake made his way to the kitchen to get a glass of water, you stole a few sips from it. The two of you exchanged a knowing look, an agreement to discuss the events of Saturday Night Live at a different time, when neither of you would be exhausted and all talked out.

Instead, you walked towards Jake and hugged him from behind. You turned your head to look out the window and enjoy the sunrise while he slowly swayed from side to side.

"Hey," you hummed, letting him know he caught your attention. "Thank you for being there this week."

You helped as much as you could so that he could focus on the week-long preparation. You even got to rehearse one of the promotional videos with him in his dressing room. Your arms tightened around his body, a silent way to tell him you had just as much fun as he did.

After a while, and several contagious yawns, Jake turned in your arms to face you. You both adjusted your positions so that his hands landed on your back while you wrapped your arms around his neck. This kitchen slow dance lasted a little longer, until Jake decided to end it by kissing your forehead, your nose and, finally, your lips.

A kiss that quickly deepened, both of you happily melting in this loving embrace after several hours that deprived you of some quiet quality time.

Jake's tongue teased your lips, craving more. Soon enough, what started as a sweet peck on the lips turned into passionate making out that pulled whimpers and moans out of the two of you. Once again, Jake took the initiative to break the kiss and rested his forehead against you. "Missed you so much, babe."

"I missed you too." You answered, sharing a breath. You trailed kisses from the corner of his mouth to his cheek all the way to his earlobe that you nibbled on.

"I can see that." A smirk started to spread on his thin lips, he let out soft noises that encouraged you to keep going.

He did not even stop you when you kissed along his defined jawline. Even more surprising, he let you move down to his neck that you covered with open mouthed kisses. You suddenly stopped everything you were doing.

"What's wrong?" Concerned, Jake pulled back with a frown on his face. "Are you okay?"

"I'm more than okay." You nodded and smiled, hoping it was enough to reassure him. If not, your next questions would lighten the mood again. "When do you have to work again?"

He tilted his head, confused. "In a long time." Jake squinted and switched between looking into your eyes and glancing down at your lips that you were biting on. He started to catch your drift, his worries faded as quick as they appeared.

"How long?"

"Long enough."

Without losing any more time, your lips were all over his neck. You switched from side to side, giving more attention to his bopping Adam's apple while you kissed every inch of skin that you could reach. You focused on a specific spot, your lips moulding around his bulging jugular vein. You started to suck on it.

Jake moaned and loud. So often, too often, you were forbidden from leaving marks on visible parts of his body. That still left you with quite the canvas to paint. The problem was that, with a neck as delicious looking as Jake's, it became next to impossible at times to leave it untouched.

You detached your mouth from his skin and admired your work, a dark red mark already bloomed. It was beautiful, but you wanted more.

Jake's head lolled to the back, giving you access to what you so desperately needed.

You had one hand on the other side of his neck, holding him in place while you added more hickeys on his skin Your other hand travelled underneath the layers of clothes. Your fingertips gently brushed over his warm stomach before you scratched the surface with your nails.

"Thought you were tired?" Jake interrupted your moment.

"Yeah, well..." The hand that was on his stomach fell further down and squeezed the hardening bulge in his pants. "I thought you were tired too." You replied with an arched brow.

Jake's lips met yours in another heated kiss. His hands groped mainly your your ass and whatever part of your body he could reach to press you closer against his own.

This makeout session, between his mouth and his neck, lasted until the kitchen was invaded with morning light. "Wanna take this to the bedroom?" You offered in between kisses that left you panting.

"I'd rather take a quick shower first." Another kiss that he ended by biting and pulling on your bottom lip. "You're joining me." It was not an invitation, he knew you would not decline it anyway.

You led the two of you towards the bathroom, not without stumbling on walls and furniture on the way. You kept begging Jake for just "one more, one more mark and then I'm done, I swear just a small one" and he did not even try to stop you.

You lost no time and hurried to undress your man, once you made it into the bathroom and found the light switch after laughing in the dark while hitting every possible spots on the wall. You pressed him against the counter of the vanity, pulling his pants just low enough to take his cock in your hand.

"I knew you'd be turned on watching me in that Snake Eyes skit. Was it the beard?" Making you laugh was more rewarding than doing it in front of an entire audience. Jake's joke barely had time to land before you started to stroke him, replacing his words with grunts.

"Damn right, you looked so hot. If looks could kill, I'd be dead too." You helped him to take off his cardigan and then to pull his white shirt over his head. You discarded the clothes on the floor. Quickly, your lips peppered kisses along the cold metal of his chain until you could catch a glimpse of Jake in the mirror.

Jake's neck was covered in pink, red, purple and blue. There were bruises and teeth marks all over him.

With his chest rising and falling from his heavy breathing, caused by your hand that stroked his cock faster, you admired the painting before your eyes like it was the prettiest watercolour. "You look so good."

Jake's hands travelled to his neck and touched the bruises, one after the other. He winced, his lips curling up from the stinging sensation. "I hope they last for a long time."

"I hope so too," you kissed the spot where his shoulder met his neck. "Or else I'll just have to give you more hickeys."

"Oh no, that's so sad." You spoke together, imitating the funny singing voice he did earlier during his episode of Saturday Night. You laughed until both of you were naked and ready for this shower that promised to be very steamy.

#jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal fanfic #jake gyllenhaal smut #jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal x you #jake gyllenhaal x reader

87 notes · View notes

justm3di0cr3 · 6 months

Text

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT (ESP IF YOUR CANADIAN) REBLOG CUZ LIKES DO NOTHING

Canada Is likely to sign a treaty and vote for a ceasefire in Palestine. So if your Canadian please sign. From what I'm aware, upon majority vote, Canadian government will agree for Israel to stop the genocide.

Important reminder as well, DO NOT get anything from boycotted companies for the holidays or black Friday etc.

Israel wants people to stop talking about the boycott. Don't give in.

To check which companies support Israel take confirmation from www.boycott.thewitness.news. Avoid those companies at all costs.

Also Israel has already dishonored the temporary ceasefire. As some one who also plays twst, you will not die if you don't get the Thanksgiving bundle with paid gems. People are dying, place yourself in their shoes for once.

You lived a happy life once but now all those are js memory fragments as everything around you gets reduced to rubble, children cries and the sound of bombs fill your ears as you frantically search the crowd in hopes of seeing your family still alive. With two possibilities. 1. You see them and thank God that they are alive. 2. You see a pile of bodies, maybe intact or maybe not, or even js a limb with no news of your family spotted you are left to believe the scattered flesh and disfigured bodies belong to your loved ones. It'd disturbing isn't it? That's their life. Don't not ignore it any longer. Speaking up makes a difference. Doesn't matter if you have no followers or anything. The posts circulate the media and hopefully the pressure on politicians will force Israel on a permanent ceasefire.

I don't normally tag but the first bit needs to be seen by many people. I apologize in advance. Some tagged are moots while some are accounts I follow that are Pro Palestine from what I'm aware. Again once more I am extremely sorry.

Tagging: @quartzztwst @fungifanart @midnightmah07 @viilpstick @leonistic @robo-milky @ceruleancattail @cheshirefangs @bunni-v1 @xiao-slut @seuing

#palestine #free palestine #free gaza #gaza #israel #genocide #humanitarian crisis #gaza under genocide #gaza strip #ethnic cleansing #Canada #Canadian #Twst #Twisted wonderland #free palestine 🇵🇸

161 notes · View notes

whoishotteranimepolls · 22 days

Note

Why is everyone so biased toward One Piece? Literally every character from One Piece I see is the ugliest creature I've ever had the discourtesy to lay eyes on and they're winning by a landslide against genuinely attractive characters.

Oh boy, we've gone over this a couple times but it's been probably a month or two. It's not so much biased as it is a large and organized fandom. Plus good writing can make anyone hot even though the art style can take some getting used to.

Let me explain some fandoms have dedicated blogs that do nothing but reblog polls so that fandom can vote in random fandom related polls all in one place. Now in tournaments it is very unfair sometimes because they can organize themselves and rally to sway a vote quickly. Now I know one piece and bleach do have dedicated blogs when it comes to anime fandoms. Other non-anime fandoms that I know have blogs are Star Trek, Star Wars and Ninjago. I only know this because I used to be really big into voting in tournaments poll.

Plus I do normally share the Fandom overall week in review list and the anime and manga list. This shows the most popular Fandom related trends of the past week by Tumblr's own data. And as someone who's been following that page just for fun since probably 2012, one piece frequently is in the top 20 on the overall chart and I don't think I've ever seen it not in the top five on the anime and manga chart. The fandom is just that large and active. I mean one piece frequently trends when a new chapter or episode drops. It's just how it is.

And as someone who used to despise one piece, I did give it a shot after I watched and enjoyed the live action. Now it's actually one of my favorite animes. However, the manga is so much better due to the less than stellar pacing of the anime. The only reason I'm looking forward to the remake so much is for fixed pacing then maybe more people would give one piece of chance. Because the story and the writing is so good. However, the art style is not everyone's cup of tea and I do understand that and that is probably the number one complaint.

Fun fact, at one point there was a group of you campaigning to get one piece characters banned from my polls because the art style was misogynistic. Luckily that was short-lived because I was about to start blocking people. So let's not start that up again.

Now I will concede that the one piece fandom does like to do cursed polls And definitely request ugly characters on occasion just to watch the world burn. You know who you are. But we're talking about a show that has furries and fish people and characters that can turn into dragons and snake hybrids and dinosaur people. So there's a lot of variety in your humanoids not all of them are hot

I know it bothers a lot of people that one piece wins so many polls but I see this as a case of don't hate the player. Hate the game. So if you can't beat them, join them. So I would recommend if this really pisses you off so much start your own blog dedicated to reblogging polls for whatever fandom you think needs one. So you can start rallying and organizing your fandom against the one piece fandom so you can try to take them down. Don't know if it'll work but it's a start. Again, learn from them and use their tactics against them

#not a poll #ask #The one piece debate #again

63 notes · View notes

crookedkryptonitebeliever · 4 months

Text

Best and Worst of Both worlds (part 9)

Tw: monty being a fuckin creep, vomiting, the girls are fightingggg, so blood and violence, yves being a dick and elitist, using the word queer in a derogatory manner

DAMN i was expecting the votes to be like to go to the uni cause Yves is hottest choice rn

anyways if u guys read the original series where Monty was from, u would know he's like a sub but his behavior depends on the reader, he's actually a switch

tanks for reading, pls send in anon asks, reblog or comments i love 2 hear yalls thoughts and it keeps me going PLSPLSPLS I AM DESPERATEEE

Part 10

The mall it is. You've been visiting the university too much to escape your home and to take your dreaded exams, despite having air conditioning, you're going to feel miserable there. You barely have friends in the university aside from Yves. A change of scenery would be nice, to note down the things you wanted for yourself.

You tried to decide how you feel about Yves. The urge to run away from him and hide is there, but it's not as strong anymore. Because he already saw it all. The mold, your room, your tears, your puke... you can't possibly embarrass yourself again to that degree, right? The worst should be over.

And, he did say it himself; he is interested in you too. So... it should be safe to proceed with this weird relationship. You think. He's already doing way more than what a lover typically does, let alone someone who you barely went on a first date with.

You shouldn't be afraid of bumping into him. He's not going to bite your head off, you hope.

And speak of the devil, you received a text from him.

"(Name), this is Yves. I hope you slept well. Please reply to me as soon as you wake up."

You bit the inside of your cheek, you held onto your bag tightly as the bus drove over a hump.

It's not like he could see that you read it. You don't know what he is going to say next, once you respond.

But it's rude to just leave him hanging like that. He's probably going to find out you're ignoring him anyways.

Might as well text him back. You told him that you're now awake. He must be a fast typer because you received a message a few seconds later.

"Good afternoon, how are you feeling?"

You replied that you're feeling fine.

"I assume you are currently resting at home?"

You don't know if you should lie. But then he could easily find out the truth by asking your housemates. So you let out a defeated sigh and told him the half-truth. You said no. That was it, you didn't elaborate further.

"Where are you? Did you at least apply sunscreen?"

You replied that you're now getting off the bus. You're going to text him back later. After that, you put your phone into your pocket.

You walked away from the bus stand and looked at the billboards littered all over the area. It takes a six-minute walk to get to the Mall, maybe a bit longer because your usual path is blocked by a construction job. The workers gave the pedestrians an alternative pathway to travel.

As you start walking, you wonder why was the bus stop never built directly in front of its entrance. It's such a nuisance to get there if you don't own a car.

You frown because the sun is beating against your head, you're among a group of people being funneled into this other path and you're starting to overheat. You remembered Yves packed a UV ray-blocking umbrella, so you went ahead and took it out. You opened it and shielded yourself from the rays, sighing in relief as you felt coolness instantly wash over you.

You were minding your own business and fighting your own inner demons until suddenly a large hand clamped itself onto your shoulder. You let out a surprised yelp and a jolt at the unexpected contact, this cannot be Yves's because it's too calloused and careless, mildly hurting you in the process.

"Joe?"

Who?

You turned whipped your head to the back and saw the person who paid for your poisoned meal. He took your umbrella off your hands, making you hiss at the sun.

"It really is you!" His eyes lit up and the corners of his mouth curled up into a wide, happy grin. "How ya' been? I didn't see you yesterday. Where were ya?"

You eyed him up and down, he's in uniform.

"I'm on my break right now." His hand guided your back. "C'mon, let me treat you lunch."

You said that you had food poisoning from the place you ate with him. And you asked what he meant by "Didn't see you yesterday".

His jaw dropped in shock at your words.

"It really sucks to hear that, so that's why you look a lil' too thin today. I guess you're just not used to their cookin'. I was fine and dandy." You and him seem to move along with the crowd aimlessly.

You repeated your question about what he meant by not seeing you yesterday.

"I came by your school 'cause I got you some Chinese. I couldn't find ya' and no one seems to know who the hell was I talkin' about. Why didn't ya' call me? I was waitin' all night for your voice."

Luckily you gave him the fake name of "Joe M." on your first meeting with him. But it's not like he would have gotten any information on you anyway, you're invisible in your university. Unless he happened to come across Yves, which you doubt he will divulge him about you.

You just said 'oh'.

"Hope you're feelin' better though. Hey, I know a great place to get some hearty chicken soup. It's gotta be good for your belly, it sure helped me when I'm sick as a dog." You took notice of his deepening southern accent.

You're starting to feel uncomfortable around this man, he's wrapping his arm around your shoulder like he's your boyfriend.

You said that you were full, you had something to eat earlier.

"Aw shucks. That's fine, I'll just hang out with you till my break's over." He ruffled your hair affectionately, laughing as you tried to smoothen it out.

You don't like him. Who does he think he is? You're barely even acquaintances with him. But you think it's safer to play along until you find an opportunity to escape, there is no way you could fight off a 6'5 man who lifts steel pillars for a living.

"You got any plans this weekend? I wanna take you out to have fun, you must've spent all your time studyin', and that's good! Education is important. But you gotta loosen up a little 'cause life is short!" Montgomery is either oblivious to or disregards your uncomfortable body language.

You said you made plans already. He momentarily looked dejected, but he reverted back to his cheerful self when he thought of something.

"What about next week? I heard there is a festival goin' on by the pier. There's going to be a Ferris wheel, cotton candy, funnel cakes--"

You decided to rip the bandaid off and straight up tell him that you're not interested in pursuing a relationship with him. Since there were witnesses, you wriggled out of his hold and waited to see what he would do to you. Hoping that he would just respectfully leave you alone but expecting to be angrily punched right in front of everyone.

He was stunned, speechless for a moment until there was a strange glimmer in his eyes that was concealed by his shaggy, brown hair.

"...You're playing hard to get."

A horrified, incredulous look crossed your face. Absolutely not! What makes him think of you that way? You took a couple steps backward as he tried to get closer.

"I see how it is, sweetheart. You want me to chase you, don't ya'?" He playfully pinched both of your cheeks. You wince, struggling to pull his hands off.

You genuinely do not understand why he has this impression of you. As anyone would do, you vehemently denied it.

"Aww, look at you. Red-faced and all." He giggled, grabbing you by the wrist and pulling you away from the main foot traffic so he could toy with you in private. "If you weren't into me, you would have left me to die that night. I may not be the richest or the most handsome..." his smile faltered when it came to the topic of his looks. "...but I know you saw something in me! I'm gonna make sure you don't regret saving me!" You're already regretting being born.

You called him crazy, anyone would have helped him! You're no one special, he teasingly rolled his eyes.

"Yeah, keep telling yourself that, beautiful. Anything to help you sleep at night."

You were adamant that you're not interested and you already have a boyfriend! But this doesn't seem to faze him, he just bent down to your level and placed his hands behind his back.

"Oh yeah? Where is he then? Get outta here, you don't have one. At least, not yet." He winked at you.

Yeah. He is impossible to reason with.

You argued that you do. In fact, he is right behind Montgomery!

He's definitely not believing you, but he turns around anyway to see... no one, as expected.

"I don't see him, do you-- huh?" He was momentarily dumbfounded when all there was in front of him was air.

You managed to blend in with the crowd and successfully entered the mall. You ran into the nearest retail store and hid behind one of the shelves. Everyone was too busy shopping to care what someone shaking like a leaf was doing crouching in the baby and maternal department.

Your hand trembled as you pulled your phone out to see Yves sent you another text.

"Take care. Send me a text message as soon as possible. I will give you a call fifteen minutes later if I do not hear from you by then."

It's been 12 minutes since he sent that text. The next reasonable course of action is to seek comfort and safety from Yves. You thought Montgomery was unhinged and delusional, he thinks you're his just because you saved him that night. You cared as much as everyone else, no one wanted to see another person die if they could help it! But he took it as some ultimate love confession for him.

Then you realize that you should have run as soon as you first rejected him. You hit yourself on the head, he must have thought all the attention you gave him trying to explain yourself was a green light for him to go forward!

You called yourself stupid for not catching this earlier. There's not much you could do now except tell Yves you don't feel safe.

You texted Yves your exact location, even down to the aisle and section. Your texts are a series of panic-induced typos begging him to pick you up because you're scared.

"I will be there in 15 minutes. Is it safe for me to call you?"

You disregarded that text and just dialed his number.

"(name)?" It was so good to hear his smooth, calm voice. Your blood pressure momentarily dropped but rose back again after remembering why you called him in the first place.

You frantically explained what had happened, even your first meeting with Montgomery and the takeaway that gave you food poisoning. Spilling everything even though you didn't mean to, but you're just scared and trapped in a store. You felt upset that he had the umbrella, you apologized and-

"Raise your hand above your head for me, please." He cut you off. You did exactly what he asked, now distracted from your ranting.

"Inhale, following my count." He counted up to four.

"Hold." He counted to seven.

"Exhale." You breathed out for eight seconds. He repeated the cycle a few more times until he could tell you calmed down. Montgomery wouldn't find you from where you're hiding.

"Very good." He praised. "You may put your hand down."

You forgot about that, so you quickly retract your arm to your side.

"I will stay on the line with you until I arrive. Do you understand, (name)?" You gulped and said a shaky yes.

"Stay where you are. You're safe there." He continued. Yves sounded so confident in his answers that you can't help but trust him fully.

You wished you had friends. You wouldn't need to solely rely on him if you did.

"What did you think of the breakfast I made for you?" He asked, in a tone and cadence as if he was casually chatting up with his partner about their day. But you can tell he's speeding through the highways by the intense humming of his car engine.

You said that it's nice. You thanked him for taking care of you.

"I'm happy you enjoyed it. I will be making chicken soup for you tonight, did you apply sunscreen before leaving the house?"

You paused for a while, trying to remember what you did. You eventually tell him no.

"It is important for you to protect your skin. Remember to do so next ti--"

The call suddenly dropped. Your heart started beating wildly again, what happened? You pulled your phone away from your ear and looked at the screen.

You let out a visceral scream that caught everyone's attention, your phone battery is dead.

Seeing that you caused a scene, you flee the store out of embarrassment, forgetting about Yves telling you your original spot is the safest place for you to be in. Now with no means of contacting your savior and being out in the open like this, your brain starts to short-circuit. You begin running aimlessly in no particular direction.

All this stress and explosive physical exertion on you right after a bout of illness is making you queasy again.

But you kept going, just... roaming around while periodically looking over your shoulders. Customers and staff alike were staring at you, thinking that you were suffering from some sort of inner turmoil or drug abuse issues. However, they knew better than to intercept.

However, you focused too much on your back, and not too much on the front.

You slammed into a sturdy pillar, lost your balance, and fell back onto your rear.

"Whoa! You alright?" Except that pillar can speak. And it was the last person you want to see right now. Concern riddled his face as he crouched down to help you up. "This is fun and all, but you gotta watch where you're goin-"

At that moment, your stomach decided to empty itself onto Montgomery's chest. He grimaced as you continued to spew and release more vomit from your mouth.

Yves knows where you are. He knew your phone battery died, Yves is just mildly annoyed he didn't catch the fact that one of your room outlets was faulty. It so happened to be the one you used to charge your phone.

Yves pushed the door of the mall's clinic open, glaring daggers at Montgomery as he spotted him waiting on the bench, covered in your puke; noting his filthy fingers wrapping the handle of your bag. He was taken aback by this sudden hostility from an apparent stranger, he looked at Yves confused, what did he ever do to him? Was he offended that he happened to be covered in someone else's throw-up? What a stuck-up bitch!

Yves took his wallet out of his handbag and walked up to the receptionist. He shared a few hushed words with her and spared a couple of unkind glances for Montgomery. The woman behind the counter had both eyebrows raised momentarily before she nodded and picked up a phone. While speaking to someone unknown on the other side of the line, she accepted Yves's credit card.

Soon after, she handed him a clipboard and a pen. He had to sign something before receiving a receipt.

Montgomery looked him up and down with equal animosity, his eyes trailing behind Yves as he took the seat opposite of him.

The dark-haired male elegantly crossed his legs and rested his hands on his knee. Now a blank expression took over his beautiful face. Montgomery took note of his feminine demeanor including his usage of makeup. He somehow deluded himself that he was better than Yves even though he was hunched over, resting his forearms on his thighs while spreading his legs.

Montgomery tried to look away and ignore this stranger. But he couldn't, because Yves was burning holes through his head with his constant stare.

This really ruffled Montgomery's feathers. He's clearly trying to start something.

"What the hell is your problem?"

All eyes landed on Montgomery. Young or old, they're now invested in this sudden outburst.

"What do you mean?" Replied Yves calmly as he tilted his head to the side to feign ignorance.

"You're lookin' at me like you wanted to fight!" Montgomery finally sat up straight while accusing Yves. Meanwhile, the graceful man placed a hand on his chest to express disbelief.

"I do not understand this explosive reaction from you, I have done nothing wrong." Yves's long eyelashes fluttered as he blinked, already winning the hearts of the public. It ticked Montgomery off so bad. For some reason, this androgynous person is making him angrier than usual. Maybe it's because Yves's old money aura reminded him of every city girl and boy who fucked him over emotionally, socially, financially, or physically.

It was quite unusual, Montgomery would usually just not engage with these citizens. But today, Yves is exceptionally infuriating while doing the least. He even smelled the same as those rich bastards, they all must be using the same cologne.

A mere five minutes had elapsed since they first met, yet Montgomery despised him with every fiber of his being.

Yves knows his own effect on the construction worker.

"Don't play with me! You had that stupid look on your face, what have I done to you, huh!?" He rose from his seat.

A ghost of a smile graced Yves's otherwise serious face. That simpleton took the bait.

"Please calm down. You're causing a scene out of nothing." Yves continued provoking him. Mothers began to leave the room with their children, and other patients quietly changed their seats to be further away from the two men.

"Why you-" Something distracted him from his rage.

Yves turned his head and saw you slowly dragging yourself out of the hallway, carrying a prescription slip in one hand and cradling your stomach in the other. You look pale and exhausted as you limp towards the waiting room.

"Joe!" Montgomery called out for you. "Are you alright? What did ya' doctor say?"

You were spooked, you froze in your tracks. Not noticing that Yves is a few steps away from you.

"Dear." You snapped your neck to the source of the quiet but assuring voice. Yves is now standing tall, his arms open for you to run into.

And so, you did. You buried your face in his chest, refusing to see the other man. Yves had a pleased smile as he picked your prescription script from your hands, he slid it into his handbag. Right after, he wrapped his arms around you.

The room was eerily quiet. Everyone was holding their breaths, wondering what was going to happen.

You felt Yves stroke your hair. But you couldn't see or hear anything. So you lift your head a little to see what was going on, he rested his palm on your shoulder.

Montgomery has his eyes open so wide staring at your boyfriend. His mouth is open but soundless. The veins on his forehead and arm were throbbing while he trembled uncontrollably.

"Do you know him, my love? He seems dangerous. You know you shouldn't mingle around men like him, they're usually raised by dysfunctional families- sometimes, they don't even have one." Yves asked you, soft enough for no one else to hear, but loud enough that his pathetic excuse of a rival absorbed every word. This was the last straw for Montgomery.

Finally, he dropped your bag to the ground before launching himself against Yves. Your boyfriend pushed you out of harm's way as he allowed himself to get tackled by the unstable male.

Yves closed his eyes as he took a devastating punch to the face, he was flung to the side from the force and it left a reddish mark on his once pristine face.

"Fuck you! The fuck you mean that's 'your love', you don't mean shit to them!" Montgomery yelled in Yves's ear, and a struggle ensued between them.

Screams and shouts filled the clinic, and the patients present all ran out of the room. Those who stayed tried to film the tussle. Some doctors and customers poked their heads out of the consultation rooms to see what the commotion was all about.

Whereas you grabbed your bag and went outside, securing your safety behind the tempered glass walls.

"You think you better than me?! I'll teach you a fucking lesson to be humble!" Montgomery swung at him again, but Yves dodged in time and utilized his long, slender legs to trip him. Now that he has gotten what he wanted out of this scenario, Yves allows himself to defend his own body.

He got up fairly quickly and tried to land another punch, but Yves grabbed his wrist on time and used minimal force to twist his arm against his back. Montgomery cried out in pain as his limb was contorted to an unnatural position. Being an opportunist, Yves took his chance to strike his broken rib using the side of his hand.

This made Montgomery's legs buckle on itself. You silently cheered for Yves as he subdued the creep on the cold hard tiles.

He pressed a heel against his chest, right behind on fractured bone. So Montgomery was powerless against him.

Yves reached for his handbag and pulled his phone out. He dialed emergency services and reported Montgomery as being aggressive, being a danger to the general public.

"Bullcrap! Fuck you asshole! I will kill you!" Screeched the man currently being stepped on and humiliated in front of his object of obsession. Unfortunately for him, the operator heard his threat towards Yves, increasing your boyfriend's credibility.

He tried to grab his leg, but Yves only drove his sharp heel deeper into his ribs, knocking the air out of him and making stars appear in his vision.

At the same time, the mall security arrives with their batons.

They took over from there, it took more than ten of them to try and get Montgomery under control. He was like a bull seeing red, only goal was to try and disfigure the pretty boy's face as much as possible.

He was forcefully expelled from the premises while kicking, howling, and straining. You saw the tears of anguish in his eyes as he cussed everyone out for treating him as subhuman, he wished horrible fates on all who witnessed but stood by. He was shouting incoherently about having everything stolen from him by the rich, he had one thing good going on but a billionaire had to come along and take you away from him.

He vowed to take what was rightfully his and punish the bad, especially Yves who he referred to as "That fucking queer freak".

Eventually, though, his yelling became inaudible as he got further and further away. The others returned to their day, dispersing as nothing else interesting was going on.

You walked up to Yves, who is now gently dabbing his bleeding nostrils with a folded piece of tissue. He smiled at you, caressing your cheek with his thumb.

"Well done." He praised. Disposing of the soiled napkin into a trashcan nearby.

You said you didn't contribute to anything good. In fact, you're the one who caused all this.

"Don't think too lowly of yourself." He picked up a hairbrush from his bag and started fixing your hair. You looked at his face.

The patch around his nose and under his left eye is already starting to bruise, swelling to a degree that he can only see out of his right. Red dripped down his chin and onto the floor, splattering into many dots.

You look around and see the broken pot, flipped chair, and scattered magazines.

You shudder, asking Yves if you could go home.

"Not yet, (name). The police should be here soon, they have to take my statement." He invited you into his arms, and you snuggled into him as his blood dripped onto you too.

"I packed you something to eat." He softly pried you off him. Reaching for his handbag once again, he retrieved a square container before handing it to you.

You opened it to see a sandwich. It's intentionally bland to accommodate your current weak stomach. As if on cue, your belly growled. However, Yves stopped you from devouring it.

"Always sanitize your hands before eating." He squeezed a good amount of hand sanitizer on your palms. Yves only handed the meal back to you after he was satisfied with your application.

You sit on a chair as you take bites off it. Yves sat next to you too, this time he was tidying his luscious black hair with the same brush and compact mirror.

You continued munching on as you heard distant sirens growing louder.

#yandere #yandere oc #yandere concept #yandere x you #tw yandere #yandere oc x reader #yandere male #oc yves #male yandere oc x reader #yandere x reader #oc montgomery #tw violence #tw blood #tw queerphobia #tw strong language

87 notes · View notes

artistsfuneral · 1 year

Text

First of all, I'm sorry. Secondly, some people in the rbs said they missed the votes, should I make a taglist?

Part 7 of this

Your First Loop

Jaskier's heart feels like it's about to jump out of his chest. His eyes sting painfully. "No, absolutely not. I refuse your refusal!"

Geralt frowns at him and Jaskier wants nothing more than to slap that look off of his face, because it's not an annoyed frown or an angry one, it's not even one of those rare frowns that says "Jaskier, I'm disappointed in you." No, Geralt's frown is full of pity and Jaskier hates it with every viber of his beeing.

"I don't believe this is your decision to make."

He wants to scream. He wants to use his shaking fists to pound some sense into Geralt's chest. "I appreciate the sentiment, but this is my life we're talking about and I'm not going to live it after someone else's memories of me. Whatever you're trying to create would be built upon lies, no matter what we do, I'd never be the same person you're actually wanting to be with."

Geralt's words bring tears to his eyes. There's an incredibly tiny part in the back of his mind that maybe understands where the witcher is coming from. The rest of him is just incredibly tired of all of this.

"I'm sorry, bard," Geralt says with some honest uneasiness in his voice, "but for what it's worth, it wasn't as terrible to meet you as I initially thought." Jaskier looks at him defeated and doesn't say a thing. "Try living your own life from now on, alright? Your existence shouldn't be determined by someone else's."

Geralt leaves and Jaskier sinks to the floor. With shaking hands he draws a glyph into the sand.

✨⏳✨

Jaskier of Rivia regains his consciousness when a piece of rock hard bread connects with his temple.

He is standing in a godawful tavern in Posada, with his hands still on his lute and dried tear tracks on his cheeks. His maybe-some-day-if-he-doesn't-fuck-things-up-again husband to be is sitting in a far back corner of the room, not having spotted him yet.

Oops? Also please remember to like and reblog if you voted, because the numbers can be really disencouraging sometimes :(

And yes there's an actual +/- system behind your answers.

#the witcher #artistsfuneral about the witcher #geraskier #jaskier #geralt #witcher #geralt of rivia

218 notes · View notes

saintlethanavir · 9 months

Text

✨ Hey you! yes, you 🫵✨

✨Do you like getting monthly drawings of your blorbo?✨ Maybe some stickers in the mail? ✨How about your name in a game or even full early access to the whole process of said game?✨

✨Boy have I got a place for you! ✨

If you've read this far, hi! I'm Lev, local eldritch horror who draws silly little guys and I've got a deal for you! My husband @thecoffeerain and I run a patreon/Kofi where you can support our household and visual novel game just by giving £1 a month or more (if you are so inclined)

✨ The Fun Stuff ✨

Our Visual Novel in development is called Beyond Blood and it's all about supernatural creatures finding love in a small town + some vague apocalyptic events possibly. By becoming a member you can get full updates of the project all the way up to voting on characters and story elements, and get bonus content you won't see on social media!✨ You also get optional access to the equivalent patreon tier, if you'd like to see our non Beyond Blood content or even get more goodies!✨

(below is concept art for the game and only one lineup of many for Romance Options)

Beyond Blood Kofi✨

(click to view tiers in full res)

We also have a generic patreon filled with fanart, oc content, a sticker club, exclusive drawings, monthly requests, and voting on lots of different things! Even from just £1 you get access to sketches, full wips, early access to full illustrations, and voting on collabs between myself and Jack!

(ex. Of monthly sketches for patrons. On the left is Ellinor for @bitchesofostwick done by me and the right is an oc for @anonbea done by Jack!)

Patreon link ✨

(click for hi res! Here are the descriptions of the patreon tiers)

✨Not so fun stuff (why I will be queuing this every other post for a bit)✨

Both of us work grueling jobs that we are severely struggling with. We are both disabled, trans, and Neurodivergent. I work 8-9 hour days on my feet constantly to the point I've developed a need for a cane just to be able to get by. I'm also AUDHD and have begun to experience symptoms of severe burnout but I cannot stop working retail. Currently the NHS has decided I'm too high functioning/not bad enough to qualify for CBT or other therapies for my PTSD as well, despite the fact I've recently undergone traumatic events and have had multiple breakdowns. So if I want to treat these things I have to pay for it out of pocket and I cannot afford that.

My husband is in a job that has him constantly exhausted from early days and late night shifts, and the environment is not only discriminatory towards trans people but also to those with mental health issues. But again he can't leave his job.

Both of us are at our limit and we need something to change.

Anything helps, even just a reblog.

#artists on tumblr #queer artist #small artist #art #visual novel #interactive fiction #artist support #digital artist

110 notes · View notes

navybrat817 · 9 months

Text

Ladies and Gentlemen

Pairing: Tattoo Artist!Bucky Barnes x Baker!Female Reader Summary: Bucky reflects on you and your date the morning after. Word Count: Over 1.9k Warnings: Tension, flirting, brief moments of insecurity, implied sexy times, slight feels (it's me), Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?). Graphics talent and thanks: Banner by @sgt-seabass. Divider by @firefly-graphics. Bucky edit by Nix. Moodboard by yours truly. Previous Part of AU: Technically Innocent and Sinful, but posted part is Sundresses and Leather A/N: A bit more Hottie and Sugar from our Sin on Skin AU and you voted to go to his place! ❤️ I realize that I've skipped over Innocent and Sinful for now, but I really wanted to showcase Bucky and his feelings regarding the date and you. Beta read by the lovely @whisperlullaby (thank you for spitballing), but any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!

Bucky hummed to himself as he made breakfast, doing his best to move quietly around the kitchen. He normally only hummed along to the radio in his car, which you discovered during your date the night before, but he couldn’t help himself today. He was happy. He had a spring in his step he hadn’t realized was missing.

Turns out, the thing he was missing was you.

“So. My place or yours?”

Tiptoeing back to his bedroom, Bucky saw you asleep peacefully in his bed. It was a sight he could get used to. Your gentle breathing and serene expression brought a small smile to his face as he leaned against the doorframe. When he woke up earlier with you in his arms he feared for a moment that he was dreaming again, like he had in his shop. But when he placed a kiss on your forehead and received a sleepy moan in response, he knew it was real.

So was the night before.

Bucky held back a groan as some of the images of the two of you together replayed in his mind, his eyes closing and only serving to enhance what he was already thinking about. He wanted to be a gentleman to you. He tried. After your last prick of a boyfriend, you sure as hell deserved that. Which was one of the reasons he was making you breakfast, as tempted as he was to climb back in bed and wake you.

Told you I’d take care of you, Sugar.

You opened up to and for him so beautifully. You were nothing short of an angel. His angel. His Sugar. It was crazy to think like that after one date, but there was something there and that was before he took you out. And you already planned what the next two dates would be, which he was looking forward to.

Even if our first date didn’t go as planned.

It turned out for the best. Even better than he could’ve imagined. He refrained from leaving a negative review online at that restaurant for mixing up his reservation, which was a blessing in disguise. The place was far from his style, but he saw it as a chance to impress you when his other plans fell through. He should’ve known better and gone with his instinct to take you to a place like Antonia’s from the start.

The smile slipped from his face as he remembered you talking about your mom, his fists lightly clenching. If he ever had the chance to meet her, he’d have a hard time staying silent about how she treated you. As if you sensed the sudden tension rise within him, you shifted closer to his side of the bed and rubbed the spot with your hand. The sight soothed him. For you to tell him something so vulnerable, to trust him, gave him a glimpse of how strong you truly were. Because it took strength to open up and stay kind when others tried to knock you down.

I’ll catch you.

Silently dashing back to the kitchen so he didn’t burn anything on the stove, he pushed the thought of your mom out of his mind as he finished up. He wasn’t going to focus on the negatives today. Not when he had you at his place. Maybe he could convince you to stick around for a bit after breakfast if you didn’t have plans.

Before he had a chance to wake you, someone knocked three times on the front door.

Steve.

He wondered if the noise woke you as he glanced down the hall, but he didn’t hear any movement as he headed toward the door and yanked it open before Steve could knock again. Sure enough, his best friend had his fist closed and ready. “Not dressed?” he asked as he lowered his arm.

With a shrug, Bucky glanced down at himself. “I’m wearing sweatpants,” he said, which he only put on to cook for you. “What are you doing here? It’s my day off.”

“Is that how you greet your best friend, jerk? After I came all the way over here?” He asked, looking back and forth as he pushed his way inside. “You weren’t answering your phone and you usually don’t sleep this late.”

“Come on in, punk. And don’t act like you drove across town to see me. We live in the same building,” Bucky said sarcastically as he shut the door. “So because I didn’t answer my phone on my day off, you decided to come over? Really? You’re spying, which you’re terrible at because you’re a terrible liar.”

The blonde pushed his hair back as his gaze swept the apartment. “I’m not spying, but come on. You have to tell me something. Jake and Hal won’t shut up in the group chat. Even Andy asked about your date and you’ve ignored everyone,” he argued, following Bucky to the kitchen.

Bucky couldn’t find it in himself to feel annoyed at Steve showing up or at the rest of the guys for wanting to know how the night went. They looked out for and supported each other. The fact that they all liked you made them root for the two of you more. “I wasn’t trying to ignore you guys,” he said, not saying he didn’t answer anyone since he was preoccupied with you.

“So, how did it go?” Steve asked, a hopeful look in his eyes.

Perfect because it was with Sugar.

“Minus getting rained on and the restaurant screwing up the reservation, just fine,” he said, giving a quick rundown of some of the details. He left out the heart-to-heart conversation in your bakery. Steve was his best friend, but that wasn’t any of his business.

“It didn’t go the way you wanted to, but it was ‘just fine’? Judging by that smile on your face, I take it the date went well,” Steve said.

Very well.

Bucky managed not to smirk as he set out two coffee mugs. “A gentleman never tells. Now do me a favor and get the hell out of my apartment. My breakfast is getting cold.”

“I know you have an appetite, but this much food?” Steve said, nodding to the two plates. “Considering I showed up unannounced and you already had two plates out, I’m guessing you weren’t planning on feeding me.”

“Mmm. Something smells delicious. Oh! Hi, Steve.”

Bucky sucked in a breath when he turned his head and drank in the sight of you. You had a sleepy expression on your face, which was adorable, but it was the fact that you were wearing one of his shirts that made his heart stop in his chest. You toyed with the hem as you smiled, your gaze on him and not on Steve. He wondered if it would be too much to ask you to wear one of his shirts while you worked in the bakery.

I can have a dress made out of one of my shirts, right?

“Good to see you.” Steve smirked before he looked at his friend. “A gentleman never tells, huh?”

Bucky allowed himself to smirk this time. “I didn’t say a word.”

“Oh, he’s very much a gentleman,” you said as you joined Bucky and slid an arm around his waist. His arm instinctively went around your back, his fingers gently touching you through the fabric. “He’s also a sorcerer. Or maybe a magician. I’m not sure which.”

Steve’s brows furrowed as he glanced at Bucky. “You’re a what?”

“Well,” you said slowly, biting your lip before you looked at Bucky. “There’s this magical thing he does with his tongue where-”

The blonde held a hand up to stop you. “And that’s my cue to leave.”

Yeah, because my cue of telling you to leave wasn’t enough, Punk. Now go so I can do that thing with my tongue again.

“Told you a gentleman never tells,” Bucky stated, pulling you closer by the waist. It amazed him how perfectly you two fit together. “I never said anything about my girl speaking.”

Your eyes lit up at the small endearment, making his heart race. “Should I tell him about your massive-”

“Text me later!” Steve said, giving you a small smile before he quickly showed himself out.

Bucky chuckled when the door shut. “Don’t let his modest act fool you. He’s far from innocent,” he joked. Steve respected women though.

“I think he was trying to act like a gentleman for my sake,” you teased. “And if Tess knew where you lived, she probably would’ve shown up, too.”

With a chuckle, he nodded in agreement. “How’d you sleep? I would’ve stayed in bed with you, but I wanted to make you breakfast.”

Are you sore? Do I need to take care of you?

“I slept very well, thank you. And breakfast in bed sounds like the perfect way to start the day,” you said, touching his cheek. He could stay wrapped up in bed with you all day if you'd let him. “Did you sleep okay?”

“Best night of sleep I’ve had since I can remember,” he answered honestly, his eyes soft as a full blown smile spread across your face.

You leaned in to brush your lips against his before you stopped yourself, some of the light fading from your eyes. “Sorry. I haven’t brushed my teeth and my breath probably stinks-”

Bucky closed the gap to kiss your lips. He didn’t care if you brushed your teeth or not. “Taste sweet to me, Sugar,” he whispered, taking possession of your mouth again to leave you breathless. He wanted to taste every part of you and sweep away any insecurities or doubts that tried to take over.

You pulled away to take a breath. “Keep kissing me like that and I won’t eat this breakfast you worked so hard on.”

“Did you purposely say ‘hard on’?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at you. “And I don’t mind feeding you my-”

You covered his mouth with your hand, giggling. “Don’t you dare say what I think you’re going to say.”

He licked his lips when you moved your hand away. “I was going to say I don’t mind feeding you my food,” he told you with a blank expression since he couldn’t feign innocence. “You’re a dirty girl for jumping to conclusions.”

“I’m not a dirty girl. I’m a lady,” you protested, inhaling sharply as he began to back you up against the counter.

“You look good in my shirt. Really good,” he said, his voice gravelly and low as he flexed his fingers on your hips. “Tell me to stop, Sugar. I already wore you out once and you need to eat so you have your strength.”

Because I want to ruin you all over again.

“So I have my strength? You sure I didn’t wear you out, Hottie?” You questioned.

He found himself laughing as you tilted your chin up. Not at you. Never at you. No, it was that happiness creeping back in at how the two of you fell in sync. The banter, the ease. He wished you could see yourself through his eyes and feel what he did.

He’d continue to find ways to show you how special you were.

“How about we agree that we wore each other out? I think that’s what happened.”

You gave him a single nod. “Looking forward to us wearing each other out again.”

Me, too, Sugar. Me, too.

He's a dream, isn't he? Love and thanks for reading! 💙

Masterlist ⚓ Bucky Barnes Masterlist ⚓ Ko-Fi

1K notes · View notes

murkycran · 14 days

Text

Misc. Vox Fic Rec List

Welcome to my Miscellaneous Vox Fic Rec List!

Soooo after a lot of consideration, I decided to make a third rec list. This one will be for miscellaneous fics, which can mean anything from smaller Vox pairings to fics that are not strictly Radiostatic or VoxVal. You'll see what I mean.

I will keep updating this periodically as I read more fics, too, so feel free to check back every once and a while! I'll reblog it when I update it, plus make a note with the date at the top. Trust me, this is by no means a complete list; there's fics I still want to add to this that I just haven't gotten to yet. I just decided to go ahead and post it anyways, because if I kept waiting until I ran out of fics to rec I'd probably be working on this forever.

These are not in any particular order; I'm going by both my Bookmarks list on AO3 and my memory of fics I forgot to bookmark. I also tried to make notes on what fics were written before season 1 released, but I might have missed some, so keep that in mind.

Please let me know if any links don't work or are wrong!

✨Before you proceed:✨ read the tags on these fics if you decide to read them. Many of them have heavy material - no surprise given the fandom, but still, felt like this needed said. On that note, there's also fics with explicit material and some fics are straight up PWP. Again, read at your own risk/heed the tags.

Fic Rec List Masterpost

Radiostatic Fic Rec List

Staticmoth Fic Rec List

------

Alastor Makes a Porno by Charnel_Goat, spappest

Summary: Alastor interrupts Val and Vox's personal time to get his rut over and done with, and they're just going to have to deal with that.

Basically, Alastor and Val try to have a threesome, but they keep arguing, everyone's injuring each other trying to figure out the logistics, and nobody cares what Vox has to say about any of this.

Notes: This has Staticmoth, Radiostatic, and Valastor. It's not strictly leaning more towards any pairing (tho Val does make a pretty sweet comment at the very beginning about Vox lol), which is why it's going on the Misc List. Porn with an edge of hilarity that - despite the tags - made it pretty funny. Three terrible people being terrible to each other. Vox suffers. Heed the tags.

He's Visual, Alright! by dead_boy

Summary: For Valentines Day, Charlotte Morningstar— Lucifer’s brat— had announced the hotel would be hosting a sweetheart poll, allowing winners to vote for the biggest ‘sweethearts’ in Pentagram City! How adorable!

— Of course, when Angel gets involved, things get a little twisted, and hell treats it as a most-fuckable-celebs poll.

Vox isn’t the only one surprised by how high he scored, and how concerning the amount of votes he received was.

But there was no way in hell this “demand” was enough to make him give into Valentino and Velvet’s newest fixation: Making use of this fame and making Vox do some modelling!

Surely he won’t mind the lingerie and toys provided by Velvet and Valentino respectively, right?

edit march 2024: i can’t believe he just won the hottest hazbin character poll. literally manifested

Notes: Poly Vees. Funny af. Vox suffers, but in a good way. Written BEFORE the hottest HH character poll, can you believe that? Lmao.

stray by vol_ctrl

Summary: How Vox met Vark. ♥

Notes: No ship. Written before season 1 release.

After the Credits Roll by leftofrevolution

Summary: Everyone knew the Magnes sometimes liked to spice up their sex life by dragging another demon into the middle of it.

Vox maybe should have paid more attention to that particular tidbit of information than he did.

Notes: Lilith/Lucifer/Vox. Chapter 1 written before season 1 release, with Chapter 2 being released after season 1 release. I read for the crackship, ended up liking the Lilith/Lucifer/Vox dynamic and world-building a LOT. Lol. Poor Vox. Or good for him? Still has yet to be seen.

The Shopping Cart Test by spappest

Summary: Angel never expected Prince Charming to have a TV for a head, but when Vox kills Valentino and saves him from his abuse, well… Maybe Hell doesn’t have to be all that bad. With Val out of the way, everyone can have a happy ending. Angel’s safe, Charlie’s happy, and even Alastor finds love.

Oh, wait. This is Hell. It’s always that bad.

Notes: Angel/Vox. Started before season 1 release. First Staticdust fic I read. :)

Hold Me Up by Sameko

Summary: Vox has been in and out of a relationship with Valentino for years. Always breaking up. Always coming back.

Then one night comes the definitive crack at the expense of one of Valentino's employees, to which Vox never paid much attention other than for shits and giggles.

One night, one word too many, might be enough to shift the perspectives of two people once strangers to each other.

Notes: Staticdust. Pretty bleak and dark at times, but so, SO good. Two broken people trying not to cut each other with their edges while also trying to help each other.

Cruel Melody by Hiding_Behind_a_Pencil_and_Pen

Summary: A man hopelessly in love with a monster, despite how much it hurts.

A person chained to a beast he can never escape, no matter how hard he tries.

Vox and Angel Dust have given their body and heart to Valentino, and neither know how to free themselves from his lies.

But maybe, even if it never gets better, they won't have to suffer alone.

Or,

What if Husk was just a little too late to get to the bar in episode four? And a certain media Overlord helped Angel instead. They find out that they're not so different after all.

Notes: As of now, I think this is Queerplatonic Staticdust.

Revelations in Technicolor by Awesome_Possum

Summary: Velvette had been dead for six years, part of The Vees for four, and fucking Vox for a little over two. They had a good thing going.

On one of their bi-weekly Vox-mandated movie nights, Valentino put a plan into motion and Velvette learned something new and surprising about her business partner and part-time sugar daddy that made a shocking amount of sense.

It ultimately ended up bringing The Vees closer and if Valentino claimed that was his intention all along, no one had any reason to believe him.

Notes: The Vees are a V and Vox is the hinge, so he's in a relationship with both Valentino and Velvette. Interesting headcanons for Vox's human life. :) (What is the ship name for Velvette/Vox again?)

System Shutdown by Swoolie

Summary: Taking a leaf from Alastor's book, Vox goes on a small break from everything.

He doesn't stick around long enough to see the chaos that ensues after his sudden disappearance.

Notes: This is tagged with both Radiostatic and Staticmoth. It's too early in the story to tell definitively which direction it's going to end up, so for now it's going to be on the Misc list. I'll probably move it when it becomes more clear what the main pairing will be.

Dapple Rose by The_Penny_Tails

Summary: Everyone always assumes the same thing about Alastor and Vox's relationship: That it's one-sided, that it's based on fixation, and that the reason for their falling out was due to the obsession turning into something that couldn't be controlled.

All of those assumptions are correct. The only problem is, everyone gets the 'who is obsessing over whom' part of the equation wrong.

When Vox and Valentino end up stuck at the hotel, suddenly the entire relationship between the radio and television is put on display, casting it and Alastor in an entirely different light.

Notes: Tagged with both Radiostatic and Staticmoth. Due to both this and the entire story itself (you'll see what I mean when you read it), it's going here on the Misc List. I freaking love this story, because so far I've not seen another fic where Alastor was obsessed with Vox while Vox was not obsessed with him in return. :3 Everything Penny_Tails writes is gold!

Here I Come by Heliosolar

Summary: Vox contemplates his lackluster life as he stands over the edge of the city.

Or, the fall of Vox, both mentally and physically.

Notes: Written before season 1 release. No ships, just Vox. Heed the tags.

Entertainment for Two by Heliosolar

Summary: With the radio demon joining them for the night, Vox puts on a show the two overlords will never forget.

Notes: Written before season 1 release. Staticmoth and Radiostatic, at the same time. 😳

Proposition by Snorp_Lord

Summary: Alastor does not, strictly speaking, have a 'relationship' with the King of Hell. But they certainly have a something.

A something which does not include Vox. But Alastor is at least willing to indulge Lucifer in whatever this new idea is.

The new idea is Vox.

Notes: Contains Radiostatic, Radioapple, and Staticapple, but for this installment, Radiostatic is definitely the focus. Very intense, pretty sweet. 😳 Has 2 more parts in the series which are definitely worth the read, though they don't feature Vox as much.

meteor shower by spoondrifts

Summary: alastor, rosie, vox, and a study in non-traditional love.

Notes: QPR Alastor/Rosie/Vox. Very good! (What's the ship name for this?? Radiostaticrose?? Radiorosestatic?? Roseradiostatic?? Staticradiorose??)

spiraling down thy majesty by spoondrifts

Summary: “Okay, um, time out,” Lucifer said, because he felt like they were maybe losing the plot a little. “I feel like I should remind you that I’m not here because I was like, uh, overwhelmed with lust for you, in particular. I’m here because Husk said you were Alastor’s ex and I have poor impulse control and thought it’d be funny, but I’m realizing now that this is actually just really weird and you, my friend, have some serious issues that I am not equipped to handle.”

Or: Lucifer and Vox have a shared problem that starts with Al and ends in stor and has a in the middle—thankfully, there's a solution! (The solution is sex. It's just sex.)

Notes: Staticapple. Revenge sex. As in...they're both getting revenge on Alastor...using each other. Lol.

(Fic rec list to be continued as I read more)

#hazbin hotel #staticdust #staticmoth #radiostatic #staticapple #radiostaticapple #radiostaticrose #hazbin vox #hazbin angel dust #hazbin alastor #hazbin valentino #hazbin lucifer #hazbin rosie #hazbin velvette #fic rec list

36 notes · View notes

demigod-of-the-agni · 2 months

Text

Spider-Man India, but... where from India?

A SUPER long post featuring talks of: cultural identity, characterisation, the caste system, and what makes Spider-Man Spider-Man.

I’m prefacing this by saying that I am a second-generation immigrant. I was born in Australia, but my cultural background is from South India. My experiences with what it means to be “Indian” is going to be very different from the experiences of those who are born and brought up in India.

If you, reader, want to add anything, please reblog and add your thoughts. This is meant to be a post open for discussion — the more interaction we get, the better we become aware of these nuances.

So I made this poll asking folks to pick a region of India where I would draw Pavitr Prabhakar in their cultural wear. This idea had been on my mind for a long while now, as I had been inspired by Annie Hazarika’s Northeastern Spidey artwork in the wake of ATSV’s release, but never got the time to actually do it until now. I wanted to get a little interactive and made the poll so I could have people choose which of the different regions — North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South — to do first.

The outcome was not what I expected. As you can see, out of 83 votes:

THE RESULTS

South India takes up almost half of all votes (44.6%), followed by Northeast and Central (both 14.5%) and then East (13.3%). In all my life growing up, support towards or even just the awareness of South India was pretty low. Despite this being a very contained poll, why would nearly half of all voters pick South India in favour of other popular choices like Central or North India?

Then I thought about the layout of the poll: Title, Options, Context.

Title: "Tell us who you want to see…"

Options: North, Northeast, Central, East, West, South

Context: I want to make art of the boy again

At first I thought: ah geez. this is my fault. I didn't make the poll clear enough. do they think I want them to figure out where Pavitr came from? That's not what I wanted, maybe I should have added the context before the options.

Then I thought: ah geez. is it my fault for people not reading the entire damn thing before clicking a button? That's pretty stupid.

But regardless, the thought did prompt a line of thinking I know many of us desi folk have been considering since Spider-Man India was first conceived — or, at least, since the announcement that he was going to appear in ATSV. Hell, even I thought of it:

Where did Spider-Man India come from?

FROM A CULTURALLY DIVERSE INDIA

As we know, India is so culturally diverse, and no doubt ATSV creators had to take that into account. Because the ORIGINAL Spider-Man India came from Mumbai — most likely because Mumbai and Manhattan both started with the same letter.

But going beyond that, it’s also because Mumbai is one of the most recognisable cities in India - it’s also known as Bombay. It’s where Bollywood films are shot. It’s where superstar Hindi actors and actresses show up. Mumbai is synonymous with India in that regard, because the easiest way Western countries can interact with Indian culture is through BOLLYWOOD, through HINDI FILMS, through MUMBAI. Suddenly, India is Mumbai, India is a Hindi-only country, India is just this isolated thing we see through an infinitely narrow lens.

We’ve gotten a little better in recent years, but boy I will tell you how uncomfortable I’ve gotten when people (yes, even desi people) come up to me and tell me, Oh, you’re Indian right? Can you speak Hindi? Why don’t you speak Hindi? You’re not Indian if you don’t speak Hindi, that’s India’s national language!

I have been — still am — so afraid of telling people that I don’t speak Hindi, that I’m Tamil, that I don’t care that Hindi is India’s “national” language (it’s an administrative language, Kavin, get your fucking facts right). It’s weird, it’s isolating, and it has made me feel like I wasn’t “Indian” enough to be accepted into the group of “Indian” people.

So I am thankful that ATSV went out of their way to integrate as much variety of Indian culture into the Mumbattan sequence. Maybe that way, the younger generation of desi folk won’t feel so isolated, and that younger Western people will be more open to learning about all these cultural differences within such a vast country.

BUT WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH SPIDER-MAN INDIA?

Everything, actually. There’s a thing called supremacy. You might have heard of it. We all engaged with it at some point, and if you are Indian, no matter where you live, it is inescapable.

It happens the moment you are born — who your family is, where you are born, the language you speak, the colour of your skin; these will be bound to you for life, and it is nigh impossible to break down the stereotypes associated with them.

Certain ethnic groups will be more favourable than others (Centrals, and thus their cultures, will always be favoured over than Souths, as an example) and the same can be said for social groups (Brahmins are more likely to secure influential roles in politics or other areas like priesthood, while the lowers castes, especially Dalits, aren’t even given the decency of respect). Don’t even get me started on colourism, where obviously those of fairer skin will win the lottery while those of darker skin aren’t given the time of day. It’s even worse when morality ties into it — “lighter skinned Indians, like Brahmins, embody good qualities like justice and wisdom”, “dark skinned Indians are cunning and poor, they are untrustworthy”. It’s fucking nuts.

This means, of course, you have a billion people trying to make themselves heard in a system that tries to crush everyone who is not privileged. It only makes sense that people want to elevate themselves and break free from a society that refuses to acknowledge them. These frustrations manifest outwardly, like in protests, but other times — most times — it goes unheard, quietly shaping your way of life, your way of thinking. It becomes a fundamental part of you, and it can go unacknowledged for generations.

So when you have a character like Pavitr Prabhakar enter the scene, people immediately latch onto him and start asking questions many Western audiences don’t even consider. Who is he? What food does he eat? What does he do on Fridays? What’s his family like, his community? All these questions pop up, because, amidst all this turmoil going on in the background, you want a mainstream popular character to be like you, who knows your way of life so intimately, that he may as well be a part of your community.

BUT THAT'S THE THING — HE'S FICTIONAL

I am guilty of this. In fact, I’ve flaunted in numerous posts how I think he’s the perfect Tamil boy, how he dances bharatanatyam, how he does all these Tamil things that no one will understand except myself. All these niche things that only I, and maybe a few others, will understand.

I’ve seen other people do it, too. I’ve seen people geek out over his dark brown skin, his kalari dhoti, how he fights so effortlessly in the kalaripayattu martial arts style. I’ve seen people write him as Malayali, as Hindi, as every kind of Indian person imaginable.

I’ve also seen him be written where he’s subjected to typical Indian and broader Asian stereotypes. You know the ones I’m so fond of calling out. The thing is, I’ve seen so much of Pavitr being presented in so many different ways, and I worry how the rest of the desi folk will take it.

You finally have a character who could be you, but now he’s someone else’s plaything. Your entire life is shaped by what you can and can’t do simply because you were born to an Indian family, and here’s the one person who could represent you now at the mercy of someone else’s whims. He’s off living a life that is so distant from yours, you can hardly recognise him.

It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, yeah? But, again, you’re looking at it from that infinitely narrow lens Westerners use to look at India from Bollywood.

AND PAVITR PRABHAKAR DOESN'T LIVE IN INDIA

He lives in Mumbattan. He lives in a made-up, fictional world that doesn’t follow the way of life of our world. He lives in a city where Mumbai and Manhattan got fucking squashed together. There are so many memes about colonialism right there. Mumbattan isn’t real! Spider-Man India isn’t real!! He’s just a dude!! The logic of our world doesn’t apply to him!!!

“But his surname originates from ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he’s wearing a kalari dhoti so surely he’s ______” okay but does that matter?

“But his skin colour is darker so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

“But he lives in Mumbai so he must be ______” okay but does that matter?

I sound insensitive and brash and annoying and it looks like I’m yapping just for the sake of riling you up, so direct that little burst of anger you got there at me, and keep reading.

Listen. I’m going to ask you a question that I’ve asked myself a million times over. I want you to answer honestly. I want you to ask this question to yourself and answer honestly:

Are you trying to convince me on who Pavitr Prabhakar should be?

... but why shouldn't i?

I’ll tell you this again — I did the same thing. You’re not at fault for this, but I want you to just...have a little think over. Just a little moment of self-reflection, to think about why you are so intent on boxing this guy.

It took me a while to reorganise my thinking and how to best approach a character like Pavitr, so I will give you all the time you need as well as a little springboard to focus your thoughts on.

SPIDER-MAN (INDIA) IS JUST A MASK

“What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume. And that’s a good thing.”

Stan Lee said that. Remember how he was so intent on making sure that everybody got the idea that Spider-Man as an entity is fundamentally broken without Peter Parker there to put on the suit and save the day? That ultimately it was the person beneath the mask, no matter who they were, that mattered most?

Spider-Man India is no less different. You can argue with me that Peter Parker!Spidey is supposed to represent working class struggles in the face of leering corporate entities who endanger the regular folk like us, and so Pavitr Prabhakar should also function the same way. Pavitr should also be a working class guy of this specific social standing fighting people of this other social standing.

But that takes away the authenticity of Spider-Man India. Looking at him through the Peter Parker lens forces you to look at him through the Western lens, and it significantly lessens what you can do with the character — suddenly, it’s a fight to be heard, to be seen, to be recognised. It’s yelling over each other that Pavitr Prabhakar is this ethnicity, is that caste, this or that, this or that, this or that.

There’s a reason why he’s called Spider-Man India, infuriatingly vague as it is. And that’s the point — the vagueness of his identity fulfils Lee’s purpose for a character that could theoretically be embodied by anyone. If he had been called “Spider-Man Mumbai”, you cut out a majority of the population (and in capitalist terms, you cut out a good chunk of the market).

And in the case of Spider-Man India? Whew — you’ve got about a billion people imagining a billion different versions of him.

Whoever you are, whatever you see in Pavitr, that is what is personal to you, and there is nothing wrong with that, and I will not fault you for it. I will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from Central due to the origins of his last name. I also will not fault you for saying Pavitr is from South due to him practising kalaripayattu. I also will not fault you for saying he is not Hindu. I also will not fault you for saying he is a particular ethnicity without any proof.

What I will fault you for is trying to convince me and the others around you that Pavitr Prabhakar should be this particular ethnicity/have this cultural background because of some specific reason. I literally don’t care and it is fundamentally going against his character, going against the “anyone can wear the mask” sentiment of Spider-Man. By doing this, you are strengthening the walls that first divided us. You’re feeding the stratification and segmentation of our cultures — something that is actually not present in the fictional world of Mumbattan.

Like I said before: Mumbattan isn’t real, so the divides between ethnicities and cultural backgrounds are practically nonexistent. The best thing is that it is visually there for all to see. My favourite piece of evidence is this:

It’s a marquee for a cinema in the Mumbattan sequence, in the “Quick tour: this is where the traffic is” section. It has four titles; the first three are written in Hindi. The fourth title is written in Tamil. You go to Mumbai and you won’t see a single shred of Tamil there, much less any other South Indian language. Seeing this for the first time, you know what went through my head?

Wow, the numerous cultures of India are so intermingled here in Mumbattan! Everyone and everything is welcome!

I was happy, not just because of Tamil representation, but because of the fact that the plethora of Indian cultures are showcased coexisting in such a short sequence. This is India embracing all the little parts that make up its grander identity. This scene literally opened my eyes seeing such beauty in all the diverse cultures thriving together. In a place where language and cultural backgrounds blend so easily, each one complementing one another.

It is so easy to believe that, from this colourful palette of a setting, Pavitr Prabhakar truly is Spider-Man India, no matter where he comes from.

It’s easy to believe that Pavitr can come from any part of India, and I won’t call you out if the origin you have for him is different from the origin I have. You don’t need to stake out territory and stand your ground — you’re entitled to that opinion, and I respect it. In fact, I encourage it!!!

Because there’s only so much you can show in a ten minute segment of a film about a country that has such a vast history and even greater number of cultures. I want to see all of it — I want him to be a Malayali boy, a Hindi boy, a Bengali boy, a Telugu boy, an Urdu boy, whatever!! I want you to write him or draw him immersed in your culture, so that I can see the beauty of your background, the wonderful little things that make your culture unique and different from mine!

And, as many friends have said, it’s so common for Indian folks to be migrating around within our own country. A person with a Maharashtrian surname might end up living in Punjab, and no one really minds that. I’m actually from Karnataka, my family speaks Kannada, but somewhere down the line my ancestors moved to Tamil Nadu and settled down and lived very fulfilling lives. So I don’t actually have the “pure Tamil” upbringing, contrary to popular belief; I’ve gotten a mix of both Kannada and Tamil lifestyles, and it’s made my life that much richer.

So it’s common for people to “not” look like their surname, if that’s what you’re really afraid about. In fact, it just adds to that layer of nuance, that even despite these rigid identities between ethnicities we as Indian people still intermingle with one another, bringing slivers of our cultures to share with others. Pavitr could just as well have been born in one state and moved around the country, and he happens to live in Mumbattan now. It’s entirely possible and there’s nothing to disprove that.

We don’t need to clamber over one another declaring that only one ethnicity is the “right” ethnicity, because, again, you will be looking at Pavitr and the rest of India in that narrow Western lens — a country with such rich cultural variety reduced to a homogenous restrictive way of life.

THE POLL: REINTERPRETED

This whole thing started because I was wondering why my little poll was so skewed — I thought people assumed I was asking them where he came from, then paired his physical appearance with the most logical options available. I thought it was my fault, that I had somehow influenced this outcome without knowing.

Truth is, I will never really know. But I will be thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to finally broach this topic, something that many of us desi folk are hesitant to talk about. I hope you have learned something from this, whether you are desi or a casual Spider-Man fan or someone who just so happened to stumble upon this.

So just…be a little more open. Recognise that India, like many many countries and nations, is made up of a plethora of smaller cultures. And remember, if you’re trying to convince Pavitr that he’s a particular ethnicity, he’s going to wave his hand at you and say, “Ha, me? No, I’m one of the people that live here in the best Indian city! I’m Spider-Man India, dost!”

(Regardless, he still considers you a friend, because to him, the people matter more to him than you trying to box him into something he’s not.)

#long post + more tags that kinda spiral away BUT expand on the points above AND kinda puts everything together concisely #BROS THIS IS AN HONEST TO GOD ESSAY #THAT HAS BEEN COOKING IN MY HEART FOR A WHILE NOW. SIMMERING FOR MONTHS BEFORE FINALLY BOILING OVER IN THE LAST WEEK #genuinely hope you read MOST of it because yes it has Quite A Lot Of Exposition but it all matters nonetheless #put in a lot of thought into this so i expect you to do your part and challenge your thoughts as well #you see how i'm not asking for you to listen to me. but to actually Think. i want you to cook your thoughts and add some spice and flavour #and give it a good mix so you can come out of this a little more wiser than before #because!!! yeah!!!! spider man india is just that!! he's indian!!!!! we don't need to collectively agree on where he comes from #bc it gets rid of that relatability factor of spider man. at the most basic level #think of it as a schrodinger's. he is every single culture and none of them at the same time. therefore none of us are wrong!! sick!!!!#pavitr's first priority is making sure HIS PEOPLE are safe. that's probably as far as we can go that relates him back to peter parker spide #he loves his people and working in the name of justice to FIGHT for HIS PEOPLE is just the duty/responsibility he takes up #it makes sense that he loves everyone and every culture he engages with bc that's the nature of spider man i suppose #if peter parker spidey acts as the guardian for the regular folk.. then in my mind pavitr spidey stands as the bridge uniting the people #because society as its core is very fragmented. and having pavitr act as a connection to other folks.... mmmmm beautiful #that's what i'm talking abouttttt !!!#anyways guys this is literally 3001 words on my document EXCLUDING THE TITLE. THAT'S 7 PAGES AT 11pt FONT. i'm literally cryingggg wtf #pavitr prabhakar #spider man #spider man india #desi #desiblr #atsv #across the spiderverse #atsv pavitr #indian culture #india #desi tumblr #what the fuck do i tag this as #agnirambles

46 notes · View notes

mcytblr-archive · 2 months

Text

Early MCYTblr Interviews: georgeeehd

today's interviewee is reese/georgeeehd/lmanburg/tommyofcolor! dreamlying member, mcytblr og, and the person who discovered that dream wasn't registered to vote. below is a transcript of questions and answers!

Q: What was your experience in wider MCYTblr?

A: I don’t have much experience with wider mcytblr. Maybe I used to reblog Grian stuff on my main blog, before all this DSMP shit. There wasn’t much of a Dream community when I started posting, much less one for DreamNotFound (surprisingly, Dreamnap was the popular ship of the two early on????? so bizarre to me), so I dug out my microcosm immediately. There was never a wider myctblr for me.

Q: What was your experience in critblr/dreamlying specifically?

A: The notion that dreamlying is the spawn of critblr is interesting to me, because I agree with you now, but I wouldn’t have at the time. Critblr was a tumblr community. Dreamlying was a friend group, predating critblr. I considered myself dteamblr for a really long time— I never felt aligned with the critblr movement because that was always Jason’s territory, really. I don’t mention it to nitpick or to scold, but like, I’m into this archiving thing, too, so I wanted to opine on how we label these groups. Maybe there should be a distinction made between what we considered ourselves vs. what we actually were.

My experience in proto-critblr was pretty cushy because it was all mine. Me and my contemporaries had a following, we were respected, we had smart things to say, we were funny, established, etc. Think, “The School of Athens.” I definitely grew a bit of an ego with how popular I was, which I’m sure will come across in this interview, haha.

At times I felt a little unchallenged, like people were only agreeing with me not because I was right, but because I was saying anything at all. At the same time, I was incredibly defensive and insecure, so the little pushback I might have gotten would bother me terribly. I was probably overreactive and mean. I was fifteen then, and I’m nineteen now, so there’s lots of things I would’ve handled differently, if I could.

In terms of my experience with dreamlying, I like what Ozzie had to say. We were all just very, very good friends. There’s not much else to it. In my first discord server, “dream lying” was a hidden messaging channel where we could critique Dream Team freely. “Dream lying” was supposed to parody the phrase “dream truthing.” So we were basically this tiny little secret society, at the start. There was no way we wouldn’t have hit it off.

Q: Are there any events that stand out to you?

A: A lot. Too many. Some are more personally relevant than historically relevant, and I don’t really know where to draw the line. The voter registration fiasco was a big one, but there were other smaller things… I was always in some fuckin’ controversy or another! The magic 8 ball says, Ask again later.

Q: Was being in MCYTblr an overall positive or negative experience for you?

A: Undoubtedly positive! I don’t even know where to start with this question. I met a lot of wonderful people that I still keep in contact with today, right? But beyond that, I feel like being in this community helped me grow a lot, like, personally. I was thinking and writing a lot. I learned so, so much, about people, about the internet, about fandom, about myself. It was such an expansive experience.

I guess I should mention that my time with mcytblr was incredibly stressful. My involvement in the fandom weighed heavily on my mental health. I felt very watched, and I still do. At my worst, I was hospitalized. (I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t mention my mcyt-induced mental hospital stint in my mcyt interview.) None of that really moves me, though, ‘cause it was all just part of the experience, and I find it all pretty funny, looking back.

Q: A few people have mentioned the account mcyttruth in relation to you, specifically around a callout post. What happened there? [I had misremembered-- I meant to ask this to Jason lmanburg, not Reese lmanburg.]

A: The mcyttruth callout wasn’t about me, but my discord server, dteamblr 2. I was not as involved here— at this point, critblr was in full bloom, and this server was like a rendezvous for people who liked dreamlying and modcord blogs (modcord was another friend group, like dreamlying, but critblr-based).

Regarding that callout specifically, I don’t know. Probably, there were too many r-slurs, too many jokes about hating Ranboo, the usual. There were a lot of callouts (for me or for people I was friends with), and I never really took them seriously. I mean, honestly, the url “mcyttruth” alone is derivative. Do you know how many times I’ve read the words “mcyt” and “truth”? Everything about this is a blur to me.

Q: I suppose I would ask-- given the current events surrounding many of the creators who were popular in 2020/2021, do you feel that dreamlying has been vindicated in their criticisms of creators?

A: Yes, but I would have said yes in 2020, because who these people are was as obvious to me then as it is now. Our criticisms weren’t like, headcanons that we made up to be mean, they were plain old observations. Wilbur was openly mentally ill, creepy, and generally dismissive of other people. Not to say that there aren’t good things about him either, but, of course this is the kind of guy to make his girlfriend clean up after him. There’s a million cautionary tales about guitar stringers with floppy hair under a beanie, whiny song lyrics, and a masturbatory approach to self-loathing.

Dream’s not this person anymore, so that’s not why I bring it up, but think back to when his old Reddit account was exposed for being active on r/The_Donald. That was everything we were ever talking about! That was Dream being exactly who he was— a young white man from Florida. I love Dream, always have, always will. Acknowledging that he is/was a whole person with flaws and unsavory politics, I think, is truer fanhood than the idolization everyone puts him through.

You use the word “vindicated” to acknowledge that we were heavily criticized ourselves. Most of that was on the basis of privacy— you know, whether or not it’s okay to speculate on people’s personal lives. It doesn’t matter that we were “right” so often, that we still are, and always will be, because people will focus more on the original sin of having speculated in the first place.

I used to love vindication because it made me feel smart, like I could see things that no one else could. Now it just makes me sad. I don’t think it has anything to do with smarts, nor would I care if it did. I think people just don’t let themselves think that far. You know, “I don’t want to make assumptions,” “It’s none of my business,” “It’s not that deep,” etc. Maybe there’s no instinct to look deeper at all. It really just makes me sad.

Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add/have archived?

A: I’d like to ask everybody to stay critical. The hivemind response to recent events have shown me that this fandom remains as shallow, unthinking, conformative, elementary… as it was four years ago.

Thank you for conducting these interviews in the first place. It's nice hearing everyone’s voices again.

#early mcytblr interviews #Volume 13 #georgeeehd

28 notes · View notes