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#this is a professional show with a big budget
khruschevshoe · 5 months
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Starkid is one of the absolute best arguments for supprting independent art. The fact that the shows you're invested in can't get canceled by Big Daddy Streaming, the quality is always amazing, the love of the cast and crew doesn't get squeezed out by surprise budget reductions, the fact that since crowd funding provides almost all costs up front (plus the presence of voluntary digital ticket/in person tickets for additional funding), the fan base can access the full material for whatever cost they can contribute (even if you can give nothing monetarily, you will still get a professionally shot version of the material eventually, without surprise fees or password crackdowns, AND with captions/completely accesible regardless of location). The same goes for Tin Can Bros, Shipwrecked, and all the other associated theater and web series companies loosely connected to Starkid. Like, I cannot believe the amazing content provided to us at the same level as Broadway or streaming services with billion dollars at hand, with almost none of the catches that come with others. Like, I cannot believe that we get all of this right at our hands.
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joonipertree · 5 months
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To show someone that you care, is a gift itself. | Sugar Daddy Bakugo Series
Where you show Katsuki what a gift can be.
Tags: Artist!reader, very self indulgent, like guys....please buy me watercolour paper instead of Versace. Watercolour paper is stupid expensive. Im also not skilled enough to actually make the gift so--
Pt 1 Pt 3
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Katsuki's birthday had been looming when the two of you started going out, like a weighted shadow. You had spent a very long stressing about what to get him with a budget that wasn't even worth a fraction of what he would buy you.
But, like gift giving was Katsuki's, it was your love language as well. And you'd gotten good at getting heart felt things for people. Admittedly, it took a lot of brainstorming and notes upon notes of what to get.
You'd always go overboard to please the people you cared about, afraid that they'll leave if you didn't cross the limits and bend over backwards for them.
Katsuki had always taken care of you, never asked for anything and your love was returned albeit in a quieter and tsundere manner. So the urge to go above and beyond didn't fester for long, knowing that your bare presence made him warmer.
Your gift idea came when he was on the ring, swift on his feet and solid in the rigidness of his body. You'd brought your sketchbook and while you wanted to keep your eyes on your boyfriend, your hands became busy with large curves and sharp flicks of your pencil that brought dark edges .
You'd made at least 20 quick gestures drawings that were more crude representations of movement for you. But with those and the feelings you trapped in your heart, you made thumbnails and chose one to draw large scale.
One where Katsuki's face was partially blocked by his arm and he gave a blow. His elbows were jagged, muscles taut and rippling. And his eyes sharp and cat like.
The charcoal pencils and sticks used to create tapered lines to create hard surfaces was 340 yen. The watercolour pallete used had messy paint splattered everywhere and its lid broken, having been with you for a good while. The coat over the charcoal was 50 yen hair spray that worked just as well as professional sprays.
It didn't cost a lot but your hands were full of care and by the end of it, you hoped that it'd be something Katsuki would at least like. The man could have the world but all you had was you.
You didn't realize that you were more than enough
Katsuki to lost his voice when you handed it to him at midnight, eyes wide as he stared at him but not him. The layers on layers of paint held emotions that he could only describe as love, meticulously hand picked and felt in strokes. He'd seen HD pictures of his fights, seen videos of them where his sweat and pores were as clear as day. The most he'd thought of them were how his form could improve or how cool he looked.
But what you made, it twisted something in his chest and stung his eyes and filled him to the brim with love so warm and overwhelming that his body wasn't big enough to hold it.
You two had been dating for 4 months, Katsuki had spent that time falling in love with you in ways he didn't think possible. He'd fall with every giggle and kiss and ramble and your face when you were concentrating. He'd never said 'I love you', hoping his actions showed it enough, still too scared to speak it in case it was met with hesitance or silence.
But Katsuki had gently put down the canvas, something you that you'd built, stretched and primed yourself. And while you made eye contact with the walls and ceiling, you explained how the only thing you could come up with was the painting, that you wanted to capture the emotions you felt when you saw him fight. That it wasn't much but---
Katsuki had engulfed you in a hug, hand on the back of your head to press it against him and an arm around your waist. He squeezed you, tried to express all that he was feeling with one hug alone. You felt it, held him tightly and carded your fingers through his hair. With his shoulders shaking, you had an inkling that he had been crying. When he spoke, with a wobbly voice, you were sure that he was.
"I love you." He'd muttered out for the first time.
"I love you more." You whispered back and Katsuki had firmly denied it, that no one could love a person as much as he loved you.
Getting a gift for you became hard after that, because Katsuki sucked at making shit.
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grison-in-space · 11 months
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also, hot take, but speaking as someone who has volunteered to work on big projects tackling difficult issues out of community love in the past, I am just. is the otw probably a really toxic place to volunteer and work right now? Sure is, probably! Is public pressure that doesn't come with an influx of new people volunteering to do the messy work of figuring out what a better policy is, how to create anti harassment safeguards, and otherwise fixing the problem actually useful? Fuck no it is definitely not!
like I will be 1000% honest, I have in fact been asked personally to volunteer to help a community transition on a much smaller scale to fix problems of this magnitude to encourage a much smaller scale organization to work and perform a community service. and I took that job with a strong sense of "ye gods this is going to suck and I'm going to piss people off by doing things wildly imperfectly, but if I don't help provide my work it might not get done because this is fucking hard and no one is paying."
and I did it and I stopped as quickly as humanly possible. now that shit is someone else's volunteer problem and I'm delighted, because let us be real I'm a disabled middle aged lady with a day job and I don't have full time professional effort to dedicate to stuff I do in my spare time for free. that's one of the fun things about disability actually, it constricts the total store of focused labor hours available to me to put in, especially on landmine topics like extending the scope of my archiving projects to create a farsighted anti harassment policy that can't be weaponized.
so like. the work needs doing. anything anyone does is going to be imperfect and problematic and bad, because it is being done on an almost purely volunteer basis by people who are for whatever reason willing to donate high level professional skills and labor for free and don't need to do stuff for actual money and support instead. like sure the budget is enormous for servers but none of that goes to labor.
Outrage is going to do jack shit unless people volunteer to roll up their sleeves and start doing the work to donate a better policy, or better management. This shit is fucking difficult, exhausting, and impossible to do without pissing people off. I am damn sure not getting involved right now, and that's why I have not been commenting. Public pressure is not going to do jack shit if it didn't come with support.
If this is an issue that is important to you, you have to back up your outrage with resources. Since the AO3 does not exchange money for labor, that means showing up to offer to help build something different. as I said, I am a middle aged disabled lady who finds fandom and archive repositories to be important and helpful and I don't have any labor left to donate, so I have been reserving comment on complaint. If this is a thing that matters to you, congratulations! Public pressure is only useful insofar as it can be used to make the org let you help. It's up to you to actually help.
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codenamesazanka · 3 months
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i've said this more than a few times before, but it continues to be true. the more I think about Shigaraki letting Spinner join the League of Villains, the funnier it gets. Everything about it - here's a guy Shigaraki has to vet to let into his supervillain battle group, and he's
A hikkikomori country boy from the middle of nowhere with zero criminal experience just somehow finding his way into a big city Villain hideout
showing up in low-budget cosplay based on a serial killer who recently went viral
(because the serial killer went viral)
having to reveal that in the fight against professional superpowered mercenaries, his power... is to climb walls
then asking for a giant sword made out of dozens of knives duct taped together as his main weapon. (They'd have to pay money for this.)
And Shigaraki said 'sure' to all of it. Is it any surprise he's dedicating his destruction of Mt. Fuji to Spinner? We all talk about Spinner's giant crush on Shigaraki, but i think Shigaraki is actually the one got a crush first, moment he first saw the guy.
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anglingforlevels · 6 months
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Open House (Yandere House x Reader)
When people say the housing market is a nightmare, is this what they had in mind? (The story goes out to me because I’m trying to get an apartment and it is Suffering. Please pretend this count as yandere.)
CW: not proofread, unconventional captivity, swearing, I accidentally had too much fun writing Abby and forgot the point of the story-
Minors DNI
When you proudly had reached the saving milestone to buy a small house in the countryside, you had opted to spend some of that money on a real estate agent, figuring it was a good investment, hiring a Ms. Abby Bardot – who, over the phone, had insisted heavily on being called Abby rather than Ms. Bardot – who had twenty years of experience in the field.
Quite quickly, you realized that perhaps she wasn’t the most conventional real estate agent.
Ms. Abby, you quickly noticed at your first meeting, was all hand-wringing and nervous sweating, though she seemed sweet enough, having clutched a tin of home-cooked cookies in all shades of black and almost-not-black, and had heartily insisted you’d take as many as you’d like (which was zero).
She had insisted on bringing you to an open house for what she had called a hidden gem of a house, that it would be a private tour. To you, once she mentioned it would be at 1 p.m., it was quite obvious that “private tour” meant, “no one else has or will be showing up”.
Ms. Abby had also enthusiastically shown pictures of the place, pictures she had ready-at-the-go on her phone, presumably she really needed a buyer for the house.
“Ms. Abby.” You had said, interrupted with a small interjection of, Oh please, just Abby. “Ms. Abby, that’s not quite a house and more so a small manor. I went over my budget with you when I hired you.” Ms. Abby had quickly recovered from the rejection and puffed out her chest proudly.
“Why that’s the best part, this is within your budget!”
You had sent her a dubious look at this. “Are the pictures… How do I put this delicately? Are the pictures recent and unedited?”
Ms. Abby deflated so quickly that it almost felt impressive, almost urging you to clap as if it was a circus performance. Of course, it felt mean had you clapped at her dejected look.
“It’s well-kept, I assure you. These pictures are all recent, I’ve updated them every year for almost my entire career!” She said proudly, and you almost felt pity at the fact she didn’t seem to realize her own slip-up but instead paraded it around like a badge of honor.
Though, all-in-all you were charmed, and somewhat endeared, by the honesty. But not very much by the house at all. “I think I’d like to look at other options, it’s awfully big for just one person.”
“Ah, wait!” Ms. Abby said urgently. “Please, before we continue with other options, let’s first try out the open house this Friday.”
“Is this protocol, Ms. Abby?” Ms. Abby’s lips wobbled at this and… “Are you crying?!”
“No, I’m a professional. Real Estate Agents don’t cry, I’m simply sweating, is all.” Ms. Abby sniffled, dubbing her eyes with a handkerchief, presumably you were meant to believe her eyes were suffering heat stroke on this fine autumn day.
“…Alright, I’ll go to the open house. Just give me the address.” You eventually relented, if only to avoid seeing the pitiful sight of a teary-eyed Ms. Abby.
That’s how you ended up before a grand house out in the middle of nowhere, the closest town was an hour-long drive away. Forest and fields were most of the surroundings, which was why the house was in such stark contrast, standing as a sole presence, the forests and fields shying away to make room for it, leaving a vast vacancy around it, stretching on for at least fifty meters.
It really was a pristine house, when comparing it to the pictures, it seemed to match right down to the placement of every rock and plant in sight. As if someone had consciously placed each leaf and pebble.
The plants and trees of the garden donned vibrant colors despite the season. You wondered how often Ms. Abby came by, or if she had hired a crew for maintenance, as you could not spot even the slightest hint of dirt or spiderwebs.
The only thing that looked aged was, unfortunately, the “For Sale” sign.
It felt a little unnatural, but you chalked it up to currently being a display house, and thus not lived-in either. You took notice of the way the trees beyond the reach of the garden were withered and wrinkled, and the grass yellowy, dry patches, barely hiding the dirt beneath.
“Some more forest could really do this place some good.” You mumbled. You hesitated for reasons you didn’t fully understand before stepping beyond dead plants clinging loosely to your feet and entering the garden.
You felt a prickling sensation behind your eyes the further you traveled, the door felt so far when the weight of something cloyingly attentive seemed to drag you down as if to prevent your advances.
“You’re here!” A delighted Ms. Abby yelled out before the sound of pitter-patter was interrupted by a loud thud against the door that rattled the frame. With her energy dampened, a sheepish Ms. Abby appeared behind the front door, simply saying; “It opens the other way.”
Right, something attentive could only have been the attention of the overzealous Ms. Abby.
“Come in, come in!” She invited, all but pulling you stumbling into a most decadently, lavishly decorated foyer. From distasteful stuffed animal heads to the ruby red furniture and mosaic glass tables, it felt quite uncomfortable, all sharp angles and very little homeliness to it, like an ornate display of wealth rather than a welcome into a household.
“Not very welcoming, huh?” You commented, which Ms. Abby elected not to respond to, though the small “eep” suggested she had heard the negative impression.
Looking the room over it was impossible for your eyes not to rest at the centerpiece of the foyer: A huge painting above the staircase. A solemn-looking guy stared out into the air, curly locks framing his face. Old paintings always looked miserable, yet you couldn’t help but feel there was a glint of genuine misery in his eyes. Noticing your attention had wandered, Ms. Abby followed your eyes.
“Oh, that was an owner of the house who had it commissioned back during the Renaissance, they wanted it right here, in the heart of the house.” She explained though you couldn’t say you agreed to a decadent foyer being the heart of a house, and if it was, that wasn’t boding well for Ms. Abby’s already poor sales chances.
“I’ve never understood why someone would want to pay money to look miserable in a painting, like you’re paying for it, at least make yourself smile or something.” Your jab was met with Ms. Abby’s impressive ability to carry on like you had said nothing negative at all.
“You know, the owner claimed it was a Jan van Eyck-original too.” Ms. Abby said as if letting you in on a secret, or town gossip. “Really, we’ve had it appraised.”
“And the appraiser confirmed it was a Jan van-whatever original?”
“…The owner really loved art; you’ll see plenty of paintings throughout the place.”
So that was a no. And speaking of no’s:
“Listen, Ms. Abby, I don’t exactly have the budget for a big house, as I already said. I especially don’t have the kind of budget that the kind of person who’d commission an artist to paint them for their foyer would have.”
Abby laughed nervously. “Well, you see, the value’s dropped as I mentioned. We haven’t been able to sell it for a long time, so the price just kept falling.”
“Right. But even so, it can’t have fallen that much.”
At this, Abby avoided eye contact, wringing her hands before, after a big breath, blurting it out. “The person in the painting was the last person to own the house.”
“Is this place built on top of an oilfield or something?”
Ms. Abby laughed a hearty if a bit shrill, laughter, before sighing and mumbling. “If only.” She clapped. “But! This is a charming house, why, let me show you the many rooms!”
“Ms. Abby, have you ever considered a field outside of sale?” You asked dryly but nonetheless followed along, eager to leave behind the painting, as you felt watched. The house consisted of many sprawling hallways, enough to almost make one dizzy, and you struggled to remember where everything was.
The house had many rooms, none of them particularly inviting, reading more like a historical display room lacking any warmth or heart (and perhaps even worse, any semblance of renovation despite old age), and all absolutely clustered with trinkets, knickknacks, and in the case of the walls, paintings – leaving very little free space.
It really did read like a historical display, as some rooms seemed older than others, suggesting partial renovation must have been done on some of the rooms. You’d like a word with whoever had been in charge of that lackluster, nonsensical effort.
Perhaps the lack of replaced furniture or renovation was why the house periodically seemed to creak and moan in odd ways, at times you almost confused it as Ms. Abby groaning or sighing, only to realize it was the sound of the house itself.
As for Ms. Abby, she remained undeterred regardless of how many snide remarks you made, which you had to commend her for, though the charm you initially had felt from it was quickly wearing off. Ms. Abby actually seemed increasingly happy, humming to herself. She didn’t think the sale was going well, did she?
“How much of the house is there left to see, Ms. Abby?” You asked, increasingly impatient and tired, having been dragged through an unreasonable number of rooms, which inexplicably, almost all were bedrooms (and yet, you had yet to see more than a single bathroom).
“Well, we’re still missing a couple rooms like the kitchen, oh! I know, how about the master bedroom since you’ll be spending every night there.” She said with a beaming smile.
“That’s awfully optimistic, Ms. Abby.” You noted, at this you received a good-hearted chuckle.
“Oh, this place is too lovely to pass up on, I think it likes you – it’s a match made in heaven. If you don’t like some of the features or decorations, it’s easy to change those, so it would be a waste not to live here.”
“I can’t imagine a house as empty as this holding much affection, and I’m not up for a big project.” All you wanted was a small but cozy house, a simple place. You felt exhausted just thinking about the amount of work you’d need to pour into a house like this to make it feel like home.
“Well, it’s perhaps not an easy house,” Ms. Abby admitted, her cheer at this point an unshakeable force, as a sense of confidence seemed to have sprouted in her. “But that’s why when that rare fit comes by one must take the leap and hold onto it.”
You’d feel insulted by the suggestion you were a good fit for this distasteful and unpleasant house, had Ms. Abby not already shown herself as incompetent but well-meaning. You simply sighed, giving up the conversation, figuring you’d find another real estate agent when you came home.
“Well, take me to the master bedroom then.”
Ms. Abby led you through the foyer again, the bedroom apparently at the other end of the house. Your eyes were drawn to the painting once more, its eyes felt more sunken in than before, shadows forming beneath, to which you tiredly sighed. “Me too, buddy. Me too.”
The master bedroom seemed to be at the stopping point to the sprawling hallways on the right. You were just aghast at the fact you had gone through another set of sprawling hallways, you wondered who had come up with the confusing layout of the place.
Ms. Abby tried to imitate a trumpet to build up suspense but trailed off after you shot her an impatient look. After a weak cough, she simply said “Tadaah” and opened the door.
You stopped up, your right foot hanging in the air, about to cross into the room. A sense of foreboding filled you; it was a bit different from the first time, however. The prickling sensation you felt and the cloying attention, it felt smothering, less like a shove away and more like… Being held in place.
Ms. Abby waited patiently inside the room, not commenting on your hesitation, though you had been snarky and displeased the entire tour, so perhaps this just seemed like more of that. You swallowed and ignored the pressure as you put your foot down and entered the room.
The air felt different here. You had hoped the odd sensation would disappear if you just carried on, like when you entered the house, to begin with, instead, it worsened. The air clung to you, terribly heavy and sticky. It took you a moment to actually focus enough to realize Ms. Abby had spoken, so when you finally snapped back to reality, Ms. Abby was standing in the hallway.
“-tively spellbound already. I’ll give you some time to look around and get acquainted together, one-on-one.” And then she closed the door in your face. The room was, oddly empty, compared to every other room. Nothing but a big, red bed, the empty walls that you could’ve sworn were further away when you entered, and that feeling of being watched, lodging into your skin like stitching.
Nothing except an almost empty room that didn’t feel empty enough.
That’s it. Ms. Abby had officially used up all her pity points, you were leaving. You opened the door, a tad more aggressively than what was perhaps called for, but Ms. Abby was nowhere to be seen in the hallway.
For how annoyed you were with her at this point, you found that you missed her company as you walked down the hallway, nothing distracting you from the odd sounds of the house that seemed to have increased. It felt as if the floor beneath your feet moved and rumbled slightly, the velvety carpets uneven and bumpy, as if walking on something breathing, something living.
You wished that Ms. Abby had given you the floor plans, as you struggled to remember how to return to the foyer through the hallways and occasional rooms you had to cross seemed to hold no real rhythm and didn’t feel as if it obeyed any rules about directions.
At one point you could have sworn you turned back, only to be in another room than where you had emerged from originally. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, you found the foyer again. Even in your rush to find the door, your eyes were drawn to the painting, though you continued to rush by it. In your haste, it almost looked as if the painting’s colors were smudged.
You attempted to open the door but found it didn’t budge. It was an odd choice to lock the door, but you were certain that was the reason, it had to be. A locked door was no issue from the inside, but even after hearing the click of the lock, the door didn’t budge when you attempted to open it.
You attempted to kick, pry, tear, and even throw your body weight at the door, but with no luck.
Settling in the foyer after your final attempt at prying the front door open, you huffed, out of breath. You laid on the stairs, trying to settle your heart and pulse, when your eyes landed on the painting again.
…You rubbed your eyes and sat up, thinking what you had seen was owed to your tiredness and the upside-down angle, but no. The painting really did look smudged. Like someone had blurred colors and borders together, the hair’s vibrant color having lost its radiance.
And the mouth, it was oddly smudged between the lips, that it almost gave the impression of a mouth being pried open.
No, that was silly, you were being silly. The painting was smudged out, which was already creepy enough on its own, or rather, the house was already creepy enough on its own – your mind was just working overtime and was making up new things to get scared over.
“Well brain, if you like overtime, I guess I’ll have to put you to use and think of an escape. But you don’t have a union, so it’s unpaid hours for you, I’m afraid.”
If the front door was a bust, then you’d find a window. You struggled to recall any windows on the ground floor, but surely there had to be some. Or… That’s right! The kitchen, it had a glass door. You never got around to seeing the kitchen, having mainly been shown the upstairs so far, but you recalled Ms. Abby mentioning it back when she had given her pitch for why you should show up.
You hadn’t been on the left side of the house, at least not on the ground floor, so you figured that was a good direction to begin, in your search for the kitchen. You opened the door, urgency in your steps, only to find you weren’t in an unfamiliar room.
Instead, you were back in the empty master bedroom, which somehow felt much more crammed than any of the other rooms. But… That didn’t make sense. The master bedroom was upstairs, you had fought through a confusing hallway to find the foyer, so this… this didn’t make sense at all.
The air felt oppressive in the room as if your heart would be forced to a halt from the sheer weight of it, like a physical presence. This time you were sure that the walls were closer than they had been before. A bed table had been added next to the bed, and the part of you still delusional enough to hope thought maybe it meant that Ms. Abby was still around. As if this was an elaborate prank.
You tried to swallow despite how dry your mouth felt, your heart hammering painfully against your chest. This was ridiculous. You slammed the door open again, the door shaking on its hinges. Beyond the door, it revealed a hallway, but even if the hallway was confusing, you had been through it twice by now, you could do this, you could find the kitchen or a ground-floor window.
Hurrying along the hallway, it felt as if the floor and walls shifted and moved. Were you dizzy, or was this actually happening? The restrictive air of the master bedroom followed you, as you dragged yourself through.
“Huh?” you furrowed your eyebrows when you opened one of the doors. You were sure this was the one you had gone through before, but the room behind was unfamiliar. Cold dread filled you as a horrible thought crossed your mind.
No, no, no. You ran to the next door but behind it was another unfamiliar room. Were the layout… Changing? Your hand trembled as you tried to open a third door, and you felt like crying when all it revealed was the master bedroom again.
A lamp now stood on top of the bed table. Were new things going to be added each time you returned to the room? You thought back to the cramped bedrooms Ms. Abby had so cheerfully shown off. You weren’t sure what to make of it but felt sick all the same.
“I don’t have time for this.” You had to snap yourself out of it. You could spiral and panic later, but for now, you needed to get out. So, turning on your heel, you returned to the hallway. You’d go through each door that didn’t lead to the master bedroom, hoping to somehow find your way downstairs.
You almost cheered audibly when you finally saw the staircase, rushing to it. Once again, as you passed it, your eyes were drawn to the painting.
The painting no longer looked the same as before, the person it had been long erased by smudged and changing lines. You couldn’t tell what it was changing into but felt your heart race with familiarity all the same.
The mouth was a gaping hole by now, outstretched awkwardly. You thought it might have been a smile, but it looked much more like a pained grimace to you.
You only took this as further encouragement to get out of there.
When you failed to find anything of use, you realized there was one room that you seemed to always find. So, as counterintuitive as it seemed, you walked upstairs again, and as confusing as the changing layout was, it didn’t take you long to find it.
You saw the familiar bed, the bed table, the lamp, and the newly added clock on the wall (which didn’t seem to be working) and closed your eyes for a moment. You took a deep breath. And then you decisively walked in to grab the lamp, shivering a bit as you brushed against a much-too-warm wall.
If you couldn’t find the kitchen or a window on the ground floor, then fuck it, you’d find one up here. Whatever broken bones or bruises you’d get from the fall, you’d accept. Finding a window upstairs proved much more doable, as one would line the walls every now and then.
You threw the lamp against the window and braced yourself for impact.
But nothing happened.
The lamp fell to the floor with a hollow thud. When you opened your eyes, you found not a single scratch on the window. So, you tried again. And again. You tried punching the window, earning nothing but a stinging fist.
Yet you continued. At some point, it became more of a tantrum, an expression of your desperation colored in violence, than an attempt to escape. Hitting the window, kicking the wall. “Why-“ you hated this house. You hated it. Hated, hated, hated it. You just wanted to leave. Your ears rang, whether it was from your headache, or the way the house’s groans and creaks had grown in severity, you didn’t know, didn’t care, couldn’t care.
Already unsteady on your feet, your final kick caused you to lose balance entirely.
Stumbling and falling onto the floor, without realizing it, you found yourself by the stairs, and face to face with the painting. Your blood ran cold as you stared into your own lifeless eyes staring down at you from above.
 
Quiet had fallen over the house like a blanket, only the slow rumble throughout the house bellied any activity. In the heart of the house rested a painting, donning a toothy smile and a certain glint in their eyes.
A satisfied Ms. Abby removed the “For Sale” sign out front and drove away with a hum.
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homunculus-argument · 9 months
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Weird how dishonest it feels to refer to things as they are, when they don't look the way you're used to picturing such things looking like. My mother was a sales agent in chemistry tech, the company representative whose job was to sell mass spectrometres to another company's representatives whom she needed to convince to buy their specific machines. As a child, my understanding of a "business trip" was my mom going into some big-ass lab company's offices in her 90s Businesswoman Pantsuits to stand in a room full of men in grey suits, discussing corporate budgets and protein structural analysis just as fluently in english or in german. Big, serious, formal professional business things.
I'm going on a business trip. It feels weird saying that. I am literally embarking on a journey to another continent, as a part of my job. My flights, hotel, and transport between locations have been arranged. I have appointments to show up for, business partners to meet, and duties to attend to. I signed an official, legal contract where I explicitly agreed that I will do everything in my power to honour the agreement as it has been stated, because my presence and contribution are genuinely important for this endeavour. For all intents and purposes, this is a business trip.
I am going to show up to the premises, dressed like a homeless teenager, walk up on a stage, and give a bunch of furries an elaborate explanation of what the fuck is wrong with me.
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$100 billion later, autonomous vehicles are still a car-wreck
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Autonomous vehicles were always a shell-game. The last time I wrote about them was a year ago, when Uber declared massive losses. Uber’s profitability story was always, “Sure, we’re losing money now, but once we create self-driving cars, we can fire our drivers and make a bundle.”
https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/30/death-to-all-monopoly/#pogo-stick-problem
But Uber never came close to building an AV. After blowing $2.5b, the company invented a car whose mean-distance-to-fatal-crash was half a mile. Uber had to pay another company — $400 million! — to take the self-driving unit off its hands.
It’s tempting to say that Uber just deluded itself into thinking that AVs were a viable, near-term technology. But $2.5b was a bargain, because it allowed the company’s original investors (notably the Saudi royals) to offload their Uber shares on credulous suckers when the company IPOed.
Likewise Tesla, a company that has promised fully self-driving autonomous vehicles “within two years” for more than a decade. The story that Teslas will someday drive themselves is key to attracting retail investors to the company.
Tesla’s overvaluation isn’t solely a product of the cult of personality around Musk, nor is it just that its investors can’t read a balance-sheet and so miss the fact that the company is reliant upon selling the carbon-credits that allow gas-guzzling SUVs to fill America’s streets.
Key to Tesla’s claims to eventual profitability was that AVs would overcome geometry itself, and end the Red Queen’s Race whereby adding more cars to the road means you need more roads, which means everything gets farther apart, which means you need more cars — lather, rinse, repeat.
Geometry hates cars, but Elon Musk hates public transit (he says you might end up seated next to “a serial killer”). So Musk spun this story where tightly orchestrated AVs would best geometry and create big cities served speedy, individualized private vehicles. You could even make passive income from your Tesla, turning it over to drive strangers (including, presumably, serial killers?) around as a taxicab.
But Teslas are no closer to full self-driving than Ubers. In fact, no one has come close to making an AV. In a characteristically brilliant and scorching article for Bloomberg, Max Chafkin takes stock of the failed AV project:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-10-06/even-after-100-billion-self-driving-cars-are-going-nowhere
Chafkin calculates that the global R&D budget for AVs has now exceeded $100 billion, and demonstrates that we have next to nothing to show for it, and that whatever you think you know about AV success is just spin, hype and bullshit.
Take the much-vaunted terribleness of human drivers, which the AV industry likes to tout. It’s true that the other dumdums on the road cutting you off and changing lanes without their turn-signals are pretty bad drivers, but actual, professional drivers are amazing. The average school-bus driver clocks up 500 million miles without a fatal crash (but of course, bus drivers are part of the public transit system).
Even dopes like you and me are better than you may think — while cars do kill the shit out of Americans, it’s because Americans drive so goddamned much. US traffic deaths are a mere one per 100 million miles driven, and most of those deaths are due to recklessness, not inability. Drunks, speeders, texters and sleepy drivers cause traffic fatalities — they may be skilled drivers, but they are also reckless.
But even the most reckless driver is safer than a driverless car, which “lasts a few seconds before crapping out.” The best robot drivers are Waymos, which mostly operate in the sunbelt, “because they still can’t handle weather patterns trickier than Partly Cloudy.”
Waymo claims to have driven 20m miles — that is, 4% of the distance we’d expect a human school-bus driver to go before having a fatal wreck. Tesla, meanwhile, has stopped even reporting how many miles its autopilot has mananged on public roads. The last time it disclosed, in 2019, the total was zero.
Using “deep learning” to solve the problems of self-driving cars is a dead-end. As NYU psych prof Gary Marcus told Chafkin, “deep learning is something similar to memorization…It only works if the situations are sufficiently akin.”
Which is why self-driving cars are so useless when they come up against something unexpected — human drivers weaving through traffic, cyclists, an eagle, a drone, a low-flying plane, a deer, even some pigeons on the road.
Self-driving car huxters call this “the pogo-stick problem” — as in “you never can tell when someone will try to cross the road on a pogo-stick.” They propose coming up with strict rules for humans to make life easier for robots.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/3/17530232/self-driving-ai-winter-full-autonomy-waymo-tesla-uber
But as stupid as this is, it’s even stupider than it appears at first blush. It’s not that AVs are confused by pogo sticks — they’re confused by shadowsand clouds and squirrels. They’re confused by left turns that are a little different than the last left turn they tried.
If you’ve been thinking that AVs were right around the corner, don’t feel too foolish. The AV companies have certainly acted like they believed their own bullshit. Chafkin reminds us of the high-stakes litigation when AV engineer Anthony Levandowski left Google for Uber and was sued for stealing trade secrets.
The result was millions in fines (Levandowski declared bankruptcy) and even a prison sentence for Levandowski (Trump pardoned him, seemingly at the behest of Peter Thiel and other Trumpist tech cronies). Why would companies go to all that trouble if they weren’t serious about their own claims?
It’s possible that they are, but that doesn’t mean we have to take those claims at face-value ourselves. Companies often get high on their own supplies. The litigation over Levandowski can be thought of as a species of criti-hype, Lee Vinsel’s extraordinarily useful term for criticism that serves to bolster the claims of its target:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/02/euthanize-rentiers/#dont-believe-the-hype
Another example of criti-hype: the claims about the risks of ubiquitous drone delivery — which, like AVs, is half-bullshit, half self-delusion:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/05/comprehensive-sex-ed/#droned
Today, Levandowski has scaled back his plans to build autonomous vehicles. Instead, he’s built autonomous dump-trucks that never leave a literal sandbox, and trundle back and forth on the same road all day, moving rocks from a pit to a crusher.
$100 billion later, that’s what the AV market has produced.
Image:
Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg
CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en
Gartner (modified): https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/gartner-hype-cycle
[Image ID: A chart illustrating the Gartner hype-cycle; racing down the slope from the 'peak of inflated expectations' to the 'trough of disillusionment' is the staring eye of HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, chased by speed-lines.]
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bunninova · 4 days
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nothing new to add to the watcher fiasco so here's this. not to make it personal but I'm gonna make it personal.
what they get payed per brand deal could pay for a year of uni for me. what they make with patreon per year would change my entire family's life. my 50-60 year old parents could finally drop one of the multiple jobs they have, my sister could spend time with her kids and finally afford a proper wedding, I could go back to much needed therapy. we could travel more and go to concerts and nice restaurants, we could get tattoos and professional haircuts, we could spend money on spoiling our pets, we could buy books and clothes and go to the cinema without having to carefully budget, things the watcher folk do regularly without giving it a second thought. I could buy my best friend with unstable housing an apartment for their family for fucks sake. I'm out here skipping meals on school days because I can't afford to spend £5-10 a day to eat at uni, 'borrowing' necessities from big stores, and missing out on social events or birthdays that involve going out. I've only donated £20 in total in the last couple months to help people in Gaza and it devastates me that I can't donate more. I'm still privileged in many ways, the world is in shambles and regular people are being hit with an economic crisis, where housing and food is hard to secure.
I've been a huge fan of Shane and Ryan since I was thirteen, they were my comfort creators. I even checked their shows and merch to see if I could afford it (no) because I wanted to support them. their content has gone down hill for the past year and I still sat through the forced cringey parts because I used to love their videos. I respected them, they brought me joy and inspired me to create. "we priced it low enough that anyone can afford it". fuck off. day 3 and not even an acknowledgement. this has felt like the biggest "fuck you, poor" ever to me and I'm crushed.
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sytokun · 2 months
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To anyone thinking or saying Dillon Goo is unworthy of acquiring RWBY, not because of anything realistic like finances or the size of his studio, but because he's "just an animator", or just a rando from the internet who cannot write or run RWBY:
Thanks for perpetuating the piece of shit mindset that every soul-sucking corporation and braindead consumer has: that animators have no value or are just there to push buttons and make pixels move for the real creatives.
Animators are artists and creators. They have to work with numerous departments to make things work: They have to know what the writer/director wants, and tell them if it's even possible to put to screen; they have to work with artists and character designers to tell if they can commit that art into moving parts. And for an animated show, they're kind of... I dunno, the entire backbone of its production.
Anyone stupid enough to claim that, by their logic, should claim that Miles and Kerry were "just writers" and don't have the right nor the intelligence to have any opinions on RWBY's animation, character designs or music. That's how I know you have zero fucking idea how any actual media is produced, because in your head, these positions all just exist as separate little boxes in your brain so it's simple enough for you to grasp.
It was "just an animator" who made RWBY in the first place, dumbass. A "rando" making animations on the internet that Rooster Teeth took a chance on, and now he's responsible for their best-selling IP. By comparison, Dillon is starting at a way better starting position than Monty was, with a successful YouTube channel, public support from multiple current and ex-CRWBY like J Grelle (Tyrian's VA), Kim Newman (former animator who animated Sun's gunchucks in V5) and Jessica Nigri (Cinder's VA), and multiple collaborations with big companies like Hoyoverse.
If anything, I'd expect an animator like Dillon to know and care enough about his staff to not give them near-irreparable spinal damage. Gee, I wonder why Newman would think he'd be a better employer to work with? Dillon would know how an animation project is run and budgeted. Him being an animator is a benefit, for god's sake.
Monty had character design sketches but needed help from professional artists to fully design them. He knew bits of the plot but needed help fleshing it out. Do you have enough brain cells to rub together to know that's precisely what Dillon can do, too? Fuckin', I dunno, hire people? For his studio??
I'd rather have an animator run RWBY because RWBY is an animated series and he would know precisely 1) what complements the medium best and 2) the precise limits of what can or cannot work within his budget. By your ass-backwards logic, I would rather get EC Myers to run RWBY's production over Dillon just because he's a writer and has been employed with RT longer.
That's another moronic argument: "He's only been employed by RT for 1 Volume". Man, I don't care if he's been there for zero Volumes, his work clearly shows a greater understanding of RWBY's aesthetic, mainstream appeal and style than its own showrunners have for the past 7 years. Or is seniority in a defunct company responsible for a steadily unprofitable IP suddenly a positive in this business deal?
I need you to be aware that RWBY as an IP is a joke outside of the bubble of its fandom, and I am telling you bluntly as a fan. Nobody takes it seriously and the ones that do only praise it for either its action choreography or its character designs, one of which is guaranteed with Dillon's studio. Diehard fans may love RWBY, warts and all, but all that love and support clearly wasn't enough to keep it alive, because its reputation was already cemented from its own mismanagement.
What you do is you get the right person for the job. And Dillon ticks a lot of boxes for it. If you think he's unable to acquire RWBY because he's not a big corpo or cannot meet Warner's asking price, that's 100% fair. If you think he's unable to create something on the scale of Volume 9, that's also 100% fair, but only if you're attached to the idea that you'd rather have Volume 10 or more of the same RWBY that was operating at a loss than any RWBY at all. Or if you'd rather see a season of 14 episodes 15 minutes long where 60-70% of it is made up of exposition, talking head scenes and increasingly overambitious world expanding, over shorter episodes with amazing RWBY action sequences with a story that never bites off more than it can chew.
But if you think Dillon is unqualified or worse, unworthy or undeserving (what a weirdo thing to say about a person, like owning RWBY is like inheriting the fucking throne of Gondor), all because he's "just an animator" or because he was smart enough to see RT for the meat-grinder hellhole it was and left to find success on his own, you're full of shit.
And if you disapprove of him because of his association with Shane, go find a restroom because your unsightly hateboner is showing. It's been almost ten years since the letter and you all have been holding this unfettered rage clenched between your buttcheeks longer than Shane's ever been with Rooster Teeth.
And for what? Pointing out Rooster Teeth is a fucked place to work at? Whoops, that was true and now it's six feet under for every scandal and worker abuse case they brought on themselves. For stealing and cannibalising their creators' IPs? Whoops, that's fucking true as well.
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deadgodjess · 9 months
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It's really funny how Twitter is rolling out this rebranding on like, a design level, outside of just Elon's whole man-baby routine.
They didn't have a new logo created, they're just using a Unicode 𝕏, it's for math. It can't be trademarked because it's not a distinct logo so they have 0 control over how, if, or when people use their branding on other sites, which is just an insane situation for a major social media company to create for themselves.
Search engine optimization. You are a major social media company, you want to be THE PLACE people go for social media, news, etc, right? Well, good luck chucklefuck, because while X is the top search result, it's also the ONLY one on the first page (on duckduckgo) that refers to the social media site. Search Twitter and it's the entire front page of search results including news articles and Wiki articles about the social media site.
Association with porn. X-[anything] sounds like a porn site and XVideo IS a porn site. That's what you're contending with, and while I personally don't believe there's anything inherently shameful with close proximity to porn, on a professional level most companies are going to notice that and have to seriously consider if they want refer people to their X Account to see their X Posts on their X Feed and you see what I'm getting at here? Which then gets into...
The sheer brand recognition of the Twitter name. There is NO other social media site with the kind of brand recognition that Twitter has. Zuck would sell his right nut for the kind of brand recognition Twitter has. They have their own word for posts! Facebook doesn't have that! Reddit and Tumblr don't have that! Myspace and LiveJournal and Xanga also never had that! All for the far more generic 𝕏. No one's Booking on FB or Ditting on Reddit or w/e. But on Twitter they be Tweeting. Saying you tweeted someone tells people EXACTLY what site you were on immediately. Now they're what, X-posting? Well that's short for "cross-post". Posting on X? Looks like you're being vague about what site you were using on purpose. "I @'d [so-and-so] on X" doesn't have the same ring it, either.
They didn't make all their rebranding decisions BEFORE announcing and rolling out the rebrand, so now we have a site called 𝕏 with a LOT of the on site references to the site itself and it's features still called Twitter [thing] and you still post using a button that says "Tweet" (as of 7.29.23) and they JUST settled on a word to replace that with. USUALLY when a company is doing a rebranding, especially one with the kinds of resources Twitter has available, they plan it all out well in advance and do the roll out all at once rather than this hodgepodge thing that's going on. This is a big one and I don't think Elon understands how unprofessional this looks. This doesn't look like the work of a team of skilled, experienced web developers, designers and marketers. This looks like a site being ran on a shoe-string budget ran by a disorganized child making decisions on a whim.
Okay so I can't fully divorce the design decisions from Elon's general fuckery, but you get my point. Like, all the behind the scenes and PR shit is bad enough but even if we didn't know he had a tantrum over the name of PayPal and hadn't been all over the site being loud and wrong about everything, just these decisions listed would be enough to show what an entitled, inexperienced, immature walnut he is.
And it's really fucking funny.
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accio-victuuri · 5 months
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i can’t tell what makes this video so good, if it’s:
1. how funny it is that XZ is all serious and in his acting mode while that loud machine is blowing air on him. the things that happen behind the scenes are sometimes so 😂😂😂. i will never look scene/s similar to this in the untamed the same way again.
2. XZ being the utter professional he is and doing his best to honor wwx’s role. just goes to show that the production really didn’t have that much budget but everyone did their part to tell the story. makes me think of all the S+ “quality” projects platforms are putting out. the way fans always boast about it’s an “S” whatever drama, meaning it has a big budget. but the catch is, big budget does not always equal good quality these days. i swear the number of S projects that flopped in recent years lol. didn’t even have that much international impact. so when i say Untamed is on a league of it’s own, I mean it.
3. On the CPN side of things, look at how WYB is so eager to go to his gege. he can’t freakin wait to walk over and “disturb” XZ! He is so ready but the camera man stepped on his robe so he was momentarily delayed. but that won’t stop him! his little steps closer and has to talk to his gege. 🤍
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mrvlbimbo · 2 years
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His secretary but in a porno way 
Saul Goodman x reader
20ish year age gap, spit kink kinda, creampie, he fucks his secretary (not in the office sadly), idiots in lust, major sexual tension, I can't tell if this is out of character for him or very very in character, Saul talks a big game but he's kinda subby when push comes to shove. Also im warning y'all this probably isn't very sexy bc they're just very goofy the whole time. BUT it is very cute! there's a mention of viagra but I'm not a doctor so I probably got it wrong, ignore me hehe
4.1k words btw
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Frankly, she was getting a bit tired of being ignored.
Sure, when she got hired by a sleazy seeming lawyer almost twice her age she was actually a little concerned about the idea of him checking her out.
But there was something about him that made her want him to look at her like that, maybe it was because he absolutely refused to.
About a month in, she switched to pencil skirts that were a good three inches shorter and as far as she could tell, he never noticed. She had to strut into his office one day in a skirt that barely covered her ass before she could even get him to say anything about it.
"Look. I don't want to tell you how to live your life, female empowerment and all that, yeah. But this isn't a great part of town and if you're going to wear stuff like that, I just worry ya know?" he shook his head, genuine concern lining his tired face.
"Right, sorry Mr. Goodman." She ducked her head in shame, embarrassed that her unprofessionalism hadn't made him madly lust after her; it had just made him call her out for being unprofessional.
"You know what? Wear what you want, just- Would you let me drive you home?" her heart started beating out of her chest at the suggestion. It was the only indication he had ever given that he cared for her more than just as the person who got him coffee in the morning.
After that she went back to more sensible skirts, still a bit shorter than was professional but nothing to write home about. When paired with tight low-cut sweaters, stiletto heels, and thin mesh tights held up by a garter just above the hem of her skirt, she felt like a sexy secretary from a cheesy low budget porno. In the best way of course.
She knew she wasn't ugly, that couldn't be the problem. He never wore a wedding ring either, not that that would have stopped her.
Maybe he was just a good guy? A guy who didn't have any fantasies about banging his hot young secretary on top of the desk in his office. Although, she highly doubted that.
But she still had no proof that he wanted her. Until one glorious night when she was locking things up and she decided to power down his computer for him, only to be met with the home screen of a porn website.
She couldn't hold herself back from looking at his watch history and she was surprised in the very best way to find titles such as,
"businessman getting a blowie under his desk during a meeting" "lawyer fucks his hot young secretary" "older man younger woman" "office sex" 
She really should have turned off his computer then and there, but instead she watched a few of the videos.
There was one that appeared in his searches multiple times, so she figured that would be a good place to start. And she was right to pick that one.
The female actress bore a striking resemblance to her, like if she wasn't wearing her glasses she could totally mistake it as one of her (frequent) sex dreams about getting down and dirty with her boss.
She tried to stay calm, she really did, but now that her suspicion was confirmed he was even more on her mind. And she really started to notice the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't looking.
Glancing up from his papers when she yelped "whoops, dropped a pen!" and watching her bend over just enough so he could see her lace panties and the bit at the top of her thighs where her hosiery ended.
And she just narrowly missed the way he slid a hand into his pants to relieve himself.
But she had gotten more bold, leaning over his desk to show off her chest anytime he asked her a question. Brushing her hand on his shoulder and arm when he walked by her and always standing close enough for him to smell her perfume.
She also started accepting more rides home, making it an almost nightly thing.
At first he parked on the street and let her walk up to her apartment by herself. But this wasn't good enough for her.
So maybe she hired one of the kids next door to give her trouble one night and make it seem like she was in more danger than she was, not that it could be proven. But it worked like a charm because after that he always walked her to the door.
It seemed like every time he dropped her off they stood at her doorstep for just a bit longer, if only she could get him to come into her apartment.
There wasn't a lot of rain in Albuquerque so when it started pouring one night just before she was about to leave work, she knew it had to be fate.
"Mr. Goodman, can I get a ride home please? It's raining pretty hard out there." She may have imagined it but something in his face changed when she said his name.
"Of course, dear. Just give me a minute to grab my things," he replied simply.
Dear, that was new. He rarely ever called her anything other than her name. Sometimes he called her Miss and it felt delightfully old fashioned.
Their car rides were always quiet but this time it was silent, having to pay close attention to the road due to the rainfall coming down hard.
Despite the rain, he still walked her to the door, his gray suit jacket darkened by the rainwater by the time they arrived.
"Can you drive in this?" she asked tentatively. 
"We'll see," he sighed, reaching out and putting a hand on her shoulder. He gave her an awkward pat, both of them cringing at the exchange.
"Wait- Uh, why don't you stay. Just till the rain clears up, please." The lie formed quickly, her thoughts grasping for an excuse to make him stay.
“I uh- I don’t want to impose.” As the words come out of this mouth, the weather worsens, hail coming down along with the rain and making it seriously dangerous conditions.
"No really. I mean like who's gonna pay my bills if my boss dies in a rainstorm?" she giggles a bit awkwardly, giving him a pleading look to just agree so she doesn't have to keep going with her unconvincing charade.
"You make a good point. Plus I can't leave my lovely assistant to brave the storm on her own, now can I?" His words were in agreement but he still seemed hesitant, eyes glancing back and forth from her to his car parked in the street.
"I mean you can, but you really shouldn't." She tried her best to make her voice breathy and seductive, twirling his paisley tie around her fist and tugging it slightly.
"Oh and why is that?" his eyes widened as he looked down and met hers, pupils blown wide although he assumed it was just from the dim light outside.
"Because I want you here," she cooed, pulling him into the apartment behind her and slamming the door.
In the dirty part of her brain this scenario went down a very specific way, she pushed him against the closed door and they had their way with each other. Sometimes it was slow and sensual, sometimes it was fast and hard but she had fantasized about it many times.
But then there was reality, in which she led Saul into her apartment and they sat on the couch in awkward silence.
"So uh... can I get you anything, Mr. Goodman?" she asked, while reaching her hand over to suggestively run up his thigh and batting her lashes at him.
"Just Saul is fine. And I'll have a gin and tonic." She could see the way his body tensed at the contact and she wasn't quite sure if that was a good thing.
"I guess you could say I better call you Saul." She giggled at the corny joke, hopping off the couch to mix him a drink.
"That's clever, I should get you to help me with commercials." She smiled to herself while mixing the drink as she thought of the idea.
"Well, as long as I get to spend more time with you." She stood behind him, passing the glass over his shoulder and then perching her hands there, gently massaging the sore muscles. "Mr. G- Saul, I mean...whoops."
He laughed lightly, putting a hand over hers on his shoulder. "It's ok."
"So..." she started
"So?" he prompted when her words stalled, anxious to hear whatever she had to say.
"Long day?" she asked as if it wasn't obvious by the tension in his shoulders.
"They're all long days," he grumbled, leaning into her touch, much to her approval. 
"That's no good. You're always so stressed. Taking care of everyone else, but who's gonna take care of you?" There was no way other than suggestively to interpret her words. The tension of them hung in the air until he responded.
"Isn't that your job?" he asked, his voice deeper than usual. The gravely tone made her want to giggle like a schoolgirl with a crush on her professor and the irony of it was not lost on her.
"Oh please. You barely concede to letting me get your coffee in the morning. Sometimes I feel like you're the secretary and I run a very successful phone answering company." She sighed and rounded the couch to sit down next to him.
"You really are clever," he mused, leaning his chin on his palm and staring at her with a small smile. Then he snuck his hand over onto her thigh much to her surprise, but not an unwelcome one. 
"You're the clever one, sir." Her hand traced over the back of his, putting gentle pressure on his fingers and urging him to squeeze the soft flesh of her thigh. 
And he did squeeze, just a little bit. But it was enough to make a shiver run down her spine. "Don't call me sir, it makes me feel old." His voice was a low growl now, eyes staring her down like predator to prey. 
“Men are like wine, they get better with age.” Her voice was heavy with lust, their faces so close together now that her warm breath was brushing his cheek. Her fingers crawled up the arm of his suit jacket, dark manicured nails clutching tightly to the fabric to pull him dangerously close. 
"Still raining like hell out there, huh?" He pulled back, leaning back on the couch and looking forward to the dark tv instead of at her. It was a clear effort to cool down the tension of their situation. 
"Yep, looks like you're stuck with me for the night. I'll grab you something to wear to bed." She rushed out of the room, mentally kicking herself both for coming on too strong and for not fully committing.
She needed this night to go the right way so she could fuck him and get it out of her system. But it was so easy just to talk to him, that wouldn't do.
Her heels clicked on the hardwood of her bedroom floor as she paced around thinking of a solution. Simple flirting wasn’t going to work with him, maybe it was his moral code or maybe he hadn’t gotten laid in a while but it was like trying to get into the pope’s pants. 
After grabbing a pair of sweatpants for him, she frantically dug through her underwear drawer, coming up with a forest green nightgown after tossing the contents of the drawer onto the floor of her room. 
When she arrived back in the living room with the pair of sweatpants for him to wear, he had already stripped down to his boxers. Embarrassingly, she squealed, slapping a hand over her eyes and tossing the sweatpants in his direction. 
“Ooh lookit that, you’re so tiny without heels on.” His eyes raked over her body, quickly coming up with an excuse for the transgression. Although it fell flat when contrasted with the hungry look he couldn’t seem to hide. 
“Shuddup, you ass,” she giggled, grabbing a pillow and smacking him with it, somehow using the momentum to “fall” into his lap. 
Her knees were on either side of his legs so she was straddling him and her hands clutched at his shoulders to steady herself. “Is that any way to talk to your boss?” He teased, reaching out and twirling a strand of her hair around his finger before tucking it back behind her ear. 
“No, sir. I guess I’ll have to find some way to make it up to you, huh?” She leaned in, lips just barely brushing his as she whispered sensually. The intention in her words was clear. 
“Jesus christ. Is this really happening?” he shakes his head as her sharp fingernails scratch down his bare chest, breath hitching when her hips jerk against his. 
“I don't know what you mean.” She blinked at him innocently, hands resting on his waistband just above the obvious bulge showing through the gray sweatpants. 
“I mean the fact we’re living the plot of a low budget porno. Frankly, I’m just bummed we can’t drive to the office and make it more immersive.” His hands slid under the green lace and mesh of her nightgown, groping at her hips and leaving an indent from the ring on his pinky finger. 
“Would you want that? You wish we were in the office right now? Wish you had me pinned against one of those stupid fucking pillars? Or maybe sitting pretty on your desk?” Her glossy lips glided over his neck, leaving pink marks on the slightly tanned skin. 
“Hey! The pillars arent stupid. They’re dig-” Before he could finish, she was smashing her lips against his, her tongue slipping into his mouth skillfully and halting any words he might have been trying to say. “-nified. The pillars are dignified,” he panted out, slurring his words slightly despite only having one drink. 
“Aw, they’re really not. But it's cute that you think that.” Her hands cup his face in a surprisingly gentle way, her soft hands brushing his jaw and cheeks as she seemingly studies his face. 
“Cute? Seriously?” he scoffed, eyebrows furrowing in frustration. 
“Yes. You’re cute. You make this little face when you’re thinking where you scrunch your lips into a line, it's very cute.” The brushes her thumb over his lip, just barely sliding her finger past the seal of his mouth and pressing down on his tongue. He wrapped his lips around her finger, sucking enthusiastically and swirling his tongue around the pad of her finger. 
He practically fucking whimpers when she pulls her finger away and sucks it into her own mouth, humming at the taste of him. 
“Is that why I'm here? Because you think I'm… cute?” He gasped when her lips went back to his neck, sucking and biting his sensitive skin. 
“You’re here because I want to fuck you ‘til the sun rises, but I suppose that’s part of it too.” Her hand slipped under the waistband of his sweatpants, pleasantly surprised that he had slipped out of his boxers when she wasn’t looking.
“O-oh. That might just kill me,” he groaned, hips jerking up into her hand. 
“Oh what a terrible way to go,” she giggled, moving off his lap and sinking down to her knees between his legs. 
The sight of her on her knees for him, tongue lapping at the precum on the tip of his cock, was absolutely sinful. The most he could do to stop from blowing his load right then was grab a fistfull of her hair and hold her still. “Woah woah, ok one sec. I'm going to cum if you do that.” 
“On my face or in my mouth?” she asked, a mischievous smirk pulling up the corners of her lips. He gulped when she ran her tongue over the length of him. Her movements were careful and teasing, heeding his warning and slowing her roll to give them more time. 
“I’ll fuck-” she seals her lips around his cock, taking him down her throat until her nose is pressed flush to his stomach. “I’ll let you know.” 
She looks up at him with desperate eyes, trying to communicate just through the fluttering of her eyelashes that she was trying to say, fuck my throat. 
He got the message loud and clear, tangling his hand in the back of her hair and somehow forcing himself further down her throat if that was even possible. 
Drool started to pool at the corners of her lips, salty tears spilling from her eyes and dripping down onto his cock. “Jeez you are fucking incredible,” he whimpered, hands now brushing her hair back gently and keeping it out of her face. 
Just as he was about to cum she pulled away, her saliva mixed with his precum dribbling down her chin. “As much as I love having your cock in my mouth, I need you to fuck me.” 
She stood shakily, tumbling forward into his arms and back to her place on his lap. She pressed her mouth to his messily, giving him a taste of his own cum on her tongue. 
“You dirty little slut,” he murmured against her lips, his hands reaching down to squeeze her ass as she licked into his mouth. 
“Creepy old perv,” she countered with a wink, reaching her hand down to clutch his weepy cock, dragging the head of it against her warm entrance. 
His head fell back against the couch, hands grabbing her waist so hard it was probably going to leave bruises. She’d need to think of a good excuse to wear something that exposes them. 
“Touche. Do you have a condom?” He turned to reach for the cabinets next to the couch but she stopped him, grabbing his wrists and bringing his hands back to cup her tits. To which he reacted with wide eyes and a labored breath. 
“I have a latex allergy,” she lied quickly, head fuzzy with the idea of him inside of her. 
“No you don't. You’re allergic to peanuts and bees.” He scrunches his eyebrows at the random lie, taking a second to flaunt his random knowledge of her. 
“Fuck me raw?” she offered with a bubbly grin on her cheeks that he couldn't seem to say no to. 
If his eyes were wide before, they were practically popping out of his skull now. Concequences be damned, he was going to fuck his secretary raw and fill her with his cum if it was the last thing he did. “Well if you insist. But my doing it on the couch days are behind me, mind if we take this to the bedroom?” 
With minimal warning he stood. “Saul, oh my god!” she yelped, her legs wrapping around his waist to keep her steady in his arms. 
“I gotcha,” he grunted, strong wiry arms wrapping around her back and holding her to his chest as he made the trip from her living room to the bedroom. 
He tossed her onto the bed and she giggled as he frantically shoved his pants off and crawled onto the bed to hover over her. “I think I just threw my back out,” he groaned as he kissed down her neck and groped at her chest and thighs, bunching up her nightgown to run his fingers through the slickness between her legs. 
“I’ll give you a massage later, sugar,” she cooed, fingers tangling in the short hair at the  back of his neck, nails slightly digging in in a way that was both painful and pleasurable. 
“Pet names already?” he teased, tucking his finger under the straps of her dress one by one and easing her out of the garment, kissing every new stretch of exposed skin. 
“Just shut up and fuck me.” with her legs around his waist, she flips their positions so she’s on top, hands on his chest to steady herself as she looks down at him with hunger. 
“Yes ma'am.” His voice was practically a whimper, a new side of him that she was quite enjoying. Who knew the bigshot-always-in-charge Saul Goodman liked to let go a bit in bed? 
His breath caught in his chest when she slid his cock into her with relatively little difficulty, despite its size “Feels alright?” 
“Fuck yeah. ‘S really big,” she moaned, moving her hips as much as was possible while still recovering from the large intrusion stretching her. 
“If I knew—if I—” He tried to say something but his head was swimming with the feeling of her warm heat squeezing the life out of him. 
“So that's how to get you to shut up?” she teased, nails scratching his chest as she started to bounce on his cock and take his breath along with any coherent thought that might’ve still been floating around in his head. 
“Faster, c’mon,” he groaned, fingers digging into the flesh of her hips and urging her to increase her momentum. 
“You don't get to m-make demands,” she growled, her hand curling his neck and squeezing just enough to make him whine. “I’ve been wanting you for months, let me take my fucking time.” 
“Touch yourself for me, baby. I know you want to.” He takes control of the thrusting. With his bruising grip on her hips, sliding her up and down his cock and brushing that spot deeeep inside of her that made her see stars. Meanwhile her skillful fingers snaked down between them to play with her clit. 
And this is when he gets really into it, curses spilling off his lips along the lines of “Fuckin’ perfect little slut.” “Shoulda done this ages ago.” “This pussy is mine, ya hear?” “All fuckin’ mine.” 
“Yeah, you love this pussy?” she whined, her hands shaking now as they both lost control. 
“You know I do.” The filthy sound of skin slapping together was almost overpowering his choked out words, the slight twinge in his back not nearly enough to ever make him think of stopping. 
“Cum in it,” she demands, tightening around him and practically sucking him in farther if that was even possible. 
He obliged her demand of course, because who is he to deny the most beautiful woman he’s ever seen while she’s cumming on his cock. 
“Whoo,” she shouted, hips rolling against his with vigor to milk every last drop out of him. 
“Holy mother of god. I think I’m dead.” He stares up at the ceiling as she struggles off his lap with shaky legs. 
“I think you’re fine, considering the fact you're still hard. Dead men can't have boners.” She giggled slightly, fingers dancing over the head of his still sensitive (and hard) cock. 
“Shit. I took some really strong viagra before this. I’ll uh…handle this,” he grumbled, pushing her hand away and replacing it with his. 
He watched her every move as she got out of bed, cum leaking down her leg. His cum. He touched himself to the sight of it and for the first time, he didn’t feel like a pervert jerking off to her. 
“Be back in a sec,” she muttered, going into the bathroom and leaving him to his own devices. 
He waited patiently for her, only granting himself little teasing touches until she returned. “Have I ever told you that you have the most perfect tits?” he groaned, reaching over with his free hand to squeeze her boobs.  
“No, you hadn’t mentioned it.” She sighed when he rolled over and buried his face in her chest. 
“Fuckin’ perfect tits.” His voice was muffled by her aforementioned tits, but he got the point across by mouthing at the sensitive skin. “Can I mark ‘em up?” he asked, not bothering to listen to her response before he was biting down and leaving red marks that would fade out into a dark purple later. 
“Guess I’ll have to start wearing those low cut sweaters again,” she teased, one hand petting his hair while she reached the other down to play with his neglected cock. 
“You always know exactly what to do, I—fuck—you’re so—” his words stutter out as he cums again, his spent body shaking against her. 
“Perfect?” she finished, quoting his earlier compliment. 
He gave a content sigh, nuzzling his face into her chest and wrapping his arms around her waist tightly. “Yeah.”
************************
whelp... that was certainly an experience, I hope y'all had thoughts about it
I know I did!
lmk if y'all have idea for this pairing I kinda love the idea of Saul with a hot young secretary
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gale-gentlepenguin · 9 months
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Gale’s Analysis: Movie!Adrien vs Show!Adrien (which is better?)
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That’s right people it’s time for the fight you’ve been waiting for. The Shows ball of sunshine and depression vs the movie’s Careless whisper enthusiast
Now for this post I will be comparing them in the following categories as well as the points of each category.
Do remember that this is also based on opinion and can be taken with a grain of salt. (And let me know your thoughts.)
Design (2 points)
Personality (3 points)
Relationships (6 points)
Agency (3 points)
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Design
I’m gonna cut right to it. The movie’s design for Adrien and chat noir look better than the show
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Now the only clear difference really is the animation budget increase, but if you watch the movie, Adrien and chat noir appear to look softer, it’s less like a shiny suit, more of a sleek and slightly more padded costume. Also I like that the bell is slightly smaller, the suit isn’t as skin tight. It looks more useable. Even his clothes as a civilian look softer and more useable.
But to be fair I will not give movie Adrien the full two points. Since they don’t really change much of his outside just give him a budget increase
Movie!Adrien: 1.5 points
Show!Adrien!: .5 points
Personality
This is where we dig into the meat and potatoes of what makes each Adrien tick. The 3 points of this category will be distributed as follow.
1. For Personality as Adrien
2. For personality as Chat Noir
3. For personality at his core.
1. Personality as Adrien.
So this is where differences really seem to form. The key personality Traits of Show!Adrien are that he wants freedom, wants to be loved, and sees the best in everyone. He is basically a golden retriever. He is a kid that has felt trapped by his strict father and wants to see the world. He is a model and despite being ‘Perfect’ feels like he isn’t that great.
The Key Personality traits of Movie!Adrien are Withdrawn, insecure, and wants to be loved. He is a sad little cat. He is a kid who lost his mother and has a father that threw himself into his work to avoid grief. Thus Adrien in this world is withdrawn and feels empty. Deep down he is a kind soul but he himself feels hollow. The isolation he feels isn’t forced on him as much as he himself put the walls up.
Now for this one, I’m giving the point to the Show!Adrien.
Show!Adrien: 1.5
Movie!Adrien:1.5
Both are good takes on a character for their respective medium, but It’s clear Show!Adrien has a more 3 dimensional motivation and while there are peaks and valleys, they are really good peaks.
2.Personality as Chat noir
Believe it or not there is actually not as big of a difference on these two takes of chat noir than one would think.
Show! Chat noir is a pun loving act first kind of hero. He is playful and likes to flirt and tease ladybug. But deep down is the emotional core that keeps Ladybug centered. One of the problems is that this chat noir does have trouble separating personal emotions from the mission
Movie!Chat noir is more cocky but just as playful. He is trying to play the confident hero at first but that bravado quickly melts and he confesses he’s new to this. A LOT of people fail to realize it’s an act when watching the movie. And despite that he is actually professional afterward, when Ladybug tells him “Not to push something” and the situation is serious he stops immediately and focuses on the task at hand. But really this iteration has more overlap as Chat noir is able to be more open with Ladybug. They can flirt, they can play, they can actually be more open without the shows restrictions on identities must be kept. Which actually gives Them both more freedom.
So this one is a bit surprising to me, but I have to say it’s a draw for me.
Show!Adrien: 2
Movie!Adrien: 2
The movie and the show have peaks and valleys with chat noir. But in the movie chat noir actually feels important in general rather than just being told he’s important. The show has him get controlled a good chunk early on or have his emotional conflict be half the problems, which for a show is fine, but for a movie wouldn’t work out. Though I will say Show!Chat noir is also MUCH more developed and grew a lot more to be the solid partner he is. Movie! Chat noir didn’t have nearly as much growth… he does have significantly more game and is quick to admit his own short comings. (When he’s being himself and not the bravado)
3. The personality core
Adrichat should be defined by 5 traits. 1. Loyalty. 2. Kindness, 3. Wanting love, 4. Emotional, 5. Wanting freedom.
And of the two only Show!Adrien has all 5. Movie Adrien could potentially have 3 to 4 but he is by his own admission (hallow). Show!Adrien does have his problems but at his core he has more to give and I gotta give the ball of sunshine his due
Show!Adrien: 3
Movie!Adrien: 2
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Relationships.
Okay so this obviously can’t encompass all the relationships Adrien has. So I cut them into the main ones we can compare. The rule being he has to at least have 3 interactions with them
With Plagg: 1 point
With Nino: 1 point
With Ladybug: 1 point
With Marinette: 1 point
With Nathalie: 1 point
With His Father: 1 point.
So let’s get into it.
With Plagg:
It’s Show!Adrien and not even close. Plagg in the show is one of the best characters and the dynamic and care between the two is so crucial to show!adrien’s growth. Even if you only took 1 season of the show to compare to the movie, each one beats out the movie dynamic by a country mile. Movie!Plagg is a fart machine and while he does comfort Adrien and tell him to move his butt when things are serious, the gap of this battle is massive.
Show!Adrien: 4
Movie!Adrien: 2
With Nino
Interestingly enough, I’m going movie on this one. Sure Adrien and Nino have some good interactions in the show, but in the movie I think it demonstrates it more that they are closer than in the show. Adrien sought out Nino for advice, Nino and him have a friendship and show they hang out more. Idk it just felt to me more natural in the movie than in the show. I think maybe it’s because when you stretch it across 5 seasons, Nino’s friendship with Adrien seems minuscule especially in the later seasons. The reason Adrien isn’t as close to Nino in the movie makes more sense then in the case of the show. That maybe a controversial take but it’s where I stand on it.
Show!Adrien: 4
Movie!Adrien: 3
With Ladybug
So this one is not as cut and dry as one would think. Because the real question is, what do you prefer. A complex dynamic where they both care about one another but one side is constantly feeling as though they aren’t helpful or even equal in the dynamic only to have it glazed over then move to a platonic friendship. Or a simplified dynamic where both sides had some trouble getting along initially before finding their way and even starting to fall for eachother and open themselves up only for their personal lives to muddle things up and only for things to clear up and for the masks to drop.
I am shocked by how difficult this choice was. Because if I’m being honest, the show does have good Ladynoir moments but it also has a ton of complex bullsh*t that COULD have been great development only for it to get sidelined. And my favorite episode is strikeback, which arguably has the best Ladynoir moment of all time. But if I’m going to judge this correctly I have to judge this relationship on its highs AND it’s lows. And trust me some of the lows are really low.
But let’s not pretend that the ladynoir in the movie is perfect either, yes it has good scenes, but it also has some cringe. It does miss some of the best beats that can only be found in the show. But at the end of the day, what dynamic do I think fits the ideal of what I think Ladynoir is?
Show! Adrien: 4
Movie! Adrien: 4
It really did come down to the wire. But I ruled in favor of the movie, because in the end, the ladynoir in the show fizzled. And Movie!Adrien gets to be closer to ladybug then show!adrien ever could be. No masks between them.
With Marinette:
I’m not gonna sugar coat this one. Show!Adrien wins this one so easily it’s not even funny. Adrien is constantly growing closer to Marinette throughout the show, while his relationship with ladybug is all over, his love and care for Marinette grows. Not to mention, show Adrienette has so many moments that are much higher than any in the movie. The umbrella scene, the statue scene, the picnic scene. And before you ask, why this and ladybug are a separate category, it’s because to Adrien in the show he doesn’t know. Now let’s not say the relationship doesn’t exist in the movie, I actually like that the two can talk early on, and hang out as a group. Movie!adrien even opens up to her. But it doesn’t make sense why Movie!Marinette is picking Movie Adrien over chat noir.
Show!Adrien: 5
Movie!Adrien 4
With Nathalie
Another sweep for Show!Adrien. Nathalie in the movie does show some concern for Adrien, but it is not as clear as the care shown by Nathalie in the show. We see Adrien in the show help and thank Nathalie. Though it makes sense that movie!Adrien would be more withdrawn with Nathalie as set up by his personal arc in the movie. His dynamic with Nathalie is not as deep. Maybe if they had another scene together it could have worked but… it didn’t shake out
Show!Adrien: 6
Movie!Adrien: 4
With His Father
I can’t even begin to describe how EASILY movie! Adrien wins this. Like the dynamic in the show is such a mess that most people are clamoring for Gabriel’s death. Heck! That’s the one universal agreement on the season 5 finale that everyone likes. They like that show!Gabriel is dead. His dynamic with his dad in the movie is much more grounded and understandable. Adrien is hurt by his father being distant, and has sadly gotten accustomed to it. Adrien even calls out his father without the need of encouragement. He was emotional and vulnerable and called out his dad’s neglect. There we even see the parallel of how the two view heartbreak, shutting themselves off. but we see that even in his grief and madness Gabriel still cares about his son, worrying about him, and even when he’s about to get what he wanted; he stops when realizing he hurt his son. We see why Gabriel couldn’t bear the grief, how much his baby boy matters to him. We see that Adrien understands his fathers grief and wants to help him let go. And we get the most genuine moment between the two in the entire franchise. Something 100 pancake breakfasts couldn’t do.
Show!Adrien: 6
Movie! Adrien: 5
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Agency
If we removed Adrien from the plot, how much would actually be impacted?
So this is where things get kind of murky. Because in the movie, does drive a section of the plot and his actions do have some consequences.
And if someone else was Chat noir, Hawkmoth would have won. No questions asked.
In the show, Adrien is arguably the most critical character to the plot, Marinette’s motivations are heavily entrenched in Adrien. And Adrien being there did basically set all the plot for the Agreste in motion. But he is often sidelined. It’s more of Adrien existing as a MacGuffin then a character at times.
But Adrien’s inability to make choice for himself actually becomes a plot point with him being a sentimonster.
It’s hard to really judge in some aspects because in the end Adrien’s choices in both mediums aren’t as impactful as one would think.
So if I had to call it.
Show!Adrien: 9
Movie! Adrien: 5
Adrien in the show and in the movie both have an agency issue, but in the grand scheme of things, Adrien’s actions in the show do hold more weight, even if a lot of them get negated.
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Ending
Now in truth I think it is difficult comparing the portrayal of a movie character to one from Tv, especially when both are trying to accomplish two different tasks.
I enjoy both iterations and I can recognize the flaws that are within each.
It really does make me wonder how different things would be if Zag and Astruc were more in step rather than clashing because if both Adrien’s could be mixed there is something amazing here. I do want a sequel to explore movie Adrien more, and I want to see how things would go with Adrien and Marinette not having to deal with the identity shenanigans.
But if there needs to be a winner
Show!Adrien wins
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TL:DR
Show Adrien wins because more writing is often better but the movie Adrien does have some things going for him.
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teeth-cable · 10 months
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I feel like a lot of people would be forgiving of Helluva Boss if SpindleHorse admits it has flaws and it's more of friend collaboration project with a budget than a professional show.
I don’t mean to undermine Helluva Boss when I say this. Helluva Boss has had a big impact on indie animation and we shouldn’t ignore the effort it takes to run an indie show. However we can still acknowledge how the crew treats the show is unprofessional.
Viv allows her artists to draw their impsona /Hellhoundsona and come up with headcanons for the background characters they create, the crew adds jokes in HB relating to their own life experiences but no one else finds them funny because they don’t know the backstory or can related to those jokes, the writers add elements they like without thinking how the audience will react to them, instead of telling important world/building information in her shows she tells them on Twitter, the writers have to constantly explain why their designs and writing choice make sense as if they aren’t proving they failed miserably in their execution, the writing for the show is terribly inconsistent, Helluva Boss wasn’t planned and Viv gets mad when she hears criticism for the show writing, and the crew can’t take criticism. When Ep 8 was release, the crew went on Twitter to complained people shouldn’t critique HB because they think the show is bad and it’s not for them despite them ignoring Helluva Boss is supposed to be a professional show and people are just judging it according.
This show isn’t professional, it’s just a playground for friends to play around with their OCs, painting the show as deep so they can take the praise and credit without putting in the effort it takes to make one.
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helladirections · 2 years
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I Dig Your Cinema
Author: @helladirections Pairing: Harry x Y/N Status: Complete Word Count: 6.5k
MASTERLIST | PATREON
Preview
He just shrugged. “Told you, nervous about the intimate scenes.”  “I thought we went over this this morning?” she questioned. “And that last one was so good!” The complement tickled a spot inside of him. “From where I was standing it looked completely real. Totally reminded me of this time with...” she drifted off, blush arriving back to her cheeks as she took a bite of her sandwich to cover. “Anyway...”  “No,” Harry said softly. “Tell me. Who was it and what was he doing?” “You don’t want to hear about that H,” she insisted, taking another bite.  If only she knew. “Yeah, I do. Tell me.”  “Will it... is it gonna help you with your next scene? To hear about what it looks like from the other perspective?”
Read below or on AO3 or Wattpad
Harry had been in movies before, sure. He’d had plenty of lead roles, already won lots of awards and was nominated for several Oscars (although he never won those). But he had never been this nervous about shooting a movie, or in particular, some scenes in a movie. This is what he does for goodness sake. He’s a movie star, he’s famous, he walks red carpets and acts in films with giant budgets and big name directors and famous casts. 
But he’d never filmed a sex scene before.
And objectively, he knew it was fake. He knew the intimacy coordinator was good at her job, the set would be cleared except for essential personnel, he and his co-star would both be wearing modesty garments and barriers and the whole thing would be entirely professional. 
But it was still a sex scene. 
That morning before the first of the intimate scenes was to be shot, he was pacing in his trailer. Everyone in the world would know what he looked like when he did that. They would know what his face looked like (or what he thinks his face probably looks like - honestly he isn’t usually paying that much attention to his expression in the moment) when he hits his high. He’s kissed on screen before, sure. Who hasn’t in this business? But something about this just felt different.
Obviously, he knew what he was signing up for when he agreed to shoot the movie. And he knew that if he had a problem with something, the producers wanted him so badly for the part that they would happily adjust the script. But Harry agreed that it was there for a reason and the screenwriter wouldn’t have just added those scenes in for fun. They served a purpose, they showed character development, they moved the story forward. 
He brushed his hair back with one hand, the other firmly on his hip as he continued to pace. It wasn’t that he wanted to get out of it, either. He wanted to do it. He was just nervous. And Harry Styles? Nervous to shoot a movie? That sounded impossible, even to him. He was chewing on his bottom lip, nearly making it bleed before remembering there would be close ups of his face and lips during these scenes and unless he wanted to be caked with makeup he had to stop it. 
The soft knock at his door came right on time. Y/N, his production assistant was there to tell him that he was needed on set. And he had never felt less ready. 
“H?” she called out, opening the door slowly after he didn’t answer her knock.
“Yeah... yeah... I’ll be right there. Just... just gotta.. Um...” he looked around the room for an excuse of why he needed more time, of why he was so jittery, of why it wasn’t time for him to be on set yet. But he came up empty. 
Y/N let the door close behind her and she walked up to where Harry was standing, finally not pacing any longer but instead bouncing his leg incessantly. 
“Harry,” she said quietly, almost in a whisper as she placed her hand on his shoulder. He let out a deep breath, finally allowing some portion of himself to relax as he looked up at her. “What’s going on? Why are you acting like this?” 
The look in her eyes was so gentle and wholesome, and he almost didn’t want to admit what it was because he had grown to see her as rather socially innocent. She was plenty experienced with her job, and had even been his assistant on other movies before. But she was often quiet and shy when it came to new people, or people at all unless she had a reason to talk to them. 
The first time they had met, a couple of years ago now on a movie back when he was still auditioning for roles, he was convinced she didn’t like him because she never said anything to him unless it was about business or getting him to set on time. He soon learned that was just how she was. Occasionally he got her to open up a bit, they would chat over lunch from time to time and she would chuckle at his bad jokes when he was trying to break the tension of a dark scene. But overall she was quiet, and he had learned that she was very particular with who she got close to. He felt incredibly lucky that she so often showed that she cared about him. 
“It's uh... um the...” he hesitated some more. But when she cocked her head to the side questioningly, he couldn’t help but let the words spill out. “I’ve never done these intimate scenes, y’know? And like... I know it’s all super professional but I’m nervous. Everyone is gonna see how I do certain things and what if I do it wrong? What if I’m actually bad at it?” 
Y/N let her hand drop down his arm before resting at her side as she smiled at him softly, her eyes reflecting the lights above her and almost sparkling. 
“H, we both know you aren’t bad at it.” 
He raised an eyebrow.
“I mean... I mean I don’t know. But how many other movie stars do you have to hook up with before there would start to be rumors, hm? And the only rumors I’ve heard about you have been... really good,” she admitted. 
“You’ve heard rumors about me?” 
Y/N blushed then, looking away from him.
“Uh... yeah I mean... yeah.” 
It was impossible not to wonder what exactly it was that she had heard. He wanted to know desperately what was going through her mind about him that made her blush so hard. But he knew better than to ask. She wasn’t one to divulge anything she didn’t intend to, and if she intended to, she would have already. Still, the idea that she had heard something about him in bed made him feel... something. He wasn’t sure what, but it was definitely something. 
“But my point is-” she refocused them both, looking back at him. “You’re going to be fine. Anna is one of the best intimacy coordinators in the business, and she’s going to make sure everything is comfortable and safe, and all you have to do is what you do best.” 
Y/N always gave the best pep speeches. Usually Harry only needed them when there was a big action scene coming up, or maybe on his first day, or maybe she would say something sweet and slightly emotional before their last day together on set, never knowing if they would get to work together again. But whatever the reason, her words always did exactly what he needed them to do in that moment. 
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “I’m just doing my job. I’m just acting. The rest is going to be fine. I have nothing to worry about.” 
“Exactly!” 
Y/N sighed with relief as Harry looked back at her with a slight smile. He still felt uncomfortable, and he knew it was plastered all over his face. But she was great at pretending it wasn’t and hyping him up anyway. 
“The first few scenes are just kissing anyway, and you’ve done that loads of times. The morning is really just a warm up, right? You work so well with Florence anyway, this will be a breeze, I promise.” 
And when she promised, Harry really believed it. 
At least he did at first. But when the hours wore on and the kissing scenes turned into makeout scenes which turned into running his hands all over her body which turned into falling into bed together which turned into eating her out on the table... he was struggling.
They called to cut the scene when it was clear that Harry was uncomfortable between his costar’s legs. With a pout on his face, Harry walked over to Y/N and took the water bottle she was handing to him. He drank a bit and she stood there wordlessly, yet still somehow supportive. Her presence always made him relax a little. 
“Was it that bad?” he finally asked, quietly so the rest of the crew couldn't hear him.
“No, I don’t think so,” she answered with a shrug. She paused for a moment, clearly thinking over her next words. She only ever said what was necessary and wasn’t one to ramble. “I think you’re thinking about it too much.” 
Harry really did value Y/N’s opinions on these things, so he tried to process what he could be doing differently. She had worked on so many amazing films and seen so many fantastic actors work on their craft. Most of the time her feedback was more valuable than the director’s. Directors and producers were so insulated into this business they often lost sight of what people actually wanted to see. 
He had been following the direction he was given - he was supposed to be completely enamored by Florence, horny beyond belief, and so in love. He was supposed to love the power had over her by performing these acts, and get off on the way she looked while he was doing it. And he was playing to those notes, wasn’t he? At least he thought he was. Thinking back, he could pinpoint the look he was going for, the expression he wanted on his face, the speed of his movements - 
“Like that-” she cut him off from his train of thoughts. “Right now, you’re thinking about thinking about thinking. It’s too much. You need to relax.” 
He furrowed his brows, still looking at her as he twisted the cap back onto his water, but not saying anything. 
“Like, it needs to look like you’re actually doing it, right? And when you’re actually doing it the worst is when you’re in the moment and your partner is overthinking it, right? So if you want it to look good, you can’t do the exact thing that makes the real thing bad.” 
Her advice made sense... a lot of sense actually. But he wasn’t really thinking about her advice anymore as much as he was thinking about her statement which kind of threw in his face that oh yeah, Y/N has had someone eat her out before and that’s why she knows this.
He shouldn’t be thinking about her in that way, he knows that of course. But it was like some kind of reflex that he couldn’t turn off. She just always seemed so soft and gentle and the idea of Y/N in sexual situations like that... well he used to not be able to picture her like that (not that he ever tried). But after getting to know her better he realized that she was hiding some naughty things behind those kind eyes. 
Before Harry could say anything else, the director called the cast to set themselves to reshoot the scene again. He smiled at Y/N in thanks as he handed the water back to her and took his place in front of the table, Florence sitting on it with open legs. 
And he realized in that moment how weird it was that literally pretending to eat out his co-star didn’t get him worked up at all but the slight suggestion that maybe Y/N had done something like this before in real life made his insides all twisty and turny. But he tried to take her advice and not think too far into it. 
Florence smiled at him, and they talked with Anna about their new strategy. She would grab his hair and help direct him, and he would bury his face as close as he reasonably could so it looked believable from afar. He closed his eyes as they did a practice round. Instead of thinking about how his head looks, how his forehead looks, how his movements look, how close he was getting to Florence, trying to stay professional in the setting, he was imagining there was actually someone undressed in front of him. That he was actually lapping at their folds and tasting their sweet juices and nipping at her inner thighs every once in a while just to get a reaction. And her moans would be high pitched and soft, like she was afraid to let them out. And he would suck her clit as he started using his fingers too. And Y/N would be so tight and warm and wet and he would moan around her most sensitive spot letting the vibrations help her out as well. And when Y/N finally came, he would lick it all up until she was so sensitive she was pushing him away. 
And then he stood up. The run through, done. He felt like his face should be wet, and subconsciously wiped it with the back of his hand (though he only removed some makeup). And he looked over to Y/N off to the side, still holding his water, and that’s when he realized that his imaginary girl had somehow become Y/N without him even noticing. And he started to blush at the thought, grateful that she didn’t have to know. 
“Oh don’t get shy on me now, Styles. That was the best one yet!” Florence teased him from her spot on the table. 
He looked back at her, smiling as he tried to shake off his thoughts. But then again, if this was the best one yet, maybe he didn’t want to shake off those thoughts completely? Maybe they would be useful. No one ever had to know what he was thinking about during filming, it was fine. 
So when the director called to start shooting the scene again, Harry really went for it. He didn’t think about what he was doing or what he looked like or how it would look on camera. He just thought about Y/N sitting there on the table in front of him, bare and exposed for him to pleasure her. He would make her feel so good, she wouldn’t know what to do with herself. That soft, sweet voice would make the dirtiest sounds he had ever heard. Maybe, if he was lucky, he would coerce her into saying his name through a moan. The idea of that alone got him chubbed up a bit. She probably tasted amazing, and he would use every skill he had ever learned to make her feel as amazing as possible. The sensations would be so good that she would involuntarily throw her head back, squeeze his hair tight, and let out a groan as he tasted her beautiful arousal. 
And then the director called a cut. 
Harry stood up as Florence’s grip on his hair relaxed, and he found himself breathing heavily even though he hadn’t really been doing much of anything. He wasn’t as out of breath as he usually found himself after the real thing, but it was still notable. 
“I think we got it!” he called out. “Time for lunch.” 
At first, Harry was relieved to go to lunch, to get a break from shooting these scenes, to go back to his trailer and sit down. Maybe he would get a moment to be with Y/N and chat about something normal. 
Y/N.
Shit. 
He knew he was blushing when he mumbled his lunch order to her because not only could he feel the heat rising to his face, but she looked at him pretty curiously but never asked him a question. When she walked away to pick up their meals he let out a deep breath, heading to his trailer afterwards. 
All day he had thought that the room they were in was kept warm to help deal with the fact that they were fairly exposed. But it turned out when he opened the door to go outside, a wall of heat and humidity hit his skin. By the time he made it back to his trailer (where he thankfully left the A/C on by accident that morning) he was sticky and gross. 
Immediately he peeled off his costume of a long sleeve shirt and pants, leaving him in only his boxers to cool down. He sat on the makeshift couch and spread out his arms along the back of it. Letting his head rest on the back, he relaxed into the cushions and closed his eyes for a moment. 
His nerves that morning were somewhat gone, but they were replaced by a new uneasy feeling. He was able to do his job, but only by imagining his coworker and friend was there in front of him. Only by thinking about her naked body and the sounds he hoped she would make. Only by picturing what she would look like where he now realized he wanted her most. 
He couldn’t get too deep into his thoughts about her though, because pretty soon Y/N was back with both of their lunches. It was sandwich day and they both chose the vegetarian option with a side of potato chips. She placed his lunch down on the table in front of him and then started heading back to the door before he stopped her.
“Wait, don’t you want to eat lunch with me?”
“Oh,” she turned around to look at him. “I figured with everything from this morning, and you’re not wearing your clothes... thought you might want to be alone.” 
He shook his head. “Would much rather be with you, darling. Promise.” 
Her face lit up then as she practically skipped back to the chair on the other side of the table from the couch he was already sitting on. 
“Was hoping you’d say something like that, actually,” she said gleefully as she started to unpack her own lunch. 
“Thanks again for your advice on set earlier. Think you know more about cinema than the directors sometimes,” he said with a smile.
“I’ll always help you with whatever you need, you know Harry,” she responded with a smile. But she quickly changed the subject. “I overheard something funny from one of the other assistants today!” 
Innocent as she was, she was still always ready to share gossip with Harry. And he always returned the favor, although he learned long ago that the assistants always knew the most about everything. So many higher ups would just keep talking and not even notice that they were around, so she always had something juicy to share with him. And his lips were sealed with her secrets inside, of course. 
He listened intently for a few minutes as she went on about the rumor going around that one of the camera men was sleeping with an extra, but eventually his mind drifted off. The sound of her voice was comforting, but he wasn’t really making sense of the actual words she was saying. Even when she was excited, her voice remained soft. It sounded like a soft blanket you would use to wrap up a baby for nap time. Or your favorite teddy bear that you’ve had for 30 years that hardly resembled a bear at all anymore because it was so worn down. 
“And I was like no, there’s no way that’s true! Right? Right Harry?” she asked him a second time upon realizing he wasn’t really paying attention.
“Oh uh, yeah,” he said, trying to cover his own ass. 
But she knew better. She didn’t know what he was thinking about, but she knew his head wasn’t in the game she was trying to play.
“Ok, what’s really going on then, hm? You’ve been acting weird all day.” 
He just shrugged. “Told you, nervous about the intimate scenes.” 
“I thought we went over this this morning?” she questioned. “And that last one was so good!” The complement tickled a spot inside of him. “From where I was standing it looked completely real. Totally reminded me of this time with...” she drifted off, blush arriving back to her cheeks as she took a bite of her sandwich to cover. “Anyway...” 
“No,” Harry said softly. “Tell me. Who was it and what was he doing?”
“You don’t want to hear about that H,” she insisted, taking another bite. 
If only she knew. “Yeah, I do. Tell me.” 
“Will it... is it gonna help you with your next scene? To hear about what it looks like from the other perspective?”
And honestly that had nothing to do with why he wanted to hear her tell the story, but she handed him a perfect cover right on a silver platter.
“Yeah, sure. Always want your feedback.” 
“Ok,” she swallowed her bite, placing her sandwich back down on her plate carefully before wiping her hands and looking up at him. “So he is my...” 
Harry gulped. She had someone. There goes any of his fantasies. 
“Actually, was my friend.” 
“Friend?”
“You know... friend... with benefits... whatever.” 
She was already clearly nervous (in the cutest possible way), but Harry was eating up every word that came out of her mouth. And was. That was a good word to hear. 
He knew the best way to get her to keep talking was to leave an open silence until she was uncomfortable enough to fill it, so that’s exactly what he did. 
After a short pause, she spoke up again. Her voice was still soft and she was looking everywhere around the room except at him. 
“And one night all his roommates were gone, so we didn’t have to use his room...” She looked up at him, hoping for some input, but he just raised his brows, urging her to continue. “So he said he wanted to do... he wanted to use the dining table. And I’d never done that so I figured I might as well...” 
Harry hummed in agreement. 
“I wasn’t wearing a dress like Florence was. But he took off my... we made it work.” 
“And what was the worst thing he did? What should I make sure not to do on camera?” he asked, careful not to dig too deep.
She thought for a moment. “He did that thing where he shook his head back and forth really fast. I don’t know... maybe some girls like that but for me it’s not enough... not focused enough. And it gets messy but not in a fun way.” 
His skin erupted with goosebumps, but he was an actor and he acted like he wasn’t bothered at all. Messy in a fun way. Harry could definitely work with that. Messy could definitely be fun. 
“And what was the best part then?” 
“The way he... when he...” she tried a few times to say what she wanted without actually saying it, but she was running into trouble. 
“When he what, babe?” 
“Um... when he... y’know...” 
“No, I don’t know. That’s why I’m asking yeh. Wanna know what the best part was so I can recreate it on camera.” 
The lie was thinning out now, as he realized he had finished shooting the scene in question and this wouldn’t really be relevant to any other part of the script. But he held up his excuse anyway. She was always very invested in whatever project she was working on, and he knew she would want to do whatever she could to help it go smoothly. 
“Yeah... of course. Um... when he... he did this thing where he um... he was sucking and then also used his tongue on my... and it felt really...” 
Harry could fill in the blanks eventually, of course he could. But something about the way she was shifting in her seat when he was pulling the words out of her made his stomach turn in the best way. So he egged her on further. 
“Was he sucking on your clit, sweetheart?” he offered.
She nodded. 
“And did it make you cum?” 
She nodded again. 
“And that was your favorite part?” 
“Yes, Harry,” she said through a breath. 
The temperature in the room seemed to have changed without his noticing. No amount of A/C could cut through the heat and tension between the two of them now. 
“Do you want me to do that for you?” he said in a whisper. 
She gave a small nod, her eyes closed now. And if he wasn’t looking so closely at her he might have missed it. But he didn’t. He saw it. And she wanted him just like he wanted her. 
“Want me to do it now?”
Another nod. 
“How much time do we have?” 
She opened her eyes to look down at the schedule on her phone. 
“Um, they need you back on set in an hour.” 
“That’s plenty of time.” 
Her cheeks were completely red, and Harry could feel the heat radiating off of them when he brought his hand up to her face, thumb stroking over her soft skin. She let out a breath and melted into his touch, and in that moment he knew he had never wanted anybody more. Eyes closed, she brought a hand up to her chest to feel her heartbeat. 
Harry’s hand followed hers, the warmth from his skin spreading across her chest. 
“Is it going fast?” he asked in a whisper.
She nodded, once again unable to find the words. 
“Is that ok, or should I stop?”
“It’s ok,” she told him. 
He hummed. His hand on her chest fell down to her waist as he pulled her ever closer to him. Her small breaths came out in little puffs across his lips. 
“Gonna kiss you now, ok?” he warned her.
“Please.” 
He started off slow, both because he wanted to savor the moment in case it never came again, and because he wanted to respect her boundaries. She just seemed like the type of person who wants to take things slow, soft, and gentle. Maybe because he always viewed her as soft and gentle in the best possible way. 
And he was right about her being soft - her plush lips felt like clouds against his own. She was warm, and her mouth worked in tandem with Harry’s as he kissed her. Taking her bottom lip between his, he sucked a bit and pulled it back, earning a gasp so small he almost thought he was making it up. With her mouth slightly open now, he started using his tongue to dance around hers. 
She tasted so good. Like the sandwich she had been eating, and the coffee she had that morning, and something else uniquely her. Harry thought it was probably his favorite taste in the entire world, and he could never get enough of it. 
“C’mere,” he mumbled into her lips. 
Using his hand on her waist and moving the other one to her upper back, he guided her off of her chair and closer to him. She straddled his lap, standing on her knees and never breaking the kiss. When he pushed her down to rest fully on his lap, she let out a whine and he knew she could feel him hard beneath her core. 
“Feel what y’do to me?”
She didn’t answer except to continue kissing him with more enthusiasm than before. 
They kissed like that for a while, hands roaming over each other’s bodies and tongues exploring each other’s mouths. The trailer once again started to feel hot, but he didn’t mind as long as the heat was coming from her body. And honestly, if she never let him do anything else with her, he would be content knowing that he got to have his moment. That he got to kiss her and know what she tastes like and how she moves her body against his. 
At first, Harry thought she was grinding her hips against his subconsciously. But when he couldn’t help but let out a little groan at a particularly good movement, he felt her smile against his lips. 
“Oh, y’like tha?” he teased. 
She nodded her head again. 
His hands stopped roaming then, finding a home on her hips as he pushed her down and guided her rolling against him. The tension was starting to build in his lower belly, and he knew he wasn’t going to last long if they kept that up. 
But he told her he was going to eat her out, so that’s what he wanted to do.
Carefully, he shifted their bodies, resting her back against the small couch and allowing his own body to hover above her. His lips finally parted from hers, earning a small whine of disappointment. He only chuckled as he reattached his lips to the skin on her neck where he quickly found her pulsepoint and couldn’t help but suck on it just enough for her to feel it but not enough to leave a mark. She was right, her heart was beating quickly. But he figured that was a good thing. 
His mouth traveled down then, over her collarbones and her upper chest, while his hands simultaneously traveled up from her hips. Fingers lightly grazing her skin, he felt goosebumps arise on her belly as he slowly pushed the fabric of her shirt up over her bra. He held her tightly by the ribs as he kissed the tops of her soft breasts, feeling as her breathing increased. 
“Can I take this off?” he asked between kisses, letting his fingers graze against the band of her bra. 
She nodded her head, but that wasn’t enough for Harry. Enough with the nodding, he needed to know she really wanted this as much as he did. 
“Use your words, darling,” he whispered, looking at her. 
“Yes,” she breathed out. 
“That’s a good girl,” he muttered as he used one hand to raise her torso up off the couch and the other to unclasp the bra. The straps fell from her shoulders and he helped her remove it from her body, throwing it to the floor. 
Without wasting any time he got to work giving further attention to her chest. He used his mouth on one side while massaging the other with his hand before switching. When her nipples were hard and pronounced, he couldn’t keep himself from sucking on them a little bit, only to bite lightly and pull back, just to see her reaction.
And her reaction was everything he had hoped it would be. Eyes squeezed tight again, her jaw dropped open but no words or sounds came out. 
“Feels good?” he asked, leaving soft pecks over her tummy now.
“Yes, H.” 
“Good. Gonna make you feel so good,” he promised. 
His kisses traveled lower and lower down her abdomen until his nose was dragging along the waistband of her jeans. Slowly, he let his hands travel back up her body to grab at her boobs, smiling to himself when he got a small reaction out of her. All of her reactions so far had been rather small, nearly silent. But he was determined to hear that sound he had been thinking about earlier while on camera. 
Before he had a chance to ask, she lifted her hips up from the couch. He chuckled a bit. 
“Eager, hm?” 
She pouted softly as she nodded. 
Sitting back on his knees, he worked quickly to undo the button of her jeans and drag them down her legs. He looked back at her. She was biting her lip, fingers interlocked with each other and eyes wide. 
“Is this still ok?” he asked, wary of her demeanor. 
She nodded again, but before he could remind her to use her words, she spoke up. “Just... little nervous?”
“You’ve done this before, yeah?” 
“Yeah but not... not for a long time. I’m not... I wasn’t expecting this so I’m not... ready... down there.” 
It took a minute for her words to click in his mind, but when they did his gaze softened. Crawling back over her, he took her lips to his mouth once again before mumbling against them.
“Don’t care. S’your pussy, s’gonna be beautiful.” 
He gave one more kiss before leaning back and searching her eyes for any other hesitancies. 
“We don’t have to do this, Y/N. We can wait until another time... or never at all. Whatever you want.” 
“But you want to?”
Harry couldn’t help but laugh at her question.
“Babe, you’ve got no idea how bad I want to.” 
“Then I want to, too.”
One more peck to her lips and he was making his way back down her body. He couldn’t help but leave a trail of wet kisses on her skin in his wake. She was so soft, and beautiful, and gentle. She had always shown him so much care and concern, and he had felt like over the course of this and the other films they had worked on together, he had only taken from her. He took his lunches and his coffees, he took his scheduling, he took any and all advice she would give him. And he never had the chance to give her anything back. But this was his chance. 
Eventually he settled himself between her legs. He left a kiss over her clothed mound and took a deep breath in through his nose before looking up at her again.
“Wanna take these off is that-”
“Yes,” she cut him off with a breathy response. 
When he had her bare, he couldn’t help but take a moment to soak in her beauty. But she soon started squirming, the cold air meeting her wet center and producing goosebumps along her legs and tummy. 
He was so focused on kissing up and down her inner thighs, Harry almost didn’t hear her whine. When it finally registered, he smirked to himself and focused his attention where she really wanted it. He wrapped his left arm around her thigh, fingers careful not to dig into her soft skin too hard. With his other hand he trailed one finger through her folds, from bottom to top, giving just a slight tease. 
Holding it in front of his face, he turned his wrist a few times. 
“Look at tha... and I bet you even...” he put his finger in his mouth, sucking off her wetness. She whined again at the act. “I was right... taste so fucking amazing...” 
“Harry, please,” she whined quietly even though they were alone. 
Somehow he had gotten so caught up on her that he almost forgot she was there, as if that oxymoron was even possible. There was just something about her that turned his brain a little bit upside down, a little bit into a pile of much. But he liked the feeling. 
He acknowledged her request, though, finally giving her body his full attention again. Mouth open and tongue flat, he licked at her, appreciating the sweet taste she left behind. His right hand wrapped around her thigh as well and he used the tips of his fingers to spread her open even further. Eyes closed, he did just what he pictured he was doing about an hour earlier. He lapped at her lips, sucked her clit into his mouth, hummed around it to express that he was enjoying it just as much as he hoped she was. 
From above, Harry could hear Y/N let out a small moan, only to catch herself and swallow it back down. 
“Hey now,” he said, lifting his face from her core. “None of that... wanna hear you. Will you let me hear you?” he turned his need into a request, thrilled when she agreed. 
He got back to work, this time hearing her small gasps and moans. Some of them sounded a bit forced, but he knew he could get her to release her pleasure without holding back. Bringing his fingers back into play, he slipped two into her hole, curling them upward to rub at her g-spot. He could hear her breath catch in her throat, but he wanted more. 
Thrusting in and out, he continued working her over with his hand as he licked at her clit. By this time it was plenty swollen and begging for attention, just how Harry liked it. And that’s when he remembered the conversation that had gotten them to where they are now. 
Without slowing the movements of his fingers, he sucked her clit into his mouth harshly before letting his tongue flick it back and forth within his mouth. The combination of sensations proved to be almost too much for Y/N as she let out an unfiltered moan. It was the most beautiful sound Harry had ever heard. And now that he knew what it sounded like, he needed more. 
With his free hand he pressed down on her lower tummy as he continued to bury his face into her essence. Her thighs started to flex, then her legs kicked a bit as she squirmed - to get closer or further from his mouth he couldn’t really tell, but he knew she was feeling the pleasure he had hoped to be able to give her. 
“Gonna cum for me, pretty girl?” he asked, taking a break from using his mouth but not ceasing the movement of his hand. 
“Yes, H,” she moaned, the nickname scratching an itch inside his brain that he didn’t know was there. He wanted it to always sound like that coming from her mouth. 
“I want you to cum for me,” he told her before bringing his mouth back down to where it belonged.
It wasn’t long then. He continued his ministrations and she was soon rocking her head from side to side, the pleasure too much. But it was clear she didn’t want him to stop. He knew she was close and he had to get her there. He redoubled his efforts and earned his reward. 
Her heels started to dig into his back and one of her hands flew down to his hair, holding on tight. Finally the tension reached a high, and something popped inside of her leading to her release. He continued working and taking all that she would give him. He helped her through her orgasm as she pulled his hair, the pain grounding him and reminding him that this was real and not a dream like it was starting to feel like. 
He didn’t stop until she was whining, her legs back down to his sides, hand pushing his head instead of pulling. Sitting up, he saw her chest rising and falling quickly as she tried to catch her breath. Y/N’s eyes were still closed but he could see the blissed out expression on her face. 
When she finally opened her eyes, heart rate and breathing returning back to normal, she had a smile plastered across her face. And Harry couldn’t help but leave a quick kiss on it. 
“Wanna help me practice for my next scene, too?” 
MASTERLIST | PATREON
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Charlie Cox: ‘I love being a superhero — I thought that ship had sailed’
Charlie Cox on the return of Daredevil, the joys of sea swimming in Dalkey and his rewarding character-driven work in RTÉ’s Kin
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Kirsty Blake Knox   April 27, 2023 (X)
Charlie Cox is a busy man; he smiles widely from the back of a car as it ferries him from a physical therapy session to the set of Disney’s Daredevil.
“We’ve just kind of started, it’s really great. Pretty intense, hence the physical therapy,” he says.
Cox has returned to play Matt Murdock, the blind lawyer-slash-superhero.
The show started life on Netflix and ran for three seasons before it was cancelled in 2018.This resulted in an online #SaveDaredevil campaign which resulted in 400,000 signatures begging Marvel to bring him back.
It took a little time; a contractual clause prevented any characters from the Marvel-Netflix shows from appearing in any non-Netflix projects for two years after cancellation.
And now Cox is suiting up again in his Spandex costume, running around punching people in the face and fighting for justice. It’s a demanding shoot — the series is 18 episodes long. And he is a fan of doing as many of his stunts as possible.
“I kind of get involved as much as I’m allowed to and is appropriate. Obviously, the stunt team are professionals and there are things they can do that I can’t even get close to,” he says. “I feel like the name of the game is to get as involved as you can… it makes the scenes more realistic.”
Cox took on the role, which had once been played by Ben Affleck in 2015. At the time, landing the role came as a shock.
“I never thought of myself as being appropriate casting for an American superhero. That never really occurred to me,” he says. “And in my 20s, a lot of my friends, and a lot of British actors, had gone and done that already. So when I got to 30 I was pretty confident that ship had sailed. I was very fortunate to get a character that I’ve now been playing for almost 10 years. It’s unbelievable.”
Cox is a father to two young children (seven and three) but they are a little young to fully grasp the role their dad plays in the Marvel Universe.
“I’m not sure they quite understand… One of the books we read him (his three-year-old) is called Superbat. A bat who is a superhero. But that’s his only real understanding. And so he thinks that I’m Superbat,” he laughs.
Cox realised he wanted to be an actor while in school and studied at Bristol Old Vic drama school. His first big break came in 2007 when he starred in Stardust alongside Robert De Niro and Michele Pfeiffer.
He has performed on the West End and Donmar Warehouse, in dramas like Treason and took on the role of Owen Sleater in Martin Scorsese’s Boardwalk Empire. For Irish viewers, we can see Cox on our screens every Sunday night, as Michael Kinsella in gangland drama Kin.
It’s pretty unusual for Marvel Universe actors to appear in a homegrown Irish drama. But Cox’s wife is executive producing the series. When another project he was attached to fell through, he read the scripts and felt compelled to be part of it.
“I’ve been working probably 20-plus years, and there’s a handful of times where I’ve read a script and felt like I’m reading something written by a truly brilliant writer,” he says. “And that quality of scripts never ceased. Sometimes you can get a really good pilot episode. But then as you get deeper into the season, some of the writing starts to disintegrate a little bit, but with Peter (McKenna) that was never the case.”
Obviously, the scale of production is a lot smaller on Kin than other productions, but he says these productions can be just as, if not more, rewarding to work on.
“If you have a limited budget, the way you handle that is you write long character-driven scenes… So weirdly, the lower budget stuff often is more appealing. Because you get to really get deep into the character and the relationships and the dynamics… it’s sort of like theatre. So, from my point of view, sometimes that stuff is more appealing.”
He continues; “I’ve learned I’m not precious about my character’s involvement. I don’t care much if my character does cool stuff … what I care about is, ‘are they moving?’”
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He says this is some of the appeal of playing Michael.
“This life that he’d come from…and now he’s trying to rekindle a relationship with his daughter. [The] vulnerability, and the desire, and the need to fundamentally change his nature. That was really exciting to me.”
Cox perfected his Irish accent by listening to the voice of former Dublin goalkeeper, Shane Supple. He got up to speed with Ireland’s gangland scene by listening to podcasts featuring award winning crime journalist Nicola Tallant.
“I was kind of blissfully ignorant of the whole thing,” he says. “When I actually read the first two scripts, I just thought it was all fiction and then I agreed to do the part and I started doing my research. I was like, ‘oh, shit, this stuff is happening. It’s current and it’s happening right now.’”
Despite the violent nature of the series, he found filming and living in Ireland to be idyllic.
He and his family were based in the seaside village of Dalkey — where Matt Damon was holed up during lockdown. Cox became a sea swimming fanatic while residing there.
“I absolutely loved being there… I had conversations with my wife about moving to Dublin because I loved it so much. It’s not really viable with my job… Season one, we’re in lockdown. We lived in Hanover Quay, which was delightful…
“Season two, we moved to Dalkey. I felt like it was one of the best kept secrets in Europe… I was swimming in Vico every day… I found it to be like a haven. And I would love an opportunity to go back at any stage.”
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Cox is extremely polite and amenable. And modest — despite his success, Cox says he still suffers professional insecurities.
“I never think I’m going to be hired,” he laughs. “I read years ago that Christopher Walken always thinks his job he’s doing is going to be the last time he is hired. I don’t quite have that, but I certainly identify with it. I’ve never felt like ‘Oh, I’m always going to be hired.’”
He says this comes with some advantages, as it makes him more present.
“I’m filming in New York and I’m lucky enough that I’m still able to play a kind of a lead in a TV show,” he says. “You know, the time is ticking on that in a big way. And so I certainly don’t want to wish that away.
“It would be easy to kind of bemoan the amount of hours you have to work, and missing the family, but there’ll come a time where I would kill to be able to be the lead in the TV show. I think the trick is to really enjoy it while it lasts.”
As he makes his way out of his car and towards his makeup chair, I ask if he has any projects outside of Daredevil coming down the tracks.
“I’m going to be doing this until the end of the year. And then I’ll be back on the panic station wondering if I am ever going to work again,” he laughs.
~*~
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