#incidental curation

[inumerable]

screenshots from the smart phone archives, 2019-2021

[m0e-ru]

oops i drew adachi looking cool im not posting it :p

[bethama]

The real issue with hyper fixating on a series that's extremely long running (but mostly due to the creator having health issues and going on multiple extended hiatuses), and refusing to engage with the fandom or fan works at large but quickly running out of canon to consume, is probably the lack of closure.

[1800titz]

THREE

The one where Y/N and Harry are neighbors in an apartment complex, he's got a bunny called Snuggles, he makes softcore porn spanking people (it's a REALLY LOUD HOBBY), and Y/N has definitely called the police for a domestic disturbance next door.

WEE third part and she's a big one, this is where the plot kind of heavily starts to differ from the OG. This one definitely gives more of a deep-dive into Harry's character to set things up in that aspect. Reblogs/feedback always super appreciated. If you like a fic, sharing the work with the reblog button and leaving a comment/sending an anon keeps writers motivated to keep posting on this platform for free! (ꈍ◡ꈍ) <3

FETISH masterlist : PATREON masterlist (316.7K+ words of content and updating) : MAIN masterlist

CONTENT/WARNINGS: rumors, a DIY pastry delivery service (flavor: apologetic), sexual undertones/smutty insinuations, impact playing/spanking mentions

WC: 13.3K

Some people collect souvenirs. Harry collects tote bags.

It’s not inherently a purposeful, curated trove of keepsakes— not in the same way an avid mug collector would eye one of those kitsch ceramic cups with a city name stretched across it on a trip abroad, and then add it to their collection. It’s just one of those things that keeps happening. A bookstore here; a street fair there; a pop up farmer’s market that sold homemade pepper jam and, incidentally, merchandise that could not be ignored.

He likes them. They’re convenient, and whoever had started the stigma against man-purses just had an agenda to steamroll practicality. As a child, he’d had the hardest time wrapping his mind around it— seeing his mother with a heavy purse perpetually slung over her shoulder, always assuming the practice was some normatively imposed hassle, rather than a beacon of functionality. As an adult, however, Harry can confidently admit, with full disclosure, that he was naïve, misinformed, and frankly, uneducated.

From the array, he has his go-to’s— a jute edition with a singular green sardine embroidered into the center (both a durable option and quirky in its minimal, offbeat design), and a cloth alternative with the word NO in plastisol ink. Simple, effective, all caps, midnight black lettering; it speaks for itself. The third option is another cloth variant, but it’s decorated with the outline of a steaming mug, and he’d picked the piece up from a poky coffee shop during a trip to France, years ago.

Most from the assortment, however, remain as untouched bundles of fabric stacked in the corner of his pantry as soft, vaguely judgmental relics of errands past. There are four tote bags that he hasn’t used in over a year. One is from a pop-up wine shop. Another has a sardonic quote about late capitalism on it, and he only ever reached for it when he was in the midst of a particularly antagonistic streak. One is too stiff to fold properly and therefore exiled. The last one— plain canvas, no print, worn soft at the corners— has inexplicably developed a smell he can’t quite place. Not bad, just faintly of old paper and maybe a foreign shampoo that’s never existed in his possession— something that feels achingly, too closely squeezed between nostalgia and a sense of impending existential upheaval. He keeps intending to throw the bag out, but there’s something threaded into its lived-in texture that feels a little too personal to discard. It’s been to all the best places with him. He once brought it on a third date with a girl whose name he can’t quite place anymore, and he suspects that’s part of the reason he’s held onto it for as long as he has; sentiment by proxy. The bag has stayed, for whatever reason, even as the woman it vaguely reminds him of has almost completely faded from memory— face, and name, and all. 

It’s the kind of thing Harry doesn’t notice has become a habit until he’s opening up his pantry door and discovering the tangle on the floor, shoved up under the lowest tier of the shelving unit. Something he’s reminded has calcified without his conscious awareness. The tote bags. The particular corner by the door where he deposits his keys out of muscle memory. The rhythm of casual consistency interacting with the other tenants carries: a nod in the hallway; cheerful smalltalk; one of those instances where one of the elderly ladies Harry has befriended in the complex— by the grace of God-given dimples and a sense of charm his friends scoff at— (Barb, who lives on the same floor, and Eunice, who resides on the seventh) ropes him into a conversation and ultimately hands off a plate of baked goods. It’s consistent— it’s comfortable. 

Which is why, Harry supposes, the shift in energy feels so loud. 

It’s been four days since Y/N had confronted him head-on with her grievous misconceptions— in the middle of the night, surrounded by a half-awake cohort of their neighbors, no less— and despite his upfront explanation, within those four days, the rumors have multiplied at a rate that defies science. 

Only a couple of days ago, he’d stepped out to water his plants and overheard a group of girls, unbeknownst to his eavesdropping— a circle of collegiate roommates, as far as he understands, given that he’s heard them discuss Kappa Sigma’s infamous Brett’s cock in disgustingly avid detail (is girth more important than integrity? The world may never know)— conversing out on the balcony right beneath his own. Once, he’d sat through four whole minutes of what sounded like an intervention about “the ethics of fucking your lab partner for Adderall.” The conversation wasn’t nearly enthralling enough to stomach more before he finished his joint and went back inside, but this time, the snippet he hears gives him pause. He stands still with his watering can in his hand, hovering over Monte (a bushy thing that’s tripled in size since he first acquired it from the plant nursery), and his pink mouth slowly settles into a grimace the longer he listens. 

“I heard he was on house arrest, but they removed the ankle monitor early.”

“No, no, he’s just in witness protection. But like, bad at it.”

“Wait, I thought he was an ex-cop?”

“No, he’s a dom.”

“…A what?”

“A dom. You know. A professional one.”

“Like a dominatrix?”

“Isn’t that just a woman?”

“I don’t know, I just know he runs one of those torture chambers and probably wears leather.”

“Holy shit, Jess.”

Oh, Jess. A 3.9 GPA— honestly, impressive, given that she’s spent more time scrolling GreekRank gossip forums and contemplating professor tier lists based on cuddle game than studying— and still, somehow, so, so off.

When someone else tacks on, after an awed pause, “…Do you think there’s a sign-up sheet we could hit?” and a peal of girlish giggles erupts, the man literally has to muscle down his eye roll. The last group of people he wants on his roster are a freshly-legal coalition of matching crop tops with vodka breath. It’s not exactly his ideal demographic.

Harry walks back inside off the balcony with a new understanding that day; according to the messy sorority circle in the apartment under him, apparently he’s a dom-for-hire. Which is also— he discovers in the oncoming days— probably one of the friendlier, more innocent assumptions.

It’s not overt; it’s not like anyone says anything to him directly, or plasters misdirected anger management flyers to the back of his door. It’s soft-burn, subtle things. Quieter than a simple dirty look pointed into his direction. 

For starters, the man in 9E, who unironically refers to him as buddy, in the way only a middle-aged dad does during a Superbowl party with an amicable shoulder-clap, doesn’t return much more than a brisk yep in response to some cordial, small-talky joke Harry makes in passing regarding a local sports team. It’s an instance that isn’t inherently suspicious, but when taken into consideration alongside the way the lady in 9G with the green glasses doesn’t smile back at him all of a sudden... well. It packs a little more of a punch. Even the yappy little pomeranian leashed around her knuckles— who typically opts for self-strangulation via collar in its pursuit to get closer to him and paw up at his knees— seems to hang back, sniffing at the air as he passes and choosing to chase its own tail instead. 

Harry doesn’t consider himself to be paranoid. Intuitional, contemplative— sure. Paranoia, though, that’s for the type of man that trims a duct tape square to stick over his laptop camera and tells someone that 5G will give them brain tumors. And yes, in theory, every semi-curt interaction he’s archived with his neighbors over the prior days could be chalked up to perfectly excusable coincidences in a collective bad experience, entirely unrelated to him, but Harry simply has awareness. It does not operate off of a tinfoil hat or a conspiracy rant posted onto a niche online forum— it involves that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach and dresses itself far better than delusion. A group of ladies stops and stares in the mailroom, huddled like an overly lip-glossed coven— all pristine acrylics, and Gymshark workout sets, and coconut dry shampoo— in a way where Harry can feel their eyes searing into the muscle along the side of his shoulder.

It’s not guilt. He knows that much. It’s not quite shame, though, either. No, he’s long past shame— that’s a mechanism he discarded a long time ago when he’d started wearing those tiny running shorts that ride high on the thigh and realized he didn’t particularly care who watched him haul a bag of frozen peas out of Trader Joe’s while donning them. 

It’s something worse.

It is a vague, creeping certainty that a version of him now exists that he can no longer control. 

It’s always existed, somewhere, at some point, he supposes. It varies— mutates— wears one face in a group chat somewhere, takes another shape in a soft-spoken recollection over a plastic coffee cup, one girlfriend to another. He’s been around— a… polite, genteel euphemism for the flyer miles he’s packing below the belt, Harry supposes— gotten around enough, to know that this piece of him lives like a shadow and occasionally reinvents itself through word-of-mouth. He’s self-aware. Probably alive as a screenshot and a one-sided story in a group chat or three.

The problem with this edition, though? It’s alive, and it’s false, it spores. It magnifies, and it reaches, and it’s current— it does not exist like a weak echo in a group text; it smears itself over his face like a clear film as he walks the halls, and he can’t wipe it. It is a version constructed out of silhouettes, and assumptions, and just enough circumstantial evidence to stick. 

He’s lost control of the narrative on a large scale, and he doesn’t know how to get it back. 

It’s not that he even cares what people think, not necessarily. He’s a grown man. He pays his bills on time and almost every lighting fixture in his home is bluetooth. He doesn’t crave approval from a bunch of twenty-somethings who, as far as he can tell, spend their nights screeching over which of their exes had the best dick game and arguing over whether or not a “real feminist” would get lip filler. He’s not interested in being a topic of conversation among girls named Kennedi and Tiffani with an “i.” He just… would prefer not to be accused of domestic violence in a vague, wafting way that only groupthink and mildly traumatic social media exposure can concoct.

The thing is, he can’t even find it within himself to be truly upset with Y/N for the fallout. Not in a sincere way, at least, like a burgeon of spite rooting in and gnarling into a grudge. He’s a little miffed, sure, (frankly, justified, given that having his reputation dismantled over adults exploring consensual bruising techniques was never exactly the ideal), but he doesn’t fault her for her vigilance. In fact, he would probably have similar assumptions and a similar moral dilemma; if only he wasn’t on the other end of the misinterpretation, and if he wasn’t aware that what sounded like violence was just a consensual implementation of a fairly aggressive fetish. 

He thinks he can pinpoint the incident that’d caused the spiral, vaguely, but really it’s a bit of a raunchy blur given the usual rotation, isn’t it? Really, it’s basically, probably Katy’s fault for being so loud in that session with the hairbrush over an overdue parking ticket (not quite short and sweet, but she’d literally asked for it, please and all), which in turn translates into it being his fault for not coaxing her to practice a little more restraint with her pipes.  

Anyways, he can technically retrace the steps and find the root of how a little agreed upon accountability has branded him into public enemy number one, but he’d at least like some benefit of the doubt (given that every unsmiling neighbor has entirely bypassed the fairly thorough explanation he’d given the girl). A little guilty-until-proven innocent action. It’s the bare minimum, really. 

The man stares up at the popcorn ceiling and a little frown envelops the pink corners of his mouth, tucking them down. Guilt is strange, he thinks, especially when he’s technically done fuckall wrong. It’s not that it’s a foreign emotion by any means, but so many times he’d resided on the other end of the equation, with the guilty party strung over his lap, or on her knees between his legs, or caught up between his fingers. He can’t fathom how the sensation coiling in the pit of his belly could ever be twisted into an aphrodisiac, but he supposes it’s a bit different when a power exchange is involved. 

Something taps his socked foot. Slowly, the man lifts his chin and blinks down from the angle where he’s craned his neck flat against the back of the couch. Snuggles climbs over his foot nonchalantly. 

It would blow over. Of that, Harry was grotesquely certain. Canceled Tuesday; forgotten by Friday. People, as a collective, mostly remembered rumors with the clarity of a windshield smeared in expired mayonnaise— foggy, patchy— and had attention spans mirroring all the longevity of a soap bubble in a hurricane. Right now, he’s become the unfortunate centerpiece in the monthly community scandal, but it would only take one yoga mom inevitably starting an affair with her personal trainer, and the spotlight would be diverted. Eventually, the soft-core cancellation would fossilize into one of those half-remembered stories, not nearly exciting enough to be retold, and the mythos rots. 

Besides, in a world where a man could get a sponsorship for reviewing moisturizer on TikTok while actively evading tax fraud allegations, Harry figures a mild spanking kink has ever been grounds for permanent exile. It’ll be fine, the man reminds himself. There is absolutely zero call for spiraling.

Y/N is spiraling.

As the days pass and the realization of what she’s done— what she’s managed to accomplish with a cracked moral compass and a sense of justice wired too tight— truly settles, the consequences, (uninvited, overdressed, in heels), anchor somewhere behind her ribcage. It does not crash. It glides in, quietly, like a cat with blood on its paws circling her ankles, and the young woman steeps in the tracks the longer she weighs it out in her head and picks it apart. Puts it back together. Picks it apart again. 

The little investigatory descent into his digital footprint had, shockingly, been for the worse after all— it’d only fostered a new dilemma. Because now, not only did she feel bad about the accusations, but she was catastrophically aware of his large hands and what they looked like doing pixelated, raunchy (terrible, horrible for whatever flimsy scaffolding of morality she was still clinging to, and his dignity, in that order) things.

It is with this vague sense of impending doom that Y/N decides she probably owes the man a formal apology. The only question— a daunting conquest she’s been left to unpack— is how. A note left stapled to his door, despite the efficiency, feels far too impersonal (given the… weight of her transgressions). A note slipped offhandedly into the envelope collection residing in his mailbox, on the other hand, feels downright intrusive and borderline stalker-ish. It’s soaked in the same energy of shoving love notes into locker grates in junior high, retreating with a whistling speed walk, and the sheer notion nearly puts a bad, familiar taste in her mouth. Surely if Zachary didn’t appreciate the method fifteen or so years ago, her next door neighbor wouldn’t, either. She doesn’t have his phone number, but sending a text would probably feel just as sterile as the first idea, chock-full of the same emotional sentiment as elevator music.  

Hey, so— sorry I accused you of being a felon! (cup-pong attachment). 

This conclusion, of course, is what leaves her clumsily following an apple pie recipe off of Pinterest on her day off, flour smeared across the crests of her sweaty cheeks and dusting the front of her Arctic Monkeys sleep shirt. The best way to express regret and make amends— the valiant, adult method— Y/N decides, is to confront the conflict head on, face to face, in the flesh; and the proper measures to decrease the likelihood of having a door slammed in her face would be the introduction of a baked good alongside her tight, awkward smile. A touch of sweetener.

The pie— honestly, as Y/N had pessimistically expected, despite the way she’d gingerly followed the digital instructions to the T— had dissolved into the kind of spectacular failure typically reserved for first-though tweets and mid-season AMC finales. 

The filling soaked through the undercooked base. The crust was too aggressively homemade— patchy in some places, too thick in others, with a venting cut-out that had vaguely resembled a uterus, or possibly a jellyfish. It was a shape that was hard to place. Ultimately, it was the kind of in-the-flesh reminder of her aggressively consistent inability to bake that had prompted her to opt for store bought treats. Namely, the cute little scones her cafe offered; partly due to the employee discount, and partly on account of how popular the menu item seems to be.

So, here she is; metaphorically twiddling her thumbs in front of his door on a Saturday afternoon with her knuckles curled around a paper bag of edible reparations, attempting to convince herself to just knock. 

Just knock. Just… knock.

She’s not entirely sure if the way she feels her pulse rabbiting (a steady, progressively intensifying thrum that makes her head feel a little light) in her throat should be credited to her general sense of apprehension addressing this, or the different lens she sees him through, courtesy of his video diary archive. She had always found the man next door attractive (it was unavoidable, really— she had a working set of eyes, after all), but the little research project had spun him up into a new light, and the lewd details still web across in the pit of her underbelly. For courage, Y/N puckers her mouth and blows out a deep breath, and then she lifts her free hand and raps her knuckles against the door. 

And for a long moment, there’s no answer. Shifting her weight from one knee onto the other, the young woman lets her eyes peruse over the crown molding that decorates the hallway. The only noise in the lull is the sound of the paper bag in her hand crinkling and the undeviating whir of the AC pumping along the floor. With all of the delicate, calm patience reserved for the waiting room in a dreaded dental appointment, Y/N casts a glance to her own respective door, only a few, short steps away. The stretch of lingering silence reminds her that he may not even be home at all, given that it’s a weekend, (and this whole thing is so impromptu, and strange), and—

Before the young woman’s paper-thin shred of courage inevitably combusts, the familiar sound of a door chain slipping open on the other side and then the door lock unfastening breaks through the haze of her thoughts. She freezes. 

As the door peels back to reveal her innocuous (tenderly sleepy-looking) neighbor— bare feet, sweats (the kind that cling to and hang from all the right places), conspicuously vulgar tee (Safe Sex!: two cartoonish, faceless lilac figures with their arms crossed and their hands fisting over the others’ phalluses), and gently sleep-mussed curls— Y/N can only blink up at him with all the words she’d rehearsed so meticulously lodged at the back of her throat. 

Finally, as if her sense of social awareness has kickstarted into recalibration, the young woman pastes a smile over her mouth, so flimsy she feels her lips wobbling as they curl around her teeth and so wide that her cheeks burn from the strain. The vague sense of anxiety coursing through her blood spikes, and the hammer behind her ribcage forces her numb tongue into motion off the roof of her mouth as her cheeks blister and her head swims.

“Hi. I, uh— I have scones. There’s, uh. Three of them, here,” Y/N launches, glancing down at the paper bag and nearly prying it open as she over-explains the unanticipated visit. “They’re not poisoned,” she tacks on, lashes fluttering as her nervous system forges on in overdrive, and the idiotic statement nearly has her gnawing her tongue in half the second the words slip off its textured, wet landing, “…don’t worry.”

With all the energy of a man limned in fatigue, facing a door dash delivery he’d never ordered, Harry blinks.

Y/N is a nice girl. Up until only a few days ago, in fact, Y/N had been just about the picture-perfect definition of Harry’s ideal next-door tenant; relatively reserved and just polite enough to bypass the awkward inconvenience that rode on the recurrent issue of their mail interchanging. There was, of course, the misaligned streak of vigilantism, but at her core, Harry’s sure that Y/N is still a nice girl. 

This theory in mind, the curly-haired brunette genuinely feels a little bad at the level of amusement swelling up within him as he watches her, with no apparent trigger, self-destruct in real time. Although, if he’s being entirely honest, it’s only a faint echo of a thought— all things considered— and is significantly outweighed by his mirth.

There’s a flavor of entertainment— a rare, emotional genre that lives in that exclusive umbra between secondhand embarrassment and morbid fascination, the kind that morally treads the same bandwidth as laughing at a video of someone getting hurt in an unpredictably ridiculous manner. And Harry— still fuzzy around the edges with the kind of creeping, misty stage of somnolence that dozing off midday entails (he’d been in the midst of a particularly important ritual; lying spread-eagled on the couch with one leg kicked up onto the back, half-engrossed in a documentary on luxury trains, eating dry cereal out of the bag when the drowsiness started settling like fog in the hollows of his limbs)— watches Y/N flounder with the same mild fascination he reserves for Youtube compilation videos of cats falling off of countertops. 

Her hair is slung up into a messy, haphazard updo, loose strands climbing out and stretching in soft static wisps to cup her cheekbones, and she’s wearing a short sleeve brown tee with a small Sip Happens logo embroidered over the left corner of her chest. It’s a coffee shop that the existence of vaguely lives in the dells of his memory, based on how often the man passes by it on his runs, and the wardrobe choice implies she’s either an avid punch-card user, or she works there. Tiny, almost imperceptible dry flakes of mascara cling to the soft skin of her under-eyes, like the layer of pigment has crumbled off her lashes over the course of the morning. Her cheeks are flushed as if she’s run a mile, and her grin (if it can even be called that) resembles trembling enamel more than friendliness. It’s cute in a way that probably shouldn’t be, doesn’t intend to be. Oddly endearing.

Apparently she has baked goods— scones, three of them, unpoisoned (which is a mildly relevant detail)— and she feels the need to announce it, so, based on context clues, he can only assume this element is related to her presence at his doorway. He thinks he can deduce what this is supposed to be (apology with a capital A; one that comes wrapped around café-sourced penance), but he hasn’t quite uncurled the warmth from the stretch of skin where his forearm had pressed into the couch for two hours too long, and her dewy pupils are cha-chaing behind her lashes like she wants something from him, so.

“Hey,” Harry murmurs, finally. His voice sounds thick (aggressively all too familiar to the kind of husky sounds she’s heard from the other side of the wall); vocal cords blatantly weathered in sleep, (verve cudgeled in sex, palm probably all sore and stingy from)—

The curly-haired brunette clears his throat, and Y/N simmers in the heat welling up under her skin. 

“Are these—“ Harry nudges with his chin, pointedly into the direction of the paper bag lodged under her clammy fingers, “…are you sharing?” 

“Yes! Yeah. They’re, well,” she holds the bag out to him, her tone laced with only the kind of over-enthused notes nervousness could conduct, “they’re for you, actually.”

Slowly, one of his hands reaches out, and as he locks his fingers over the side of the bag— right beneath where she’s got her own grip clasped over the haphazardly rolled top— the only thought that the young woman can conjure is a hysteria-laden mental-screencap of an image she’d rather not describe out loud.

As if entirely to dismantle Y/N’s sanity, the sheer size of his palms and the way they cradle the bag as she hands it off is enough to make her feel like something vile and wicked is clumsily somersaulting in her stomach. The indisputable fact is this: they are just hands. Long, delicately svelte fingers; colossal, massively, unjustifiably large hands, but hands nonetheless. 

The other irrefutable fact? These are hands Y/N has watched in incredibly obscene action. 

The thing is, by all technicalities, he is so soft, and his current state does no favors to dispute this impression. Right now, sleep-tousled and low-toned, words spilling like honeyed molasses in the languorous husk of his words, the whiplash spills through her like dense ink. Delicate tattoos reside over and under his kneecaps in fine lines, and in every other circumstance, a soft beam chisels dimples into his cheeks as he casually toes the line between real, alive man and fresco escapee. Behind the door somewhere, he’s got a rabbit called Snuggles, and that’s the brutal anomaly, Y/N decides. It is the foundation to which the geometric edges of her brain refuse to bend around. Because there is a fine, fine line in the way his soft, indigo-lacquered hands stretch out to accept an olive branch sown from overly-processed carbohydrates, and the way they move on camera; the way they plant flat, open-palmed blows on warm skin like bruising kisses, the way they trace the pink welts smacked alive in their wake with a delicacy reserved for reverence. They’re strong, rugged, steadfast, mean—

The young woman’s molars squeeze into the smooth, gummy lining along the inside of her cheek. There’s a little vein that runs up along his wrist, and that tendon bracketed by that jut of bone flexes in a manner so heavenly when he pauses to shake his fingers out. The bag, by no surprise, is dwarfed in his grip, and Y/N stands there with his eyes feeling like sticky, heavy inkpools drilling her into place. 

“How thoughtful,” Harry responds, eventually, faux musing, and an undeniable, little smile teases at the corners of his mouth on the latter fragment of the statement, “thank you for the… unpoisoned scones.” 

Sensing the man’s amusement at her awkward introduction, Y/N restrains the vivid sense of embarrassment that buoys to the surface, instead opting to tell him, “Right! Yeah. You’re welcome,” as her face flushes. With the original point of the delivery in mind, the girl clears her throat. “It’s… well, it’s actually, like, an apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift,” she admits, gnawing into her lower lip. 

He leans a shoulder onto the doorframe then, brows shifting (rising) just a smidge, as an almost imperceptible symbolism of intrigue, before they settle back into place. “Is that hyphenated?”

Y/N stares. 

“Apology-slash-please-don’t-sue-me gift.”

“I— maybe?”

For a moment, her neighbor doesn’t say anything. Meaty arms crossed, paper bag hanging out from the hand that’s tucked under inky, smooth muscle, dark, cherubic ringlets coiling around his forehead. He purses his pink mouth like he’s biting back another simper, and then he sighs theatrically. 

“I won’t sue you,” he murmurs, faux-rolling his eyes playfully, as if the notion involves him being the bigger person and shedding a grudge, rather than letting her settle into a rightfully earned consequence. “Do you wanna come in, then? Miss Hyphens. I’ve got tea.”

His teeth— the front two, blocky and just a tad longer than the others— gently lodge over his plump lower lip expectantly. “Or coffee,” he tacks on, casting his gaze briefly onto her workwear. “Whatever goes with… scones.”

Y/N, for all the time she’s spent living next door to this man, despite sheer proximity, has never actually, fully held a conversation with him beyond simple mail-swap pleasantries. And for a man she’s so thoroughly defamed— a man she’s practically publicly sacrificed on the altar of assumption— he’s almost unexpectedly forgiving. Sure, the sweeteners are working just about as brilliantly as expected, but the invitation, unanticipated nonetheless, throws her so heavily that for a long beat, Y/N can only wordlessly blink at him from the hallway. That is, until her social awareness mechanism, sculpted by a handbook of socially acceptable etiquette rules hammered in from her from kidhood, kickstarts for— what? The third time? Maybe the fourth? In all honesty, she’s lost track, and frankly, it’s by no fault but her neighbor currently interacting with her. The thing is— he’s not even inherently doing anything. Just standing there, propped up against his own door frame, curls tufting around his ears, dewy eyes vibrantly taiga-like. And in all honesty, perhaps the only thing worse than dragging his good name through the mud, like a public medieval ritual, is the way she’d turned around right after the fact to sexualize him behind his back. That part? The softcore porn part? The way something low in her tummy had swirled, seeing him like that, rings denting faint shapes into skin? That’s something she will not— will not— revisit contemplating while standing in the radius of his jawline. It’s not even a jawline, she thinks. Not really. It’s a weapon. 

And despite however shitty of a person Y/N believes herself to be in this particular moment, libel and objectification and all, the rational fragment of her mind (chiseled by those social expectations), considers that accepting a warm drink from her neighbor when prompted— as opposed to wordlessly gawking— is the right choice. The normal option. Something a normal person would do. The alternative is spontaneous death on his welcome mat, and frankly, she doesn’t have the social stamina for that kind of posthumous legacy. There are only so many seconds a person can stand there, sweating through their coffee-stained work shirt, before offbeat, maybe semi-endearingly awkward takes a sharp pivot into the direction of downright strange.

And right now? He’s looking at her like she’s still in the former. 

So, with her face hot and her hands cold, Y/N blinks and nods, anchoring as much nonchalance into her voice as she can manage given the circumstances, “Yeah. Yes. Sure.”

The young woman is not entirely sure what she expects of Harry’s apartment. Not anything in particular really, beyond the fact that the layout should, in theory, be a mirror of her own home right across the drywall. What she discovers, inching quietly across her neighbor’s living room, is that while the general floorplan is almost a precise duplication in terms of spatial organization (that, while they share the same, pasty painted walls and worn beige carpet), the actual integrity of his design sort of puts her own to shame. On the granite peninsula that juts from the wall in the little kitchen beside the living room, in place of where Y/N has a stack of half-sutured envelopes— various bills, coupons, credit card offers, that one cancellation notice from her car insurance she’d received months ago (now resolved, but something she’d forgotten to bin)— there’s a stack of apartamento magazines with a half-burned Le Labo candle on top like a paperweight. In place of the barstools she’d picked up from a garage sale, there’s a record stand: wide, wooden, sleek, and by educated hypothesis, probably full and meticulously organized behind the doors. A tall shelf lined with books resides beside the sliding glass door to the balcony; classics, topics on philosophy, fiction, and self help. One book is all about failed utopias of the twentieth century, and another is on the cultural significance of soup. A hardback edition of the Kama Sutra is crammed into the corner. 

Y/N’s couch was a hand-me-down from a cousin. A ratty, jet black recliner that looked like it withstood the tale of time, surrendered over into her possession when said cousin’s wife finally convinced him into a new one after their ugly little maltese scratched up the leather. Harry’s looks like it’s a direct derivative from an Eames design catalog page. It stands facing the flat screen on the other side of the room, and beside it, there's a floor-level chair that, paradoxically, manages to somehow look both comfortable and like the stiffest resting invention to ever exist. In the center, there’s a dark, wooden accent table and on top of it there’s another pile of magazines, as if for the sole sake of decoration, and a stack of ceramic tile coasters with mismatched mid-century patterns, each one seemingly a different retro motif— abstract fruit, vaguely psychedelic squiggles. Beside the handful of other eccentric decorations Y/N notes (a framed architectural drawing on the wall, a marble fig with a chipped stem on the bookshelf, a tray with exactly seven multicolored lighters— three of them are red— an arc floor lamp with a tan paper-shade that dramatically arches over the couch), she can’t help but recognize that the apartment is painstakingly clean. Organized. Enough for her to gingerly toe off her non-slip sneakers by the door before she makes her way further into his home. 

Instead of immediately taking a seat, the young woman hovers. 

The first words out of her mouth are: “Where’s your bunny?”

“Probably off eating cardboard, somewhere. He’s a very… independent sort of bloke.”

Y/N nods, as if the admission is entirely in the ordinary. The man turns toward the television, operating on low volume, currently detailing some sort of video inside of what looks to be a carwash, with a close up of a mechanism being the shot that plays as he acknowledges it. His brows furrow. “Care to learn about the… wonders of carwash mechanics— I dunno what the fuck this is actually, I was watching something about trains.”

He looks up at her, a lopsided smile ticking the edges of his lips when he recognizes that she’s just lingering by the coffee table like she’s unsure of what to do with herself. “You can sit, you know.”

Y/N blinks like a deer in headlights as she’s called out, limbs unraveling from the way they’ve caged over her chest in universal symbolism of apprehension. “Oh. Thanks.”

She’s kicked her shoes off, and she’s standing in his living room in a fashion that implies she’s afraid to touch something (lest it break), and it’s a sight that’s still, from a morally dubious standpoint, sort of deliciously entertaining. But, he’s a decent host after all, and she did go out of her way to bring him baked treats, which is a considerate notion, so he’s not going to let her literally stand there and stew in her own awkward hesitancy, no matter how amusing the view is.

“You brought scones,“ the curly-haired brunette twists his chin over his shoulder as he passes into the kitchen, quipping playfully, “That’s at least fifteen minutes of hospitality.”

When Y/N takes a seat on the couch, hands gluing to her knees— opting for the safe choice (she’s not quite ready to discover whether the leathery, pillow-looking togo chair on the other side will sculpt to her posture or annihilate her tailbone)— she discovers that this seat, at least, is more comfortable than she’d anticipated. She’s still not quite sure what to do with herself though. What to say, whether she should launch into an apologetic monologue on the misunderstanding (given his unexpectedly cheery disposition, she supposes she won’t have to grovel for forgiveness, which is a reassurance). Meanwhile, her neighbor busies himself in the kitchen, picking up an electric kettle from the counter and propping the lid open with a button on the handle, filling it with water from a filtered container beside the sink, and then setting it back onto the heating base that’s plugged into the wall. The process takes an entire, silent fifteen seconds.

“I like your place,” the young woman settles on, eventually, her eyes still wandering over the expanse of his decor. Her gaze ends up resting on a little bear statue on the TV stand. “It’s… nice. Like, quietly cozy.”

“Surprisingly no screaming women,” Harry responds nonchalantly, still turned away with his back in her direction. 

The comment catches her off guard, and the squeezy, sick feeling coils up her stomach at the reminder. Right. The monologue was… probably the correct choice, after all.

“Oh, God.”

“You said ‘quiet,’” Harry pivots, still only half-facing her (granting her the sight of his hulking shoulder), but he sounds far more amused then disdained, like he’s muscling it down and teasing, and a dimple presses into his cheek like punctuation before it fades out, “Not me. Tea? Coffee?”

“Yeah, please. Tea. I’m… sorry. That was— I don’t even know.”

Y/N wants to bury her face in her hands. She doesn’t. She keeps them very politely sealed over her knees, because that’s a new level of self-pitying pathetic she won’t let him witness, but she can’t bridle her grimace as she contemplates what had happened, nonetheless. It’s like a… bad memory she can’t burn out from behind her skull. 

Pulling open the kitchen cabinet across from him, Harry retrieves a plate alongside two mugs. One is a deep shade of blue, hand-glazed, with just enough imperfections to insinuate he’d either picked it up as one of those hand-made junk-donations from a thrift store or wheel-thrown it himself. The origin is the latter; he’d sculpted the creation in a little pottery shop downtown with a group of friends, years ago, and, admittedly, the shots the cohort had taken before taking on the crafting experience shows through its craftsmanship. The other is a white mug with a little doodle of an orange jellybean on one side, and it has a chip on the rim. Not sharp enough to cut, but just misaligned enough to require constant lip navigation. From the same cabinet (different shelf), he also culls a sealed cardboard cylinder of loose-leaf black tea that he prefers to order online. He reserves the chipped option for himself and carefully shakes out a serving into each cup.

“Hm, yeah. Horribly offensive,” Harry murmurs offhandedly, his voice laced with faux-disappointment as he twists the lid back on, “You should be flogged. But I’ll accept the scones as a plea deal.”

Despite the way the joke is delivered with no openly coy motive, spoken with the same energy as a jesting “jail” comment (no intended innuendo), something twists deep in Y/N’s belly when it lands. Something distinctly different from the shame that’s been bubbling. 

A nervous bark of laughter squeezes at her vocal cords, scraping its way out from the back of her throat before she clears it and pivots the topic of conversation sharply. She is not going to soak in that inadvertent double entendre or attempt to dissect what the suggestion means. 

“What do you do, um, for work?”

As the kettle continues to heat to the required setting, with the tea stored back into its spot and the cabinet door softly closed, Harry turns back to face his guest and reaches for the bag of scones he’d set onto the peninsula.

“I’m a videographer.” For a moment, his features crinkle up, green irises skating to the ceiling as if in brief thought, then smooth, “Well. Kind of. I was, now I just mostly stick to the editing side. I do, like, real estate listings for social media.”

“Oh,” Y/N says, genuine notes of intrigue coloring her tone, “that’s awesome.”

One of his shoulders rides up in a shrug, like the job is what it is, as he one-handedly spills the packet’s contents out onto the plate he’d earlier set aside— scones, three of them, unpoisoned. Although the job itself is comfortable and remote, with a wide spectrum of clientele (courtesy of his networking abilities), it has its difficulties as much as its perks. The man sets the plate up onto the peninsula as he discards the bag into the bin. “It’s alright. I used to do weddings and I always thought groomsmen choreography was tragic, but I’ve learned that you don’t know despair until you’re working with a realtor that looks like they’re being held at gunpoint because there’s a camera in their face.”

Last week, he’d been sent a collection of files in which, in the most polite terms possible, no clip was any better than the last. While technically filmed well (given that he partners with other reputable videographers he’s worked with before, usually borderline unemployed college kids looking for gigs, comfortable taking a cut of the profit— Harry had realized early on he couldn’t handle directing camera-shy gen x-ers without feeling incredibly drained by the end of the day, and honestly preferred the almost entirely remote work), it was the behavior of the agent being filmed that had made him cringe. He’d sat there, one hand dug into a bag of Hippeas and the other on the mouse, with the monitor screen providing the only light source as he watched through the attachments on the drive. It genuinely took so little effort to forge some drive into whatever pre-scripted spiel they were giving— check out these custom cabinet handles! or this gorgeous flooring, genuine wood, dates back to…— and flash a few smiles into the direction of the lens that Harry was sure just about anyone could do it. And watching some of the horror-show clips he’d received back left him slightly unsure of how exactly some of these clients managed to make a living to begin with. In theory, these people should already know how to sell a house, and the entirety of the process should be even easier given the fact that there are no limits on exactly how many clips are taken. And still, somehow, Harry had sat through about nine of the same— similar enough— recordings of an agent completely demolishing what little hope Harry had for the industry. 

Some involved long pauses and mispronounced words. Others involved awkward body language through the delivery— hangs swinging nervously, eyes lingering to the side where he imagines cue-cards were held up. Every clip involved the same lifeless tone and the same uncomfortable posture. A genuinely dismayed, semi-disgusted sound had spilled from his mouth as he witnessed the fallout before he’d plucked another puff from the bag and chewed. The thing is, yes— Harry can alter the footage. Cut any awkward breaks, sew clips together seamlessly enough if anything doesn’t work. But he can’t actually alter whatever the person is doing on the clip, and when every sentence sounds like someone is threatening them from the other side of the camera, he can’t even opt for voice-overs over b-roll. 

Needless to say, sixteen hours of editing later, Harry had a semi-presentable product to send off, but he also had a headache and a distinct mental note to never work with that man again. 

“That sounds… unreasonably bleak for a job involving marble countertops and voice overs.” 

“It is,” Harry admits, deadpan, “It’s like if HGTV and a hostage video had a baby.” 

He turns back to the kettle as it chimes, signifying the water has heated to the optimal temperature, and then lifts it off the base to pour water into both mugs and let the tea steep. 

“And I’m gonna assume,” he says, twisting his chin over his shoulder at her in acknowledgement as the water trickles, plumes of steam seeping up from the tops of the mugs, “you’re a barista? Lucky guess?”

Y/N blinks, batting her lashes at him from the couch at the assumption. “Why do you think that?”

With the kettle back in its spot, Harry turns slightly, one hand planted onto the counter and the other situated on his hip. The one on his hip motions out as he pretends to mull it over, brows furrowing, “Well, you’re either the Sip Happens unofficial brand ambassador, or you work there.”

He blinks and nudges his chin pointedly at her choice of wardrobe, a slow smile unfurling over his lips as the girl glances down and the realization hits her. She’d forgotten, for a moment, that she was still wearing her uniform from the morning shift, and she blinks back up at him with sheepish recognition swelling in her features, a little half-smile cresting her mouth. 

“Oh. Right. Yeah.”

“Milk?” his pointer taps against the granite, “Sugar?”

Y/N takes a deep breath. “No thank you and yes please.”

As the man turns on his heel and picks up a jar of sugar situated beside the kettle and then pulls a spoon out from a drawer, Y/N swallows and clears her throat again. The sound of the metal spoon clinking against the edges of ceramic overlaps with her inquiry as he mixes the sugar into her respective cup. “How did you get into videography?”

“I went to school,” Harry answers once the sugar’s been mixed into the hot beverage, and the leaves are in the process of settling to the bottom, swirling around in the liquid. He sets the utensil into the sink, and takes a mug in each hand. “And then I realized that law felt like a… very expensive way to slowly rot from the inside out. Just about as soul-sucking as everyone promised.”

The proximity between them decreases as he explains, and by the end of his statement, he’s stood ahead of her in a way that has her chin tilting up to meet his gaze. His fingers are cupped over the rim of the mug in a purposeful way— to have the handle readily available for her to take. She glances down at the offering, gingerly curling her fingers over the curved attachment so as not to burn her skin on the heated ceramic, murmuring a quiet thank you as he hands the tea off.

“Don’t worry,” he assures, voice low and teeming with low grade playfulness, “It’s also not poisoned.”

“Ha,” Y/N responds flatly. Despite the molten heat spilling through the ceramic and the way it stings at her fingertips when she touches it, she takes the mug by the handle and grazes the other side with the opposite hand. The heat, to some extent, grounds her. 

That same nervous edge itches into her veins as she watches him pick a coaster up from the stack on the accent table and set it down ahead of her. Then, he sets the plate of scones into the center, on top of the magazines, plucks one up, and takes a seat on the togo chair with his own respective mug. 

“What about you?” Harry asks, motioning out with the treat between his fingers before he takes a bite, “Caffeine always been your calling?”

It’s a good scone, he’ll give her that. He can almost taste the notes of apology sewn into the blueberry flavoring as he chews. He watches her shoulders sag as she breathes, her gaze skidding to the side in thought before it settles back on him.  

“Surprisingly enough, it’s incredibly hard to find anything besides museum curating or glorified church janitor work with a bachelors in anthro,” Y/N nods, a little simper gracing her mouth before she cups the mug up to her mouth and puckers her lips into a soft ‘o’ to blow over the heat. 

He takes another thoughtful bite, chewing slowly as his brows furrow before he swallows the mouthful. “Church janitor work? You need a degree for that?”

As Y/N takes a sip of the beverage, she raises her eyebrows over the top of the mug in response before she answers softly, “It’s technically a historical monument.”

“Hm.”

The third bite is the final one, and he works it over for a longer, quiet beat. And he looks so sexy like that, is the thing, Y/N thinks— carved jaw flexing, thighs split wide, gaze pensive, off to some corner of the room as if in deep thought. It has her head swimming, and simultaneously, the self-awareness has her pulse thumping heavily in her throat. She peels her gaze away from him, opting to sling it onto the television instead, where some stocky male is discussing something about car washes, and she buries her mouth against the mug as she tips it for another drink. It burns her tongue a just a tad, but the way the warmth spills down into her chest is a solid enough distraction from whatever is going on in the chair beside her. 

The silence, of course, doesn’t last. 

“The girls downstairs think I’m a dom-for-hire,” Harry comments with little to no warning, and the admission is so sudden that it catches the young woman off-guard mid-sip and causes her throat to close up around the heated liquid.

She presses the backs of her fingers to her lips as she chokes on the mouthful of scorching liquid, all to prevent coughing and spewing tea all over his carpet and his nice accent table. Summoning every morsel of strength to inhale through her nose and swallow the rest down, Y/N clears her throat as she glances over at him. She thinks he might be fighting down a grin, but it’s hard to say.

“I’m… sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Harry tells her as she clears her throat again, lifting a shoulder. She thinks he might be done. But then he says, offhandedly, like he’s just nursing this odd icebreaker and not currently wringing her guilt like a twisted wet shirt, “I reckon it’s a nicer thought than what some of the others must think.”

Y/N frowns, glancing down at her tea, where her own shiny, wounded-eyed reflection meets her over the burnt umber depths. Sincerity bleeds into her cadence, and she meets his gaze earnestly to repeat the words, “I’m sorry. I really do feel so horrible about it.”

There is, typically, something so oddly delicious in hearing a pretty girl say sorry. Watching it; in the right context, of course. It’s a strange predilection, really, and sort of sounds oddly cruel, but in all honesty, it’s because of how doughy they get. Because they become all doe-eyed, dewy; soft. It doesn’t have anything to do with some weirdly misplaced remorse in actuality, or genuinely negative emotion. Of course, that’s only in the right context, and seeing Y/N, truly frowning, a little ruckle creasing its way between her brows— the posture of her shoulders folding in just slightly as she holds his gaze and then apprehensively casts it down to the hot tea cupped between her palms— has a little burgeon of… not pity, it’s not quite that. It’s more cautious, and it blooms apart in that soft space between his lungs and his ribs. As misguided as his neighbor had been in her assumptions, his intent wasn’t to pestle her down over it, or contrive some sort of revenge by any means. Really, his intention was only to tease the girl, and he tucks as much earnestness as he can manage into his soft tone as he blinks and meets her eye, ducking his chin a bit.

“I’m just messing, yeah?” Harry tells her then, shaking his head, “It’s all good, really. I understand where you were coming from. And I’ve already accepted your scones as a plea deal,” his lips twitch, “remember?”

Y/N doesn’t immediately respond, and for a moment, Harry thinks she might start crying— God forbid— or something equally as uncomfortable, and then he’d probably truly be fucked, because what does he even do in that situation besides awkwardly side-glance? He’s already starting to mull it over, he remembers he might have a pack of tissues still tucked into the coffee table somewhere, courtesy of… things (whichever direction one would like to think in: probably yes), and—

“Do you think,” Y/N’s soft voice breaks him out from his thoughts, and he redirects his sight from the corner of the floor he’d reluctantly driven his eyes into to avoid the fallout in its full, uneasy glory. She’s looking at him from under her lashes, her short nails scratching over a divot in the sculpt of the mug, “they could work as a rebrand? A mass baked goods handout?”

The quip catches him so off guard that it takes him a second to respond. And then he recognizes that she’s attempting to jest— he pauses, intrigued, settling with his back fully against the backrest as he pretends to ponder. 

“Damage control in the form of a baked goods giveaway… I like it. I figured we let the press cycle cool down, first.”

“Right,” Y/N ducks her chin into a nod, “Standard protocol. Lay low. Tasteful radio silence. Avoid the balcony.”

A slow-splitting grin shapes its way around his teeth, dimples engraving into his cheeks, “Exactly,” and then he schools his features into a mask of mock-seriousness, draping himself in fabricated contemplation once more, “Maybe leak a blurry photo of me donating books to an underfunded library.”

“We can give you a rescue dog to hold,” Y/N offers, holding one hand out, palm up. 

“You’ll need to be seen crying on a bench,” Harry muses, raising his eyebrows and directing his index at her, before he rubs his palm down his jaw in consideration. “Something tasteful. Cashmere coat. Glossier skin tint. A latte you’re too tired to drink. Public remorse, but chic.”

“Strategic vulnerability,” Y/N nods, chock-full of agreement, as if they really are on the same wavelength, and then her brows pinch together, “What about a pinned instagram post? Empty chair, caption starts with something like, ‘I don’t owe anyone an explanation, but—‘“

“No, that’s too deflecting,” Harry waves out with his hand, reciting the plan as if he’s got the whole thing figured out to the minor details, “We draft a joint Notes app apology. Story post. You take full responsibility. I forgive you graciously.” 

“And I’m assuming…” one of her brows climb as she talks, “I’m writing this?”

“You’re head of PR,” Harry deadpans, blinking, “It’s literally your job.”

To stifle her smile, the young woman buries her teeth into her lower lip. She clears her throat and then asks, “Do I get health benefits?”

“No,” Harry responds, eyeing her over the rim of the mug where he’s hiding the beginnings of his own grin. He takes another drink, swallows, and then asserts, like it’s all common sense, “You get tea.” 

The duo settle into a comfortable silence, then. The kind of comfortable neither would have really anticipated, but with Y/N’s feelings on the matter clearly regulated and with the man’s (Y/N has assumed) issues on the manner squared, both parties feel as though they can breathe and just co-exist. Tentatively, Y/N is the one to shatter the lull this time.

“How did you, um. Get into that?”

A gust of air spills out from his nostrils, something like an almost-laugh. “Fake press management or the alleged spanking enterprise?”

Y/N raises an eyebrow once more, this time pointedly. “…Alleged?”

Behind the mug, a little smirk paints over the man’s mouth. “Very delicate segue.”

Harry had never really been a fan of labels. Titles. 

Roleplay-adjacent nomenclature; whatever the grand performance of slipping on a new skin before climbing into bed (or worse, therapy-scented kink discourse spaces) is called. Labels— well, those are cementing. Not in the warm, anchored, adult-in-therapy sort of way, but in the slowly-filling-sandbag-on-his-chest kind; the kind that wouldn’t let him wriggle out even when he’d decide he changed his mind.

They’re too serious. Too official altogether, and there was always something about the label-happy subculture associated with kink, in particular, that made him a little itchy. Acronyms, micro-identities, moniker-wrapped semantics, all to take the form of raunchy, glorified LARPing, clad in latex knee-highs, bull-whip draped around a nape like an explicit rendition of a loose winter-wear accessory, specifically tailored for those who liked to edge others just to see them cry— 

He just didn’t identify with it. Dom-status. Disciplinarian— he doesn’t like that one. It’s a word that, in his opinion, belongs more to the musty back corner of a Catholic prep school than to anything involving arousal. Something with chalk dust in its teeth and a ruler clutched in one authoritarian fist, the kind of persona that comes with polished oxfords and an aggressive disdain for late homework. It wears a waistcoat and has strong opinions on proper trouser ironing techniques (he doesn’t particularly care how many people say it’s hot— there’s nothing remotely erotic about a title that sounds like it comes with a pocket watch and a library card).

It just wasn’t him. Isn’t.

And still, somehow, he now exists, tangled several years deep into an increasingly absurd, niche pattern of carefully arranged connections with women who want one very specific thing from him: structure, and the inevitable sting that follows when they break it.

He likes spanking. That’s the clean-cut version, at the very least, that doesn’t devolve into the complexities surrounding why arousal and red-hot bruises go hand in hand. That’s all. That was how it started, and how it remains— more or less— though the logistics have evolved into something far more complicated and softly bizarre, the way simple shrubbery mutates into a crawling jungle over time. And the way it all began? It wasn’t even his idea, really. It hadn’t been a lifelong compulsion, or some neatly traceable fixation formed in adolescence that sharpened over time into a clean-cut kink identity. It wasn’t that profound. Or that romantic, or nearly as organized. He didn’t find kink through an orphaned copy of the Story of O left on a bus seat, or through anything nearly as intentional as looking for it. Instead, looking back, it was something that had settled over him slowly, then all at once, until he couldn’t remember a version of himself that hadn’t been holding the reins. He’d fallen into it in college, the way people fall improv groups or casual coke habits in that weird semi-adult stage where nonchalant self-destruction masquerades as self-discovery. Accidentally; socially. 

It started with an ex, naturally. One of those shitty apartments he was renting on the outskirts of his university with mold along the bathroom ceiling and a sink that groaned like it resented being used. The air always smelled vaguely of canned soup and boyish delusion, and the windows didn’t shut all the way, which meant everything— relationships, tea, existential spirals— happened against a soundtrack of distant sirens and someone else’s Spotify Premium echoing through the wall, including the throwaway comment about whether he’d ever considered putting someone over his knee. 

The ex in question was a second-year film major with a horizontal tongue piercing. She wore thrifted leather boots year-round, almost perpetually had this little patch of chipped red polish on her index finger that drove him weirdly mad, and once insisted she could tell if someone had divorced parents based on how they held a cigarette. (Apparently, Harry was obvious. He still refuses to comment on what kind of emotions that psychoanalysis stirred up). 

There were exactly three tattoos on her body: one was a poem for her mother, another was a joke no one else understood, and the third was just the word reminder in verdana font, tiny and delicate in that soft spot along the inside of her elbow. She claimed that last one literally served as a reminder for whatever trivial detail she needed to remember in the humdrum of a day, and offhandedly commented that the pain getting it done had felt strangely good, which in hindsight, should have been… an indicator.

Harry’s usual type had always been a tragic amalgam of self-titled tender parasite and art-soaked amateur philosopher.

Usually at least mildly broken. INFP’s, typically, because— yes, MBTIs carry more rational bearing than star signs. There was something vaguely magnetic about their (usually) self-imposed torment, the way they pressed into an old, metaphorical bruise on themselves like they wanted to feel the ache again. Creative types with unresolved emotional turmoil. It’s not that he has knight syndrome— he doesn’t feel the need to be needed and he’s never been compelled to fix anyone. Maybe it’s the fascination. Maybe, without ever acknowledging it, he has more in common with them than he’d ever be willing to admit. But maybe? It’s just easier to justify the fallout when it was always partway broken.

It’s always worked like this: he chases, coaxed by some deep itch inside of him he hasn’t quite ever been able to dissect, and they meet him halfway. And for some reason or another, he’d always seemed to gravitate toward something usually halfway to collapse. 

Emotionally battered baristas with bite, who’ll flirt by mocking his order and blushing when he tips; the Etsy shop entrepreneur with an anxiety disorder, hand-stitching lingerie as she watches true crime. Bookstore clerks with a collection of expired bus passes, calmly annotating erotica with a pencil behind the desk. Music school girls with frayed cuticles and a pack of nicotine gum next to their crumpled sheet music. 

And back in the day, a film major with snake eyes and a bruised peach of a laugh? She went right in the drawer of Harry’s mental taxonomy marked bad decisions with excellent legs. There was this trick she had with the tip of her tongue during oral (probably courtesy of the snake eyes— apparently wildly controversial in the piercing community) that, without fail, made his toes curl into the carpet like he was grappling to keep himself physically grounded. It was euphoric. 

They’d been seeing each other for a few months. Maybe less. Time was slippery in college—measured more in backlogged assignments and 2 AM curry fries than any real emotional awareness. It didn’t happen during sex, which— statistically speaking— would’ve made more sense: a bit of rough play, a tap that landed harder than expected at an awkward angle, a moan into his mouth in response. No, when the actual conversation happened, they were sharing a tea bag between two chipped mugs, and she was still waiting on the third coat of polish to dry on her toes with two of those stupid-looking foam-spreader things on her feet, and she’d asked the question the same, nonchalant way someone might ask for a stick of gum.

“Would you ever spank me? Like, for fun. Or, well— like, not for fun, too.”

It was spoken politely, offhandedly, like it was just another item on the grocery list. Eggs, coffee, a handprint across her ass. It was asked like this particular inquiry wasn't about to rearrange the way he saw sex, power, touch, and trust in the span of one aggressively under-furnished semester. Harry genuinely doesn’t remember the exact reaction he’d had, but the word spank had hit him square in the dick like a cartoon piano falling out of a third-story window, and logically speaking, he was probably weird about it. He was twenty. He still got flustered when someone made eye contact while eating a popsicle. He was weird about everything. He was still getting off to whatever suggestions existed in the first three queues of the Pornhub homepage, and had no sexual creativity, and he thinks he might have settled on something eloquent like, “Uh.”

He probably tried to be cool after that. Said something like, “Define spanking,” in that insufferable way he was just learning to mold flirtatious, which was an important development considering he’d only recently learned how to avoid burning scrambled eggs and still called his mother with a debrief of how his week was going every other night. 

He’s not entirely sure what it was even about him that didn’t just make her scoff and roll her eyes, but maybe he should give his past self more credit. 

Anyways, he did it, despite the entirety of the awkward preamble. He was careful, moving through the motions wearily, like he thought he might break something. Which, to be fair, was entirely the right, justified instinct— only the thing is, he’d missed the mark a bit by assuming it was her body that needed caution. It wasn’t. It was his own.

Because something in that moment short-circuited. Not in a cartoonish, lightning-strike way. More like a slow-burn short fuse in the recesses of his brain, something cellular, and ancestral, and alarmingly simple— he liked it. Maybe too much. More than he’d anticipated. It didn’t feel dark, or deviant, or devouring. No. It felt… focused. Singular. 

Harry didn't plan for it to become a recurring motif. It was never intended, from his perspective, to anchor him, and it certainly wasn't there to define him. At the time, he'd thought it was a one-time thing, like waxing his chest, or trying hot yoga, or letting someone gaslight him into believing that olives don't just taste like someone preserved despair in brine. At best, he'd figured it would be a strange, mildly entertaining story to pull out after drinks with a select, close-knit group of attendees. It'd fall in line somewhere between the one about the dentist with the singular nipple piercing and the time he'd mistakenly crashed a wake because the GPS rerouted him through a church parking lot.

And then she called him Sir.

One minute he was perched awkwardly on the edge of the bed he'd snagged off of Facebook marketplace (suspiciously low price tag— maybe haunted), wondering if tilting her too far would result in blunt force trauma via nightstand, and the next, she was twisting her chin to look at him over her shoulder, voice low and syrupy-sweet, eyes half-lidded as she was saying it— Sir— with this kind of reverence that made him feel like someone with gravity. Purpose. Like he was something more than a financially unstable, sleep-deprived undergrad sporting a semi; like something cracked open in her ribs every time she used it, and he was the only one who could crawl inside.

He remembers the sex was really good after. Her on top, nails digging jagged, rosy pink lines into his pectorals, her warm ass in his hands. Somehow, it made him cum harder, holding onto that; the warmth there. Feeling that. And after, she fell asleep on his chest, like she didn’t short-circuit the last decade of his sexual development in the span of a singular afternoon. 

Retrospectively, that was the beginning of the end.

A kind of slow-brand over the pit of him that he wouldn’t recognize had fundamentally changed his outlook until it was just… his norm. 

Anyways, of course he went to the party. 

Not a sex party— he wasn’t that interesting yet. Party was a form of loose, glorified nomenclature for the impact play mixer said film major later dragged him to. A very specific, curated event deep within the subgenre swamp of the kink community was a fairly unconventional idea for date night, but at the time, most of their dates consisted of glassy-eyed coffee stops between study sessions or makeout intervals on a creaky couch with something random on the TV in the background. He thinks it might have been called Spankapalooza, or something equivalently tragic, and it was held in a borrowed warehouse that smelled like spilled spearmint lube and leather conditioner. There was a registration table and color-coded wristbands. There were demo tables and a table spread of gluten-free baked goods.

He didn’t play. Just watched. Took mental notes while people negotiated scenes like they were unionized actors: pacing, tone, tools, aftercare methods. Someone got lectured in a New Zealand accent about not cleaning the kitchen counters. Someone else got paddled, smiling and bound, with a toy that was being handed around a group of three other people. It was all very adult in a way that felt mildly deranged and weirdly beautiful.

It was also, oddly enough, incredibly peaceful. Everything negotiated. Everything explained. Nothing creepy, or secret, or shameful. Just people with wristbands, and name tags, and decades of learned wisdom about which parts of the body bruise best and why it matters whether someone uses a bath brush or a frat paddle. One man— Gene, possibly the most soft-spoken person Harry had ever met— casually mentioned that he typically tasked his submissive with picking out a switch from the backyard if she forgot to charge her phone overnight, and (wow! Okay! moment) Harry had to physically sit down for a second just to process that reality (it was the only incident, to date, that ever managed to top the first time he’d had a threesome and had just ended up starfished on a beanbag afterwards in a state of catatonia).

And here’s the thing: he liked it. Not the performative bits. Not the leash-wielding, collar-clanking theatricalism of it all; it was the honesty. The focus. The moment of contact, the sting, the way a breath hitched when someone realized they were being paid attention to, thoroughly and with care. It felt like the kind of intimacy no one admitted to craving. It felt like holding something steady while the world spun stupid around him.

What struck him most wasn’t the spectacle. It was the precision. The ritual. The unblinking sense of acceptance, because this was normal, and attainable, and safe, and something that made him feel like he was on fire and so strangely serene all at once. The structure didn’t take away the heat— it was the heat. Like edging, but emotional. Like someone had found a way to turn boundaries, and sadomasochism, and niche methods for conflict resolution into foreplay. It made everything feel deliberate. Made the intimacy feel earned. 

It was an intimacy in and of itself.

When he and the film major broke it off, eventually, inevitably— blocking each other on social media but staying logged into the same Netflix account for the next three years— she was gone, but the idea of it, of this, had already imprinted itself somewhere deep in his wiring.

And the rest? Well. That’s as they call it, history. 

The blog was an offhand thing. Not entirely intentional. He’d launched it a year later with another girl he was seeing, and it was her idea, yet again. They filmed it (without their faces) because watching it back made her wet. It was grainy, and shot on his old iphone 4S with poor lighting. There was some animal documentary on in the background and the camerawork was shit in his shaky hands when he picked the phone up off the dresser to film the color her skin bloomed into. But then came a comment about branding sex in a cinematic light, something-something authentic kink education— her words, not his— and he’d laughed and said something noncommittal. They put it up. 

Eleven million profile views later it's just a thing. Another collection, like the totes, only this one is intentional— personal, and feels far more like an art form than a pile of cloth sacks in his pantry. It’s a folder of observations. A quietly color-corrected archive of records. Documentation of the way someone melts when they’re understood through restriction like it’s softness. The quiet smugness in knowing exactly what someone needs and how to deliver it in increments of five. 

When his casual flings rotated out like seasons, the blog stayed, and so did the growing name. The brand. The requests. Women kept showing up. People he’d meet at events, or friends of friends, recommending him through the grapevine like a sordid new lunch spot to hit up: “Have you tried Rings&Paddles? They have really good… service.” Although that analogy sounds far more prostitutional than it’s ever been, and he’d like it to be known— officially, on the record and all— that orgasms are not an actual menu item, readily available for order. More of a secret menu arrangement type-deal. What he does, according to the fact that the only currency he takes is obedience and punctuality, is basically just civic duty. 

Charity work, practically, according to the young woman who once messaged him on FetLife to say his videos made her feel "more emotionally regulated than therapy," which was both flattering and a sign that the world was very, very deeply broken.

He never labeled himself a dominant. Still doesn’t. The title feels too large, too performative, like a costume two sizes too big, even with an excel spreadsheet detailing his usual churn of dynamics, rules, preferences, timestamps, and all. The more rule-heavy type stuff, the kind that leans into that prep school punishment cosplay he’s actively disavowed? That didn’t come until later, and wasn’t inherently by his own volition, anyways. It escalated, as these things do, somewhere between a girl getting a recommendation from a friend for a method of mild catharsis (because she had a shitty receptionist job and little to no coping mechanisms) and the way he’d let her sit on his lap after and cry into his hoodie for twenty minutes like his loungewear was baptismal cloth for her emotional exorcism. 

Despite his inflated reputation and the nature of the hobby, less of these things were actually sexual than not. Not every session led to something carnal. Not every dynamic cracked something open beyond this deeply intimate genre of connection and, ironically enough, casual politeness afterward. Some girls showed up, got spanked, said thank you, and left like they were clocking out of a very niche part-time job. Some messaged him twice a month like it was a recurring dental appointment. A few never made it past one session, deciding— respectfully— that it just wasn’t their thing, or that Harry wasn’t their particularly-sought flavor of authority, and that was fine.

He didn’t push it. He didn’t chase it. The structure (or the psychological purge, depending) was what most of them came for. The sex, when it happened, was entirely incidental. But he did make friends along the way. Eventually, he’d sit with a repeat visitor after and discover they both liked the same music, or had the same disdain for couples matching roman numeral tattoos, or some equally surface-level interest that whittled a genuine bonding moment. 

And that? Those evolutions, probably alongside the whole mechanism of aftercare paired with vulnerability— incredibly important step to the whole process, in his opinion— started to foster something new. Just an… unacknowledged softness. An edge of rawness that started showing up in the way they wrote to him.

More emojis. More thank you’s. One of them left him a voicemail once— completely unprompted, completely uncalled for— just to say that he was helping her feel like a person again, that no one had made her feel this safe in years. That she didn't know how to explain it, but it mattered.

Harry had listened to the recording exactly once, standing in the cereal aisle at Trader Joe's, staring down the shredded wheat like it had personally wronged him. He'd paused it, locked his phone, and then bought two boxes of something sugary and chocolate just to reassert control over his own autonomy. It didn’t help.

Initially, Harry didn't like the feeling. It was strange, being mistaken for someone capable of that kind of generosity. He wasn't safe— he was consistent, and that was only because he was a stubborn creature of habit that was allergic to change. But the girls kept coming. Kept asking and saying things like, "Would it be okay if I told you when I mess up?" and "You don't have to reply, I just like knowing you're there."

And what was he supposed to do? Say no? Say, "Sorry, I'm only emotionally available when someone's bent over my lap with their skirt hiked up and a very clear safeword system in place" or, "Actually, I'm more of a benevolent pervert than a real support system, but thanks for the vote of confidence"?

He just said, "Sure."

And then he added a new tab to his spreadsheet, and then he re-sorted it by name and infraction type and timestamp. He never meant to become a fixture in anyone’s story, but apparently, structure— when delivered with a calm voice and a little spectacle— sticks. Even when the rest of it doesn’t. He was good at it. That was the problem. He was too good at it— too good at tone, at pulling someone across his lap and delivering a scolding that made them blush before he ever lifted a hand. He was the type of person who didn't make things weird. Who could calmly say things like that's ten for the attitude and two more for being late, isn't it? and could make a girl feel like following some arbitrary rules was the fun part, but breaking them, just a little, just enough to get his attention, was even better.

It’s sort of a bit like very hands-on therapy, in a way. Nowadays, only a handful of them, if that, are rule-heavy (and looking back, it was always that way— a full spread kind of catering project, instead). Not all of them are punishments. He tailors. Sometimes someone wants routine emotional regulation. Other times, a girl he’s been fucking basically asks for glorified lovetaps and his nails lightly trailing over the backs of her thighs before his fingers find their way between her legs. It’s not about control. It’s about closeness, the quiet calm that settles into his bones. The way he knows he’s giving the other person the same.  

But he likes spanking. All kinds. Silly, giggly bratting that ends in threats and cherry-red skin. Lazy, indulgent swats between kisses. Stern, structured correction with lectures, and safewords, and someone blinking up at him like they need to hear it— that what they did mattered, that someone’s paying attention.

And when it is disciplinary— when it’s not about sex, or flirting, or fun— he expects to be called Sir, because every man needs a little gravitas to offset the fact that there is a hungry holland lop roaming the same living room, between their feet, like an equal shareholder in every square foot of the property. It’s not about the title. It’s about the shift. The mutual recognition that they’re stepping into something together, something that requires structure, presence, follow-through. Something that says, I will hold you to this, because you asked me to, and I care enough to do it right.

So, that’s the story. There’s no deeper meaning. No psychosexual backstory he’s ready to unpack in therapy. And sometimes… 

Harry sits up and stretches over the table to reach for the next coaster available, setting his mug on top of it as he gives his palms room to motion. Folding his hands and his lap and pursing his lips as he stares down at a piece of the carpet across the room, he chews over where to begin. Eventually, he meets her eye. “So, there’s this girl in uni, right?”

Sometimes, when it’s late and the room is warm and someone’s looking at him like they trust him to know when enough is enough, he lets himself think that maybe that strange little corner of connection is the closest thing to intimacy he’ll ever not run from.

Read the next 8.3K here now or > access on tumblr 06/02/25 sign up with a browser (not the app) to save money!

[lemrent]

The boots first session incidentally produced (although not unsurprisingly, since there's only so decent a snake can be in that position) a few slutty Crowley pictures that are neat, but have errors that can't be fixed yet because NAI V4 doesn't have inpainting fully implemented. So, have a cropped picture.

Model: NAI Diffusion V4 Curated Preview

[gravehags]

at the altar of venus

Pairing: Cardinal Copia x f!Reader (Curator!Reader)

Rating: EXPLICIT, MDNI

Tags: body worship babyyyy, self-consciousness, body issues, handjobs, fingering, crying, possessiveness, two fools in love and lust, two fools being gross and making each other laugh

Words: 4,251

Summary: When you watch your beloved turn and turn in front of that mirror, you know something is off. Lucky for him, you have much to say on the matter.

a/n: I JUST THINK HANDSOME OLD MAN APPRECIATION TIME with yknow. a side of total filth and desperate desire.

~~~

What a day.

You wiggle your nude body in Copia’s soft sheets, nuzzle into your pillow and look across the room. Your lover is standing before the full-length mirror next to the dresser - also nude - turning his body to consider himself at different angles in the low lamplight. You watch him for a moment, watch the way his fingers card through his graying hair, loose from the grip of the day’s pomade. He runs his hand down his chest thoughtfully and comes to rest at the slight paunch of his belly. He cups the skin and his lips tug downwards into a frown.

“Amore?” he asks quietly, “do you think I’m eh, nice looking? Handsome?”

Any other time you’d laugh out loud at such an absurd question but you can tell from his slumped posture that he’s feeling downtrodden and that simply won’t do.

“The most handsome man I’ve ever seen. And that is not hyperbole. You’re the only man to ever turn my head.”

He sighs heavily through his nose and looks back at his reflection.

“You don’t think I’m…too old for you?”

Now it’s your turn to frown.

“My love…come here.”

He turns to look at you again and you crook your finger and throw back the covers. Fidgeting awkwardly he ambles over and slides into bed and you waste no time in pressing soft kisses to his jaw.

“Shall I tell you how handsome I find you? In great detail - from tip to toe?”

He scoffs and moves to pull the covers up over his chest but you gently rest your hand on his to stop him.

“You eh…you would do that?”

Now you do laugh.

“With pleasure,” you murmur, “let me just–” you pull yourself up and swing your leg over to straddle him, “--there we go. Let’s start here.” You rake your fingernails through his soft, wavy hair and smile when he shivers.

“I love your beautiful, full head of gorgeous thick hair and I love the bits of silver threaded through it most of all. I’ve told you before I’ve always had an, ah, thing for older men and well…what sort of older gentleman aficionado would I be if I didn’t love graying hair? I love the way the light catches on the silver and how it feels between my fingers when you’re uh…busy between my legs.”

He laughs softly through his nose, which is incidentally where your journey takes you next.

“And speaking of when you’re between my legs,” you say, waggling your brows as you drag your fingertip down the slope of his nose, “when this beautiful, stately, elegant thing nudges at my clit…oh. Copia I’ve always loved your nose since day one but what this thing is capable of…”

Your eyes unfocus for a moment as you lean in to kiss it absentmindedly.

“You’re getting distracted, amore mio,” Copia murmurs, eyes glittering. Eyes. Those pretty, mismatched eyes and those long brown lashes…

“As always, you are too kind to me,” he chortles, reaching a hand up to stroke your hair. Sathanas, you didn’t even realize you had said that out loud. “I used to hate my eyes when I was a kid, you know? Always a reminder of the bloodline I was a part of but never really a part of…not according to Nihil anyway. Where others thought the white eye was ‘commanding’ on Secondo or ‘alluring’ on Terzo, it was always eh, ‘unsettling’ on me.”

“Hmm,” you say thoughtfully, “I certainly don’t think you need them but did you ever consider contact lenses?”

“Oh, sì, sì,” he nods, “tried them once too in my twenties but eh…something was just…off. Personally I thought I looked creepier with two green eyes.”

You lean back a little and raise a hand to cover his white eye, and then the green while tilting your head.

“Shoulda got a white contact for the green eye instead so you could go around looking like some sexy demonic husky.”

Copia bursts out in laughter, his chest shaking beneath your palms.

“I thought this was supposed to make me feel better?”

“It is! I made you laugh, didn’t I?” you say with a grin, leaning down to place a slow, soft kiss on his lips that has his hands settling on your hips.

“Love these too,” you breathe when you finally separate, “love how soft and plump they are and I especially love the little freckle right here–” you place the pad of your thumb on his full lower lip, “--God you have no idea how it drove me mad day in and day out whenever we’d work together. Driving me to distraction. All I’d ever want to do when you got close to me is…” You lean forward once more and catch his lip gently between your teeth, sucking on it until you feel his cock twitch against you.

“Mmm,” you pull off him with a wet noise that has him panting into the dimly lit room, “is someone starting to buy into the truth that he’s the most handsome man in the abbey? Perhaps even the world?”

“Don’t push your luck, dolcezza, I’m just eh, excited to have a beautiful, soft, young thing on top of me. One who is very good with her mouth, I might add.”

“Oh, that’s too bad you still don’t believe me when I say you’re beautiful. Try harder and maybe I’ll give you a little treat, hmm?”

He chuckles and tilts his head back.

“I’ll do my best. Done with the face, then?”

“And skip your glorious little mustache and impeccably crafted sideburns? Cardinal, you know I’m a woman who pays attention to the details. To say nothing of the freckles that are scattered over your face and down–” you trail a finger down his throat and tap on his clavicle, “--over your chest and shoulders? I’d kiss every single one if I thought I’d live to accomplish that.” You amuse yourself for a moment by playing connect the dots with the marks until your fingertip slides over and traces the lines of his tattoo.

“You never did tell me the story with this.”

He smiles, thumbs brushing soft circles on your thighs.

“Terzo did it. I had just entered the priesthood and he came to my quarters and got me drunk and convinced–”

“Wait, when you say ‘Terzo did it’ you mean Terzo gave you the tattoo?”

“Sì,” he nods, “He knew how much I loved the Omen movies and always complained that I never did anything wild so…”

You lean forward and inspect the ink.

“That looks…a lot better than anything I would have expected from Terzo.”

Copia snickers.

“His lines were surprisingly steady, but his hand not nearly strong enough. I had a professional touch it up later but that stays between us, sì?”

You give him a salute and lean back, raking your fingernails down his chest.

“Back to the topic at hand,” you murmur, “unholy fuck I love your body hair. It’s so thick and soft and I love the way it scratches just right at my nipples when you’re fucking me into the mattress.”

He sucks in a breath so fast he nearly chokes.

“You’re really not holding back, are you cara mia?”

“Nope,” you confirm, watching the way the tip of his tongue slides out to wet his lips as he eyes your breasts. Briefly, your hands abandon his torso to come up and cup them, thumbing across your hardened nipples. You pull away and grab his hands, placing them where yours once were. Greedily, he palms the flesh as your hips make little circles.

“These,” you breathe, your hands covering his, “these gorgeous, big, strong hands with these thick fingers…I can’t even count how many times I brought myself off to the thought of them.”

“O-oh?” he pants, removing one hand and bringing it up to cup your face, “with the gloves a-and everything?”

You lean into his touch.

“Especially with the gloves. Copia, the way I’d fantasize about being able to feel every stitch and groove of those things when I’d picture them inside of me…” You turn your head to place a kiss to the scar tissue at the center of his palm and his thumb strokes your cheekbone. “Mmm, you got me distracted again. Where was I?”

You look down and remember, scooting backwards down his body to settle in between his thighs. He whines now that you’re only touchable if he sits up, too tired to make an effort. Not, however, too tired for other things, you think as you look down at his hardened cock resting heavy against his belly, smearing pre on the hairs there.

“We’ll address this,” you say, gesturing to his erection, “in a bit. But for now…this.”

Your word is punctuated by the way you run your hands over his slight paunch, grinning as you knead the flesh. Copia’s shoulders twitch as if he’d like nothing more than to fold in on himself, eyes trained up somewhere over your shoulder.

“Your soft tummy is so sweet and perfect and–” you make a noise like a big cat growling, “--I just want to eat it up.”

“Clearly from its appearance I’ve eh, done enough eating for the both of us.”

You frown deeply.

“Copia,” you say, your tone deadly serious, “since when do you have problems with a belly? I hope you don’t have problems with my belly and mine is a lot bigger than yours—“

“Amore, never!” he gasps, horrified, “You…you are perfection. You are soft and plush and-and a goddess. This–” he says, gesturing lamely to his paunch, “--is the result of old age. Old age and too much spaghetti.”

“Yeah, and that’s exactly why it’s hot,” you say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “My love, this little belly shows that not only have you enjoyed life, reveled in it the way Sathanas intended, but that you’ve survived. Endured. I love this belly the way I love every single line on your face. You wouldn’t be my Copia without them. I didn’t fall in love with some guy in his twenties with a waxed six-pack. Quite frankly…ew. Respectfully, beloved, I fell for the kind, smart, handsome, distinguished gentleman in his almost-fifties. Who is sort of goofy and really good with his tongue. I mean…really good.”

He laughs softly through his nose, regarding you with watery eyes. His lips form the words to thank you but no voice comes out. That’s alright, though. You’re not telling him these truths for your benefit.

“Shall I continue?” you ask gently, smiling when he nods.

Your hands slide down to his thighs, where you massage the flesh.

“You know I hadn’t even seen these - like, really seen them - until our first official date? When you wore those tight, tight pants? Lord have mercy these things are thick. I’d be content to gnaw on them like a dog with a bone if you’d let me.”

“Who says I wouldn’t?” he murmurs, cocking an eyebrow at you.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” you say with a wink, “I’d compliment your juicy ass too if I could get to it so just remind me to give it a healthy smack next time you’re standing, huh? The first time I saw you in profile in your cassock I almost passed out. Goddamn.”

He laughs and tilts his head at you.

“Ti adoro follemente,” he says, “thank you for making this old man love himself, even if it’s just a tiny bit.”

“I’ll take a tiny bit for now, we’ll work on the positive reinforcement.”

“Oh? And what kind of positive reinforcement did you have in mind?”

You ghost your fingers along his half hard cock, wrapping them around the shaft and leaning forward to spit thickly, your saliva landing on the head. The act has Copia moaning and shifting his hips up into your touch as you stroke him back to full hardness.

“Ah, dolcezza,” he sighs, half-lidded eyes watching your hand slide along the shaft, “if only you had known what I fantasized about with your hands.”

“Well go on, bello mio,” you purr, swiping your thumb along the slit to gather the pre leaking from the head. “Tell me.”

He grunts and ruts up into your touch.

“W-we’d be in your office…working on some…some administrative thing. And I’d watch the way those clever little fingers would fly across your keyboard–ah, fuck–and I’d imagine you leaving your desk a-and settling on your knees between my legs. Lifting my cassock up and palming me through m-my trousers. S-sometimes you’d use your mouth too but…always your hands. Always those s-soft fingers wrapped around me j-just like this. I–oh, cazzo–”

His voice cuts off with a moan as you spit on him once again, the wet slide of your pumping hand and his harsh breathing the only sound in the room. With your other hand you reach down to cup his balls, gently caressing them as you continue to stroke the length of him.

“I-I’m not going to last, amore,” he rasps out, thrusting into your grip, “just like that bellezza mia.”

“You’re beautiful,” you murmur, “you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, you’re beautiful, and I love you just as you are.”

You know the last handful of words will send him over the edge and send him they do, until he’s coming in spurts over your knuckles and gasping your name. You continue to stroke him until he has nothing left to give and when he’s spent, you raise your hand to your face and fastidiously lick every drop of his spend from your fingers as he watches with his mouth hung open. When your tongue passes over your middle finger for the final time he grabs at you, eagerly hauling you up his body and slotting his lips over your mouth in a slow, decadent kiss. When you finally pull away, it’s with a smile and you nudge his nose with yours. Gently, you roll off of him and nuzzle into his side, lazily kissing his shoulder. When he rolls onto his side to face you, you move to do the same but he presses you back down into the mattress.

“Copia, your stamina is impressive but you literally just came I don’t expect–”

He chuckles, gently dragging the bedsheets down to expose your body.

“Your turn, dolcezza.”

“My turn–oh.”

The realization hits you as the fingers of his right hand tease at the underside of your breasts and against your belly, dipping further down to cup at the wet heat of you, driving a gasp from your lips. He leans towards you to inhale deep along your neck, lips ghosting over your hair.

“I wouldn’t even know where to start in praising you, bellezza mia. Sweet - in both disposition and taste, tender in body and heart, beautiful in all ways. Tongue and mind as sharp as a tack and ridiculously amusing. Perfetto–” two of his fingers dip down into your labia majora and you see him smile out of the corner of your eye at how slick you are for him. “My perfect girl. Kind. Perhaps too kind and indulgent to this old man but…” his fingertips circle your clit and your hips spasm, “he will show you just how thankful he is nonetheless, sì?”

You whimper as his fingers tease at your entrance before sliding inside you knuckle deep, palm pressed flush against your clit. An echo of how you would touch yourself to the thought of him not that long ago.

“I’m not wearing my gloves but eh, I hope this will suffice for now?”

Your laugh comes out breathy as he begins to fuck into you at a decadent, leisurely pace, pressing open mouthed kisses to your shoulder.

“I never dreamed at my age I’d find someone like you,” he confesses, “Like you were–like we were made for each other. Every morning and every night I thank Sathanas for bringing you to me, thank you for allowing me to worship you. Anima mia, I adore you so much I wish to devour you. To join our bodies and minds and souls together for eternity and further. I told you before that I love you so much I fear driving you off but…I think we are equally matched in our passions, sì?”

You let out a delighted sigh, spreading your legs further to better accommodate him. It’s nice like this - lazy, unhurried - and he smiles as you clench around him.

“Perfectly matched,” you breathe, meeting the languid thrust of his fingers with the tight circling of your hips, “Copia I am yours in every way - yours to use and fuck and–ah–consume as you please. All yours. Always yours–oh fuck.”

The fervor of your words makes his breathing and his fingers quicken, pumping in and out of you with greater force.

“I would have you all night if you let me,” he growls, his breath hot in your ear, “Say you’ll let me, per favore. Please give me this gift. On my fingers, tongue, cock, it doesn’t matter I need you amore, need to watch you come undone and help mend you back together. Please, I–”

He’s crooked his fingers inside you, pressing against that sweet little spot that makes you whine and cant your hips eagerly. You can feel the tears prick the corners of your eyes and you’re breathless as you nod.

“Copia, please, please, please, need you, need all of you–oh, fuck baby that’s it, don’t stop, don’t–ah!”

Your moan is pitchy and borderline desperate as he continues to fuck you through your orgasm. 

“Mine,” he growls, “Solo mio come sono tuo. La mia bellissima ragazza perfetta. Il mio cuore e la mia anima. Il mio riflesso. La mia luce e il mio buio. Per sempre. Mia scellerata benedizione, non ti merito. I love you more than anything. Anything.”

Panting, you blindly reach down to still his hand between your legs and he sobs into your shoulder. Gently, you extricate his fingers from you and bring his hand up to your face, tongue darting out to taste yourself. Tears slide down his cheeks as he watches, entranced, as you suck each finger into your mouth before dragging the muscle up the center of his palm. His eyes are wet and bright, pupils blown as you lean up and place a soft kiss to his lips. When you pull apart, you thumb away the tears remaining on his cheeks and smile softly at him.

“I-I’m sorry,” he stutters, sniffling, “I don’t know what got into me, amore, I–”

“This was a lot,” you murmur, reaching up to push the loose strands of hair off his forehead, “but I hope you know how loved you are by me - everything about you, all of it - and that there is no one more beautiful on this planet to me than the man I see before me right now. And I’ll remind you of this again and again and again until the end of days and even further. You are so special to me, Copia. I hope that even for a little bit tonight you got to see yourself through my eyes.”

When he leans forward to place a kiss to your forehead, he’s trembling.

“C’mere,” you say, drawing him into your arms as he drapes his body over you, arm around your waist. The weight of him is solid and comforting as you press kisses to his hair, enveloping yourself in the orange blossom scent of what little remains of his pomade. 

“I promised to ravish you all night,” Copia murmurs, his voice comically muffled by his lips squished against your breast. You snort inelegantly.

“We’ve got many nights ahead of us for that, my love,” you say with a smile, hand stroking along his freckled shoulders, “I’m not going anywhere and neither are you. But more importantly - are you alright?”

He pulls away slightly to rest his chin on you.

“I don’t think I have been for a long time,” he says quietly, “Not really, anyway. But ever since you arrived…columba mia, it’s like I have a purpose again.”

Now it’s your turn for your eyes to get watery.

“I know exactly what you mean. Exactly. I…I really need to thank Sister Imperator someday for bringing me here, in the end. I mean yeah she had nefarious intentions but…in a roundabout way she kinda helped save my life.”

“Amore, I don’t mean to sound like some kind of eh, Christian but…Sathanas has a plan for us. And it doesn’t involve any of that child bearing bullshit that was being spewed at you…no. He brought us together for a reason and for that I am thankful every day. Thankful every day you did not run screaming from Imperator’s office the day of your interview. Thankful you saw this…peculiar, awkward, old Cardinal…and saw not only a friend but a-a soulmate. I thank Sathanas but like I said earlier - I thank you more. I would forsake my Unholy Father in a heartbeat for you, amore. You are my true religion now. Know that.”

The noise that comes out of you is wet and embarrassing as you cup Copia’s cheek and rest your forehead against his. After a moment of shared breath, you pull away.

“My love, I’m so sorry to ruin the moment but I desperately need to blow my nose.”

He laughs - one of his weird little “ehehe” numbers - and the sound makes your heart swell in your chest.

“Anything for the woman I love,” he announces grandly, leaning over you to grab the box of tissues on the nightstand and present them to you. You pluck one out and hold it to your face while Copia watches fondly from a very close distance.

“Uh, hon?”

“Mmhmm?”

“You might want to back up a little? I don’t trust the integrity of these things and you do not want to be in the splash zone.”

Copia rolls off you making the most revolted noise as you laugh and struggle to breathe through your congested nose. Sitting up, you blow into the tissue while he watches looking supremely disgusted.

“‘Splash zone’,” he grumbles, shaking his head, “Amore, you are not well.”

“Yeah, I think that’s been established in our year of knowing one another. And, I’m sorry I didn’t realize I was speaking to the pinnacle of mental health over here.”

He pinches the meat of your thigh mid-blow and it makes you choke. In retaliation, you throw one of your crumpled, used tissues at him and it bounces off his chest.

“Augh, it’s wet!”

“Duh, that’s my snot,” you chirp pleasantly. “What you don’t like it? What was all that before about how I’m ‘your beautiful, perfect girl’, and ‘your reflection’, and ‘your heart and soul’ and–”

“...You understood all of that?”

You smile.

“Not all of it, but most. I’ve got a pretty impressive Duolingo streak going from all those nights you have confession duty, you know.”

He props himself up on his side and stares at you with a goofy smile.

“Amore mio, I take back my disgust. You could use me as a tissue and I would say thank you.”

That makes a horrible noise come out of you.

“Copia, I’d call you a simp but I think there would be some pot calling the kettle black action going on there so I’ll refrain. Ugh, what a fucking day.”

You gather up your used tissues with the intent of heading to the bathroom with them but Copia turns to you with his hands cupped expectantly. Gently, you smile before depositing them and watching him get up and pad over to the garbage in the other room. When he comes back after washing his hands and climbs into bed, making his delightful old man noises, you grin.

“Thank you for indulging me tonight,” you murmur as you nestle into his side.

“Indulging you? As if I wasn’t the one getting showered with compliments by a beautiful, nude, young woman?”

“You know what I mean,” you say, trying your best to stifle a yawn. “For hearing me out, for letting me show you how perfect you are to me…all of it. And thank you for the very kind things you said about me in turn. I…will not easily forget that.”

“I certainly hope not but like you, I am prepared to remind you over and over and over of how precious and perfect you are.”

“With fingers, tongue, and cock?” you ask innocently, parroting Copia’s earlier promise. He snorts.

“Dolcezza mia, however you want it.”

“Mmm,” your eyelids are getting heavy as you listen to Copia’s steady breathing, “I’ll hold you to that.”

“I would expect nothing less from such a demanding mistress.”

“Oh you haven’t even seen my demanding mistress side yet, beloved.”

He’s got his eyes closed but makes the dirtiest, most intrigued noise you’ve ever heard and it makes butterflies ricochet around in your stomach. His hand trails teasingly up your arm, causing a shiver to roll through you.

“Well, Padrona,” he murmurs, low and enticing, “I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for bed just yet.”

You’re already sitting up with a sigh and straddling his hips for the second time that evening as you say: “Insatiable as always, Your Eminence. Hmm, do I get to wear your grucifix and biretta? Perhaps I’ll get that pretty red rope out too?”

“Oh amore…I insist.”

[thydungeongal]

Do you think there's a game that would be better for actual play shows to play than 5e that would better match the style of play they're creating? Or are they too curated/divorced from actual gameplay for it to matter?

It ultimately depends on the show in question and what the arc of the given season is. There are games I think are better for producing conventional narratives without a lot of GM expertise and having to effectively fight against the system, and I think showcasing those systems would be doing people a lot of favors in terms of actually showcasing how different games can support collaborative narrative differently. Ultimately a lot of actual plays end up using D&D because it's popular, without actually leveraging the strengths of the game or leaning into the type of play it textually supports.

Incidentally, since I've been hearing about the Critical Role produced fantasy RPG Daggerheart recently I mused about it out loud, like whether the game could actually better support the type of heroic, conventional narrative that Critical Role is very much about, and one reply I got was basically "Yeah it actually does, as a game, better support narratives in the house style of Critical Role, but watching their playtest streams I noticed that they keep on falling back on the habits they've learned from their D&D campaigns even when the game itself explicitly advises against that style of play (like unnecessary rolling)."

Anyway, ultimately the choice to use D&D or whatever for actual plays has very little to do with playing to the strengths of the game, it has everything to do with D&D bringing the views. So even if something like Fate or QuestWorlds or the upcoming MCDM game or Daggerheart would better support that style of play, I do feel it's ultimately a moot point. I don't think the medium of actual play is entirely resistant to the idea of playing games in a way that plays to the strengths of the medium, like there are lots of smaller scale actual plays that actually showcase what the medium has to offer in terms of storytelling potential without it relying entirely on a GM-authored curated narrative, but ultimately it's not a good fit for the larger scale actual play productions.

I don't know if that makes sense. But like, let's be fair, a D&D actual play that actually plays to the strengths of D&D might not actually be all that entertaining to listen to, because as cool as dungeon-crawling and overcoming obstacles with carefully selected abilities might be to play, it can lack a lot of the personal stakes and narrative framing that people look for in conventional narratives.

[high-functioning-flesh]

for my first tumblr post in eons i will be thinking about sanford.

i see so much of his characterization get brushed over and he's seen at most as a vessel for deimos to heal/just a boyfriend, copying the words of a person who commented on my partners blog (yk who you are if you see this) or also like.. this big buff sweetie to sq and killer protective, not a lot of depth.

my sanford brainworm is that he's actually such an asshole without exactly intending.. he would be a lone wolf taking the world head on if it weren't for deimos. he's so smart in his own way and holds his own bravely where he'd butt heads with 2b whenever they get sent out. 2b curates the plans and outlines of their missions but sanford would be the first to ignore and say hm that's stupid if he even verbalizes it.. instead seeing loopholes he makes up in his mind when out and ramming forward as his own leadership and deals with consequences later if/when they come up. also typically through massacre.

thinking about how he would be incidentally self absorbed in the name of confidence and wouldn't work or plan well with anyone but deimos. the one time i've seen him having to sit that back was when he was Battered in the other place confidence shattered having to rely on a magnified hank for survival

he'd be self assured to a fault and it drives me insane

[chaifootsteps]

Not going to be linking to this person's goofy blog, put they're point blank lying by saying I edited Max to be about proshipping when it was previously about a sibling grooming a younger sibling. I never touched this image, that's literally what the panel said when I found it (note, "refuses to find different coping mechanisms") when it made the rounds however many years ago. So if it's an edit, it's one someone else made.

I don't particularly want to see Max's parental incest works and I hope she would tag them so I can avoid them and avoid being triggered by them, but Max and her coping mechanisms are between Max and her therapist, not strangers on the internet. Period.

Satellite, my OC, is an adult character who talks, reads, drinks, journals, and naval gazes about his endless war trauma. No, I've never done cub art of him or of any other character for that matter.

Incidentally, this person once claimed I admitted I was into bestiality, was asked if I actually admitted that, and replied "No, but..."

Followed by a screenshot of a commission I did, starring alien Muppets and absolutely slathered in warnings reminding the reader that this particular character's behavior is deplorable.

(I have, however, had Viv stans send me real animal abuse under the guise of it being a link to something Viv did.)

My blog's always been open for anyone, Viv fan or not, anti or proship or whatever, who's capable of behaving like a grown person. If my shameless thirst for monsters and dragons and adamant stance that I care what people actually do (and what they wish they could do) makes anyone feel like they want to stay away from me, no problem! That's curating your own experience, which I'm in favor of!

But don't be lying. We've got enough liars in the world.

[thegreenleavesofspringinsunlight]

So, having finished Ready Player One (again), I have some thoughts.

(Of the book I will say little here. It was a dumpster fire - no, that lends it too much distinction. It was a spare tire fire, weak and fluttering and choking to death on its own smoke.)

The movie - on the understanding that it is a fluff movie with no moral or message that hasn't been said a million times before, deeper or shallower - is actually rather excellent. There are some things it does remarkably well.

Notably, the political messaging is entirely nil. I am hyper aware of political messaging in media, and the book was an exquisite agony - a flailing of political messaging addressing a broad range of subjects that the author understood not at all. The movie erased it all. There is of course the Evil Giant Corporation and the Evil CEO but the corporation has no obvious real world equivalent and at no time is Sorento portrayed as evil because he is a CEO. He is simply a CEO who happens to be evil. Frankly I'll acknowledge the fairness of that, especially in tech companies writ large.

Secondly, it has plot. Another obvious diversion from the book, which... didn't.

Thirdly, the characters. Nobody in the book was likable. Nobody. Not one of them. There was a death (which the movie did not have, incidentally,) and it left me entirely unaffected. The movie... well. Spoilers beneath the cut.

Wade is an everyman who has a predictable arc. He's not there to be liked, he's there to be projected onto. But he's not despicable or repulsive. On a scale of liking, I'd put him at about a 6/10.

Art3mis/Samantha. So here's the thing. She's #Girlboss. But there's something remarkable about her. See, the thing about a #Girlboss is that she generally shows her #Girlboss #Girltough by being mean to the male lead. Mean. Samantha is not mean to Wade. There's a quip or two while they're rivals and she does see him as a potential weakness during the first half of the movie, but that's because he is. She calls him out, but she does it accurately and she's not vindictive about it. And that's part of his arc - because her accurately calling out that weakness galvanizes him into growing, which ultimately saves the Oasis. She is tough, but she's not perfect, but she's not weak in stupid ways, and she's not stupid. Anyone writing #Girlbosses needs to take notes.

Aech - Aech my beloved. The token black lesbian in the book. In the movie, she's a skilled mechanic and a bastion of common sense and daring spirit and fierce loyalty and cleverness. Also #Girlboss in a way but not like, unachievably. She's very realistic actually. Anyone could be Aech with time and effort.

Daito and Sho - yes they come as a pair. Fantastic. 10/10

Honorable mention to Finale - #Girlboss in all the most classic ways. Thurengwethil in a modern AU. 10/10 Corporate hitwoman.

Honorable mention to The Curator, who is possibly my favorite character in the entire movie.

Solid 8.5/10 movie. Very fun romp. Appreciable characters. Tried and true plot and moral. Pokes gentle fun at VR, and who doesn't love that?

[in-sufficientdata]

Why the Konmari method is pretty useless for people with genuine problems with hoarding and OCD, or OCD tendencies, at least without some caveats and definitions:

Hoarding is defined by a persistent emotional attachment to inanimate objects. Clutterers and hoarders often have an unconscious need to save items, whether for an imagined future ideal use, or just because otherwise they would end up in the landfill.

People with these issues often have difficulty discerning the difference between a truly useful item and something that should be given or thrown away because of their emotional attachment to the item.

They see themselves as the best curator of the items, which may range from useful items like craft supplies, display items, sentimental items, and stuff that is truly just junk.

"Sunk costs" is a term from economics that means that a cost that has already been incurred and cannot be recovered. Although the original term refers to finances, the sunk costs of the time and effort someone has put into an item can influence their decision to keep the item.

Therefore, another factor in this attachment is the sunk costs of money, effort, and time that a person has put into an item. A person may no longer be personally attached to an item, but will keep it because they have always meant to use it or simply because it's not yet ruined.

This is also a reason those with fewer economic advantage tend to be hoarders more than those with a comfortable financial situation. Someone like this realizing they've obtained two of an item will take on the responsibility of curating both instead of getting rid of one.

Because of all these factors, the expression that was translated as "sparks joy" in the English version is too easy for a clutterer to confuse or redefine in their own mind as they work to sort through their items.

In my case, for example, I had a situation where the basement, which was full of our excess saved items, needed to be cleared so the cracked foundation could be repaired. I had to decide what to save in the limited storage space we still had, and what to throw out or donate.

If Konmari had been in vogue at the time (this was in 2004) I'm certain I would have kept far more items than I should have. This language is too easy for a clutterer to massage and redefine in their own mind based on what the item is.

First, clutterers need to be clear-eyed about the fact that they suffer from excess emotional attachment to objects. Flylady's declutter method was in vogue at the time I engaged in this declutter session, and she has a whole checklist of questions to ask oneself about an object:

Do I love this item?

Have I used it in the past year?

Is it really garbage?

Do I have another one that is better?

Should I really keep two?

Does it have sentimental value that causes me to love it?

Or does it give me guilt and make me sad when I see the item?

This may seem needlessly complex to someone who is not a hoarder or clutterer but this addresses many of the reasons that a sufferer would keep an item that they shouldn't.

Another factor is that they are perfectionists. This seems at odds with the idea that they may have a huge mess in their home, but what happens is they often can't deal with their persistent need to have a perfectly clean home that matches their vision.

Because of this they put off starting on the project until it can be done perfectly.

This is why methods like Flylady and Unfuck Your Habitat (which is really just Flylady without the cutesy rhetoric) help these people so much, because people with differences such as ADHD become clutterers because they don't know how to regulate their own time or how to organize.

The emotional attachment to their possessions is, incidentally, why decluttering on behalf of your hoarder friend is a very bad idea. The person will need to work through this process on their own, in order for it to stick.

Getting rid of these items can be intensely emotional and difficult for someone with these tendencies.

Time limits, routines, consistency, and persistence are the best tools for someone who needs to declutter. Don't try to do this all in an afternoon. Not only is it a difficult process, it should become a consistent habit.

For resources and further reading please check out Squalor Survivors (archive.org link).

[aevris]

So I work for my local transit org driving trains and one of the routes I take has me going by some wetlands and river areas that are absolutely full of birds. I've been thinking of getting into something like iNat or a similar platform to log bird sightings (I see a lot of red winged blackbirds and magpies but I'm trying to familiarize myself with other local species so I can ID others) . My issue is that, for both legal and obvious practical reasons, I can't take photos while I am operating a train. Would iNat still be helpful/useful for me if I'm not able to submit photos? My research mentions something about Research Grade but that doesn't mean much to me, and I was hoping for some recommendations since you seem to have a good familiarity with those types of platforms

Ok first of all: very cool job. Do you get to honk the horn

If you’re looking to log birds specifically though, I’d recommend eBird! iNat asks for photo or audio evidence but eBird just lets you make a checklist of what you saw and where/when. (I’d recommend logging them as incidentals if you’re not actively birding the entire time.)

Not to dissuade anyone from using it, it’s great to have people engaged, but iNaturalist is first and foremost a citizen science effort so I’d discourage using it just for personal checklists. I don’t think there’s anything stopping you from submitting observations with no media but a lot of curators are already frustrated trying to maintain the site’s data quality.

(Also iNat research-grade is a status given to observations that have species identifications vetted by enough people to be deemed reliable. They’re eventually incorporated into other databases like GBIF.)

[sepdet]

so anyway i was playing Stardew Valley and

"Have a gizmo that destroys the very kind of specimens I'm studying."

Ummm... thanks?

So this...Museum Curator claims his predecessor ran off with the collection, and he asks the only stranger in town to collect new artifacts for him.

Provenance? Ethics? Scholarship? Nah. Just bring him loot.

Only rarely will he pay for these items, but never in cash, only with something else he's looted a white elephant, or, even more rarely, something useful.

If you find more than one dinosaur bone, cuneiform tablet, etc, he doesn't want it. Just sell it to Hobby Lobby.

If you find him a hundred bones? He gives you a gadget to grind bones to powder.

Incidentally, this happened just after I rescued Professor Snail from the cave on Ginger Island. Snail also asks for bones — fossils — which he at least assembles into skeletons. But his field office only has room for a few assembled specimens. Gunther rejects any overflow bones.

Soon after that is when Gunther gives the bone mill recipe.

Game logic says it grinds not only bones but FOSSILS into fertilizer.

Me logic wonders how Professor Snail got Cask of Amontillado'd, what Gunther's credentials are, and why he's so eager to have any potential specimen for Snail destroyed.

TL;DR: Charlatan disappears museum director and scatters collection around neighborhood, hires gullible newcomer to "find" them again, then convinces hick farmer to destroy any other interesting finds in the area... profits?

[kiwiana-writes]

hey! I recently discovered your writing and I really love it but I have to ask you a question. you seem to write a lot of kink and I love that but: are you into pet play? it's a boundary for me for authors not to be into kinks that skirt around illegal acts so if you could let me know if your work is safe for me to read that would be great. thanks!

I got this last night and didn’t have the wherewithal to deal with it, and now I’m running on like 4.5 hours sleep, so… I’m going to treat this more as a general PSA than anything else.

So:

1) If your concern is that at some point in some hypothetical future I may write Kink X, Trope Y, Pairing A/Z, or anything along those lines, and me doing so would make you regret interacting with any of my previous work: please assume that I may do so, and curate your experience accordingly. I’ve written a bunch of things that I have, at some point in my life, said “I don’t think I’ll ever write that”—not because I was being a dirty liar, but because things change. There are also things I have written in the past that I have no plans to write in the future. Tastes shift over time, and so does what feels easy/fun to write; not to mention some things just hit different with different ships.

2) If your concern is more rooted in whether I think it’s fine for other people to write Kink X, Trope Y, Pairing A/Z, or anything along those lines—you should ABSOLUTELY assume the answer is “yes” and proceed accordingly. There are a whole bunch of kinks, tropes, and ships I am simply not into that exist on a continuum from “not my jam but if I writer I love tackles it I’m at least willing to give it a go” through to “if I never see evidence that this exists again it will be too soon”, but I do not believe that my personal tastes or sensibilities should be the yardstick by which fics are allowed or not allowed to be written. My personal tastes and sensibilities are the yardstick by which I READ fics, because I am in complete control of my own fandom experience.

3) If the information you need to proceed is what I am personally into, you can in fact fuck off. You are not entitled to this information. Kink writers are not required to disclose their kinks to you, in the same way you shouldn’t be demanding anyone’s sexuality/gender/trauma to determine whether they’re ‘allowed’ to write about a particular topic. I have been dealing with this shit on and off for YEARS, both from a ‘how dare you get turned on by this’ angle and from a ‘how dare you write this if you’re NOT turned on by this’ angle, and both takes are invasive and obnoxious. This is, incidentally, why I really hate the rhetoric of “the hottest fics are the ones the author wrote with one hand haha”—both because it’s really fucking weird to speculate on the sexual proclivities of someone who is usually a stranger, and because in my experience it simply isn’t true. I have really successful kink fics that are kinks I’m into and really successful kink fics that are things that don’t do it for me; I have less successful kink fics that I personally find really hot and less successful ones that I don’t. I have personal kinks and fetishes I’ve never written and probably never will (although, see point 1) because I worry that readers will perceive me a little too much. The only thing you’ll learn about my relationship to kink from reading my fics is the things I find psychologically interesting to write about.

4) I have fundamentally zero interest in debating the ~ethics~ of any particular kink, in fiction or otherwise, but I absolutely recommend perfecting the art of being squicked out or even disgusted by something without attaching any moral superiority to that feeling.

Like… curate your own experience, my friend. If you need to block me, block me. That’s cool. If you’re a regular reader/commenter/someone I interact with on tumblr dot com I’ll be sad to see you go, but you gotta do what you gotta do to make fandom fun and comfortable for you. But I tag my kink fics, so the ones that yuck your personal yum should be pretty easy for you to avoid.

[brilliantorinsane]

Data Gathering: The Belligerent Ghost

For an explanation of this project and the various categories, see Data Gathering: The Pennsylvania Gun.

Ep1, Ep2, Ep3, Ep4

───────────────────────────────

Writer: Charles Early (co-wroter of Texas Cowgirl)

Director: Sheldon Reynolds

───────────────────────────────

First Shot: Holmes doing experiments <3

───────────────────────────────

Introductions: N/A

───────────────────────────────

Private Matters: N/A

───────────────────────────────

Looks:

Holmes @ Watson smiles:

3.27

3.35

4.09

5.02

12.45, 13.04, 13.18 - 13.23

16.47

21.13 look at him. Look at this guy he likes Watson SO much.

24.47

25.29, 25.41

Watson @ Holmes smiles:

2.14

2.25

3.27

4.05

6.11

8.51

9.23

14.11

24.54

Shared Moments:

9.36

16.45

Assorted:

1.24 - 5.03: Just Holmes responding to Watson being hurt and distressed with 4.5 minutes intense eye contact at approx. 4 inches from his face. Watson is not remotely disconcerted by this.

1.54: Holmes’ grumpy face when he asks who hit Watson.

2.55: I am irrationally touched by Watson's plaintive expression when Holmes reassures him he couldn’t have made a mistake about Higgins being dead.

5.40 - 5.55: I do just love how attentive Watson is to Holmes’ deductions.

6.09: I like to think Holmes’ amused/bemused expression here is in response to the landlady referring to him as Watson’s “gentleman friend”:

19.21: Holmes turns to look towards the museum curator, who is speaking, but his eye-line has to pass Watson to reach the curator. When he finds Watson looking at him, his gaze hangs out there for a distinct beat, just for the enjoyment of looking at Watson’s eyes I suppose, before finishing his initial project of paying attention to the curator and those international stakes he’s on about.

18.50, 19.42: Possibly does it again at these beats, although the second in particular is much more dubious.

23.19: In which Holmes takes a quick pause from answering the man pointing a gun at them to look to Watson with the reassurance that he believed him all along.

───────────────────────────────

Touches:

Initiated by Holmes:

1.24: Hand on shoulder

1.43: Hand on shoulder

1.53: Possible (probably accidental) knee brush?

5.08 - 5.12: Hands on shoulders > arm grab > shoulder pat. (Also please note that instead of just pulling away at the end, he fully slides his hand from Watson’s far shoulder across his back and arm).

8.12 - 8.20: hand on arm > jacket pinch to pull Watson out of the room.

Holmes bumping into Watson and pulling his nose ig (off-screen)

21.14 - 21.17: Arm pat > hand on back as they walk off screen.

Initiated by Watson:

1.29: Rapidfire poking

1.48 - 1.50: I’m reasonably sure Watson’s hand bumps Holmes’ at 1.48; accidental for a start, though they hold there for a beat.

8.21 - 8.31: Hand on arm to stop Holmes. Doesn’t stay there for the full ten seconds; pulls his hand away, puts it back, then taps it emphatically.

Incidental:

5.56: Holmes’ hand brushes against Watson’s arm as Watson turns. It would have been easy enough for Holmes to move his hand out of the way, but they’re comfortable enough in each other’s space that he doesn’t bother (/doesn’t want to?)

───────────────────────────────

Endearments/Compliments:

Holmes @ Watson:

1.21: “Watson, my dear fellow!”

2.51: Reassuring Watson that he’s a very good doctor who knows how tell when people are dead. (Sounds patronizing written out, but Watson was quite shaken and needed the reassurance).

13.38: “My dear Watson”

24.40: “Well done Watson, well done!”

24.47: “My dear fellow”

24.47: “I have sublime confidence in your ability to extricate us from any predicament in which my rashness may place us.” (A continuation of the above bullet-point, but I want the ‘my dears’ separate for synthesis reasons).

25.12: “My dear old chap”

Appreciation:

1.34: Watson (barely audible): “Thank you”

───────────────────────────────

Medical Examinations:

Before the start of the episode, Watson correctly assesses Higgins as dead, and believes he died of a heart attack. They view the body again at 8.53, but this is primarily for Holmes to examine it, since Watson already has.

It’s unclear whether the heart attack was naturally occurring or induced via poison or something by the curator? I’ll spare the details, but the case itself is … less than immaculately plotted in this episode. There’s lots of elements that seem to indicate the curator murdered Higgins, but during the interrogation at the end Higgins’ death never comes up. My guess is that the curator did murder Higgins in an earlier script, and it was cut out later.

───────────────────────────────

Crimes for Fun and Profit:

We’ve got breaking and entering and property damage in this one!

As in Cunningham, I cannot overstate how much they did not need to do this. They were working with Lestrade. The museum curator was—well he was very much the thief, but it shouldn’t have been hard to pressure him into cooperation with police backup. But that would have been less fun :(

The vase Holmes breaks is clarified to be a reconstruction, not an original artifact. But it’s still museum property, and once again this was so entirely not a required action. Holmes just takes great joy in scandalizing Watson 😁

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Jealousy: N/A

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Watson and Law Enforcement:

16.30: I wonder whether Lestrade mocking Watson’s ghost story is a step towards Watson becoming more willing to join with Holmes in his mockery of the police?

18.19: Watson does have a bit of a go at Lestrade using Holmes’ methods at the end of the scene.

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Want to go on a Dat—Murder Investigation? N/A

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Showtime:

8.46: Holmes loooves an accent and sucks at them pretty bad 😊 I don’t know if that’s Ronald Howard being bad at accents (and/or having 0 minutes to practice given the rapid shooting schedule), but either way I find it endearing, I love this guy and his little performances. Anyway, we’ve got the first here, in a cockney accent that Dick Van Dyke could have modeled his own after.

15.48: “isn’t it obvious?”

18.19: Lestrade: What’s he [Holmes] talking about? Watson: Art, ghosts, my black eye, and psychology. I love when Watson picks up on how Holmes runs his show and uses it to impress/mess with people (he also did this with Inspector McLeod in Pennsylvania Gun). He’s gathered that you don’t always need to know what the fuck is going on to pull off the cool, smart and mysterious act—just a waggling eyebrow, a few vagaries, and a confident attitude.

Intricate Rituals: Adding this subsection section because: am I convinced any of Holmes antics are absurdly elaborate schemes for getting close to Watson? No. Although I am squinting very very hard at two instances in particular. But is it theoretically possible to read some some of his shows as among the strangest creativity ever to manufacture excuses to touch the skin of other men? Absolutely. Do I find it really really funny to read his antics that way? yes. yes I do.

Holmes played dress-up and pulled Watson’s nose for case reasons, but I’m tentatively putting this here because fully bumping into Watson does seem more than altogether necessary.

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Watch What I Say, Not What I Do:

5.04: Watson protests leaving the house to investigate the ghost who punched him, yet following a singular protest of ‘I’m in no condition to leave the house’, he’s standing before Holmes can get three words into his counter-argument. And while Watson levies protests as they go, he does this while slipping past Holmes to march out the door ahead of him.

Once again Watson protests mightily about breaking into the museum, while following Holmes right on in.

Contrast the intensity of his anti museum-breaking protests to his halfhearted objected to Holmes getting them held at gunpoint again. "You didn't have to invite him in here to catch us, you put us in rather an awkward position" (24.44), he says, with about the intensity of reminding your flatmate to please clean their dishes before your friends pop over for dinner. And then Watson forgets to be even that hint of annoyance upon receipt of one (1) compliment. Ridiculous man 💜

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Knight in Shining Armour:

Physical Danger:

Note Watson's exclamation as they enter the museum: "Look here, have we broken into the rear of the museum? Because if so Holmes, really I don't know what's going to happen to us! (21.39 - 21.44). Whatever nonsense Holmes gets himself into, Watson will be right there suffering the consequences with him.

I've always thought Watson's sudden interest in the broken vase/rug pull was one of his less elegant stratagems, but hey, in the show logic it worked. So I'm once again giving him double-points for being badass and clever about it.

Remember this line from Holmes? “Oh, my dear fellow, I have sublime confidence in your ability to extricate us from any predicament in which my rashness may place us” (24.47). So yeah Holmes has officially appointed Watson his valiant knight. Getting damseled so Watson can be big and strong and clever and save them both is threatening to become his new favourite hobby.

Emotional Distress:

Nothing from Watson I can think of here; this episode is a reversal of the norm in which Holmes has a turn at care-taking.

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For Watson’s Ears Only:

I didn't catch much in this episode; Holmes has Watson to himself for most of the really exciting bits.

However, at the climax they're being held at gunpoint and Holmes is answering the curator's questions. Partway through his gaze shifts to Watson, and he continues to address Watson specifically as he explains what had happened the night of his ghostly encounter. (23.18 - 23.41). It's very, 'my best friend needs his sense of reality restored, so you and your gun will just have to wait'.

Asides:

As always Holmes can't resist a snipe at Lestrade, and turns to Watson to deliver it (9.33).

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You've Gone Too Far:

13.41: “Look here Holmes, this whole Higgins affair has gone too far.” - there's the phrasing, but in this case it's directed at the situation, not Holmes. 22.04: “Holmes, what are you doing, this is wanton destruction, I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, I forbid you to—I didn’t know this side to your character Holmes, I’m shocked" - and here we don't have the phrasing, but do have the general sentiment directed at Holmes.

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Watson and Women:

13.59: Watson: “I stayed rather later at the club than usual, there was a chap from Afghanistan and he was awfully interesting—” here Holmes interrupts.

I understand this doesn’t seem remotely relevant to this section. Or to anything. That’d be because at the moment it isn’t, but I’ll want it for reference later.

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Violin:

12.16: The first time Holmes plays violin! He’s not very good <3

I can never decide if Holmes is self-aware about his poor playing. In this case, is Holmes playing violin when Watson returns after the indignity of getting his nose tweaked (by Holmes) as an attempt at soothing apology? Or is he perfectly aware his playing is grating and doing it to indulge his love for fucking with Watson?

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Gender Fuckery: N/A

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Climax Precautions:

Well Holmes' choices in this episode would be the opposite of that. As Watson notes (24.43), Holmes straight up engineers them facing the curator in the museum alone.

Alternatively, to refer again to Holmes' confidence in Waton's "ability to extricate us from any predicament in which my rashness may place us", Holmes' precautionary measure was having a Watson.

When they get held at gunpoint in Cunningham, Holmes looks startled and frighted. Not this time! We don't get an immediate reaction shot when the curator enters, but Holmes is chilling this whole stick-up. Takes a seat, chats about the case. Makes 0 effort to find a solution. My man's just hanging out while he waits for Watson to do something clever to rescue them.

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Final Shot:

Holmes looking at a fuming Watson sheepishly after revealing that he was the nose-pulling culprit.

[orlissa]

@sailor-hufflepuff, here you go :)

Do you get paid by the word, page, or project? Technically, I get paid by something called a "sheet" - a sheet is 40K characters with spaces (one sheet accounts to about 20 book pages, but there are differences due to typesetting). So when I bill a book, the bill says that the book was, say 14.35 sheets long, and I got paid according to that.

Are you assigned books or do you compete for different projects? It's not really assigned, more like offered (I'm technically a freelancer, I can say no to any job), but yeah, usually I get a title that hey, would you do this? But part of this that the publishers usually know my profile and offer me stuff that fits it. Also, there have been cases where I got a list of projects and I was free to choose from them, and one case where once I was at the office and we were talking with the people there and I mentioned off hand that I'd bee going to the Eras Tour, and they were immediatelly like oh, cool, then if we have a Taylor project, we'll know who to call. And then they offered me a Taylor book less than a month later. Also, so far I have declined one project (I did the previous book in the series and still have PTSD from that), and said I wouldn't like to be assigned to any more books by another author (his worldbuilding gave me anxiety)

Do you work for a single publisher or multiple? Multiple! I currently work for three, but one I do way more work for than the other two (I had 12 project last year, and 8 of those were for one publisher). I worked for three others in the past - two are defunct/practically defunct now, and at the third I didn't like how I was being treated (incidentally this is the same publisher who has the rights for Leigh Bardugo's works here.) Also, the three I work for now have different profiles (although there are overlaps) - one mostly does YA/YA fantasy/romantasy/contemporary romances, one epic/high fantasy/sci-fi/comics, and one kids/middle-grade/some YA/licensed stuff (Disney, Marvel, DC, etc.).

How did you get into translation? ...That's a long and funny story, I think I've told it here before, but I'm not gonna get into it at nearly midnight - I'll get back to you about it tomorrow, okay?

Do you only do English or other languages? I've done some smaller porjects where I translated from Hungarian to English, but although I speak some German and Italian, they're not strong enough for this kinda work. (German I had to study for school and it's basically non-existent now, but I'm working on my Italian, and I wanna get to the point where I can read books in that language.)

All fiction or do you do like, appliance manuals too? 99% of what I do is literary translation - appliance manuals and the like are a very different kind of animal from a technical point of view. It's kinda like art and science (you can totally get into literary translation without a translation degree, what really matters is that you use language masterfully, while technical translations require a more, well, technical skill). That being said, I've had smaller project throughout the years that were not books. E.g. I have a friend who is an archeologist (Roman era) who curated an exhibition about two years ago, and I translated all the texts featured in that exhibition, from Hungarin to English.

What’s the craziest project you’ve ever done? Craziest as "I still have PTSD"... Mine by Katy Evans. It's been like eight years, and I still shudder at the thougth of it. Crazy, as in it was a crazy process - Taylor Swift - The Stories Behind the Songs by Annie Zaleski. It was a simultanous release over a bunch of countries, and when I started working on the translation the book hadn't been... finished yet. Because they last chapter covered TTPD which hadn't been released yet. The book is also full of illustrations, and at that point the last chapter was planned, page by page, based on what we knew of TTPD as of last March... then the double album happened. A lot of people were cursing like a sailor back then.

Do you work on one book at a time or a bunch? Usually, one. It's cleaner. However, there have been a couple of times when I worked on two at the same times, because two publishers hit me with time sensitive projects at the same time. Also, it's hard for some people (so I've heard) to switch from the style of one book to another so quickly/suddenly. I, personally, don't have this issue, I can switch between texts easily, but I've heard from friends that they have to take a day off after finishing a project to, like, flush their system.