#entertainment jobs bay area

[ellemj]

I Hate You

Bucky Barnes x Female Reader One-Shot: SMUT

Request by @kateversca1011: "y/n has these weird mind powers where she can feel others feelings or make others feel hers...she accidentally during a very heated fun time projects everything she is feeling to Bucky, basically doubling his pleasure"

Summary: After ending up on SHIELD's radar, you're moved into the tower against your will. Of course, you can't stand the one man that you have the most in common with.

Warnings: profanity, teasing, one bed trope, unprotected sex, hate sex, dirty talking, praise, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!

Word Count: 9.3k

A/N: I fucking LOVED this prompt yet I feel like my (4th) attempt at it is as horseshit as the other attempts. This may get another attempt one day. Thank you @kateversca1011 for the wonderful prompt inspo, I hope this entertains you at least a little bit.

            You have the worst luck in the world. In fact, your luck is so bad that you might even be able to call it a curse. It was one of those unfortunate things that started early in your life and has carried on throughout the years, affecting seemingly everything that you do. You thought it came to a head when your hometown was obliterated twelve years ago, when your parents were killed as they lay asleep in their bed across the house that you grew up in. You thought that was the pinnacle of your misfortune. Then, you thought that maybe it was two days after that, when you were sure you were being rescued from the rubble you laid under, only to be taken away by soldiers with unmatchable strength and brutality and stripped of not only your rights, but your dignity. You were held captive for so long that you stopped attributing your dark times to bad luck and started to think this was how life was supposed to be. By the time they started experimenting on you, you didn’t even feel bad for yourself anymore. You simply accepted it as the next era of your life that you had no control over.

            “Okay, we’re all done.” Shuri’s voice rings out through the speaker in the MRI machine. The flat surface that you’ve been lying on for the past forty-five minutes begins to slide out of the narrow tube it held you in, slowly exposing the rest of the room to your view. You take a deep breath in, stretching your arms out in front of you and wiggling your legs a little. Your lower half always falls asleep when you have these scans done.

            Shuri watches you intently through the glass of the MRI observation window. She watches as the nurse helps you sit up and swing your legs over the side of the tabletop. She watches as you run a hand through your hair and offer the nurse a kind smile before moving to stand on the floor. She watches as your eyes narrow in the slightest and a look of surprise crosses your face. She knows what you just did. She knows that the moment the nurse was in your personal space, you had no control over the unusual chemistry of your brain. You invaded the nurse’s mind and picked up on the fact that she’s afraid of you.   

            “She’s not ready to go free yet, is she?” Fury asks tersely. He entered the observation room so silently that Shuri didn’t even notice him until he spoke. As the nurse leads you out of the MRI room and begins taking you back to the main area of the medical bay, Shuri turns in her chair to face Fury.

            “She doesn’t have enough control over her abilities yet. I think she’s still psychologically stable, the program you put her through did its job, but there’s no guarantee that she’ll simply go out into the world and behave.” Shuri chooses her words carefully. She doesn’t think that you’re a threat in your current state, but should you ever desire to be, you could easily become one. Your powers rival those of Wanda Maximoff’s, except even less is known about the extent of yours thus far. You’re the equivalent of the Winter Soldier without anyone having used his activation words yet, a ticking time bomb.

            That’s what leads to Shuri and Fury both addressing you in the medical bay moments later. You sit on an exam table picking at a loose thread in your frayed jeans as they approach you, trying your hardest not to read into their thoughts, their feelings. You’d like to experience what it’s like to be surprised by what comes out of someone’s mouth for once.

            “That was your last fMRI for a while.” Shuri says happily, her smile looking truly genuine. You smile back, but continue picking at the thread, not wanting to make any prolonged eye contact. Eye contact always seems to make it easier to read people, and easier for your own thoughts and emotions to spill over into their consciousness if you’re not careful.

            “I’m guessing there isn’t all good news though, right? Since you’re both here this time.” You ask knowingly, your gaze darting between the two who stand before you. Shuri gives Fury a sideways glance, as if she’s waiting for him to take the lead. His eye narrows at you, his forehead scrunching up above his eyepatch as he studies you.

            “We can’t let you go out and live your life just yet. There are too many unknowns right now. I’m going to be putting you up in the Avengers tower.”

            “But—” Fury holds up his hand to silence you, as if you’re a backtalking teenager.

            “It’s not permanent. This is just until we can help you gain more control over your abilities. We can reassess after. When you’re finished here, I’ll have someone waiting outside to take you over to the other side of the compound and show you around.” Fury’s gone before his words have even fully sunk in.

            “He’s a straight-to-the-point kind of guy, isn’t he? No bullshit with him.” You say quietly, shaking your head as you come to terms with everything he’s just said. You’ve been staying in what you can only call a high-end holding cell at the nearby SHIELD base since the day you appeared on their radar and they brought you in, very much against your will. Another bout of bad luck, you’d told yourself, as you were restrained with some sort of technologically advanced handcuffs and later forcibly put through multiple rigorous evaluations. After the evaluations came the decompression and psychological rehabilitation that they had originally designed to be used for victims of capture and torture, agents who were in too deep and didn’t have backup when the worst happened. After that, you started undergoing medical testing, constant scans and blood draws, on a weekly basis. Shuri was brought in because no one else could figure you out.

            “It’s the eye patch, he has to be short and gruff with people to fit the look.” Shuri jokes. She stands closer to you than most people would, within arms’ reach. You offer a light laugh and she considers it a small victory. “I think you’ll find that living in the tower, around other people with unique abilities, might actually help you. You’ll get a really nice room too, probably nicer than just about anywhere else you’d find in the city.”

            “A nice room that I never get to leave.” You point out. Shuri’s gaze softens and she looks you over. Most people wouldn’t look at you and see a bomb that hasn’t yet been detonated. Hell, you could probably weaponize that fact if you wanted to, the fact that you look normal, innocent even.

            “You can leave your room, but I think it’s best if you don’t get too close with anyone, physically or emotionally. Give yourself some time to learn boundaries when it comes to your abilities first.” Shuri advises. She notices the way you take in her entire appearance as she speaks, but you avoid looking into her eyes. You’re trying to give her mind the privacy it deserves. You’re making an effort to stay out of her thoughts, and to keep from projecting your own onto her. She thinks that you’ll get the hang of the control thing soon enough, and Fury will either free you to go about your new life or he’ll make an attempt to recruit you as an asset. Only time will tell which direction you’ll go, but she finds herself hoping that this won’t be the last she sees of you.

---

            Bucky’s heard about the girl who reads minds, the girl who can make others feel her pain, the girl who could take away someone’s mental anguish with just one shared look. He’s heard enough about that girl that he formed his own mental image of her. He pictures her as an evil cartoon witch, with long, dark fingernails that curl up at the ends and a characteristic black and purple outfit, maybe even flying around on a broom. When he heard that this cartoon witch would be moving into the empty room across the hall from his, he imagined cardboard boxes filled with crystal balls, spiders, and cobwebs being dropped off before the girl’s arrival.

            Bucky didn’t think for a second that you’d show up so quietly and uneventfully, trying to draw as little attention to yourself as possible. He didn’t think you’d show up with nothing more than a small, government-issued duffel bag and a profound avoidance of eye contact. And he sure as hell didn’t think that you’d end up being so goddamn pretty. As you stood in the lobby of the tower with Maria Hill and two other SHIELD agents, Bucky was just getting back from a therapy session with Dr. Raynor. He saw you as you stood there with your duffel bag and blank stare aimed at a wall. He saw you as you made sure to board the elevator last, letting everyone else enter before you and then staying a few steps behind on your way in. You saw him as the doors began to slide shut. You caught one little glimpse of the man, dressed in dark jeans and a dark Henley tee. Unreasonably attractive. That was your first impression of him, as the doors closed and he disappeared from your sight.  

            An hour later, you’re sitting alone in your new room, carefully folding and putting away the few pieces of clothing you brought with you. Your wardrobe consists of a couple of pairs of jeans, a sweatshirt or two, and the same pair of sneakers you always wear. Or at least that’s what it consisted of until today. When you arrived to the room and finally had the chance to shut Maria and the other agents out and settle yourself in, you quickly realized that Tony Stark, or more his wife Pepper, had taken it upon their shoulders to have your closet filled with a wide range of pants, shorts, dresses, workout attire, and far too many shoes for someone with only two feet. You thought it was a mistake at first, that maybe you’d been given the wrong key to the wrong room. Until you saw a white envelope sitting on the nightstand beside the bed. It contained the only note you’d ever received from anyone, detailing how all of the items in the closet now belong to you, and were picked out by Pepper upon Tony’s request. As you stand in the closet now, running your fingers along the various fabrics and colors hanging in front of you, it feels as though every birthday that you missed out on celebrating after your parents’ deaths and your own capture are being celebrated in this moment.

---

            Bucky sits in one of the briefing rooms with Sam and Torres, only half-listening to whatever they’re droning on about as he traces the golden crevices of his vibranium arm with his flesh index finger. He doesn’t chime in at all as the topic shifts from one of last week’s missions, to a piece of intel Torres intercepted yesterday, to the mission that could potentially be coming up at the end of this week. It isn’t until Torres brings up the girl that just moved in upstairs that Bucky’s flesh hand falters and his eyes flit up to take in the image that’s holographically displayed over the table in the center of the room.

            “I gathered as much information on her as I could.” Torres says, as he begins flipping through a few different files on the display. He stops on one titled First Event. When he opens the electronic file, Bucky’s heart drops instantly at the words his brain sorts through and picks out. Terrorist attack. Intentional target. Orphaned. HYDRA. He swallows hard when the picture of your childhood home, completely reduced to smoking ash and rubble, appears before him. Another picture shows a small girl, seemingly around age eleven or twelve, covered in soot and dirt, with her hands bound in front of her as she’s being lifted and placed in the back of a truck. “She was taken by HYDRA operatives when she was 12. It was an operation with the sole aim of taking twenty children, disguising the entire thing as a brutal terrorist attack. The missing children were all presumed dead in the attacks, which was what HYDRA wanted. There was never an investigation for any of them.” A few pictures show a grimy prison-like holding cell, an operating room with different pieces of technology and equipment that definitely aren’t standard in normal medical facilities, and a few brain scans. “All of the twenty children underwent testing and experimentation. Some died within a couple of weeks, some within a couple of months. She was the only one to survive to be rescued. She lived in this underground HYDRA facility for at least ten years that we know of.”

            “Ten years?” Sam asks incredulously, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. “How did she end up on SHIELD’s radar?” Torres pauses his biography of the worst years of your life and opens up a different file on the display, one titled Second Event.

            “Skipping the details of how she was rescued in the first place, she doesn’t have much control over her abilities. She tried to lay low, that much was obvious, but SHIELD has a program to seek people like her out, to keep an eye on them.” Torres explains. Bucky’s eyes are glued to an image of the girl he saw in the elevator only an hour ago. You’re at an outdoor farmer’s market, with a ballcap pulled low over your forehead and your gaze cast downward as you browse a fruit stand. The image is eerily similar to a moment of his own life that he remembers, buying plums at a Romanian market when he was trying to go unnoticed and live a quiet life on his own.

            “So, she made a misstep somewhere along the way, becomes property of SHIELD, and then Fury sends her here.” Sam recaps, looking to Torres to make sure he’s got it all right.

            “Pretty much, yeah. He doesn’t think it’s safe to let her be out in the real world on her own yet.”

            “Not safe for her? Or not safe for everyone else?” Sam asks, raising an eyebrow. Bucky turns his attention to Torres this time as well, curious about the answer.

            “Both.”

            A few more details are shared around the table as Torres flips back and forth between all of the available information that he has on you. Bucky, however, is deep in thought. He watches as new and old images flit back and forth on the screen, his mind digesting everything and piecing you together. You’re pretty, that’s for damn certain. You’re pretty and he can tell from your past, from your known abilities, that you’re likely good as hell at manipulating people. He imagines with your looks alone that you could get just about anyone to do just about anything for you. With your looks and your abilities? You could do more damage than most. You’re dangerous. Dangerous and unpredictable. And now you live across the hall from him.

            Those two words repeat in Bucky’s head as he takes the stairs up to the main living floor later that same day. Dangerous and unpredictable. There are a few more words floating around in his head but he’s actively ignoring those. So goddamn pretty.

            You really are pretty. You wouldn’t necessarily think so yourself, as you stand in front of the full-length mirror in your room, crossing your arms over your chest. FRIDAY’s voice rang out through a speaker somewhere in your room just a few minutes earlier, letting you know that dinner would be at six. Of course, FRIDAY didn’t offer you a dress code or even a very solid answer when you asked her what one should wear to such a dinner. The last time you had dinner with anyone, you were twelve and you were wearing a sparkly pink Barbie shirt. Though you could double check your closet for a shirt like that now, you have a feeling you won’t find one in your size. So, you remain in your distressed jeans and oversized gray SHIELD sweatshirt.

            “Do you think she’ll show up?” Torres asks, mainly directing his question to Sam more than anyone else. Sam shrugs as he continues stirring the spaghetti sauce he’s been cooking on the stovetop.

            “If she’s hungry she will.” He responds. Truthfully, he has no idea if you’ll come out of your room or not. If you don’t, he’ll take a bowl of food to your room at the very least, but he’d prefer it if you came out and interacted with everyone so he could at least get a feel for you. It was obvious by the way Bucky sat so narrow-eyed and steely in the briefing room earlier that he doesn’t like you, that he doesn’t trust you being in the tower. Sam hasn’t yet jumped to such a conclusion.

            “What do we do if she does? If she shows up?” Torres almost sounds nervous. Sam chuckles before propping his wooden spoon on the edge of the saucepan and moving to wash his hands in the kitchen sink.

            “We eat dinner.”

---

            You don’t look like a scared, vulnerable twelve-year-old girl, and you most definitely don’t look like someone who has the power to manipulate thoughts or feelings. As you sit at the table, twirling spaghetti noodles around your fork, you’re trying your best to ignore the eyes on you. You feel a bit relieved that it’s not the entire group staring, no, it’s just that one unreasonably attractive man with the black and gold prosthetic arm. He stares. He stares as if it’s the only thing he knows how to do. Honestly, maybe it really is the only thing he knows how to do, because he sure as hell hasn’t participated in any of the table small talk this evening.

            “So, you were just laying low before SHIELD found you?” Torres asks kindly, tearing apart a piece of garlic bread with his hands as he peers over at you. He’s seated immediately to your right and has been the most inquisitive thus far.

            “Yeah, clearly I wasn’t very good at that though.” You respond lightheartedly, earning you a few small laughs around the table. You lift your fork to your mouth and take a small bite of pasta. It’s heavenly honestly. It’s so much better than the measly three meals that you’ve taught yourself how to cook.

            “How do you feel about ending up here?” Torres is a curious one, you’re quickly learning.

            “I’m not over the moon about it but the food is better than what I was cooking for myself so, it’s not all bad.”

            As you answer questions and do your best to avoid making too much eye contact with anyone, to avoid reading into anyone’s thoughts or dropping your own thoughts into anyone else’s mind, Bucky stares. He watches you intently. You’re effortlessly charming, answering everyone’s questions with a shy smile and kind voice. He’s sure it’s a façade.

            Bucky’s cold stare and the fact that you happily pretend like you don’t feel his gaze on you is the reason why Sam, at the end of dinner, stands up and assigns the two of you to clean-up duty. If Bucky’s gone ahead and jumped to a conclusion about you based on a few flimsy pieces of intel and some grainy pictures, then Sam will give him the opportunity to confirm his suspicions with half an hour of alone time with you. Either he’ll come out of clean-up duty realizing he was wrong about you or he’ll come out of it with an earful for Sam.

            Fifteen minutes after everyone’s finished eating and gone their separate ways for the evening, you find yourself wiping down the dinner table with a wet cloth. Bucky is watching you from the open concept kitchen, where he stands in dim lighting, scrubbing dishes at the sink.

            “I can feel you staring.” You say evenly. Though your back is to him, you know his eyes are following your every move. He sets a soapy bowl down in the empty side of the sink and gets to work on another, still watching as you lean over the table and scrub over the wooden surface. He says nothing. Daring a glance over your shoulder at him, you catch sight of his blue eyes, cold and calculating as they stare right back at you. That’s the moment you feel it, a wall around him, around his mind. As you look into his eyes, you can’t get even the slightest reading on his feelings, on his thoughts. His mind is impenetrable.

            You quickly look away and continue wiping down the surface of the table. What the hell was that? You’ve never been around anyone you couldn’t read before. Bucky sets another soapy dish into the right side of the sink and lets his gaze fall away from you for a moment. Did you look into his thoughts? Did you see what most people see when they look at him? A monster, an uncontrollable killer? He’s patiently waiting for you to flee, to run and lock yourself in your room after analyzing whatever you just saw in his mind. However, different thought is crossing your mind. You want to try again, to get closer to him and get a better sense of the wall you felt around him. You push a couple of chairs into their rightful places beneath the table and then look over at Bucky again as he works on the dishes. His blue eyes meet yours once more and there it is again, that wall. Before you lose your boldness, you begin walking toward the kitchen, your feet carrying you closer and closer until you’re only a foot away from Bucky’s right side. He acts uninterested and his focus remains on a dirty dish and a sponge in his hands. Your eyes dart down to the sink and you notice the clean, soapy dishes in the side closest to you. Before you realize what you’re doing, your left arm is brushing against his right arm as you start rinsing the dishes beneath a steady stream of hot water. Bucky tenses next to you the moment the sleeve of your sweatshirt brushes over the skin of his bicep.

            “Are you scared of me?” You ask softly, keeping your eyes down on the suds that are running off of the bowl in your hand. You watch as they swirl around in the bottom of the sink before disappearing down the drain. Bucky scoffs and a low chuckle slips past his lips.

            “Scared isn’t the word I’d use.” He says coldly, passing you another dish to rinse.

            “Then why do you stare at me like that?” You question, matching his cold tone.

            “Like what?”

            “Like you think I’m going to try to get in your head.”

            “Haven’t you done that already?” Another dish is passed over to you. The hot water is turning your hands pink, and the frustrating interaction with such an unreasonably attractive ass is turning your cheeks the same color.

            “If I had, you would’ve known.” You point out, turning your head to look up at the side of his face. He doesn’t turn to meet your gaze at first, so you study his features. There’s a light stubble peppered along his lower face, over his jawline and chin. He looks young but something about him gives off more of an old soul vibe.

            “You don’t have enough control over your abilities to be able to read someone without them knowing?” His tone has shifted from a cold one to a condescending one.

            “I do, but I don’t care to put in any effort to hide it when I’m reading someone who already knows I can do it. I wouldn’t put in that kind of effort for you.” You retort. You’re unsure where exactly the animosity came from, but you feel it. It’s palpable in the air, the way the two of you already dislike each other. Bucky’s glad you’re returning the sentiment honestly. It’ll make it so much easier to ignore the fact that you’re fucking gorgeous. Gorgeous and pure poison.

---

            The update Fury left his house at four in the morning for wasn’t at all the update he was expecting. When his assistant called and told him that there was a new development with the girl he put up in the tower, the girl that HYDRA had experimented on and practically raised with the goal of having her become weapon of mass psychological destruction, he expected to hear that you’d done something apprehensible. Maybe you’d turned the other occupants of the tower against each other and caused a modern-day civil war, maybe you’d figured out a way to level the tower entirely, he had no idea. It wasn’t until five minutes ago when he finally slid into his office chair and viewed the new intel that he felt a bit of relief, and yet a new kind of stress. HYDRA wants you back.

---

            No one stays in the tower on the weekends. Sam heads off to see family, Wanda and Vision jet away for weekend stays seemingly anywhere but here, and even Torres has plans. You assume Bucky is gone too, considering you haven’t heard anyone else around since you last saw Sam leaving at sunset.

As you sit comfortably on the couch in the living area, wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt and a pair of fuzzy socks, you feel almost at home for once. You’re flipping through the various movie options on Netflix when you hear the elevator ding and the doors begin sliding open. You freeze with your thumb hovering over the remote in your hand as your eyes slowly drift to the left. Bucky Barnes. Of course he doesn’t have any weekend plans. Why would he? The man is practically insufferable anytime he opens his mouth. He shoots you an uninterested look as he steps into the living area and starts pulling his leather jacket off.

Fuck. He’s the one freezing in place when his gaze floats down to your lap and he notices the skin of your thighs. He tosses his leather jacket onto the opposite side of the couch and narrows his eyes at you before moving toward the kitchen for a bottle of water.

“You don’t have pants?” He asks, his disdain for you evident in his tone.

“I was held in captivity for over a decade, what are pants?” He hates when you’re sarcastic.

“Fine, no pants. But you have a TV in your room, don’t you?” He wants you locked away in there where he won’t even have the chance to let his eyes betray the rest of him.

“Are you going to be here all weekend?” You turn your body so you can see him over the back of the couch. You lock eyes with him as he takes a gulp from his water bottle. He notices the way your gaze drifts downward, focusing on his lips for a brief moment before trailing even further down to the tight shirt he’s wearing.

“Yep.” He puts emphasis on the ‘p’ at the end of the small, simple word.

“Do you like movies?” An olive branch, you’re extending an olive branch. If you’re stuck with him as your only company for the next 48 hours, you sure as hell aren’t going to make it easy for him to hate you. Why make yourself any more miserable? In the event that it does that opposite and makes him hate you even more, you’ll still feel like you won.

            Your question caught Bucky off guard. You turn to face the TV once again and he watches as you use the remote to rifle through a category titled Action Movies.  

            “I prefer books.” He says flatly.

            “If you can get over yourself for two hours, you could watch something with me. It’s up to you.”

            You didn’t expect him to go for it, in fact, you don’t even know if you actually wanted him to. At first, you thought he rejected the offer. He scooped his leather jacket up off of the couch, shot you an unreadable sideways glance, and disappeared into his room, locking the door behind him. You’ve just decided on a movie when Bucky reappears, wearing black sweats and stupidly, only his dog tags adorning his chest. When he comes into view, your eyes immediately wander, taking in the entirety of his build. Fuck. How does someone who acts like such an ass end up looking like such a god? Bucky notices the way your gaze settles just above his waistband and he can’t stop the smirk that takes over his features.

            “You don’t have a shirt?” You ask, mimicking his tone from earlier.

            “I was held in captivity for decades, what is a shirt?” He didn’t quite mean to let you in on his past, but there it is. You sit before him stunned, your widened eyes dropping down to look over his vibranium arm with a new understanding. “You really haven’t been in my mind, have you?” You shake your head, still unsure of what to say to him. Bucky solves the issue at hand by taking a few more steps forward and sinking into the couch one cushion away from you. “What are we watching?”

---

            Shit goes sideways really fast in your life. You were only half an hour into the movie when the power suddenly went out and the dim emergency lights in the hallway kicked on. You and Bucky froze and looked at each other with a mix of confusion and anticipation, both of you feeling that something was off. It was less than a second later when Bucky heard the commotion in the elevator shaft and he knew exactly what was coming. He was on top of you in an instant, forcing your back down on the couch before rolling the both of you off and onto the floor. He managed a second roll once you landed on top of him on the hardwood, making sure that when the movement stopped, you were securely underneath him and his body was shielding yours. You watched his face as he seemed to move on autopilot, reaching up to the coffee table and breaking a glass vase with one hand before using the shards of glass to deter the two men rappelling in through the now blown-in elevator doors. It all happened so fast, seeming to begin and end in all under 10 seconds, before Bucky was shoving you down the hallway toward the emergency stairwell.

            He led you down four flights before pulling you through another metal door, into yet another dimly lit hallway. When you were both safely tucked away in a briefing room, he pulled his phone out of the pocket of his sweats and called Sam, setting it on speaker and placing the device on the table in the center of the room. Now you stand still, frozen, unsure of why you feel almost nothing. No fear, no concern, nothing. You simply feel like you have no control over anything and there’s nothing you can do to help or hurt the current situation. When Bucky grabs your wrist and pulls you toward the table, lifting you by your hips to sit you on top of it, you don’t resist.

            “Are you okay?” He asks hurriedly, scanning your entire body with his eyes as his hands cup your cheeks and tilt your head from side to side. He’s looking for any sign of injury, but there’s nothing. “Say something.”

            “Bucky? What’s going on?” Sam’s voice rings out from the phone on the table, snapping you out of whatever silent haze you were in.

            “The tower’s been breached, we need to get out of here, now.” Bucky responds tersely. He still holds your face in his hands. You blink a few times, coming back to your senses, before looking up into his eyes. Relief. You see relief soaking into his features as he realizes you’re fine. “You’re okay?” He needs to hear you say it. You nod slowly, his palms brushing over your cheeks as you do.

            “I’m good, I’m okay.” You whisper.

            “Can you get down to the garage?” Sam questions. You can hear the sounds of him typing through the phone, probably sending out an alert to everyone he can.

            “We’ll figure out a way to.” Bucky assures him.

            “I’ll send you an address for a safehouse, you take her there and you stay put. Let me know when you get into a car. Fury says a strike team is already on the way.”

            So much for living in the tower being the way to keep you safe.

---

            You wouldn’t have expected such a broad, muscular guy to be so stealthy. Bucky got the two of you down to the garage and into a car in what you imagine was record-breaking time. It truly would’ve been a feat if he’d managed to get back upstairs and grab you some pants or himself a shirt as well, but you can see how that wasn’t really an option.

            You sit in the passenger seat now, using his phone to text Sam and let him know that you made it out safe and are on the way to the address he sent. It’s quiet in the car for a couple of minutes, the only sounds being the tires against the road and a light rain coming down on the windshield as Bucky speeds down a dark highway. You set his phone in a cupholder by the gearshift before placing your hands on your still bare thighs. In this moment, you wish you could read into Bucky’s thoughts. What’s going on in his head? Does he have any idea who those men might’ve been? What they might’ve been there for? You don’t want to come across as conceited or self-centered but you’re pretty damn sure they were there for you, most likely on behalf of HYDRA. Maybe if you could read into his thoughts, he’d have a different suspicion and it would ease your growing anxiety.

            “Is that the first time the tower’s ever been breached?” Your voice comes out too soft, too meek for your own liking. Bucky lets out a deep breath before relaxing in the driver’s seat. He wanted to hear your voice more than he realized.

            “As far as I know, yeah.” He says with a nod, keeping his eyes on the road ahead. That isn’t quite what you wanted to hear. Maybe something along the lines of oh no, it happened a hundred times before you moved in would’ve made you feel better. Bucky doesn’t like the quiet that takes over the car after he gives you his answer. It feels tense, and not your typical can’t-stand-each-other kind of tense. “There are a million different reasons they could’ve been there.” He knows what you’re thinking, that they were more than likely there for you.

            “You don’t have to try and make me feel better.” Your voice isn’t so soft anymore.

            “You think they were there for you.”

            “It makes the most sense, HYDRA has never really been known to let shit go.”

            “I know.” He says it so emotionlessly but the way the realization settles on your shoulders is anything but. You feel what can only be described as a fist wrapping around your heart and squeezing it. He knows. He knows about HYDRA, he knows how they operate. He knows because he’s been through their shit, probably even more intensely than you.

            “I don’t have any pants.” You mumble, pushing away the heavy topic of the most heinous organization that you know to exist. Bucky chuckles under his breath as he steers the car around a curve. He finds you annoyingly likable for someone he’s intent on hating.

            When you pull up to the safehouse forty-five minutes later, you’re more than relieved to see that though it’s a very small cabin on the outskirts of a national park, there are two bedrooms. After checking in with Sam on the phone, you leave Bucky in the living room while you wander down the short hallway, trying to decide which bedroom you’ll be calling your own tonight.

            “Did you take me off of speaker?” Sam asks Bucky in a hushed tone, praying you’re out of earshot. Bucky sinks into the couch and pinches the bridge of his nose with the index finger and thumb of his vibranium hand.

            “Yeah, what’s up?”

            “She was the target tonight. HYDRA wants her back. They don’t want her dead, they want her back.”

            “And you didn’t want to say this to her?” Bucky asks in a whisper.

            “She probably has PTSD from what they did to her all of those years, there’s no sense in upsetting her if we don’t have to yet. For now, as long as she’s safe with you, we don’t have to tell her.” Sam explains quickly. Bucky can hear the din of an airport coming through the phone speaker. Sam’s trying his best to get back to New York on short notice, which tells Bucky it’s definitely serious.

            “She already has her suspicions.” Bucky points out. He glances over his shoulder and down the hall, just as you’re stepping out of one bedroom and into the next.

            “Just…don’t let her out of your sight. At all.”

            Bucky stays seated on the couch for a few seconds after hanging up the call with Sam. His mind is speed running through the various outcomes of this whole situation. There’s a chance HYDRA already knows about the safehouse and they’re planning to hit it sometime tonight. There’s a chance HYDRA doesn’t know shit about where the two of you are right now and you’re safe at least while you’re here. There’s a chance you get pissed at Bucky and climb out a window in the middle of the night. Fuck. How did he end up being the one here with you?

            You’re rummaging through a dresser in the largest bedroom at the back of the cabin when Bucky taps his knuckles on the already open door and steps in. You’re on your knees, digging through the bottom drawer, with your hair falling forward and obscuring your face from him. His eyes follow every move you make as you tuck the hair behind your ear and glance over at him.

            “Is this where you’re sleeping?” He asks, tilting his head in the direction of the queen-sized bed. You follow his gaze, taking in the thin blue quilt and sad, flat looking pillows. You nod slowly.

            “Yeah.” You respond, pushing the drawer shut and rising to your feet. You were looking for an extra pair of pants but the dresser only seemed to hold various extra blankets, sheets, and towels. Bucky nods, his eyes drifting back to the bed as if he’s deep in thought. When he tosses his phone onto the bed, you narrow your eyes at him. “I said I’m taking this one.”

            “We both are.” He says defiantly, taking a step further into the room before closing the bedroom door behind him. He fishes the car keys out of his pocket and drops them on top of the dresser before heading for the bed.

            “What the hell does that mean? There are two rooms, two beds. There isn’t a chance in hell we’re sleeping together.” You cross your arms over your chest, shaking your head aggressively. You watch him as he starts pulling the covers back on the far side of the bed.

            “You just told me that you think those men were there for you. If you’re right, those guys were able to breach the equivalent of a maximum-security prison on steroids. And you want to sleep alone? In a room with a window?” He questions you as if he doesn’t already know that those men were most definitely there for you. He sees hesitation in your eyes, and he knows he’s got you there. You crave safety, security. You won’t fight him very hard on this and he knows it.

            “I’m not wearing any pants.” As soon as the sentence leaves your mouth, you’re aware that you sound like a damn kid. A whiny kid.

            “I’ll give you my pants if you shut up about it already.” Bucky promises. He stands next to the bed, with his hands firmly on his hips, waiting to see what your next move will be.

            “Fine, give me your pants and I’ll suffer through the night.”

            “In this bed?” He gestures toward it with his vibranium hand. You nod. “Say it.”

            “In this bed.” You agree, with every bit of a bad attitude brimming your tone.

            It’s not long after that that you find yourself wearing another man’s baggy sweats as you lay mere inches away from him. He’s close enough that you can feel his body heat warming the space beneath the covers, but not so close that there’s a threat of bodily contact.

            Bucky’s wide awake beside you. He’s watching in the darkness as the quilt over your side rises up and then drops down again with every inhale and exhale. He usually has trouble sleeping, but knowing exactly who’s after you and what they’re capable of is giving him even more trouble.

            “Are you still awake?” You whisper almost inaudibly. You’re facing away from Bucky so you didn’t notice the way he’s been staring at your back, watching you breathe.

            “Yeah.” You’re silent for quite a few seconds after his response, but he knows your mind is working overtime. “What?”

            “Nothing, I was just wondering.” Another minute of silence goes by before you roll onto your back and heave a deep sigh. Bucky waits patiently. He counts the seconds as they go by. One. Two. Three. Four. F— “If you weren’t there tonight—”

            “Don’t think about that.” He warns. His eyes coast over the side of your face. He can see the worry, the stress playing on your features.

            “But if you weren’t, I would’ve ended right back where I was.” You voice trembles in the slightest, and you hope he doesn’t notice it. He notices. Bucky’s fists clench beneath the bedsheets.

            “You don’t even know if it was them, or if they were after you.” You roll over to face him now and he can see the tears gathering in your eyes, glinting in the moonlight from the window.

            “I know.” You say assuredly, without a trace of doubt behind your words. Bucky knows he can’t lie to you, he can’t convince you that you didn’t nearly end up back in HYDRA’s clutches tonight. He can’t lie to you, and he won’t.

            “Do you feel safe right now? Here?” He asks, his tone softer than you’ve ever heard it before. You search his face before answering with a small nod. “Focus on that. Don’t work yourself up over what could’ve happened. Just rest tonight and we’ll figure it out in the morning.”

            “I’m already worked up, I can’t sleep.”

            “I gave you my pants for you to lie here all night and not sleep?” He asks jokingly. You move your leg under the covers and kick his shin lightly. When you start to pull your leg back to your side of the bed, something stops you.

            “Do you want them back?” You offer. Bucky raises an eyebrow at you, unsure of where you’re going with this. It’s as if the playfulness of the moment is erasing the fear and stress in your mind, so you go with it. “I’ll give them back.”

            “So, all of that complaining about not having pants was what? An attempt to get me out of mine?” Bucky teases. He props his head up on one hand over his pillow, a smirk tugging on the corners of his lips.

            “You gave in pretty easily, didn’t you? I think you wanted to take them off.” You retort, nudging his leg with yours again. Bucky licks his bottom lip as he gauges the tension growing between the two of you. Is this what you do to help you fall asleep? To test the waters, he places a hand right above the knee of the leg you keep nudging him with. It’s as if his touch sets off an electric spark, you feel it dancing from your knee all the way up to your chest and then right back down. The feeling settles between your legs.

            “I was doing you a favor.” He rasps, rubbing light circles on your leg with his thumb. “And I was trying to shut you up.” Silence is becoming familiar between the two of you. You look at him for a long moment, mesmerized by the way his thumb is circling against the fabric of the sweats that he gave you. You find yourself staring first into his eyes, and then at his lips. You’d ask yourself what the hell you’re thinking but, let’s be honest: you’re not thinking.

            “Would you do me one more favor?”

            “What’s that?” Bucky asks as his hand inches a bit further up your thigh.

            “Shut me up.”

---

            There are a thousand reasons Bucky can think of to not be doing exactly what he’s doing right now. A thousand reasons to not be sucking on your bottom lip and grinding his erection against your clothed cunt. Maybe even a thousand and one reasons not to be absolutely fucking loving every second of it. But every filthy little moan and whimper that graces his ears only spurs him on. He’s doing you a favor, right?

            “This isn’t really shutting you up.” You can feel his smirk against the skin of your neck as he slows the movement of his hips and begins grinding against you at a tortuously useless pace. “Maybe we should try it with the sweats out of the way, see if that shuts you up.”

            “Yeah, that’s an idea.” The words come out breathlessly. You place your hands against Bucky’s shoulders and push him off of you. He returns to his side of the bed, trying to calm himself down as you lay beside him and shimmy out of his sweats. As far as he knows, that’s all you’re taking off. But in a moment of boldness, you decided to speed things up a bit and take your panties off with them. When you glance over and see him lying on his back, with the moonlight highlighting the sweat that glistens over the ridges of his abs, all you can think about is him. Being on him, being under him, you need him. He looks back at you with a daring look and you’re sold, you’re straddling his hips, hovering right over his boxers in an instant.

            Bucky’s breath hitches in his throat when his flesh palm lands against your hip, just beneath the fabric of your t-shirt, and he only feels skin. Where’s the waistband of your panties? You see the surprise on his face as he grips your hips tighter, keeping you from sitting down and fulling straddling him.

            “I thought I said try it with the sweats out of the way.” He tsks playfully. You have no idea how badly he wants to rip his boxers off and plunge his cock so deep inside you that you scream.

            “Oops, I must’ve misheard you.” Your mischievous smile makes his cock harden that last little bit, and he can feel the way his balls begin aching to be emptied. He fucking hates you for making him feel this way.

            “I should’ve known that being a good girl and listening wasn’t going to be your thing.” He says with a shake of his head. You’re about to say something else teasing and sarcastic when Bucky’s fingers dig into your hips sharply, surely leaving bruises, and he forces you to sit down across the hard shaft of his cock. Your wet cunt instantly soaks the fabric of his boxers and within two seconds, he can feel how wet you really are for him. For him. He hates you. He hates you. He hates you. He has to remind himself repeatedly as you begin circling your hips, because he fears he’s quickly forgetting that fact. You grind down with a little more pressure and he can feel a bead of precum slipping down the head of his cock. A soft groan slips out of him and he starts pushing your t-shirt up higher and higher until he’s pulling it over your head. The pale moonlight is just enough to let him see your bare chest and again, he’s chanting in his head. He hates you. He’s just doing this to make you feel better, to get your mind off of the HYDRA shit so you can sleep tonight. That’s all it is, right? A favor. As you lean down and start kissing and sucking on the skin of his neck, he feels your fingertips slowly dragging his boxers down by the waistband. He hates you.

            At some point, Bucky helped you get his boxers all the way down his legs and he kicked them off and away until they were lost beneath the mess of sheets and blankets atop the bed. When your hand fisted around his cock the first time, he rutted into your hand without meaning to. It was like instinct. You wrapped your fist around him a little tighter and pressed your lips against his in a desperate kiss as he thrusted into your hand a second time, letting his precum wet your palm and then using it as lube. You would’ve been satisfied letting him fuck your hand, honestly. You probably could’ve orgasmed just from that experience alone, but you didn’t need him knowing you were that easy for him. That’s what got you to where you are now,

            “I hate you.” You lie straight through your teeth as you drag your cunt back and forth along the length of his cock. Every time the head of it rubs against your clit, Bucky can feel your thighs tremble on either side of him and he’s fighting the urge to bend you over the bed and ruin you.

            “I hate you too.” He lies right back. When you look into each other’s eyes, you both know there isn’t much truth coming from either of your mouths. “Sit on my cock.”

            Never have you ever been one to listen when a man tells you what to do, until this moment, with Bucky Barnes. He watches as you position the head of his cock just right at your entrance. You’d think a man would want to watch as his entire length disappears inside of you, but no. Bucky looks up at your face as soon as the tip notches inside you. He watches with heavy breaths and groans falling from his lips as your mouth forms a perfect ‘o’ shape and your eyes scrunch closed at the way your walls stretch to fit him in.

            “That’s it, don’t stop until you take it all.” Filthy. He’s fucking filthy. And you listen to every word he says, sinking down until you feel his balls pressing firmly against your ass. “Shit.” When he finally tears his eyes away from your face and gets a look at where you’re so deeply connected, he can’t fucking stand it. It’s too much and not enough all at the same time. “You have to move.” He groans, slipping his flesh hand further back from your hip to grab your ass.

            “I can’t.” You whimper, leaning forward and bracing your hands on the mattress, on either side of his head.

            “Move or get off of my cock.” You’d almost be offended if you didn’t know that he’s saying that because he’s close to blowing his load in you too early. You can feel the way his balls are tightening against your ass and you know he’s desperate. So, you try. You lift yourself up one single inch, and then slide back down. Then two inches, then back down. You repeat it over and over slowly, building up a rhythm as your own pleasure begins to grow. “Fuck, maybe you’re a good listener after all.”

            “Stop talking.” You moan out, picking up the pace. You’re fully fucking his cock now, your bodies making obscene sounds as skin slaps against skin repeatedly. “I hate you.”

            “Yeah, hate me a little more and see what that gets you.” He taunts, squeezing your ass with both hands and using his grasp there to help guide the up and down movement of your hips. You’re close and truthfully, you don’t even want to tell him.

            The trouble really starts when he moves his flesh hand to your lower stomach and presses his thumb against your clit, offering a delicious friction there as you ride his dick. The increase in pleasure makes it even harder to think straight. You’re not thinking straight in the slightest when you move your hands to his chest, not paying attention to the fact that you have one hand over his heart.

            “I’m close.” You whimper, earning you another squeeze of your ass with his vibranium hand and a bit more pressure against your clit. Your eyes are shut tightly as you focus on the feeling of his cock dragging along your walls and the tip of it nearing your cervix with every snap of your hips.

            When you open your eyes and look down at him, his blue eyes flit up to meet yours and that’s when you realize the mistake you’ve made. He starts rubbing circles against your clit the moment your eyes meet, sending you over the edge. Your orgasm crashes in like a tidal wave, sweeping and relentless. With your hands on Bucky’s bare chest and your eyes locked, you lose the last shred of control you have, the last morsel of control over your abilities slips from your grasp. He feels it. Bucky feels every bit of pleasure that’s coursing through your body, he feels every thought in your mind, he hears your inner voice screaming for him. In the heat of the moment, you pour every sensation that you’re feeling straight into Bucky’s nervous system.

            He can’t even speak as his orgasm hits ten times harder than it ever has before. He knows it’s coming from the eye contact and your hand on his chest, he can feel the uncharacteristic coolness beneath your palm that rests over his heart. It’s why he clamps his own hand over yours on his chest and uses his vibranium arm to wrap around your back and pull you down against him. As Bucky’s cum paints your walls, filling you so full that it starts dripping down his shaft, he can’t stop thrusting up into you. He can’t stop. He doesn’t want to stop.

            “Bucky, I’m…” You suck in a deep breath as you collapse on his chest, though he keeps your hand anchored over his heart. “I’m full, I can’t…” He shushes you as he continues pushing his cock up into your pussy. He slows but doesn’t stop.

            “Don’t move.” He’s begging. Though his tone doesn’t sound like it, he’s fully aware that that’s what he’s doing. You haven’t fully caught your breath yet, but a soft laugh leaves your lips.

            “Move or get off of my cock.” You repeat his earlier words playfully.

            “I hate you.”

TAG LIST:

@sunnyhummingbee @gyokujyn @jenniferpendragon @siciliano13 @ordelixx @crist1216 @twlkdead @claireelizabeth85 @charmedbysarge @blackhawkfanatic @kentokaze @nyashonality @h2oaffirmations @sadeyes61 @aka-tua-braindump @immortalfangirl

#bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x you #the winter soldier #winter soldier

[ghostofskywalker]

Recovery Takes Time

Tony Stark/Fem!Reader

Fictober Day 11 of 31

Words: 926

Summary: After you're injured on a mission, you wake up in the compound's medbay. Your husband is right beside you.

Tony Stark Masterlist

This mission was not going well, and you weren’t sure if you were going to live to tell the tale. HYDRA agents poured out of every room, and while you, Natasha, and Steve were doing a pretty good job keeping them at bay, you could feel the fatigue take more of a hold over your body every second you fought. But still you pressed on, with a flash drive of important data in your mission suit’s pocket and pistols in your hand.

For a moment, you believed that the fight was almost over, that soon you’d be on the Quinjet heading back to the compound, but sometimes fate and irony worked together in the cruelest of designs.

Because you truly had almost made it to the exit of the building, and then the shot pierced your lower thigh. You could feel the muscles in your leg try to keep you upright, and through slightly blurry vision you could see Natasha kick your assailant in the stomach and knock him out.

“Do you need help?” Steve’s voice broke you out of the strange trance you were falling into, and you looked over to see him standing next to you, slightly battered but otherwise unharmed.

“I don’t think-” you started to say, but retracted your though when the wooziness hit. “Yeah, maybe.” He placed your arm over his shoulders and started to guide you back to the Quinjet, Natasha sprinting ahead and getting in the pilot’s seat.

No one spoke as the jet moved upwards and away from the HYDRA facility. You had transferred the small flash drive of information to a special compartment in the jet, and were now laying on the seating bench as you tried not to let the pain overwhelm you. Thankfully it didn’t seem like you had broken a bone, but you were bleeding rather intensely, and as much as Steve tried to stop the blood with the things found in the jet’s first aid kit, you knew that you were going to need slightly more advanced medical care, and you were going to need it soon.

This was so embarrassing, you thought. Of course you had to have been shot right at the tail end of the mission as you were leaving the premises, not doing something incredibly heroic like saving injured puppies or fighting a man double your size.

Steve had gone up to the cockpit to see how much more time there was until the jet would reach the compound, and you found yourself nodding off with exhaustion. You weren’t sure if this was something you really should be doing with the kind of injury you had, but it was hard to fight the all-consuming darkness as your eyes fell closed.

***

The harsh light of the compound’s medbay was the first thing you registered as you blinked your eyes open.

The second thing you registered was the thick bandages wrapped around your leg, and there was a lack of pain in the area, as well as a lack of pain throughout your entire body. Through your groggy haze, you knew what must have happened: you must be on some kind of medication.

The third thing you noticed was the I.V. drip that was next to your bed, but just past that was truly a sight to behold.

Tony Stark was sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs against the wall, head lolled back as steady breaths escaped his mouth. And although it was an entertaining sight, it’s not one you were surprised to see. You knew that Steve must have reached out to him, and as your husband, he wasn’t going to ignore you while you recovered.

He must have sensed that you were awake, because his eyes were open a moment later as he practically appeared by your side. The feeling of his hand over yours was comforting, and he leaned down to kiss you on the forehead. “How do you feel?” he asked. “I know they said you lost a lot of blood.”

“I didn’t lose it silly, I know exactly where it went.” Wow, you really were on some strong medication right now. The longer you spent with your eyes open, the more groggy your brain felt.

Tony paused for a moment, probably trying to figure out how he was going to respond to that. It would soon become obvious that he was going to attempt to ignore your attempt at a joke to lighten the mood. “Do you feel okay? I spoke to the doctors and they gave me a full plan for your recovery, it will likely mean some kind of physical therapy to get your leg as strong as it was again, but overall-”

He didn’t even get to finish that though, because you cut him off with a giggly “I feel sooooooo good.” At this point the meds had fully kicked in, and you were just growing loopier (and more tired) every moment. “Cuddle with me.”

You could see the panic in his eyes, because he really wanted to say yes to your demand, but he was also worried about your recovery. You were barely aware of anything else as you tapped the space in the giant hospital bed next to you.

Eventually, he decided to just give in.

The feeling of your husband next to you as you feel asleep that second time was probably the best one in the world, and you really wanted to tell him that.

When you woke up of course, because these meds were really strong.

- the end -

i no longer have a taglist! if you're interested in being notified when i post, you can follow my library blog @ghostofskywalker-library and turn on notifications!

#ghostofskywalker.fictober #tony stark #tony stark x reader #tony stark x gender neutral reader #tony stark x you #tony stark fanfiction #marvel x reader

[bookishtheaterlover7]

PSST: here’s some insight for you.

I work in marketing for a non-entertainment industry.

My job is content creation which means:

I write copy for social media, webinars, marketing emails, campaigns, videos, website content, and more. A huge part of my job is making sure what we say aligns with PR and legal approval.

This means, sometimes what we DON’T say means more than what we do.

It can be a bit of a thankless job because when we write something on social media or on behalf of our CEO, we have to say a lot but can’t lie but also stretch the truth just enough to sound exciting but not get us sued. And yes, we often ghostwrite on behalf of higher ups but their names are the ones quoted. Even if they do give us a soundbite, with permission we can sometimes edit it and rewrite. So even actual quotes aren’t always 100%.

Basically….wordplay.

“My wife is from PT.” - truth, but non specific. Doesn’t say a name but basically alludes to what everyone is thinking based on process of elimination.

“I had kinda two ceremonies, one on the east coast, one in PT.” - truth, but non specific. The tabloids ran with conflicting stories like ceremony 1 was held in two different areas, in one state on the east coast. But he doesn’t say specifically which one which means he’s not lying but he’s only not specifying. Plausible deniability.

“I find silence in my husband.” - no names, no confirmation but also sort of confirming.

“My dog” - same as above.

CE’s GQ article where he mentions a non descriptive girlfriend - then a line is inserted by the journalist “he got married to Xyz” not quoted by him.

Same thing with RDJ’s spread and his wife saying “CE’s wedding” - and the magazine inserts the wedding to xyz.

None of these are direct quotes from the people themselves. It’s just implied.

Scarlett in an interview says she “attended a wedding” in sept - again, non descriptive.

All of these context clues are pretty commonly done in content strategy. It’s basically to say stuff to say it for promotion reasons but also making sure we cover our asses. We didn’t SAY he said it, we just added it as an afterthought and if for some reason it’s questioned well at least we didn’t quote him on it.

For example: my company has an office outside of a major city. But we can’t say “our San Francisco office” because it’s technically not SF. It’s in the Bay Area, so we can say Bay Area/Northern California office - but not get too specific. This way we’re not LYING but we’re also kinda keeping it “vague.” Cover our asses 101.

I can’t tell you how many times I have to say things like “nearly a decade of experience” - but in reality it was 8 years and five months. When I say it like this, it makes it sound like MORE rather than less.

“Over a year” - makes it sound like wow it’s been over a year but we’re not telling you just how long because we just want you to focus on the OVER part.

Marriage = stability. If you ignore the person and the pairing, it just looks like oh wow he finally got married! Good for him. Now his Wikipedia won’t show he’s just single forever because God forbid somebody turns 42 and still isn’t married. 🙄

The next time you see anything related to these two, or if you want to chance reading old articles about them - check for those little nuances in the tabloid articles. I bet a bunch of them are purposely contradicting and use “anonymous sources” as the quote to magnify the situation and hype it up to be more intense than it actually is.

Because if an anonymous source says “CE is so in love and happier than ever” - gushes a close friend of the actor, it’s not tech libel or lying because the quote is coming from a mysterious source, not CE. But the intention is inferred. You are to assume he told them this. But if someone were to directly call that out, he could simply say I don’t know who I said that to and the anonymous source won’t have or need to be confirmed. Because if it is a lie at least nobody quoted him as saying it. Nobody will be asking for a retraction.

Lastly. In marketing I often have to hype up things and use flowery language. Everything always has to be “a huge success and totally a blast” - even if the pictures we get at the events show three people standing in a booth looking bored. LOL.

“The private couple looked so in love and were all smiles!” - meanwhile the accompanying photo was two people walking in silence, one doing an Arthur fist and basically grimacing. Nobody looking at each other.

The power of wordplay, y’all. And yes, we hype everything up for a reason. And the reality is often very far from what’s being presented. It’s just business though.

(Hope you find this helpful!)

And if anyone wants to fact check my knowledge, please feel free. I have nothing to hide.

Thank you, Marketing An🫶n!

This whole thing is definitely confusing, but it's nice to know that, a. It's all business, and b. How the business works.

This is all helpful, and really quite interesting 😊 so, once again thank you, and I hope you don't mind if I and a few others will call in to ask the next time something drops 😅

#An🫶n asks #Hello Marketing An🫶n! #booky reacts #booky answers #chris evans #chris evans fandom #a little insight #thank you 😊 #looking forward for more from you

[linnorabeifong]

"I'll Be Waiting"

Summary: “Her eyes are a soft color. A delicate green like the expensive jade bracelets all the heiresses of the Earth Kingdom wear. He loved the sound those bracelets made as they rattled against each other and jingled softly. He decided then that he liked her too.”

Notes: What do y'all think ? I kind of wanted to write some cute teenage LinZolt and write about dancing because of my own background. Also how would you feel, about smutty chapters later ? What direction should I take this happy ending or sad ending ? Also I want to flesh out Ember Island, and establish it as having it's own unique culture and dialect. How do we feel about some French-speaking LinZolt ? (translations will be provided of course).

Critiques: Do y'all have constructive criticism ? I'm still developing my sense of style and I have no writing experience and have never taken a creative writing course in my life so I need all the help I can get.

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51405040

Chapter 1:

Kenzo or as his friends liked to call him “Zolt '' was new to Little Caldera. Frankly, he never imagined himself living in such a nice area. Solidly middle class, with the best schools and entertainment to be found in Republic City. Unlike the other boroughs every shop, residence and school there had electricity. Located just on the cusp of old cranefish town, and just outside of downtown, it was a short walk from Yue Bay. The harbor brought in all sorts of business. Little Caldera had a special character to it, its own unique appeal. Spotless and crime free but with great nightlife. High end restaurants and cheap seafood were both in abundance. Contradictory. Perfect. Well, nearly perfect but Caldera’s flaws didn’t touch the likes of Zolt.

Through some stroke of luck his mother managed to find a job as a dance instructor. The position came with lodging right above the studio. It was a small space but more luxurious than either of them had known previously. Two closet-sized bedrooms, a kitchen that was more of a hallway and an entry way that just barely managed to fit a genkan, coat closet and an armchair. 

The apartment while small was by no stretch of the imagination shabby. It was well maintained despite its age. The walls were freshly painted and papered. The entryway in a rich cream, the kitchen was a sunny yellow, the bedrooms sported white and crimson wallpaper with a sun motif. They had real hardwood floors. The kitchen appliances were brand new, and for the first time in his life Zolt experienced the pleasure and convenience of an ice box. 

They even had their own private bathroom, which was surprisingly large compared to the other rooms. The toilet portion was walled off from the bathing area and the sink stood in between the two. The bath was wonderfully deep, made to be soaked in. To his surprise, the first night he spent in the apartment and drew himself a bath the water heater actually worked. He had discovered this when he reflexively heated up the water with his bending and nearly boiled himself like a dumpling.  At his previous home the promise to repair the heater was never actually met. Over the years he had taught himself to warm the water, a skill he no longer needed here.

Every day he discovered a new luxury. The apartment even had underfloor heating, his need for slippers was gone. Despite the lessons going on at all hours of the day and night below them and their close proximity to their neighbors it was surprisingly quiet. The thick walls muffled the sound.

The views were perfect. The windows were large and spilled in bright wonderful light, only obstructed by the glorious shade of the Sakura trees planted all over his neighborhood. From the kitchen he could take in the view of the perfectly manicured street in front of the studio. His bedroom had an especially nice view. Behind the studio there was the nicest apartment building he had ever seen. It was built in a u-shape around a huge courtyard, complete with a fountain, pool, turtleduck pond, rose garden and a playground. It stood five stories tall and was built in a traditional style. The countless balconies were all decorated with paper lanterns and fire lilies. The fire escapes would actually be handy in case of emergency, unlike the rusted ones he knew. He had never seen the Imperial Palace of the fire lord, but he imagined it to look just like this, elegant and overflowing with flowers. It was his newfound vision of paradise.

The end of summer was fast approaching, but he still needed something to fill the last of the golden weeks with. He ends up brushing up on his dancing skills, not that he needed to, he was a natural. His mother had made sure of that. Before he could walk, he could dance. Since toddlerhood he had studied every type there was, from the Fire Nation to the Water Tribes. He was well versed in traditional and contemporary forms. His technique was precise, he was fluid, a master of the countless skills each genre demanded. The head of the studio quickly figures this out and offers him a deal. He signs on as a student teacher, requiring him to be at the studio at least twice a week. In exchange he receives free lessons, and they’ll cover his private school tuition. His mother is overjoyed at the thought of sending him to “Avatar Roku High School” -the best in the city. She squeals in delight when he takes the offer. His summer was very quickly filled with rehearsals, costume fittings, lessons and performances.

He’d taught groups before but this is his first time teaching a private lesson. For the life of him he couldn’t remember her name. What did Asuka say it was ? It had an “r” in it somewhere. The girl is staring at her form in the mirror, warming up. He assesses her. She is a sleek little thing, like a cat strutting through an alleyway at night. Her skirt is red and has a slit making it easier to see her motion. Her tiny top matches it and reveals her abdomen. Judging by her curvy build and outfit she must be from Ember Island like him.  She’s practicing her fa’arapu. Tui and La, she has the speed down. She’s nearly perfect. He can easily fix this. 

He approaches her and introduces himself, he encourages her to continue warming up. After a while he comes up behind her. She stops, he places one hand on her stomach and the other on one of  her delicate shoulders. “You’ve got the motion, muscle control and the flexibility. You're just stiff and your posture is bad. You're tucking in your spine like this” he says demonstrating. “ and you’re hunching your shoulders, like you’re trying to make yourself smaller” he explains as he gently adjusts her position. There, now she’s perfect.  “Don’t do that, you’re a pretty girl. Have some confidence” he continued. He didn’t mean to say that last part out loud.  

He looks up into the mirror, taking in her face for the first time. She really is a pretty girl. Her cheeks are flushed pink, she is biting her lip. It is a cute nervous habit, it makes her lips even redder. 

He catches her gaze in the mirror.  Her eyes are a soft color. A delicate green like the expensive jade bracelets all the heiresses of the Earth Kingdom wear.  He loved the sound those bracelets made as they rattled against each other and jingled softly. He decided then that he liked her too.

#legend of korra #lin beifong #lightning bolt zolt #linzolt #ao3 #meet cute #dancing #francais #french language

[yuseonghqs]

🌊 GREETINGS FROM YUSEONG BAY !

JUST LANDED: SEO, NOAH. / / FROM: USA. / / AGE: 21.

–––– ( FOLLOW ? ) / / ( READ MORE ? ) / / ( MAILBOX ? )

born and raised in seattle, washington, noah is one of two children. if you were to ask noah about his early life, his childhood, he would describe it as eerily average. noah, born quickly after his sister, making them irish twins, felt undoubtably close to her and though the two fought, as siblings usually do, they were generally well to get along.

his mother started her education in nursing and went on to become a nurse practitioner and work in a family clinic; his father working mostly highly laborious jobs in construction, becoming a site overseer in a lot of large scale projects in the city. with both working very demanding jobs, they didn't spend much time raising their children, nor did they put much effort into their already crumbling marriage.

in middle school, noah becomes known as sort of a "basketball prodigy" and once in high school, it becomes his defining feature when the games become all that more high stake. he is the team's ace and is well known both in his own high school and others in the area. it earns him a glowing reputation, which is something he hates, because well, being shy and also popular, don't really mix well together. and while he has friends he enjoys being around, he also has a reputation for being quiet and somewhat brooding.

the discontent began to set into the house when nina and noah entered high school. fights were common, he and his sister would sit on the carpeted stairs and listen to the explosive arguments that would rattle the house. both of them knew eventually, their parents would get a divorce, sometimes welcomed it even. that is, until they didn't quite choose the same parent to live with upon the separation.

noah had always felt closest to his mother and the option between staying at his school in a city where he had lived most of his life, rather than going to a new country, speaking a new language, and experiencing major culture shock, felt like the safest choice. nina, however, chose to move to south korea with her father, who would be moving to live closer to his parents.

the choice to separate from is sister was almost worse than the hurt of the divorce between his parents; the fact that they would no longer be a whole family, now broken and continents away from each other, would leave noah feeling betrayed in a way. for the one who had always looked out for him, would be thousands of miles away. the sadness he felt and the shame in his codependence would cause him to close himself off from everyone and leave him lingering in his last high school days as a wallflower, even more reserved, anxious, and quiet.

since sports had always been his favorite outlet, besides playing guitar, he decided to entertain a scholarship to UW. with basketball dominating his life, he found it hard to really find much direction in life, because while he doesn't really want to play professionally, he also doesn't really know what he wants out of university either. he would find himself on the track to graduate with a degree in biochemistry, having a just mild interest in science courses.

not really knowing what to do with his life, noah decides to follow his sister to seoul with a exchange program for the summer. with both living near his sister again and enjoying the change of setting and life away from sports, he in passing, tells his coach and a few teammates that he wants to stay in korea and continue his education there. they do not support this idea, while it would mean losing their star player. through enough guilt, noah reluctantly agrees to come back.

tw self-harm / this would change with a "freak injury" during one of his morning runs by the han river. noah would be told by doctors in seoul that he would not be allowed to play basketball until he had significant physical therapy, or in all likelihood, ever again. this would also mean, losing his sports scholarship.

such a drastic change to noah's life, left him with even less of an answer of where to go or what to do. his parents didn't have much money, let alone to pay for his schooling, nor did he even want to go back home and confront his former teammates and coach. so in an act of desperation, he fled to yuseong bay, to live with his father and grandparents on their family farm.

currently, noah feels like a fish out of water, but ultimately he feels as though yuseong is actually helping him learn to live with that uncomfortableness. he finds comfort in blending in with simplicity, not having to make largely life changing decisions, and ultimately, just feeling calm by the quietness of the town.

#yshqs:arrival #park wonbin #riize

[hotxceleb]

Keely Rose Hot & Nude Pics (2023)

Keely Rose is a multi-talented pornstar, exotic dancer, actress, singer, content creator, and model who started performing in porn in the summer of 2020. In a short space of time, beautiful busty redhead Keely Rose amassed a loyal fan following due to her amazing all-natural curves, sultry stage presence, and steamy sex scenes for New Sensations, Reality Kings, and Team Skeet. Watch this space!

So where did it all begin? Well, ravishing redhead Keely Rose is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California. Busty beauty Keely Rose’s first job was working in a grocery store. Keely Rose worked in several grocery stores and the restaurant business before performing in porn. During this time, Keely Rose started to research alternative careers online because she was exhausted from working long hours and only earning $400 a week. In this manner, petite all-natural stunner Keely Rose first began working in the adult entertainment industry as an exotic dancer. Talking about these early years during her December 2020 Jagged Velvet interview, curvy cutie Keely Rose recounted how;

Unfortunately, fit and flexible starlet Keely Rose couldn’t continue performing as an exotic dancer because all of the strip clubs closed due to the pandemic. However, Keely Rose was contacted by a friend of hers who already worked in the adult industry and suggested that she become a pornstar. Although bubble butt stunner Keely Rose was initially skeptical about performing in porn, she decided to take a chance and filmed her first-ever sex scenes for Backroom Casting Couch. And the rest is history! Busty all-natural pornstar Keely Rose discussed her reasons for pursuing a career in porn during her December 2020 Jagged Velvet interview, divulging that;

[a-colored-californian]

Growing up in the the Bay Area was an exciting experience in the 90s and early 2000s. The streets were wild and yet fun. With Sideshows in front of Ben's burgers after the Raiders won, festivals and street faires. Lake Merritt was the place to be. Sun, fun and food. Now the streets are filled with violence, police presence, drugs, pimps, and hoes. Sports were popular to us because thats all we had. The Raiders, A's and Warriors. Literally taking away the only thing we had left to be proud of, GENTRIFICATION AND TECHIE TAKEOVER BECAME REAL. WHAT DO WE DO NOW? THAT OUTSIDERS ARE NOT HAPPY WITH WHAT MAKES US HAPPY!?!

WHAT DO YOU DO AT THAT POINT!! Alot of us werent raised in a household that taught us how to be financially Literate! That's but another story for another day.

But there was We have failed the younger generation, there is a lack of morals. Leaving them with a wild and outlandish environment. Bipping (Breaking into a car) cars in ABSOLUTE PUBLIC DAYLIGHT IS INSANE!! STEALING CATALITIC CONVERTORS. RANDOMLY VICTIMIZNG OLDER ASIAN PEOPLE. FOR WHAT?

Oakland was an underdog city, with the Black Panthers, musicians, athletes, and artists all coming from the area. The FOODIE LIFE IS STILL ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, a unique vibe and culture.

Unfortunately, the recession and the COVID-19 pandemic have hit the area hard, leaving some without homes or jobs or even both. leaving people feeling bored and wishing there were more things for adults to do. You have to refine to re find!!

DEFINITELY GOING TO BE A FUN AND ENTERTAINING EXPERIENCE, THANKS FOR READING.. BUT AS A WOMAN IN OAKLAND OF COLOR, WE HAVE TO REMEMBER "EACH ONE, TEACH, ONE!"

This blog is about everything we go through to survive in the hood in order to live good. Trust your instincts, hustle, meditate, be humble, and stay woke!

P.S. WHAT YALL KNOW ABOUT THE CBDC?! CRYPTO?! E-COMMERCE?!

HOWS YOUR MENTAL STATE!? HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF THE PINEAL GLAND?! FREQUENCIES?!

ARE YOU DEPRESSED? SOUNDS LIKE YOU NEED SOME SELF-LOVE, IMPROVEMENT, TO REGAIN YOUR CONFIDENCE.. WANNA TALK/FIND SOLUTIONS!

LOVE TO USE YOUR IMAGINATION?! WHAT ABOUT CANVA?! EVER WANTED TO WRITE A BOOK?!

ARE YOU A FOODIE?!DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HOLE IN THE WALLS, LOCALS FAVORITES BAR OR BURGER SPOT IN OAKLAND?!?

LIKE TAKING PICTURES?! BEST KEPT LOCATIONS FOR AMAZING VIEWS, SUNSETS AND BACKDROPS.

THIS BLOG HAS NO FILTER, AND WILL LITERALLY TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING UNDER THE SUN.. KINDA LIKE A HOOD RESOURCE WITH A LITTLE BIT OF HIGH MAINTENANCE TO IT. LOL.

PLEASE FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM, TIKTOK, PINTREST & TWITCH FOR THE LATEST REAL TIME INFO!!

BET!!

DON'T TRIP, CHOCOLATE CHIP. YOU WILL UNDERSTAND SOONER THAN LATER!

INSTAGRAM:

https://instagram.com/a.colored.californian?igshid=ZDdkNTZiNTM=

#Soul #Oakland #blackmentalwellness #bay area #community #leverage #awarness #living self sustainable #self care reminder #self improvement #tech #government conspiracy #unity #sunnysideofthebay #art #prepper #bible #faithbased #addiction #spritualgrowth

[silverjansims]

Generation Two: Silver Wealth

Chapter One: Silver Barnacles

Ahoy Mateys and welcome to the old pirate town of Barnacle Bay where Jessica and I (Andrew Bell) have settled into our new home. Shortly after my brother, Jessie and his wife moved to Hidden Springs, I was asked to join the medical staff at the Barnacle Bay hospital as senior resident. My parents, Gussie and Jan gave me enough inheritance money to build a nice home for Jessica and I in the outskirts of the town where we would raise our family.

Here are the front and back views of our home. Jessica and I were recently sent a hot tub for being celebrities which we hope to put under one of the trees in the backyard. The fencing keeps out pesky paparazzi and zombies on full moon nights.

Things were a bit rushed in getting moved to our new house that Jessica and I didn't have time to take our relationship to the next level after she agreed to 'go steady' me while we were still in Appaloosa Plains. After getting settled, we decided seal our relationship by getting married right away in the privacy of our bedroom. My boss gave me a couple of days off to get settled and since Jessica was a self-employed nectar maker she had lots of free time since she needed to take a trip to France to get the necessary equipment for making the beverage.

This is one of two aerial views of the main floor of our 'cottage-style' home with a lovely open kitchen/sitting area and master suite with bath. There's also the nursery and main floor bath with the washer and dryer tucked next to the staircase.

Jessica has since accepted a job offer to the Game Developer career after reaching the top level of the 'Nerd' social group due to all the time she spends online playing chess or other video games. She is also well on her way to completing her lifetime wish of becoming 'The Tinkerer' by maxing both the handiness and logic skills. Even though Jessica is no longer employed as a nectar maker, she still hopes to make perfect nectar juice someday after someone in the family is able to travel to France to purchase a nectar maker.

As for myself, I am over halfway to reaching my lifetime goal of living the lifestyle of the rich and famous. Currently Jessica and I both 4-star celebrities and are finding that last star is taking a long time to get. Living in a new town probably has something to do with that as we have meet and make friends with the local celebrities. Thankfully Barnacle Bay is home to many famous people. There's also no shortage of celebrity based opportunities that we can complete like entertaining like making cameo appearances in movies and promoting local restaurants.

Now for some exciting photos of proposing to my beloved Jessica and our private wedding. The window coverings make a nice backdrop. Jessica 'hates the outdoors', so getting married in the bedroom is just perfect for her. That is the part of our relationship where 'opposites attract' since I love the outdoors but she hates it.

Just before signing off, Jessica and I would like to announce the arrival of our first child into the world. We are now proud parents of a little baby girl whom we named Andria. She's an 'excitable' little baby and due to a mother's intuition, Jessica sees traces of an eccentric personality although I'm not sure how that is seen at such an early age before little Andria is even a toddler.

Jessica and I hope you've all enjoyed your first visit with us. Please excused the unfinished parts of our home as we only have enough decorated to us to live comfortably for now. Hopefully our downstairs family/hobby room will be taking shape as well as the upstairs landing area and Andria's future bedroom. Included are photos of home-to-date decorated in our favorite colors of red and purple. Hot pink will be added to other main areas and Andria's future bedroom as that is her color preference.

Meet our baby girl, Andria lying happily in her crib. As the wall paper shows the nursery is a room full of love.

That's all for now and hope that everyone has a great week!

Ahoy until next time!

Andrew & Jessica Bell

#Silver Bells Legacy #sims 3 simblr #generation 2 #Barnacle bay #reblog

[mz-elysium]

COURT : the camarilla court of the san francisco bay

[ID: a bleached skull in a black iron crown, against a swirling red background; titled in white COURT: Camarilla court of the San Francisco Bay; second image is a sepia-toned map of the Bay Area, marked by boundary lines and cities /end]

Recently turned over from an Anarch Free State to a new Camarilla realm, the Bay’s court of 2004 is populated by over-confident ancillae, who have largely forgotten they were ever rebels.

WIP Intro // WIP tag

↳Prince

…and Primogen of Clan Tremere, Regent of the Chantry of Ashen Flame, Warden of the City and Peninsula 

◦ Petra van Allen // 10th Gen Tremere, e.1839 // Lord of Palo Alto

The driving force behind the revolts that once displaced the camarilla, Petra was the iron in her husband’s silk glove. Lacking Barty’s charisma, her typical harsh rule is characterized as Camarilla standard. The crown is all she has left of their dream.

↳Archon (“visiting”)

◦ Jan Pieterzoon // 7th Gen Ventrue, e.1723 // freelander of Nob Hill

The kingmaker and ultimate overseer of the Bay’s transition to Camarilla rule, almost none of his extensive plans have gone accordingly. He expects further disturbance.

↳Seneschal

◦ Matthew Monroe // 9th Gen Ventrue, e.1873 // freelander of Nob Hill

Once, the first childe of the original Ventrue primogen, Monroe fled the revolts and has only returned recently with the Camarilla en force. His loyalists alone, though, outnumber almost any other faction. The threat is implicit. It makes genuine reform difficult.

↳Sheriff

◦ Daphne Katz // Caitiff, e.1935 // tenant in SoMa

Seemingly come out of nowhere, no one (least of all Katz) knows who sired her or where they went. Regardless, her skill as a detective is unmatched. The Frosts saw her through early nights. Despite their depravity, she maintains professional relationships with the twins.

↳Primogen Council of Representatives

…↳Ventrue

◦ Colton Frost // 10th Gen Ventrue, e.1840 // Lord of Downtown (Financial, SoMa, Tenderloin, Chinatown)

One half of a dynamic duo of brother-sister twins, the Frosts were instigators of the Bay Revolts, alongside Petra and her late Ventrue husband. As mortals, they were opportunistic outlaws scouring the Gold Rush. Little changes. Now, they run the original Circulatory System — a human-trafficking organization to provide clean blood to any and all. Half food pantry, half entertainment.

…↳Toreador

◦ William Randolph Hearst // 10th Gen Toreador, e.1914

The creator of fake news and America’s most reviled propagandist, Hearst’s media empire still stretches across the nation. Conventionally old-fashioned, his wealth, excess, and charmlessness is infamous. High clan rebels kept him around as a target for the Anarchs to vent hatred against — a role he is more than happy to play.

…↳Malkavian

◦ Basil Dior // 11th Gen Malkavian, e.1810 // Lord of Nob Hill

Childe of the late primogen, Basil and his brother-in-Blood were unorthodox features. Basil was clean, well-dressed, with a class of Old World French-Carribean accent and tales of his exploits as an art thief. Truman was a creepy psychologist with an almost fascist level of obsession over obeying power, prone to “helping” fledglings. Basil got the job. Truman was ousted to the East Bay — good riddance.

…↳Brujah, and Warden of the East Bay

◦ Sylvester “Sly” Enriquez // 12th Gen Brujah, e.1982 // Lord of Oakland

A leader of one of the two main Anarch gangs, Sly slipped into the role by accident. His sire was legendary — and disappeared in 1993. Sly couldn’t waste nights at punk clubs in Oakland or freeload anymore. People looked to him. Still do, even though he’s barely older than any of them. The crown hopes a little power in his hands will disable his burgeoning revolution.

…↳Nosferatu, and Keeper of Elysium

◦ Natasha Fox, “the Dame” // 11th Gen Nosferatu, e.1930 // Lord of the Mission

A freak show tattooed woman, the Dame was thrilled to discover her art survived the Embrace. She found a place in the City’s underbelly, eventually sliding among leather and BDSM crowds. While not beautiful anymore, she’s ethereal. Utterly otherworldly. She is also deep in debt to the Demure family for denying her clanmate Zephyr his rightful title.

↳Herald

◦ Tala Naquil,  “the Songbird” // 12th Gen Toreador, e.1962

The radio host of the Bay, she’s been trying to escape Hearst’s slander and influence — to no effect. Not even Zephyr has given his hatred pause. To most, the Songbird isn’t worth crying over. Petra has a soft spot for the neonate, though, and trusts her to carry the royal word.

↳Warden of the South Bay

◦ Zephyr // 10th Gen Nosferatu, e.1907 // Lord of San Jose

The mysterious tycoon and inventor of Silicon Valley, Zephyr allows few to live or operate in his domain. His brood keeps a tight hold. SchreckNET and fingers in the hearts of mortal tech giants keep him relevant — even when the City thinks to disregard him. However, he might still have a curious relationship to nearby Tremere and secrets even from his brood.

↳Harpies

◦ Thomas Demure // 11th Gen Toreador, e.1862 // tenant of Sausalito

A jewelry designer from the east coast, no one lets him forget his Bostonian origins. Most know him as mild-mannered, even shy, but a death in the family a few years ago changed him. Everyone glared at each other, wondering who killed the fateful childe. Harder, colder, there’s a viciousness beneath the surface. He’s finally used his age, power, and brood to their full effect. The matriarch and his mate, Eleanor, rarely leaves the North Bay town of Sausalito. 

◦ Rodrigo Demure // 12th Gen Toreador, e.1908 // tenant of Sausalito

First a ghoul, fernangled into position as the chief architect of rebuilding San Francisco after the 1906 Earthquake, Rodrigo has continued his work across the Bay. He has a trusting humble demeanor. Few kindred give a second thought on letting him design their havens. After all, who will he tell?

◦ Sophia Demure // 12th Gen Toreador, e.1962 // tenant of the Haight

An original hippie of Haight-Ashbury, she retained old contacts and even friends of the generation. Now, fading into irrelevance, her philosophy of peace and love wanes thin. She was closest to the Demures’ dead childe.

◦ Gavin Demure // 12th Gen Toreador, e.1972 // Lord of the Castro

A tattoo artist of the Castro, before the Plague Years, Gavin has finally given his approval to the Dame and ended a decades-long rivalry on Thomas’ orders. Most know it’s not genuine. Gavin refuses to ink her. She wears no token from Thomas. Her domain wasn’t designed by Rodrigo. Still, there is an eternity between what is said and what is meant.

WIP Intro // WIP tag

I’ll still be slowly but surely churning out these Wormwood worldbuilding posts (as I procrastinate writing lmao), so feel free to follow the tag or ask to be tagged in!

#writeblr #vtm #writing #vampires #current wip #vtm: wormwood

[askzelcna]

* WALT DISNEY WORLD AU ;

alternate universe from May 15th to May 29th

Zelena Kelly West rebecca mader

goes by Kelly or Zee to those close

way too old

manager over Magic Kingdom Parade’s

dating Killan Jones

important connections; sister to Regina Mills.

BIOGRAPHY

Kelly West was adopted at birth by a financially well off couple in the Bay Area or so she thought. The family relocated to Florida when Kelly turned 17 to be closer to the university she planned to attend. The West’s money opened many doors for Kelly, but also led her off path more than once. Meeting her half biological sister, Regina, really threw her through a loop since she assumed her mother to be her actual mother. Eventually, after a period of rebellion, Kelly found a passion in entertainment while attending the University of Florida. She began as a parade dancer in Walt Disney World’s 25 Anniversary “Remember the Magic”. Over the years, she worked her way from back up performer to manager over all parades in the Magic Kingdom. There are days she yearns for the simple side of the magic, instead of studying over budgets, but she wouldn’t trade her job for anything in the world. Of course, she has amazing directors working underneath her who make the job that much easier. 

#[ au biography ] #* walt disney world au ;

[kitchencabinets1]

Best Bar Faucets For Your Prep Sink

Let’s discuss the many kinds of bar faucets that might go well with your prep sink. Every kind adds a special functionality that can improve your kitchen or bar area’s appearance and utility. The following is a summary of some styles that may grab your attention:

1. Pull-Down Faucets

Pull-down faucets are great since they’re so simple to operate and versatile. With their pull-down spray wand that you can place right into the sink, these faucets simplify dishwashing and produce cleaning. They frequently include three spray settings — stream, spray, and pause — that let you effectively tackle a variety of jobs.

2. Pull-Out Faucets

Pull-out faucets, which are more compact in form and resemble pull-down types, are perfect for smaller sink settings. You may use the spout to fill pots on the counter or clean the hard-to-reach corners of the sink by pulling it out towards yourself.

They typically offer the same versatile spray functions as pull-down bar faucets.

3. High-Arc Faucets

High-arc bar faucets, also known as gooseneck faucets, have tall, arched spouts that give them a graceful appearance. They’re perfect for spaces where you might need to fill large pots or other tall containers. The high arc not only looks classy but also provides ample room underneath for all your prep work.

4. Low-Profile Faucets

If your bar or kitchen has overhead cabinets or shelves near the sink, a low-profile faucet might be the way to go. These are designed to fit comfortably under any space constraints without sacrificing style or functionality. They maintain a sleek and unobtrusive look, keeping your space tidy and coordinated.

5. Commercial-Style Faucets

For those who want a professional kitchen feel, commercial-style faucets are an excellent choice. They often feature a robust and functional design with a spring-loaded pull-down hose and spray head. These faucets are not only powerful in performance but also add an industrial chic element to your decor.

6. Touchless Faucets

Embracing modern technology, touchless bar kitchen faucets offer convenience and hygiene. A simple hand movement activates the water flow, making them ideal in a cooking environment where your hands might often be full or messy. They help keep the spread of germs at bay and are incredibly water-efficient.

7. Two-Handle Faucets

For those who prefer more control over the water temperature and flow, two-handle bar faucets are a great fit. These traditional designs allow for separate controls for hot and cold water. They come in a variety of styles, from vintage to modern, adding a functional elegance to your space.

Conclusion:

Feeling inspired? Dive into our collection at BuildMyPlace to explore innovative bar faucets that can transform your bar or kitchen area. And if you’re ever in doubt, just give us a shout — our design experts are here to help you pick the perfect piece!

FAQs

1: How high should a bar sink’s faucet be?

Choose a faucet with a spout height of between 6 and 10 inches. A high-arc faucet works great for filling tall containers if you have enough room.

2: Should I choose a pull-down or pull-out faucet?

If your sink is deep, go with a pull-down faucet for its powerful spray. Pull-out faucets are great for smaller spaces, giving good reach and flexibility.

3: Are touchless faucets a good idea for a bar sink?

Touchless faucets keep things clean and hygienic, especially handy in a space where you entertain. They’re also water-efficient — a double win!

4: What should I look for in faucet durability?

Opt for solid brass or stainless steel for toughness. Ceramic disc valves are a plus for long-lasting performance.

5: How does faucet finish affect the look of my bar area?

The finish can set the tone of your space. Chrome or stainless steel is sleek for modern vibes, while oil-rubbed bronze or brushed nickel adds a cozy, traditional touch.

[laudofthedeep]

4, 14 and 17! :)

Oh my god, apparently I somehow saved this as a draft instead of posting it? Unintentional, but also this is so long I refuse to proofread it before posting. Sorry to the brave anon who sent this. I saw it, I’m just also an idiot.

4. Oh okay no I see what happened, I forgot what this question was and saved as a draft to go get the actual question but then I got distracted. I think the question was like…bucket list aquariums or something?

The Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta! It’s one of the biggest in the world, and one of a small number to keep whale sharks! Also the Aquarium of Western Australia in Perth for reasons I’ll explain while answering 14.

Honorable mentions to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, which seems neat and heavily involved in conservation, and the Osaka Aquarium, which is both convenient and another of the few places to keep whale sharks but which I’m more cautious about due to Japan’s…lax perspective on animal ethics.

Incidentally, I’m not a particular fan of whale sharks (at least not any more than any other aquatic animal; they’re still neat) but an aquarium being able to keep them for several years indicates both an understanding of and a budget for keeping other aquatic life well.

14. What was an important, defining moment you’ve had with fish/aquatic animals?

I don’t feel like I had a specific important moment; rather, a lot of specific media gradually built together into an abiding passion for aquatic life.

There was something in the water in the early 2010s. There were four things that really stoked my passion for Fish.

The thing that really catalyzed it was Endless Ocean: Blue World, which is pretty much Fish: The Game. It was gorgeous (for its time) and did a good job introducing me to fish that weren’t typical aquarium fish (too bright, too same) or sharks (cool, I guess, but too sensational). As it turns out, there are all kinds of fish and they do all kinds of things. I particularly liked learning about deep sea stuff and still do because I like The Unknown.

Around the same time, I started watching River Monsters. I caught a bit of it on TV and fell in love. It had fish I recognized from Endless Ocean and it was (mostly) about being informational and scientific while still being narratively entertaining. At that time around me, fish were considered a hobby of rednecks (there was a lot of television about fishing that was very redneck, and I lived in an area that was decidedly Not Redneck) or the rich (who would go out on yachts and fish for billfish; these are who I lived around), and it was nice to see a television show that felt like it was for me and my interests.

Not too long after, Animal Crossing: New Leaf came out. Animal Crossing is many things, but to me it is a collector’s game. In that I use it almost exclusively as a fishing simulator, because that game is charming and it has Cool Fish and you can decorate your house with Cool Fish. This is self-explanatory.

But the most important one. The foundation. The godfather. Zoo Tycoon 2. I was just talking about that game with a friend the other night, and it was truly a boon for animal nerds everywhere. That game had a community that simply couldn’t exist these days. Both online and gaming culture have changed too much. Let me explain. Zoo Tycoon 2 was a pretty good game. Nothing groundbreaking. But. It had a format and source code that made it PRIME for modding. And so mod the world did. There were several forums in its glory days, and mods ranged in ability from “I took the base aardvark and made it red” to “I have lovingly rendered the world’s largest sauropod, adding several unique animations and behaviors and several hundred polygons”. And in these days, the internet would support you either way. Or at least the ZT2 community would. I can’t remember seeing a single disparaging post about something someone had created. There was one creator in particular (well, two, they were a team), Zeta Designs, who consistently made great stuff. Although I can’t find it anymore, they at one point embarked on a 1:1 recreation of the Perth Aquarium, creating new designs as necessary to reconstruct it. This right here is why I started getting interested in aquariums, and that’s what led me into the rest.

17. Do you keep an aquarium or an outside pond? If so, what animals (or lack thereof) do you keep?

I no longer do! I had to leave my aquarium behind when I moved to Japan, and that was very sad. I’d keep an aquarium now but my apartment won’t allow anything over five gallons. With that said, the aquarium I had was a 29 gallon with a pair of pearl gourami, a pair of ropefish, and some oto cats. I’d have wanted some more ropefish (they like friends) but I couldn’t afford a bigger tanks, so that was the best I could do. Actually, one of my proudest moments in fishkeeping was when I went to buy a new ropefish (one of them died during a terrible winter storm where my house lost power for a week, but it actually died in the fish daycare I sent it to because they have a nasty habit of jumping out of tanks and disappearing) and the fish store owner was like “I dunno kid, these guys are real hard to take care of and I’d hate to see see you coming back a week from now looking for another. How can I trust that you’ll be able to keep it alive?” And I was like. Uh. Well. I’ve kept a couple of them for three years now so I hope I’m good enough at keeping them alive. And the guy goes “Damn, three years? Arright buddy you’re golden, you’re better at keeping fish than 90% of my customers.” Dude got MUCH more talkative after that, I’m pretty sure I’d have been there for hours if my dad wasn’t waiting in the car.

#that fish store guy lived like an hour away and that the thickest new jersey accent ive ever heard #i got my oto cats at the same place and he was like ‘ill give you seven for the price of three because #it’s gonna take four before your ropefish realize they don’t like eating em’

[duushorowitz73]

Exactly what are FNAF Games?

FNAF online game is a horror journey game created by Jeff Cawthon that needs you to survive several nights in some sort of pizzeria where typically the animatronics come to life. A person play as a safety guard who should check cameras, preserve power, close entry doors, and use different tools to stay away from being killed simply by these creatures ought to they get as well close. The sequels that followed the very first game keep typically the story going in addition to present more issues as you go. The games were designed with regard to PC (Steam) in addition to mobile platforms (Android devices). Within this listing of Five Night time at Freddy? s games, we may take a look at each game individually rather compared to saying which one is typically the best since they will all have their very own benefits. FNAF games free very funny in order to play, and a little scary to keep you about your toes. Here are five of each of our favorite games from the FNAF free of charge series we believe you should try out. Favorite 5 No cost FNAF Online Games The Story of 5 Nights at Freddy? s Scott Cawthon created the 1st game in typically the FNAF online collection in 2014. Typically the story is fixed in Freddy Fazbear? s Pizzerria, a good once popular family-themed restaurant. Animatronic character types Freddy Fazbear, Springtime Bonnie, and V perform onstage to entertain the children. Along the approach, something terrible occurs along with the animatronics commence killing people in addition to hiding their systems in the animatronics backstage. They are most often very active during the night, roaming from space to room inside closed pizzeria trying to find someone to strike.

Five Nights with Freddy? s features the gamer to the characters plus the basics of how to play the game. Since the g, the job is to be able to maintain your animatronics in bay until six is, the time that your shift ends. You receive phone calls that provide you helpful tips for surviving the nighttime. FNAF 2 In Five Nights from Freddy's 2, the particular sequel to the particular first game, typically the old gang associated with animatronics are signed up with by some brand-new characters. These character types tend to be more kid-friendly, include advanced facial recognition technology, and guarantee being better as compared to their old counter-parts. You still participate in as the security guard, looking to work with every tool at your disposal in order to keep the animatronics out of your own office at night. To increase your safety, you include been given the empty Freddy Fazbear animatronic head to be able to fool them straight into getting out of the relationship alone. FNAF a few This is the latest sport in the series, also it stands a part from the other games in the collection since it has typically the highest difficulty. You must maintain security and defend your self from Springtrap, typically the protagonist in this game. FNAF 4 The more challenges you beat, the even more characters you unlock. It has a new small cast regarding characters, you may unlock nearly every animatronic in the sport, and the gameplay is certainly really good. In case you love typically the series and may? t get good enough, definitely go here 1 out. Five Night time at Freddy's: Cousin Location FNAF a few is set in an abandoned amusement recreation area. You play while new employee Zoe, who must help save the day simply by finding and mending the deadly animatronics so that Fazbear? s Fright can start for business once more. The game is almost a direct follow up to FNAF 5 and contains many associated with the same mechanics, though the game includes a new soundtrack and new animatronics. The fifth installation with the FNaF on the web series is? Several Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location.? Inside https://uraweb.org/machalite-ore-monster-hunter-rise-guide.html , the particular player is introduced to seven new animatronics: Circus Baby, Ballora, Funtime Freddy, Funtime Foxy, Ennard, Bidybab, and Minireena. Although the game features a new new soundtrack and even new animatronic character types, the story continues in which it left off in FNaF 5. Really is endless you liked this overview regarding the Five Nights at Freddy? s games. If you like to participate in games and experience an internet connected system, you could play FNaF games online and try them out for yourself. We all? d be engaged to be aware of which 1 is your favorite.

#fnaf

[79kinggcomvn]

Legalized Casinos in Vietnam: A Closer Look at 6 Major Locations

Introduction Casinos are no longer a novelty for the majority of people. However, in Vietnam, the legalization of this industry continues to face numerous challenges. Despite these obstacles, the immense profitability and allure for foreign tourists have turned casinos into significant job providers for thousands of locals. Vietnam is gradually embracing casinos, and in this overview, let's explore the six largest legal casino destinations in the country with 79King.

1. Phu Quoc and the Corona Casino: Among the six casinos in Vietnam, the Corona Resort & Casino in Phu Quoc stands out as the first to welcome Vietnamese citizens. With an initial investment of over 1 billion USD in phase 1 and an estimated 2 billion USD in phase 2, this project not only offers an entertainment experience but also generates thousands of jobs for the Phu Quoc community.

Currently, strict regulations govern Vietnamese citizens' access to the casino, including being over 21 years old, having proof of income exceeding 10 million VND, paying monthly taxes, and having a clean legal record. Foreign visitors only need to be above 21, possess a valid international passport, dress appropriately, and refrain from intoxication or substance use.

Operated by Upffinity Gaming Management, the Corona Resort & Casino spans 18,000 square meters across two floors, featuring 100 gaming tables and over 1,000 slot machines, offering eight popular games from around the world.

2. Do Son Casino in Hai Phong: Established in 1995, the Do Son Casino is considered the oldest casino in Vietnam, attracting mostly Chinese visitors. Despite its Las Vegas-inspired architecture, it faces competition from newer and more modern casinos, resulting in a significant decrease in its market share.

The casino has relocated to the Do Son Hotel in Thung Luong Xanh, offering four main games: Baccarat, Blackjack, Roulette, and Big-Small. Access to the casino is strictly controlled, prohibiting individuals under 18, the use of cameras, large bags, or any unfamiliar objects within the gaming area.

3. Ha Long Casino: Owned by the Royal International Corporation, the Ha Long Casino, also known as the Gaming Club, has been operating in Bai Chay since May 2003. With four floors and a total area of 7,250 square meters, it provides four main game types and 70 slot machines.

Operating 24/7, the club has varying minimum and maximum betting limits depending on the game, ranging from 1 USD to 20,000 USD. Slot machines accept bets from 0.01 USD to 1 USD.

4. Ho Tram Strip Casino: Part of The Grand Ho Tram Strip complex, the Ho Tram Strip Casino is one of Vietnam's leading modern casinos. With an investment of up to 4 billion USD, it boasts 90 tables and 614 slot machines, being the first casino permitted to directly engage with foreign tourists.

Opened in 2013, the casino is part of a comprehensive resort offering 541 5-star hotel rooms, international restaurants, conference centers, wedding venues, and an international golf course. It is licensed to operate, and expansion plans in 2025 aim to attract more domestic and international tourists.

5. Aristo Casino in Lao Cai: Situated in the heart of Lao Cai, the Aristo Casino is owned by the Australian-based Donaco Group. Although primarily attracting Chinese guests, it is one of the six legal casinos in Vietnam, featuring 48 tables and 300 slot machines.

6. Crown International Club in Da Nang: Located at Silver Shores International Resort, with a total investment of 1.6 billion USD, the Crown International Club is not only a casino but also a 5-star resort. It allows entry for foreigners and Vietnamese citizens with passports from other countries.

This venue faced temporary closure from April to October 2010 to address violations identified by the Da Nang People's Committee. During this period, only 200 of the planned 600 gaming tables were constructed. The casino changed its name to comply with investment license regulations, and advertising restrictions were tightened. The use of more gaming tables than allowed, excessive foreign personnel (at times exceeding 1,000 individuals), and other issues were addressed.

Conclusion

These casinos contribute not only to entertainment but also significantly to the tourism industry and employment opportunities. Hopefully, in the near future, casinos will be officially legalized in Vietnam to harness the full potential that this industry brings. Stay tuned for more informative articles in the Casino 79King section!

Readmore: Top 6 Casino at VietNam

#79kingg #79king #79kinggcom

[liam-and-co-ideas-universe]

Crystal Bay's Unique citizens

Name: Lucas Norton  

Talent: Ultimate Movie Star

Personality: Attention seeking, Kind (When dealing with fans), Rude (Behind the scenes)

Likes: The Spotlight, Attention, The lead role

Dislikes: Popular media that he isn’t in, minor roles in movies

Weaknesses: Attention seeking, minor anger issues.

Age: 27

For the people, the fans and audiences loved him and would always love him for being the best at his role, Due to him being neglected throughout his life, this causes a mental change to his mind, wanting attention from anyone and everyone. He would take extreme measures just to get the spotlight behind the scenes.

Name: Ane Kanoa

Age: 19

Likes: Carilrahne, calm weather

Dislikes: Windy weather

Weakness: can’t handle cold weather, loneliness

Unlike her sister which her sister is somewhere else in the world, she can’t handle cold weather, do her sister moved to a colder climate, she tries her best to find friends the best that she can.

Name: Ginevra

Species: Mermaid

Age: 60 (Actual age), 19 (Physical age)

Likes: Company

Dislikes: Garbage

Weakness: Unable to travel on land

The protector of the Ocean of The Crystal Bay, she makes sure she preserves the crystals from anyone who would try to steal the crystals, she makes sure that the ocean is protected and clean. She doesn’t mind anyone enjoying the ocean.

Name: Zachary Moore

Age 34

Occupation: Bartender

Likes: The ocean view 

Dislikes: Noisy people

Weakness: Cockiness sometimes

Zachary prefers that he works at the beach to serve drinks rather than at the Emerald Peaks Hotel. He enjoys the company at the beach with everyone else who can’t stay at the hotel for various reasons. Uses magic to perfectly replicate any drink for anyone.

Name: Keanu Kalena

Age: 8

Likes: Her friends

Dislikes: Bullies

Weakness: Attention seeking

One of Red A. Ketchum’s friends that goes on adventures with him, She has something against Team Rocket personally due to them stealing her parents Pok��mon. 

Name: Alexander Franklin Bashford

Age: 20

Likes: The beach, clear skies, Zachary

Dislikes: The Blimp Mercenaries, The Sinner Siblings

Originally born in Arcastein, but due to the atmosphere of Arcastein, he wasn’t comfortable with it. He decided to move to Crystal Bay for a much better life experience.

Name: Aumoe Kinipela

Age: 28

Occupation: Entertainer

Likes: Jokes, nightclubs.

Dislikes: People “Touching her”

Weakness: Sensitive, hitting people without second thought 

Aumoe loves her job very well, her favorite rooms are the nightclubs where there is a lot of people to entertain, she has personal issues with personal space that. She makes sure that people are distant from her before she can entertain them with comedy. She works in the evening and at night where she can make a lot of people laugh.

Name: Alfred Berger

Age: 25

Likes: Quiet areas, views of the ocean

Dislikes: Parties, noisy people

Weakness: Goes somewhere else when things get too intense for him.

Alfred loves the warm environment of Crystal Bay. When he isn’t working, he would go to a room that isn’t occupied and just looks at the view of the Crystal Bay’s Ocean. He is the reason why the elevators have a view outside.

Name: Annebella Smith

Age: 23

Likes: Clean rooms

Dislikes: selfish people

Weakness: Overworking, perfectionist

Annebella has the mental intention that she thinks that she has to be the best, So she has many cleaning supplies that she can carry to make sure that she is perfect for her job.

Name: Isaac Edwards

Age: 20

Occupation: Hotel Owner.

Likes: His employees

Dislikes: Noisy people

Weakness: Abandonment issues

Isaac is the youngest business owner out of everyone else in his family who runs the hotel. His father leaved his hotel for him so that his father would live somewhere else in the world.

[ezcater]

5 Tips for Planning Your End-of-Year Office Celebration

Organizing the end-of-year office celebration is always fun and rewarding. You may get a curveball here and there, but throwing the annual party is the perfect opportunity to show your team a fantastic time and demonstrate your sincere appreciation for their hard work.

From the venue to entertainment to outstanding corporate catering, you have a lot on your plate. But despite all the work it takes to organize a first-rate shindig, the process itself doesn’t need to be stressful. Here are five tips to help you put together a memorable celebration. Start with a Budget We’ve all imagined what the ideal office party would look like if cost wasn’t a factor. But every business has to keep an eye on the bottom line, so your end-of-year celebration needs to come in under budget. Whether you have autonomy here or need to run it past leadership, make sure the number you land on is realistic but not overly restrictive. Then, use tracking tools to keep an eye on your spend. You may have to do some of this manually, but when it comes to food, the leading corporate catering partner has a convenient online dashboard that does the tracking for you. Pick a Place The venue is a key element of any office party. It sets the tone and can also have a significant impact on your budget. Establish your priorities early and decide whether you want to shell out for a night at that swanky chateau or you’d rather hold the festivities at your office so you can spend more on food and entertainment. You should also consider renting only the space and handling the catering yourself as a means of saving money. For example, a business located in the heart of the Hoosier state could order the finest catering Indianapolis has to offer for a celebration at the Crane Bay Event Center, Indianapolis Propylaeum, or even the Indiana Roof Ballroom. Recognize Your Top Performers Your annual office celebration is perfect for acknowledging your top achievers and highlighting their accomplishments over the past year. These are the people who go the extra mile on a daily basis to fuel your organization’s success. How you go about this is up to you, of course. You could reward them with extra PTO, their photo on the wall in the reception area, or an etched glass trophy to display at their desk. Order Catering Everyone Will Love You’ll notice we’ve already touched on food a few times in this piece. That’s because the right meal will elevate any event, and the end-of-year office party is no exception. You could roll the dice and rely on the catering team at the venue you booked for the event. Odds are, they’ll do a fine job. But nobody knows your team’s food preferences better than you, so why not put that knowledge to work and order their favorites yourself? Whether you’re looking for the most delicious catering Columbus Ohio, Dallas Texas, or Miami Florida has to offer, the right corporate catering partner makes all the difference. Have a Plan to Get Everyone Home Safely At the end of the evening, it’s essential that everyone makes it home safely. Whether you book several taxis or offer to comp rideshares, arranging travel for any team members who may need it might be the very best way to show them how much you care. With all they’ve done for your business this year, your team deserves to let loose a bit and enjoy themselves responsibly. Helping them do that, then get home safely, is how you can show them you have their back. About ezCater With over 100,000 restaurants and caterers in every state, ezCater has food for work covered. ezCater is built to help businesses and organizations find the best food options. But why stop at lunch? ezCater helps to connect you with catering for practically any meal or event, from company meetings to team-builders, sales calls, and more. If you need delicious food delivered on time and as ordered, turn to ezCater. The brand makes it easy to put in an order for the top Portland catering or the catering Dallas is talking about this week. Plus, ezCater offers tools to help you narrow down your search to certain cuisines or to meet specific dietary needs. With this many catering options, there’s always something new to try on ezCater! Make this year’s office party one to remember with food from ezCater at https://www.ezcater.com/

Original Source: https://bit.ly/3R2HiZw

#catered restaurants columbus