#i don’t wanna be a shit American but languages hard

[mossywizard]

“When are you going to learn a language?”

When my brain can fucking focus between Spanish, Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic

#and then someone’s like oh t you’d love Iceland and then I have to glare at them #cuz I can’t and More to the fucking list #it took me so long to get English down I’m- #i don’t wanna be a shit American but languages hard #beautiful #but harddddd

[finchers-ipad]

GODDD I LOVE HEARING UR THOUGHTS!!! Do I have any other soapshipping hcs u haven’t shared yet?! >:D or like, if u want a specific type of question to answer… how do u think the narrator and Tyler apologize to each other :0 & do u think there is certain times/situations where Tyler shows his softer side?? And what is he like when he’s like that and what causes it.. sorry I just wanna hear any of ur thoughts about them LOL

YES OF COURSE, i love hearing your thoughts also!! btw i am on public transport for a minimum of 3 hours every day so never worry about spamming my inbox or anything because i am always so bored lmao!! <3

- i think tyler does show is softer side, but it comes gradually with the progression of their relationship, like it probably takes them FOREVER to start telling each other when they like or don’t like when the other does something. because it’s usually just carried out through fights. i feel like he gets sensitive when watching movies a lot, he hides this from the narrator a lot of the time, but the narrator catches him sometimes. i also think the time he is most sensitive is when they are lying in bed. the main thing that upsets him is when the narrator has to leave to go on work trips. because he can’t be more than 6ft away from this man at all times.

- honestly i think the way they apologise to each other is by using the others love language if that makes sense? for example if tyler was mad at the narrator for doing or not doing something, he would just do what tyler would have wanted (i have no idea if that makes any sense) because i think tyler’s love langue is acts of service.

for example if the narrator bought something for tyler, because he thought it would be something nice, and tyler fucking went off on him for how he’s just contributing to the consumerist american culture blah blah blah, maybe smacks him around a little just to get the point across, the narrator would get his money back for it and then steal something from the store. (and then coming home and letting tyler fuck him senseless) sorry my keyboard got possessed there that was so weird, anyway.

- but if the narrator was genuinely mad at tyler for something (which tbh i think would be very hard to do) he would want tyler to affirm him and have tyler show how much he means to him?

an example is like if the narrator was mad because tyler showed someone a bit too much attention in fight club, the narrator would just kind of sulk on the way home and not speak to tyler (because he is a jealous little bitch). and he would do this until tyler got the message, i think tyler would then, in a sarcastic tone but be deadly serious, tell him how much he means to him whilst hugging him from behind?

-yeah idk how accurate they would be, and both of those would be how they act in like the first year of their relationship :))

OTHER RANDOM HC’s!!! (some of them are ooc but this is how they act in my head OKAY?!):

- tyler EXCLUSIVELY chews bubble gum or fruit flavoured gum, specifically like strawberry or watermelon. when he eats some weird ass food like anchovy pizza or something, the narrator is like “you better fucking brush your teeth before you kiss me 😤“ and tyler just sighs and reaches into his jean pocket and pops a huge peice of bubblegum in his mouth and says “that’s the best you are getting” and then shoves his tongue down his throat.

- tyler would NEVER tell the narrator this but he likes the narrators penguin tie out of all of his ties, when he comes downstairs in the morning wearing it, tyler smiles into his coffee. he also pulls on it to give him a kiss as he leaves for work.

- the narrator has a polaroid of tyler in his wallet

- THEY HAVE MOVIE NIGHT IN THEIR LIVING ROOM EVERY WEEK!!! the theatre that tyler works at throws a shit ton of popcorn away because it’s going stale, so tyler carries home these HUGE bags of popcorn that they just have in-front of them to graze on when they are watching. tyler is spread out of the sofa with his head in the narrators lap :))

#AGAIN TY FOR ASKING <33 #please never worry about spamming me i am chronically online #also i will never get sick of talking about these guys #i feel very strongly about the flavoured gum thing #tyler would NOT chew mint gum #fight club #soapshipping #tyler x narrator

[weirdthoughtsandideas]

**This is related to the post about dcla gatekeeping telenovelas** In my eyes this whole debacle is mostly about popularity and demand/availability. Even before Violetta/Soy Luna there were a shit ton of teen (non disney tho) telenovelas that were extremely popular on their lands but didn't really pick up outside except a few places + europe, which is a shame for so many reasons, especially because i've seen a fair share of stuff that i think you and a lot of other people of this community would enjoy if they liked violetta/soy luna/bia/go vive tu manera etc but it's not available if you don't understand even slightly one of the neo-latin languages or languages that are kind of indirectly affiliated (mostly because those dubs/subs are the ones that are easier to find). I was also tempted to try and start subbing them in English but it would take an insane amount of time (still thinking about it tho..)

And then Violetta was like an insane phenomenon at the time and I understand why they tried HARD to push it on the american audience even tho they never really cared that much (which is insane to me because Violetta was such a core memory from my childhood) and maybe with Soy Luna they saw how popular it was in general and compared it with how uninterested the english speaking countries were at the times of Violetta and just... gave up with the whole translating thing because it wasn't worth it since it was already doing insanely good?? i guess (but that's just a theory/an opinion)

p.s. (The only disney gatekeeping I can fully conferm tho [in my opinion] is Juacas because I swear to god I cannot find it to save my fucking life in either it's original language or dubbed in my native language (it was released and was also really popular apparently, but at the time i was kind of away from telenovelas) so yeah I still think that sometimes they truly do shit without thinking and just generally suck at preserving international stuff. (i'm shit at explaining myself sorry lol)

No you’re good! D+ also randomly gatekeeps their d+ la shows from the international audience (like S2 of Papás por encargo?? Why not release it everywhere???? We wanna watch it too!). Also I wish they released stuff like Patito Feo… I’ve heard of that show’s existence since I first saw Violetta and it was only released in a handful of countries. Also, Violetta was really marketed EVERYWHERE, and then SL came along and in my country, they dubbed the two first seasons and then never the third and I barely remember it airing on tv, while Violetta was marketed so much you could not miss it. They never aired Bia here at all, and it’s not out on D+ in my country (but when watching it with a vpn they had swedish subtitles available so??? why gatekeep it from us). ALSO, so many countries have their own version of ”as the bell rings” and not a SINGLE VERSION is available on D+, not even the italian version which is the original??

I also have some shows from my country (non-disney) that was popular here, but I wish was known everywhere because they are awesome.

The english dub of Violetta was not popular in the UK. It was popular everywhere else, for people who did not speak spanish but still loved the show, and thus when wanting to show clips from the show they used those clips. Now, I personally don’t like the english dub and they randomly don’t translate stuff correctly at times, but for many kids who did not understand spanish but did understand english, it was useful. Now, most countries had their own dubs too, but when posting about clips online for everyone to see, you rarely used your own language’s dub. You used the english dub, so that you could reach out to a larger audience.

I remember a few years back, I said that I felt like Soy Luna barely was marketed and people were like ”No it has higher ratings than Violetta!!” - and it turned out I simply missed it because as I said, in my country they barely marketed it in comparison to Violetta and since it did not even get an english dub, kids who did not know spanish could not talk ”internationally” about it in the same way, and mostly had to talk about it locally with the people from their own country.

I definitely agree that Violetta was such a phenomenon that they really tried pushing it on americans. ”Come on!! All of latin america and Europe are obsessed!!!! You need to join in on the fun!!” and they were like ”uh no thanks we don’t like dubs and the kids will be bored if it’s subbed”, and that eventually lead to them not even caring to dub SL. The only thing that is sad about that is that we could have gotten british Ámbar.

#Idk if I answered what you wrote properly I kinda spiraled away #but I get what you mean!!

[lady-wildflower]

So, I just came across a post about Welsh place names and how they’re disrespected by English people and/or English-speaking people, and I didn’t wanna muss it up with my own thing but it reminded me of something.

Disclaimer! I am not Welsh! I am supposing based on my own comparisons as someone from a country which also has a somewhat marginalized language that got supplanted by English (Aotearoa/New Zealand). I’d actually love for Welsh Tumblr to chip in and let me know if I’m right or not!

So, to put a long story short, I was hanging in a Twitch chat with a streamer I’m friends with, I think we might be mutuals on here - if so, hi! Don’t worry, I’m not all bitter or anything, this just reminded me. And we got to talking about folkloric creatures, particularly faerie myths from Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. There are a bunch of cool ones! But of course, names from Scottish, Welsh, and Irish folklore don’t always translate well into English-speakers’ parsing of spelling, because much like the Scottish, Welsh, and Irish themselves, their languages did not fare well when the English arrived. So occasionally I gave my fellows in chat and my streamer friend an explanation of how they were pronounced, and the one in particular this reminded me of was the name of the Hounds of Annun.

Or, in Welsh, Cŵn Annwn.

The ŵ in Cŵn is pronounced not unlike the oo in English “soon,” and the w in Annwn is pronounced not unlike the u in English “put,” as I recall off the top of my head.

Now, my streamer friend, because she is not Welsh and may not have known that there are no soft Cs in Welsh, pronounced that as Sŵn Annwn. Which isn’t correct - it is Cŵn, not Sŵn, which in fact means “noise.” We weren’t talking about some kind of noise associated with Annwn (the Underworld, roughly), we were talking about the Cŵn Annwn, the Hounds - Cŵn is literally just Welsh for “dogs.” So I let her know in the chat that it’s a hard C.

The attentive of you may notice that Cŵn sounds not unlike a certain American racial slur deriving from the word “raccoon.”

So a fellow chat member, whom I shall not call out or name or shame or whatever because actually they were well-meaning though off the mark in my opinion, that it was better to say Sŵn, because all three of us in this interaction are white and Cŵn sounds like a racial slur against black people.

Except, and this is where I get into personal opinion which could do with an actual Welsh person to either back up or correct me, Cŵn just isn’t that racial slur. It is a word. It is the Welsh word for “dogs,” the singular of which is ci*. And to claim that it should not be spoken by ninety-six percent of Welsh people because they are white is in my opinion a well-meaning attempt to not be offensive which actually wraps around like an integer overflow into being more offensive. Because the word Cŵn has zero relation to the American-originating racial slur “coon.” It is to suggest that the Welsh people should stop speaking their own language correctly because some people speaking another language (which is particularly offensive when that language is ENGLISH, which has already taken enough shits all over Welsh historically) on another continent stole a piece of a third language (Powhatan) to identify an animal and then rebracketed part of that stolen word to be a racial slur, and that slur happened to sound like a completely unrelated word in Welsh.

It is like suggesting that the name Whakatane should never be used correctly because “fuck” is a swear word in English (context for non-kiwis, wh in latinized Māori is kinda an f sound). It is not a swear word in Māori - it is the name of a town in the Bay of Plenty whose name commemorates an incident which happened after the arrival of one of the Polynesian voyaging canoes which arrived there, the Mataatua, specifically it’s part of what the chieftainess Wairaka said on that occasion. It is like suggesting that the entire Spanish-speaking world should stop using their word for the colour black because that word is used as a racial slur by others. Cŵn is not a racial slur in Welsh. It is the word for dogs. To suggest that white people shouldn’t say Cŵn is to argue that 96% of Welsh people shouldn’t describe their own pets correctly if they have a dog, or indeed, shouldn’t describe their own folklore correctly in the case of the Cŵn Annwn. And for a nation with the saying cenedl hab iaith, cenedl heb galon, “a nation without a language is a nation without a heart,” I reckon that suggestion would be rather offensive. You shouldn’t mangle Welsh because of something the English-speaking do wrong.

tl;dr In my opinion when you deliberately speak another language incorrectly in an attempt to not say a word that sounds like a slur in your own, you’re well-meaning but you’re looping around to being more offensive to the language you’re supposed to be speaking. Welsh folks please feel free to chip in and either whack me over the head for presuming or back me up.

* Or gi, chi, or nghi.

#racial slur tw #linguistics #Welsh #Cymraeg #Welsh Language

[russianguyreactstothings]

black widow (2021): 4/10

i...dude.

my poor best friend had to sit next to me while we watched this and listen to me complain over every single “russian” thing the main characters tried to say. i don’t know how it’s possible, but i honestly don’t think marvel hired an language coach for scarlett johansson or florence pugh (and if they did, good for that person for scamming marvel bc they did Nothing for that paycheck).

accents:

scarlett johansson sounds passable. natasha romanoff isn’t supposed to sound particularly russian (she’s a spy, she speaks several languages, she’s fluent in english), so they didn’t have much to do for this one. she sounds like an american person. if i heard her speak in real life and she said she’s russian, i’d believe her. 

rachel weisz actually did a pretty good job! her character has a relatively thick russian accent, probably because they meet her in russia where she’s been living for a while (she’s also a spy like natasha but doesn’t have the same american accent...and all the characters speak in heavily accented english instead of just. speaking russian.. but of course you can’t have your american audience read subtitles for longer than 5 seconds or they might leave a bad letterbox review of a marvel movie so i digress). her accent sounds very good! she has the typical overpronounced vowels but she doesn’t roll her r’s or mispronounces the ‘th’ sound, which was very refreshing (most russian people who learn english do know how to say ‘r’ and ‘th’ properly but the overall cadence still sounds off for other reasons). she sounds like my mom honestly, id think she was russian

david harbour.....ehhhhh. he sounds like someone picked russian as the accent for their dnd character and is now just trying their best to get along. he ranges from passable to pretty fucking bad. (also, pet peeve but it’s aleXEI, not aLExei as everyone insists on saying it, dont mispronounce your own name mr guardian come on now)

listen i love florence pugh. she’s a great actress, she can do lots of things well, a russian accent just isn’t one of them. she’s trying way too hard to get the r sounds and it just sounds really overdone and fake. i still quote the “don’t say zat vai vould you say zat it was real to me!” line to my friends. just girl...stop

actual russian:

shoutout to the one extra who was slavic and had one line and pronounced it perfectly. there’s one in every marvel movie, i hope he’s having a good day.

the main cast??? no. absolutely not. the dialogue between natasha and yelena in actual russian was fucking incomprehensible, i wouldn’t have known what they were saying if it wasn’t for the subtitles and like. its supposed to be russian. i speak russian. come on now.

there were featured extras (like the guys in the prison admin) who spoke russian and i could understand it but it was very accented which just makes me wonder why marvel doesn’t hire actual russian actors for the extras like surely it doesn’t matter who the extras are, nobody cares (except me), just hire slavic people who can say the lines correctly. then again, i guess if the extras sounded good it’d bring more attention to how shit the main cast sounds

movie as a whole:

we’ve all seen this before. morally grey russian characters who are spies and working to take down the american government because cold war scary russians. their backstory is that they were raised by Evil Government Man in rooms with cement walls where little girls are taught ballet and how to put together kalashnikovs. 

i get it, russia works great as a boogeyman and a grey filter background for whatever kind of criminal activity past you wanna give the only slavic character on the avengers. but if you’re going to use russia as a backdrop to be Angsty and Aesthetic, at least do the due diligence and get the language right. i can understand not using any of the culture, maybe it wouldn’t have fit into the story, but the accents and the spoken language being wrong just makes this whole thing feel like an insult to me.

like “oh this is what russians are like” portrayed by people who clearly don’t care enough to put in the time to pronounce their 2 lines correctly? really? i know a lot of people are pissed off at russia, rightfully so, but you shouldn’t put your whole story in a country different from yours and then do it this badly. i really like black widow as a character, particularly in the comics, and i love me a russian superhero, this was just really disappointing.

#russian #black widow 2021 #black widow #marvel #linguistics

[i-can-even-burn-salad]

Frankenstein!

Thank you for the ask! From this ask game.

Frankenstein: If you could learn any 5 languages, what would it be?

(Kinda funny question, I mean, I could. I’m just too lazy.)

Hard to decide if that includes already known ones? Also like, do I actually have to learn it, or just... get to know it? Because damn, I did have my edgy teenager wants to look at Finnish phase, but I do not want to learn it anymore, no thank you. I like my words ... shorter.

I obviously speak German and English (no shit), but I also learned Latin for 8 years, and Ancient Greek for 3.

I’d love to remember more of Latin, it’s been so long, and you just don’t use that. Like, what are you gonna do with that? I believe I used to have a copy of a certain popular wizard book in Latin. I’m not particularly interested in finding out if I still do.

I also dabbled in Dutch for a while (not really that difficult, lil bastard child of German and English it is), which is enough to get the gist of articles and memes some friends send me. It’s rather pointless, since everyone there speaks English. Also I am too fucking awkward to actually try. The “I will sit in silence for hours without saying a single word because I cannot” anxiety kind, so that’s fun.

I think Spanish would be cool, because that’s widely used.

Can I add programming languages, because I really wanna learn Python hkdjhaska

I would also love to learn sign language. I know it’s offered at a local school, but ugh... the thought of having to leave my house in the evening when I just wanna die.

It’s 1am, so I’m gonna stop here before I start a rant about every single resource I find online being ASL here ASL there ASL everywhere. Guess what. It stands for American Sign Language (: I have serious doubts I’ll ever need it in my life, huh.

#salad-ask #suspicious-whumping-egg #This ask is not OC related

[cross-snuff]

Incorrect Quote Generator Except It’s My Kins

Connor Temple (Prmvl) • Dean Winchester (SPN) • Monroe (Grimm) Ft. Sam Winchester

Dean: Connor and I just got that friendship where you finish each others-

Connor: Sentences :]

Dean: Don’t interrupt me.

—

Dean, bored out of his skull: Whaddya call a fish w/ no eye?

Connor, w/out missing a beat: Myxine Circifrons

Connor, proud of himself:

Dean:

Dean: Fshhhhh

—

Connor, learning how to drive American cars: So, what would happen if I pressed the brake and gas at the same time?

Sam: The car takes a screenshot, actually.

Dean, outraged: Get the hell out of my car.

—

Dean: Shit, s’locked. Connor, gimme your credit card.

Connor: Here.

Dean: Thanks *pockets it*

Dean: Sam, kick the door down.

—

Connor: Why’re you on the floor…?

Dean: Just got broken up with.

Connor: Oh… sorry, mate.

Dean:

Dean, cupping his wound: I actually got shot, can you call Sam?

Connor: Shit, yeah.

—

Connor: You two have a great “good-cop-bad-cop” dynamic.

Connor: How do you keep it up?

Dean: We don’t.

Connor:…?

Dean: I’m just a dick and Sam isn’t.

—

Sam: How did neither of you hear what I just said??

Connor: Sorry, I got distracted

Dean: I was consciously ignoring you.

—

Sam and Connor: *tapping pens against table*

Dean: The hell’re they doing?

Monroe: Morse code, I think

Connor: *taps frantically*

Sam: YOU BITCH

—

Connor: This is a terrible idea.

Dean: Why’d you come with me? Coulda stayed home.

Connor: Less likely to be put in jail if I talk the cops out of arresting us rather than you killing them.

—

Connor: -that’s the plan.

Dean: Do you take constructive criticism, Con?

Connor: Yeah, why not

Dean: It fucking sucks

Connor: That’s not constructive.

—

Sam: Remember when we could just do a salt ’n burn instead of having to stop the apocalypse?

Dean: Stop romanticizing the past.

—

Dean: S’up, Con. Ooo you made pancakes? Gimme.

Connor, baffled: You- No you- I saw you die! What the fuck?!

Dean: You don’t know my bloodline.

—

Connor: I have a theory.

Dean: Do not tell me about it

Connor: Too late, I think-

—

Dean and Connor in some asylum:

Dean: Shit, flashlight’s dead

Connor: Oh, I got it

Connor: *Stomps*

Connor: *T-Rex sneakers light up*

—

Connor: Dean, not everything can be solved with a gun

Dean: That’s why I carry another, secret, gun.

—

Sam: *Kicks down Monroe’s door*

Monroe: What the hell happened!? Are you okay!?

Sam: No one died.

Monroe: THAT DOESN’T MAKE ME FEEL BETTER

—

Monroe: Dude, go to the doctor. Probably nicked an organ or something, I can’t fix this!

Sam: Is this our stab wound? No. Keep stitching.

—

Dean, trying not to be sappy: I wouldn’t mind waking up with you everyday in the foreseeable future.

Connor: I wake up at 5:30 for work.

Dean:

Dean: I’d like to see you sometime everyday in the foreseeable future :]

—

Sam: It’s fine, I got this all under control. We’ll be okay.

Dean: *Unconscious*

Monroe: *Bleeding out*

Connor: HOW CAN YOU STILL SAY THAT?!

Sam: Denial works wonders.

—

Connor: Am I in trouble..?

Dean: Guess.

Connor:….no?

Dean: Guess again.

—

Sam: English is a hard language. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

Dean: I hate you

—

Monroe: What’s for dinner?

Connor: *stares at the blackened pan full of ash*

Connor: I think we should spice it up and filter feed for dinner.

—

Dean: *smiling over his coffee*

Sam: Why’re you so giddy?

Dean: What, I’m not allowed to be happy?

Monroe: He tripped Connor down the stairs

—

Connor: If I let someone win at chess, is that sapiosexual bottoming?

Dean:

Dean: Are you capable of thinking before you speak?

—

Monroe: Why’s Sam so… mopey?

Dean: He took a “What Character are You” quiz

Monroe: And?

Dean: He got Connor.

—

Sam: *Stitching up Connor after a bad day at work*

Monroe: How’s he look?

Dean: Better than you

—

Dean: I just ended a 4 year relationship.

Connor: Oh man, I’m sorry mate.

Connor: Wanna talk about it or…?

Dean: What? Oh, no. It wasn’t mine.

*Various sounds of Sam and Monroe fighting*

—

Dean: Sam won’t answer his damn cell

Monroe: Hold on, lemme call him

Connor: We both called 6 ti-

Monroe: *one ring*

Sam: *Picks up* Hello?

—

Connor, ambling out into the kitchen: What time’s it?

Dean: I don’t know, hand me that recorder and we’ll find out

Dean: *Plays hot crossed buns obnoxiously loud*

Sam: SHUT THE FUCK UP IT’S 4 AM

Dean: It’s 4 am :]

—

Dean and Connor over text:

C: HELP!! I’m being kidnapped!!

D: Where are you?

C: In some dude’s car

D: I’ll call Sam

Sam: Hello?

Dean: Have you heard from Connor? He just texted me all scared

Sam: Wh- He’s right- hold on. I’ll call you back.

Sam: IT’S JUST A TRIM, MY HAIR IS LITERALLY THE SAME.

Connor: WHO ARE YOU?!?

—

Connor: Monroe, can I have some dating advice?

Monroe: Just cause I’m with Sam doesn’t mean I know how I did it

—

Connor: I told Dean his ears get red when he lies

Sam:….why?

Connor: because, watch.

Connor: Dean! Do you love me?

Dean, cupping his ears: No.

—

Connor: Some guy yelled at Dean and I when we were walking

Monroe: Oh that sucks….

Connor:

Monroe: What’d he do?

Connor: Chased him to the next intersection and managed to-

Dean, walking in with a full steering wheel: Where should I hang this?

—

Connor: What should I do?

Dean: I would give you advice

Dean: but in all honestly I would just beat the shit out of him

—

Connor: Dean! Dean look!

Connor: *Punches wall*

Connor: *Crumples to the ground in agony*

—

Dean: If you can’t beat em

Dean: Fuck their mom

—

Sam, wheezing w/laughter: He got you good, man

Dean: you know what I say, Sam

Sam, confused: What do you say?

Dean: Fool me once

Dean: I’ll kill you

—

Monroe: Guys

Monroe: You’ll never believe this

Connor: What happened?

Monroe: I made a mistake

#primeval #spn #supernatural #grimm #grimm nbc #connor temple #dean winchester #sam winchester #Monroe #kin post #kinsona #incorrect quotes

[authornina]

The Tassle Worth the Hassle: Congratulations Sav!👨🏾‍🎓

***THIS HAS NOT BEEN THROUGH A TYPICAL EDITING PROCESS; ALL SHORTS ARE ROUGH DRAFTS***

Chi kept standing up screaming Sav’s name when it got quiet and he ducked his head like he didn’t know who the hell her crazy ass was. She was doing it to purposely embarrass him. 

“Sit your ass down!” Ivy whispered. “You making us all look crazy!” 

“I love you Dayvion! I’m so proud of you baby!” Chi said one last thing before taking her seat.

The ceremony was long and many people in the stadium started becoming drowsy. Thank goodness they didn’t bring any of their children because no way could a bunch of two and one-year olds sit through this.

After two hours of honoring specific students, and guest speakers, Sav was up. He was graduating Summa Cum Laude and Lake couldn’t have been prouder. He and some other students were sitting on the stage. They’d been chosen to represent the student body because they held the highest distinctions amongst their peers. Of the three who’d held the highest distinctions, they voted and chose him to give the speech. 

When Sav stood up the whole class erupted. He was popular on campus not only as a ladies man but the weed man as well. They absolutely loved him. He was one of the few African Americans that attended the prestigious university, so it was easy to stand out. 

“Why are they goin’ up for my husband like this?” Chi asked, being drowned out by the amount of cheering happening for Sav. 

“Chill, y’all,” Sav said over the mic. “Dean Lee said she not for my shit—” he slipped up and everyone laughed. “I mean stuff today.”

The Dean who was also black shook her head at his use of language, but she knew how Dayvion Porter, which she addressed him as could be. They’d had several run ins over the course of his college career. The young man with tattoos galore, foul mouth and pants off his ass was indeed by measure the smartest one in the sea of thousands of students. She wanted this young black scholar to have his moment even in its rawness. This was black excellence being shown at a PWI and she was proud nonetheless. 

“Ummm…everybody know I ain’t wanna do this.” Sav did not try to sound intelligent or put on for nobody. They wanted him to give this speech he was going to do it as him. Educated and all, he was true to himself. “I told Dean Lee I would be honest and y’all still chose me so here we go…” 

“Fucking right bro!” A white guy shouted from the crowd. 

“I know a lot of us struggled to make it to this stage. Not only the amount of work we had to put in to make it here but the pressure, financial restraints, family issues, our mental incapacities at times…a lot more goes into just getting a degree. Picking something you can actually apply and let’s be honest, make money from in this nut ass world. Shout out to y’all who got art degrees, it’s about to be hell,” Sav said honestly and the audience died of laughter. “I know some of y’all personally who went through some of this. To be honest, ion know what it look like. I couldn’t relate because I didn’t have those problems. Y’all probably thought I’m the made it out the hood specialty case. I had a big brother who not only kept pushing me to finish but made sure I didn’t have not one worry while doing it, so this was a breeze for me actually. I don’t need no college degree, but I did this for one person and one person only. My brother Lake. I wanna honor him with this because a lot of the great people, the ones behind the scenes who never get recognized are the real ones that make it happen. I was able to run a whole business, get married, have kids, live my life stress free. He gave me what I know a lot of people who look like me never get. A peace of mind. A care-free life, the tools I needed to be successful and I thank him for that every day.” Sav was looking right at Lake. “My brother the reason why I get to stand here right now…so this to the single moms out here doing it all on their own that got their kids to this day, to the dads working day and night to pay for tuitions, the grandparents, siblings, aunties and uncles who put their all into a kid to see them do better. If it wasn’t for y’all, I’m sure we wouldn’t be up in here falling asleep and waiting to hear our name called for a degree we couldn’t have gotten without y’all.” 

Although the ceremony wasn’t done after Sav’s speech all the students felt every word he said and so did the families there to support them. 

“Wait…” Dean Lee got up ready to stop them but it was too late all the graduates were up on their feet, throwing their caps in the air. It was like a big party started. It took twenty minutes to get everything settled then the degrees were finally handed out. 

“Dayvion Porter,” they called Sav’s name to receive his degree and it went crazy again. 

“That’s it!” the president of the school got up waving his hands then shouted in the mic. “Everyone please sit down!”                                                       ******* Lake waited patiently, watching Sav bump fists with a bunch of people because he wasn’t about to touch all them hands. He stood in his robe, medals and cords around his neck looking like a true scholar. He admired the hell out of his little brother. Not even for finishing but remaining authentic and true to himself during the process. Sav had his moments but everything he set out to accomplish, had been done. Lake couldn’t and wouldn’t ask anymore of him.

“You proud of me?” Sav asked, coming towards him with his arms out for hug.

“So proud man,” Lake smiled, embracing his baby brother. “I’m so fuckin’ proud.” 

“Thank you, where the fuck everybody go?” 

“Home, they didn’t want to stay around for the crowd and all the traffic.”

“Now you know that’s fucked up. Even my own wife? All this and them niggas dip on me? Take me home to my kids. Nobody better not say shit to me.”

“Chill, I wanted you to take a ride with me.”  

“Ion even feel like it.” Sav’s feelings were hurt. His whole family was worried about beating traffic than his big day. It upset him more because he didn’t even care about it as much as they did.

They had to get all of his gifts professors, the school, students and others got for him. Sav indeed was their favorite. Someone even gave him basketball season tickets. Once they were in the car Lake did his best not to laugh. Sav was really upset. 

“Why the fuck we here?” 

Lake pulled into to the strip club they used to frequent and Sav knew something was up now. His brother wasn’t allowed to be a hundred feet of no strippers per his wife’s rules. Only if she was DJing did Avery let him enter the building.

“Because I thought it would cheer you up.” 

“I told you I don’t feel like shit no more. Them niggas fucked my mood up. Especially, Chi, she really dipped on me. Her fuckin’ muscle head ass better hope ion divorce her.”

“Sav, relax, nigga,” Lake laughed lighting a blunt then passing it to him. “Hassan would be proud of you man.”

“Yea…” Sav put his head back blowing out smoke. “I be thinkin’ bout Daddy a lot.” 

“Me too, all the time actually…I wish he would’ve made it, seen you today. It’s moments like this that make life worth living.” Lake stared out the window. After a few seconds of silence, he reached in the back seat and handed Sav an envelope. 

“What’s this?” 

“I ain’t know what to get a nigga that got it all for a graduation gift.” 

“Aw man…” Sav looked at all the papers and got emotional. 

Lake knew it bothered him that he didn’t know where he came from for sure. He couldn’t do a traditional testing since their father was deceased and had been cremated. But there was sibling DNA test and because Sav, Lake, Vant and Wreck didn’t share the same mother, it was easy to get proof. If he wasn’t Hassan’s he’d have not an ounce of relation to them.  

“Sav even if that shit ain’t say what we already knew it wouldn’t have made you any less my brother. I hope you know that.” 

“Thanks man,” Sav dapped Lake up and he pulled him in for a hug.

“Why the fuck y’all sittin’ in here cuddling and shit?” Wreck was about to get in the back, but Lake had car seats. “Nigga, Avery whip don’t have nothing in it. I swear you and Vant the wives.” 

“Fuck you nigga,” Lake pushed him getting out the car. “Stop takin’ your anger out on everybody. I told you come talk to me, you wanna hide out and shit. Think Daly ain’t tell me the bullshit you been on.” 

“I ain’t got nothing to say, and Daly a nut for bringin’ shit to you like I’m not a grown ass man! It’s fuck everything and that’s on my Daddy.” Wreck walked over and dapped Sav up. “I’m proud of you nigga.” 

“Are you really bro?” 

“Yea! Ion mean to be so hard on you. I apologize. Just…you know I’m dealin’ with my own shit right now, but I love you man.”

“I know, it’s cool, I love you too.” Sav felt bad for his brother. Wreck didn’t know which way he was going. It had spread about Gia breaking up with him. A simple, I don’t want to be with you anymore, was all the reason she gave him. That’s all he got from her. Wreck opened himself up to a woman for the last time. 

“Let’s go in here, I can’t be out for long or A will come lookin’ for me.” 

“Cause you a whipped ass—” 

“Y’all keep saying that,” Lake laughed, cutting Wreck off. “But I’m happy as fuck. I have no resistance in letting love take over me anymore.” 

“And you know what? I am genuinely jealous and that ain’t even me bro.” 

“Wreck,” Lake stopped walking. “I’m for real, come talk to me. Tomorrow, nigga.” 

“Everything already fucked up, bro. Gia will never be with me again.” 

“How?” Sav asked.

“Ion wanna talk about it.” 

“What the hell is taking so long?!” Chi pushed the door open. 

“Fuck is you doing here?” Sav looked at Lake confused. “I did not ask to come here, Chi. Lake brought me. I was on the way home.” He started defending himself immediately. 

“Get in here, Dayvion.” Chi pulled him along and it was dark as hell on the inside.

“SURPRISE!” the lights, loud ass music and cheering all happened at the same time. The whole club was decorated in his school colors with a big ass banner congratulating him. Everybody was holding cutouts of Sav’s head from his graduation photo. 

“You did this for me?” Sav wanted to cry.

“Mhm…” 

“I love you,” Sav kissed her all the way down on the couch. 

“Stop Sav!” Chi laughed. “My dress is comin’ up! You doin’ all this in front of people!” 

“Can I give my brother a hug now?” Dem asked and they let each other go. “I’m proud of you bul.” 

“Thank you.” Sav hugged Dem longer than he did his own wife. Chi was over trying to get in between something that Sav needed to literally survive, to breathe and have good days. They were working through a lot of things and as long as he prioritized her and their children then he could love on Dem all he wanted. 

“I’m so proud of you, boo boo,” Ivy said kissing her baby all over. 

“Ard come on with all that shit,” Vant tore them apart. “We got a surprise for you later,” he whispered making Sav laugh.

“Shout out to my young nigga Sav! Congratulations bro!” DJ AP shouted in the mic sounding like a nigga making everybody crack the fuck up. She was barely six weeks post-partum and came out to party for her favorite person much to Lake’s dismay. “This one for you baby!” Avery pointed at him then played Nicki Minaj Moment for Life. Sav wouldn’t openly admit he was a fan. 

“No, I'm not lucky, I'm blessed, yes, clap for the heavyweight champ, me! But I couldn't do it all alone, we!” Sav jumped on all his brothers. The moment was so nice. “Lake Porter raised me,” he remixed the lyrics. 

Lake looked at Wreck who was visibly sad and hugged his brother and in front of everyone Wreck received it because he really needed it. 

“It’s gon’ be okay, ard?” 

“Yea…” Wreck didn’t want to ruin his little brother’s day so he decided to just put his own issues aside for the time being. Vant handed him a drink patting his back. 

“It’s ard bro.” 

“Put ya drinks up,” Dem held his glass in the air with is arm wrapped around Sav. “It's a celebration, every time we link up, we done did everything, they can think of, greatness, is what we on the brink of!”

“I WISH THAT I COULD HAVE THIS MOMENT FOR LIFE!” everyone sang 

#on us #authornina #nina

[abundanceofnots]

a little (just under 2k) playground scene with Lip and Ian as dads, as per @pink--and--white's request. i apologize to all actual parents in advance.

“How the fuck did we get here?” Lip asks through a huff of incredulous laughter.

Ian shades his eyes from the sun, turning to his older brother with a look of mock concern. “Your memory that bad already, old man? We drove here.”

It earns him a stinging smack on his thigh.

“Asshole,” Lip retorts back. “You know what I mean.”

Ian’s eyes flit back to the scene before them. “Yeah, I do,” he confirms a beat later, his voice more earnest this time.

This, by far, isn’t a new feeling. Lip’s had the exact same thought pass through his mind countless times in recent years, always in a momentary flash of warmth that filled up his whole chest. It happens all the more often now over the most mundane shit, though.

The first time was, probably, when Freddie was born. Then Ian got married, and Al came along, and Liam got to a good school—and after that followed every other quiet (not literally) evening when the whole family gathered up in the kitchen.

In those instants, Lip would stall himself for just a second, getting lost in the overwhelming sounds and visuals, and think, what the fuck.

He’s getting soft. That’s it, most likely. He’s getting soft and sentimental, going on with his extremely unexceptional life, wondering how in the hell did a piece of shit like himself get so lucky, and slowly becomes someone he’d gladly punch in the face not too long ago.

It hits him hard again, this strange sense of pride and wonder, as he sits next to his baby brother on a bench overlooking a kids’ playground.

This one’s the real deal. Everything here is child-proof and clean, with no syringe or dogshit in sight. Frank or some random homeless guy aren’t lying in a drunken coma by the swing sets. There’s not even one bullet hole in the slide. And maybe it’s not so hard to admit that this is actually pretty nice. That this is them now.

Still, the whole thing is, without a doubt, totally ridiculous. Here they are, Lip and Ian—the college dropout and the ex-con, the true sons of the South Side—sneakily munching on their kids’ packed afternoon snacks.

“Dumb luck, I guess,” Ian answers Lip’s question after some musing and takes a sip from Toe’s pink-colored juice box.

Lip hmms before he bites into a baby carrot. “For us, or them?”

“For us. Definitely.”

They’re just two regular dads who carry around lunchboxes and always have a wet wipe or a pack of tissues at hand, ready to blow noses and wipe off residue chocolate from chins and hands. There aren’t enough words in the English language that would describe how incredibly ridiculous this is, because once upon a time, not too long ago, still, Ian wore a jumpsuit with Dav on the nametag and believed this was it for him, and Lip thought the only way to get through life was by drinking himself through the ordeal.

How the fuck did they get here?

“Freddie! Hey, Freddie!” Lip calls out to his oldest, who hangs upside down from the monkey bars, effectively ignoring him. “Fred!” he tries again with an annoyed sigh, and the boy finally remembers how his ears work. “Can you help your cousin on the slide?”

“Okay!”

With a swift motion, Freddie pulls himself up again to grab hold of a bar, unhooking his knees in the process, and jumps down into the sand with practiced ease. He then immediately gets into a run, coming behind the red-headed girl in black overalls who’s been trying to climb the gentle ramp on her own.

“What was that about?” Ian inquires amusedly.

“Early puberty, I think. He doesn’t want us to call him Freddie anymore. It’s Fred. No Fredster, no Fredtastic, definitely no Fredosaurus. Just Fred. Apparently, I went to bed, and my son turned into a middle-aged man overnight.”

“Oof. That’s rough.”

“Yeah. The next thing I know, he’s gonna get a neck tattoo and his first STI. Al, buddy!” His younger son Alvin, at least, seems to have no trouble with hearing. “You need help? Want me to push you?”

“No, I’m good!” the blond kid shouts back from the swing, and to prove his point, he pushes himself harder off the ground to gain momentum.

Lip scratches his forehead. “They don’t need me anymore,” he comments darkly. “I am officially a bother.”

“You’ve always been a bother,” Ian notes before he stuffs his mouth full of grapes. “Come on, Lip. Freddie’s eight. He’s not exactly packing his bags to leave home. He’s still very much a daddy’s boy.”

“I don’t know, man. When I remember what I was already doing when I was his age….”

“Yeah, but that’s different. They’re not like us. They don’t need to be, and that’s a good thing.”

Ian’s right, but the concept of normal as something desirable, something he doesn’t necessarily need to rebel against, is something Lip may never fully come to grasps with. And neither does Ian, even if he says otherwise.

“We might be getting a dog,” Lip says after a while, pausing before he sinks his teeth into a cheese stick.

“No way!” Ian smirks at him. “Look at you, perfect American family and shit.”

Lip snorts at that. He and Tami are pretty damn far from perfect. “You not thinking about getting a pet? A friendly rottweiler for Mickey, perhaps?”

“No. First, I gotta talk him into having another kid.”

That takes Lip by surprise. He knows Ian absolutely adores his little girl, his mini ginger twin that everyone got to call Toe, short for Tomato, but he also knows the whole story behind how she came to be.

“Oh, yeah? You’d like another?”

“Yeah,” Ian admits, and as his eyes drop to his lap where his fingers fiddle with a paper straw, Lip realizes he sounds ashamed about it.

“Not as easy as poking holes in condoms with you guys, huh?” he jokes to release the sudden tension.

“Hah. No.”

“You told Mickey yet?”

Meeting his brother’s eyes again, Ian gives a noncommittal shrug. “I hinted.”

From experience, Lip knows that hinting in Ian’s case almost exclusively means Mickey is fully aware of his intentions and just chooses to ignore them before Ian confronts him head-on.

“Hopefully, you’ll have another girl,” he tells Ian after a quiet moment filled with children’s high-pitched screams and the steady screeching of a swing set. “It’s a lot more physical with boys. These two are already fighting like we used to.”

“Doesn’t really matter when you’re raising a Milkovich,” Ian remarks before yelling: “Hey, Toe? You wanna have a sip of your juice for me?”

The girl waves at them eagerly as she slides down the bendy chute. Getting to a run right as her feet touch the ground, she comes to a jolty halt in front of them, taking a good, hard look at the juice box as if only now realizing what’s expected of her.

“No, thank you,” Toe then peeps and skips off again.

“Polite,” Lip appraises.

Ian gives a low chuckle. “Fuckin’ weird, huh?”

“With Mickey as her dad? A little.”

They watch the kids play for a few minutes. Ian offers to exchange a cheese stick for three grapes, and Lip negotiates it up to five before agreeing.

“You think he’d be against it? Having another kid?” he asks Ian mid-chew.

“I mean, I wouldn’t blame him, after all the shit with Terry. Maybe with a second kid, he’d think there’d be twice the damage he could do. Dunno,” Ian surmises uncertainly. “I know how hard it was for him to even want a kid, and I get why he was scared. Don’t get me wrong, I’m shitting myself every day when I think of the ways I could fuck this up. But he’s a great dad. You saw him with Toe. She’s obsessed with him. The way she laughs at everything he says makes you think he invented comedy or something.”

Lip’s aware that their conversation turned sort of serious once again, but he can’t help not breaking into a smile. “Sounds like you’re kinda jealous of your husband there, Ian.”

“Oh, I hate his guts,” his brother confirms, only partially kidding. “I’m a fun dad, too, you know.” As if on cue, a figure coming their way catches his attention, and Ian nods to where his daughter’s playing, telling Lip: “Okay, watch this.”

Mickey gestures at Freddie with a finger to his lips, coming around the slide just in time to catch his daughter in his arms with a victorious roar.

“Daddy!” Toe announces the good news to everyone around with a loud squeal.

Ian gives his brother a pointed look.

“Fuck, man,” Lip huffs with mock seriousness. “You tellin’ me she loves her dad? What a nightmare.”

“Yo, lunch ladies.” Mickey suddenly approaches them with Toe at his hip. “How ’bout less chit-chatting and more kid-watching? Think I’d remember if I left my kid with a giant fuckin’ bruise on her forehead this morning.”

“Yeah. She’s had a bit of a scuffle with Alvin earlier,” Ian says, reaching out to soothingly rub Toe’s calf as if said scuffle and the tears it brought weren’t already long forgotten.

“The hell’s he doin’ fightin’ someone half his size?!”

“She started it!” Lip counters weakly.

“Okay.” Mickey’s mouth hangs open for a minute before he finds his figurative footing again. “I guess she had her reasons for that. And you should teach your kids to not fight dirty.”

“I go play now,” Toe informs him then, putting a stop to his rant and his bad mood in one go.

“Yeah! You do that!” Mickey replies as he puts her down, matching her level of enthusiasm. She heads for the extensive pirate-ship-like construction this time, watchful cousin Freddie already on her heels, and Mickey drops heavily next to his husband, letting out a prolonged groan into his hands.

“Tough day?” Ian asks needlessly.

“Igor’s a fuckin’ idiot.”

“Told you he was.”

“And I agree, so drop it, a’ight? Hey, by the way.”

“Hey,” Ian echoes before they exchange a quick kiss.

Mickey notices the juice in his hands then and perks up. “That raspberry?” he checks after he’s already snagged the box for himself, taking loud slurps from it to get every last drop. He finishes off with a belch. “Fuckin’ love raspberry.”

Lip finds that anything he’d say at that moment would only spoil the natural fucking beauty of it, so he just appreciates with a private snicker.

“Daddy! Daddy!” Toe yells from the top of one of the pirate ship’s smaller slides. “Come play!”

Mickey pats at Ian’s thigh. “That’s on you, man. I’m beat.”

Putting his fun-dad face on, Ian heaves himself up without a complaint. “Hey, jellybean! Do you think your dad can fit on the slide, too?”

Toe shakes her head vehemently, giggling as she watches Ian jog toward her. “No, daddy! No! No!”

“What, you don’t think I can?” Ian asks again, halfway through his climb up on the board. “Well, take off your socks now because they might get blown off! I’mma fit!”

“Daddy!” Toe howls with laughter as he bumps his head on one of the low railings.

Beside Lip, Mickey imitates the reaction, both his hand and the phone he’s holding with it to record a video visibly shaking. When he notices Lip staring, his grin falters a little.

“These two jokers,” Mickey complains after he ends the recording. “She always laughs at everything he does like he invented comedy or some shit.”

Lip answers with a knowing smile, his chest feeling full of warmth.

Seriously, how the fuck did they get here?

#toe fic 🍅 #my fics #gallavich fic #shameless fanfiction

[yespolkadotkitty]

Take What You Need

A special treat for the lovely @keeper0fthestars - a flimsy excuse to get railed into next week by Francisco Morales.

Warnings: SMUT. Porn with a flimsy nod to plot. Word count: 2300

Thanking @alwaysbethewest and @songsformonkeys​ for the beta!!

“All right! You heard the man, wheels up in thirty!” Redfly shouted across the small airfield. “Catch some sleep, eat, do whatever, but I want us all in that helo, in thirty.”

“Copy that,” Pope shouted back, heading off towards the thick bushes surrounding the hangar and aircraft. Ironhead followed, probably to try and talk some sense into him. Ironhead had always been the most sensible of you all.

In fact, it was William who had spoken up for you when Pope suggested you come along.

“She’s good with a rifle,” Ironhead said calmly. “And her Spanish is decent. Way better’n mine and Benny’s, anyways.”

Redfly - the infuriatingly traditional conservative middle-class American man - had ummed and aahed, and you knew it was because you had a vagina. 

But here you were, and you’d taken out two of Lorea’s guys from the roof with your rifle, so Redfly could suck your metaphorical dick.

The man in question loped back to the other side of the airfield, towards Pope’s informant, and started to talk to her about something.

“This is a clusterfuck of epic proportions.”

You turned at that voice. A little raspy, a little husky-edged, it sent a shiver up your spine. Always had, and probably always would.

Francisco Morales shook his head when you turned to look at him. His ballcap - dirty, soft - was pulled down low over his head. Hair the colour of milk chocolate curled out from underneath it. He met your gaze, and his own hazelnut eyes were so, so tired.

“It could’ve gone better,” you agreed, letting your eyes trail down his long, lean frame - a little soft in the middle, but you’d always liked his tummy.

Francisco - Catfish to you all, because during special ops training, he’d caught one almost the size of himself - was an enigma of a man. Soft, sometimes. Hard, sometimes.

You’d known him five years now, and during that time you’d seen him pull the trigger a foot from a man’s head without wincing, and you’d seen him comfort a three year old girl left homeless in a war zone, his voice soft, his touch gentle. The yin and yang of him fit, somehow.

Catfish scoffed. “Not sure how it could’ve gone any fucking worse.” He ripped off his cap, and your eyes were drawn to a deep cut on his cheek.

“What’s this?” You automatically reached up to touch his face. His tanned skin was rough under your fingers as you traced the edges of the healing wound. “It might scar.”

Francisco grunted. “Like that’s a concern right now.”

You grinned, dropped your hand. “It’ll be sexy. The scar, I mean.”

“You think?” He laughed without humour, wrung his cap in his hand, and you saw how drawn his starkly handsome face was, the patchy scruff around his jawline grey in places. God, had you thought about kissing that almost-beard, stroking your fingers over his bristly chin. “I wish being sexy was what worried me most. I’m fuckin’ losing my shit here. The scales are off the charts, the helo will never make it to the ocean-” he swore a stream in Spanish, and stuffed his hat back on. The frustration steamed off him in waves.

“Fish.” You braced your hands on his shoulders, looked up into his face, twisted with anger and fear. “We’ll be okay. We’ve had worse than this.”

“Yeah, but we’ve never had worse with you,” he bit off, shrugging off your touch and pacing away, shoving his cap back on, his hair curling at the edges. “Jesus fucking Christ, if anything happens to you, I’ll-”

“Fish!” You shout to be heard over the noise of the aircraft prep, the wind, the sound of Redfly and Pope’s informant arguing. “Nothing will happen to me. You saw me take out Lorea’s guys. And I saved your ass on that mission in Istanbul.”

Francisco shifted, adopting that hands-on-hips stance he always did when he was thinking. “I know.”

“Then what? I’m not a porcelain doll, Francisco.”

And you saw it. His eyes went hot when you used his full name. Hot and sort of.. Dark. Like he wanted to drag you into that hangar and bend you against the corrugated metal wall and rail you into next week.

And boy, you’d let him.

“What?” you challenged. He needed this release. Whether it was shouting at you or whether you wrestled until the fight had gone out of him, he could not fly that helo with your lives and that money at stake in such a state.

He muttered something in Spanish. Your command of the language was very good but his voice was pitched too low for you to make out the syllables.

“Oh, you wanna go?” You lifted your fists in a mock fighting stance. “You ever hit a girl, Morales?”

“There’s always a first time,” he gritted out humourlessly.

You danced around, goading him. “Maybe you’re afraid I’d kick your ass.”

Fish scoffed, and you could see the tension in his shoulders, in the line of his back. He was a loaded powder keg, seconds from a bloody explosion from the heat, the stress, the shooting. “Stop it.”

“Make me.”

You saw the moment his eyes changed - went dark again, and you turned, running for the hangar.

You heard him bark out a laugh as he pursued you, his long legs eating up the terrain. You ran flat out, reaching the hangar in under a minute, Fish hot on your heels. The minute he barrelled through the door you slammed it behind him.

“What the fuck?” he asked, confusion parading over his face - somehow even more alluring when he was dirty, tired, stressed.

You yanked him close and kissed him. It was the first time, and all the times you’d thought about kissing him, an inaurgural kiss, it was never like this. It was in your shitty home town, under some trees, or under the bleachers of the old high school, or by moonlight at the drive-in.

It took a second, and then Francisco was kissing you back, his lips fierce, hard, the kiss almost painful in its intensity. He tasted of terrible coffee and the beef jerky you’d all forced down, and you licked into his mouth, tangling your tongue with his, and the flavour of his little groan was divine.

“We don’t have long,” he whispered harshly. “What - what do you want?”

Your breath was coming in pants. He smelled of clean sweat, the outdoors, and the spring rain, and you were wetter than you’d ever been. This close to Catfish, you couldn’t cope with the well of desire, too long ignored. “You can’t fly us like this, Fish. In this state.”

His hands clenched on your hips. “What?”

“Relieve the pressure.” You slid a hand down his body, cupped him, felt his erection like steel in velvet. Your blood fired. “For us both.”

“Shit.” Francisco leaned down, rested his forehead against yours. “I’ve fucking dreamed of this. But not… not like this, like you’re a cheap fuck. You’re not. You’re… everything.”

The words shook you, and you pressed your lips to his, drinking him in, loving him, like you’d loved him nearly five years, and always been afraid to rock the boat.

Well, now the boat had run aground and it was time.

“You can show me that when we’re safely back on American soil, soldier. For now…” you yanked him close again, pressed your palm to his cock. “Take what you need. Give me what I need.”

“Fuck,” he bit off, and then he was kissing you like a starving man falling upon a banquet, all tongues and teeth and Frankie, and you pressed as close to him as you could.

“How long do we have?” you panted out.

He shot his cuffs, checked his watch. “Quarter hour.”

“Then make every minute count, Morales.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he breathed. And he got on his knees in front of you, pulling at your jeans.

Your heart leapt into your chest at the first brush of his breath on your bare legs. Frankie rolled the denim down, ghosted a kiss over your underwear.

“You would not believe, baby, how often I’ve jacked off to the thought of having you,” he whispered.

“Fish, if you don’t do something, I swear to God…”

He took off his cap, passed it to you. “Wear this for me.” After you slapped it on your head, he pulled your hand back down, thrust it into his hair. You tugged him close as he yanked your underwear down and proceeded to fucking feast on you.

You’d never experienced Frankie like this. Near feral, his tongue licking at you like you were his last meal, his favourite food, a longed-for treat. He used his hands - hands you’ve wished were on you, inside you - to spread you so he could spear his tongue inside you, nip at your clit, write his name with his tongue, whatever the fuck he was doing, it felt like Heaven. 

“Stop. Stop,” you whined, pushing at his hair. “Want to come with you inside me.”

He looked up, those cocoa eyes dark and hot and irresistible, and then he was on his feet in a hot second, and he spun you around to face the wall.

“Hold on to something, baby,” he muttered against your neck before he sank his teeth into the sensitive skin at your pulse point, the tiny hurt only making you wetter.

The sound of his belt buckle being undone and the shove of the denim down his thighs was loud to your ears.

“Please,” you gritted out, arching your back.

Frankie slid a palm down your naked butt, and you heard the growl in his voice when he said, “Sweet girl. When we get back on US soil….” And then he positioned himself and slid home in one smooth, hard thrust, and you gripped the hangar wall hard and cried out at the pleasure and the stretch. He kept going until he bottomed out, curses in English and Spanish falling from his lips in that husky baritone made for pure sin, and then as you groaned in satisfaction, he curled a hand around to your front and rubbed you in maddening circles.

“We don’t have long,” you warned, muscles already fluttering.

“Fuck. Won’t take long. You feel too good. You’re so fucking tight. How - how do you-”

“Fast and hard,” you instructed, and you felt him twitch inside you at your words, heard his moan. “I wanna feel you tomorrow, Francisco.”

“Oh fuck,” he grated out, and then he pulled almost all the way out before slamming back in. The force was just what you needed, and you cried out at the wonderful pressure, the push of him inside you, the texture and shape of him. Better, harder, larger than you had imagined.

You spread your legs as much as you could given the  denim around your calves, and Frankie fucks you hard, keeping one hand on your hip and the other at the apex of your body, strumming you expertly.

“Wish we had more fucking time,” he rasped into your hair, pressing a frantic kiss there. “Sweet girl. You feel like heaven. Always.. Knew.. you would.”

“The things I’m gonna to do you when we get home,” you shot back, and pressed your hips into him. “Oh God, more, please.”

He upped the tempo, and the sound of your bodies slapping together was obscene. His fingers circled your clit once, twice more, and you flew off that sweet cliff edge, crying out his name and burying your face in your elbow to muffle the sound.

Frankie’s hips faltered as he gave you all he had, thrusting into you at a punishing pace before his hips stuttered.

“Two minute warning!” Ironhead yelled from outside.

“I want to feel you come inside me, Fish,” you whispered over your shoulder.

“Fuck.” And he tumbled over the precipice too, hips shaking. You felt him jerk inside you, felt the hot surge of his climax, and he pressed down hard on your clit, triggering another little orgasm for you, too.

“Jesus. Fuck.” Frankie leant his forehead on your back, panting. “Christ.”

“You gotta get some more swear words, Morales,” you said, but your breath hitched too, and you wiggled your hips, making him shiver.

He pulled out, zipped up, and then took care putting your clothes in order. When he tugged you close for a kiss, you tasted yourself.

“First fucking chance I get,” Frankie rasped, his lips in your hair, “I’m gonna take my sweet time doing everything I want to you. With you.”

“Then get us over those mountains, Francisco, and I’m yours.” You nip at his bottom lip, then sprang apart when Redfly yanked open the hangar door.

“Fuck’s sake, Fish, we thought you’d gone AWOL. It’s go time.”

“Copy that,” Frankie shot back. You let him leave first, glanced down to admire his ass in those jeans. 

And you thought, with single-minded determination: We just need to get over these mountains. Then Francisco Morales would be all yours.

Redfly looked at his departing back and then turned to you, eyes narrowed. “Why are you wearing Fish’s hat?”

****

Tagging the Pedro pals: @emmy-dandiliom918​ @thirstworldproblemss @cinewhore @poenariuniverse​ @keeper0fthestars​ @scarlettvonsass​ @casually-introverted​ @knittingqueen13​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @10-96dispatcher @buckstaposition​ @agirllovespasta​ @songsformonkeys​  @gamingaquarius​ @mstgsmy​  @synystersilenceinblacknwhite​ @dornish-queen​ @maxphillipswasright @winters-buck​ @mourningbirds1​ @pascalitomorales​ @mrsparknuts​ @alldatalost​ @abuttoncalledsmalls​ @mrschiltoncat​ @auty-ren​ @heatherbel​

it’s 10.45pm my brain has failed if I left you off I apologize!!

#catfish x fem!reader #frankie morales x fem!reader

[deadinside-butstill-horny]

The Night We Met

Part One - The Night We Met

Pairing: Javier Peña/ Female Murphy!Reader

Words: 5.3k

Summary: Murphy's sister travels to Colombia after realising Steve might not quite be A-Okay and meets the Javier Peña.

Content Warnings: 18+ Smut-ish (I wouldn’t wanna read it out to my mom), dry humping, dirty talk in Spanish which reader doesn’t understand so does it really count?, gratuitous love of the black shirt from the torture scene.

AO3

MASTERLIST

Author Note: So here is my return to writing! The word count got away from me but I loved every second of it. Always after prompts, so drop me a message on here if you'd like to see anything in particular. If it's in my wheelhouse, you'll definitely see it.  

Pedro in the black shirt in this scene is what inspired me to write this, I can’t lie. 

If you were brutally honest with yourself, this spur of the moment decision may have been a mistake. 

Other people could make these choices and not have that nagging feeling in their gut from the second they booked their fuckin' airline ticket. You had attempted to grab life by its metaphorical horns and go and sort this shit show out by yourself, but after your momentarial bravery was used up, all that was left was a crippling anxiety that threatened to send you into a full scale panic attack if you thought too hard about the fact you were following your big brother to Colombia.

Yes, Colombia. You, a U.S. national with no particular interest in hunting Pablo Escobar, had decided to vacation in sunny, crime ridden Bogotá on a whim. 

You were fuckin’ dumb. 

Sarcasm aside, you weren’t actually here on vacation, you were going to check on Stevie. Your brother, one of the DEA agents assigned with taking down Escobar. 

You’d been worried about him for a few months, it had sounded like he was dealing with heavy shit in South America, you knew that was the job, but he was still your brother.

His calls had gotten less and less frequent until he stopped returning them all together and the only reason you knew he was alive were your pep-talks with your sister-in-law, trying to help her keep her shit together, but hell, you weren’t a therapist or a miracle worker. So when Connie rang asking to stay at your place you had obliged and she had returned to Miami a mere shell of her former self. 

After a mammoth amount of prodding over the course of two days you managed to wring the truth out of her, not the nuggets of information she had given you over the phone in hushed whispers during her time in Colombia but the whole messy story; the communist Elisa Alvarez, Steve’s kidnapping and the cold edges your brother was developing. 

It was all you could do not to book the tickets there and then, but you held out and supported Connie in the ways Steve couldn't have, taking care of Olivia when you could and just trying your hardest to be there for her. Your presence alone seemed to be enough to help her through the days that followed.  A week and a half after her return, you booked your flight to Colombia in secret. 

You had to check on Steve. 

He hadn’t answered a single one of your many many calls. You packed light and told Connie the morning of, and whilst she didn’t like it, she understood. You supposed that a part of her was relieved to know her husband would have someone in Colombia that wasn't there to kill him. 

So here you sat, two hours into your flight to the paradise destination; Bogotá. Your brother's address scrawled on a scrap piece of paper in the one hand and a glass of cheap whiskey in the other.  The alcohol did little to to calm your nerves, this was a dangerous place for a cop, let alone a fuckin’ clueless civilian. 

When the plane finally touched down, you stood from your seat emptying the last few drops of whiskey which had tried to evade you onto your tongue, you picked up your backpack and queued to leave the plane.

The second you left the aircraft the humidity hit you like a brick wall, it was like all of the fresh air had been sucked out of the atmosphere. On a normal evening you would appreciate such a warm climate, but now the heat meant frustration to your tired brain and it only added to your baseline levels of anxiety as your hairline and upper lip were drenched as you walked through the arrivals gate.

Cards on the table; you didn’t have much of a game plan, you spoke no Spanish and stuck out like a sore thumb. You had the address but no means to get there, you didn’t relish the idea of getting in a taxi as a woman alone in a foreign country, but with little to no other options you went to hail one of the cabs that sat outside the airport.

Your fears turned out to be for naught, well not quite naught as the man had raked his eyes across your body for a large percentage of the trip in his mirror, but he had the good grace not to kidnap or murder you, which for you meant it was a successful journey, how low you had set the bar was just occuring to you.

After paying the gentleman he dropped you outside what appeared to Steve’s apartment building. You take a moment on the pavement to recollect yourself ready for your reunion. Peeling your denim jacket off, you decide instead to wrap it around your waist, tying the sleeves securely. With a harumph, you grab the handle of your suitcase, and drag it behind you. Your success thus far gives you a second wind of determination.

Though apparently dumb luck can only get you so far, because after heaving your suitcase up a flight of stairs and rapping on the door of apartment 20 until your knuckles ached, it began to dawn on you, you had no clue if this was even the right building.

“Fuck.” you mutter to yourself, you should’ve rang Connie or tried Steve again when you landed, but you’d been so single minded in carrying out your plan all common sense had apparently abandoned you. So with a million different scenarios of things you could’ve done better playing out behind your eyes you dragged your suitcase to the small lobby of the building, where the front door stood.

You huffed and dropped onto the bottom step in surrender, not quite sure where to go from here. 

Weeks of anxiety and worry finally took their toll on your body as reality set in, and as it did so you couldn’t help but laugh at the sheer stupidity of the situation you’d put yourself in. A light chuckle escaped your body as you held your face in your hands,you rubbed at your eyes as a way of refreshing yourself before sighing and leaning back.

You must have sat with your head in your hands for around three hours before anyone of note arrived, you had received strange looks from residents in their comings and goings as they stepped around you, your expectant looks turned to disappointment when you realised they weren’t Steve. In fairness, you, a gringa sitting on the stairs at 2am, most likely wasn’t a daily occurrence to these homeowners.

By the time he came through the door, your eyes were closed and your head was leant on the bannister, trying to get what little rest you could. Your eyes opened a crack to see a man and a woman enter the building and turn right, the man had his arm around her as he stared at you in confusion, the look was so quick you may have missed it if you blinked, but they were talking in low whispers of Spanish and from the looks of things he didn’t give you a second thought. 

So you extended him the same courtesy and shut your eyes once again, you heard the metal jangling of keys going into the lock, the sound of smacking lips and then the door was closed. You figured that was the end of it, instead you heard hurried footsteps coming towards you, your eyes shot open as he rounded the corner.

“Estás bien?” The man questioned. It took you a moment to realise he was talking to you, as you took him in you were struck by your stupidity, how could you have dismissed this man so quickly even in the throes of a mental breakdown. His chocolate brown eyes bore into your own as you realised he was waiting for a response. 

“Uh… no hablo... español?” you pretty much asked him, cringing internally at your butchering of the most basic sentence of this gorgeous strangers language, his lips quirked at your mumbles making his mustache raise on one side with his smirk. Now, you’d never been a fan of a mustache, Steve and your father had both taken to styling their facial hair in such a way, and as a rule of thumb they were a big no-no. But my god. This man made that mustache his bitch and that bitch worked for him.

“You’re American?” He questions, smirk dropping along with his eyebrows in confusion as his brain processes the information.

“Oh thank god and Jesus fuckin’ christ above. You’re American!” Your timid nature had given way to pure unadulterated relief. “Stevie, Steve Murphy, he lives in this building, yeah?”

“Yeah… Stevi...Steve lives here- I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” He asks with a puzzled look and a shake of his head, there’s an air of distrust about him for some strange reason. 

“I’m Y/N Murphy, I’m his sister.”

“Sister? Mierda... does he know you’re here?” 

“Nope,” You pop your P as you shrug at the man before you with false nonchalance. “He’d have to answer the phone to me or Connie to know that now, wouldn’t he?”

“Steve.” The stranger sighed, annoyed. 

“Sorry, who are you?” You asked, yourself becoming more bemused by the man by the second. 

“I’m Steve’s partner, Javier.” He held out his hand which you were more than happy to take in a shake, his tan hand was soft yet strong as it held your own captive within it. “C’mon in I’ll give him a call, God knows what time he’s planning on getting back.”

“Uh, I don’t want to interrupt…” You mumble, waving your free hand vaguely towards where you knew the woman was waiting for him, making him smirk once again. 

You were beginning to think that the sarcastic raise of his mouth was just his default resting face.

“You’re not interrupting anything.”

Now I know what you’re thinking, ‘cause I’d think it to. This is how people die in America, let alone fuckin’ Colombia, but if it's a choice between dying at the hands of a gorgeous man who seems to know your brother or a stray that wonders in through the non-descript lobby door then you’d rather go out with a nice view, even if he did have a girlfriend.

If you had to gamble, you’d say you had a damn good chance of making it out of this apartment alive. 

So you nodded and used the hand he hadn’t released yet to pull yourself up into a standing position. He wasn’t particularly tall but he still towered over you, your eyeline gave you a great view past his black shirt which was unbuttoned quite liberally, you assumed that was courtesy of the woman he’d entered with. 

“Thank you,” you nodded at him with a genuine smile of relief. He didn’t reply, only grabbed the handle of your pull along suitcase before extending his arm towards his apartment and motioning to wordlessly say, after you. 

Now you know how people say when you can feel a stare? You had the sensation before, but as you leaned over to pick up your backpack from the bottom step, you felt his eyes laser focus on your denim clad ass. You turned your head in disbelief and found his eyes still lingered there for a moment before meeting your own. Unbelievable. Part of you was flattered, the other part was bemused that he had a beautiful woman in there waiting and here he was ogling you.

You rolled your eyes, instilled with a new confidence as you turned and walked towards his apartment, you felt his eyes follow your form once more. 

Steve’s hot partner was an ass man... Good to know. 

...

As it turns out Javier’s girlfriend, or what you we’re starting to think was more of a one night stand, was not happy with the situation at all, you came to this discovery as Javier pointed you to the sofa before beginning arguing with her in hushed Spanish, the beautiful woman huffed and sent a dirty look your way before storming out and slamming the door behind her, with enough power to make it shake in its bearings. You raised your eyebrows at Javier from your seat. He shook his head with a sigh and began lighting up a cigarette, he turned and offered you one. 

“No thanks, I quit.”

“Woman with an iron will?”

“Not quite,” You whisper, shaking your head.

He smiles before clearing his throat and moving over to pick up his landline. Javier presses a combination of buttons, before putting it to his ear and blowing the smoke from his lungs. His eyes met yours as the phone rang, he gave you reassuring wink. 

“Murphy? … Yeah…  you need to get back to your place now... You’ve got a guest.... No … come find out why don’t you?” Sarcasm dripped from his lazy tone, his voice was so smooth. It was like chocolate on gravel, you could listen to him talk for hours, which led your mind down that deep dark hole of what he sounded like during more carnal acts, he’d be a talker, for definite, what with all that confidence and swagger. “‘Kay… I’ll see you soon.”

Shaking your head you centred yourself, it had been a dry patch for you. You needed to calm down and not throw yourself at your brother's partner, even if he just so happened to be the first man you had any interest in to show you attention in months. 

“He’s on his way,” He confirmed what you already knew but you liked hearing him speak so you nodded in thanks. An awkward silence filled the air for a few moments, as you two perfect strangers shared one another's company.

“Drink?” He offered pointing at the bottle of whiskey on the counter.

“God, yes.” You all but moaned at the offer. Javier chuckled, and grabbed a second glass from his cupboard, before pouring you both a generous serving.  He walked around the back of the sofa, and passed you the glass of liquid gold and took a seat next to you. Close enough to initiate something, but not touching, quite a respectful distance. 

Initiate something? God Y/N, get your mind out of the gutter. This poor man had only invited you in because you were his partner's sister and he was doing the decent thing. 

“Uh… The television work?” You ask, pointing at the empty screen.

“I didn’t realise you could speak Spanish…” His voice was dripping with false surprise, mocking your earlier attempts at the language, though he reached across and switched the box on with the remote, he began flicking through the channels so quickly he almost gave you a headache.

“Oh yes, I’m very proficient, I just didn’t want to intimidate you earlier. Hola Señor Javier.”  You say continuing his ruse. He chuckles at your words, it's a deep warm noise that shakes his entire frame. You were definitely thinking about adding Javier’s voice to your top ten list of favourite sounds. 

He flicks through the channels, for a few seconds before sighing and dropping the remote in your lap. Taking your assignment seriously, you sit up, bringing yourself a few inches closer to the man next to you, purely accidentally of course and begin flicking through the channels as Javier had done moments before, though 3am TV scheduling left a lot to be desired. 

News, News, Colombian QVC, News, News, Soap opera. Bingo!

“Ah, now we’re talking.” You mumble, eyes stuck on the screen of the Colombian Soap opera playing. The two of you sat in silence once again as you slowly sipped on your drinks watching drama play out. 

You watched in silence for around ten minutes, not understanding a single word of what was being said. The scene was on two latino actors sitting in a bedroom. The woman was sat on the bed being confronted by the man in a serious tone. 

“What is she saying?” You question narrowing your eyes at the beautiful woman's tone. Javier, who had been watching your reactions the whole time as you got into the awful tv show scrambled as he tried to listen and translate the woman's words.

“Uh… her dads an alcoholic and she’s trying to support her son… that guy didn’t know about the son... I think… she was happy living a double life without the worry and she wants him to forgive her and start over…”  Javier translated, giving you the general cliff notes.

“Oh shit,” You gasped at his words, but your attention diverted to the screen where the two had continued their heated argument and began kissing or rather where the man was devouring her neck, “I’m getting vibes that he might be open to forgiving her.” 

You chuckled at your own joke, as did Javier. Though this time when his body shook his bare elbow touched your own. 

How was he so goddamn warm? 

All he was wearing was a black button down shirt. One that looked to be the wrong size it was so tightly fitted- not that you were complaining about the view. My God, were you horny today.

You took a gulp of your drink, trying to refocus for the third or fourth time this evening, trying so desperately to reign in your inner school girl and focus on the television, though that didn’t help as the actors were now eating one anothers faces on a bed. The silence was thick with tension, though that could’ve been entirely on you; one innocent touch of a man's elbow and you’re a blushing mess.  

Get a grip Y/N. 

The silence dragged on as you pretended to watch the soap opera you had absolutely no understanding of in a futile attempt to ignore the man next to you. You can only imagine what he thought of your levels of focus on the tv, as you stared at the box in the corner of the room like it was the greatest cinematic masterpiece of all time and you were getting ready to write a full-scale analysis on the work of art. 

Javier broke the tension in the room by finally asking the question that had been on his lips all evening.

“You came all the way to Colombia... Why?” Javier grabbed a cigarette off of the coffee table, placing his drink where the carton of smokes had been. He lit the stick and waited for your response, honestly, you were thrown. The question had come out of nowhere whilst you were still trying to analyse why exactly this man had such an effect on you when he was doing nothing but being a good host.  You hastened to think up a half coherent reply before you just answered truthfully. 

“Steve stopped answering the phone, I mean he’s always been shitty at checking in, even when he was in Miami. When he got here we’d have a catch up every week or so, we all know how dangerous it is for you guys over here, so we joked about calling it ‘the alive check’. For the last couple of months, I was checking in with Connie more than Steve but he’d still pick up once every week, without fail. Then four weeks ago the fucker stopped answering my calls all together and Connie showed up on my doorstep with Olivia in tow last week.”

“Look, you coming down here probably makes more problems than it solves, Steve’s a big boy if he doesn’t call to check in, it's probably ‘cause he’s busy...  He’s-” Something about Javier’s dismissive tone rubbed you the wrong way, call it sleep deprivation or blame the weeks of stress, but you were tired of being called paranoid. You were not an overbearing mother hen.

“My brother always answers my calls. Or at least he used to. I can’t begin to understand what you guys are going through, but I’m not losing my brother to some piece of shit Colombian drug dealer.” 

Javier raised his hands in mock surrender, cigarette still in mouth. “He’s actually more of a drug lord slash narcoterrorist, but-”

“How is he?” You interrupt Javier’s attempt at diffusing the situation with humor, turning to him on the sofa. You rearranged yourself, bringing your leg up so your knee touched his thigh as you gave him your full attention,  you plucked the smoke from between his lips and held it between your two fingers as you spoke. “Tell me Steve’s fine. Tell me I’m worrying for nothing and I’ll get back on that plane and leave tomorrow morning."

You take one drag and offer it back to him, he accepts it, deliberately looking you in the eyes as he places the cigarette in his mouth, attaching his lips to where your own had been seconds earlier.  He takes it from his mouth and stubs it on an ash tray that rests on the arm of the sofa, his focus is single minded on his task. The pressure in your lower stomach is mounting as you stare at the tanned man before you who is carrying out a menial task that has you more turned on than you’d ever admit. 

When the red tip is extinguished thoroughly, taking much longer than you thought it needed to, Javi turns to you, his mahogany eyes have you pinned in your tracks. You found yourself admitting they were gorgeous for the second time this evening, they were the type of brown you could never quite describe, they had so much depth, not quite a chocolate, not quite coffee, they were rich and deep pools. They reminded you of the forest, not the green leaves but the earthy brown, the strong beams of wood that held everything up around it.

Javier's hand emigrated forward slowly, your eyes followed the movement in your peripheral but you didn’t dare look away from the pools of molasses as he reached to grip one hand at your denim thigh, his eyes roamed your face for any sign of this being an unwelcome approach and when he found none his other hand began its climb to rest on your jaw, just below your ear.

You couldn’t say if you moved towards him or if he advanced on you, all you knew was he was on you now as the tips of your noses rubbed against one another.

“Quiero saborearte…” He whispered so lowly you barely even heard it before he leaned in that last inch and captured your lips in a single, chaste kiss. Your lips connected and you realised the heat you had felt from his arms had been nothing. Fire coursed through your veins upon contact, surging through your blood and going south to a pressure that built in your lower stomach. 

Your hand shot up to land on his collarbone, before you could even really consider your own actions you pulled apart until your foreheads were the only thing touching.  He was intoxicating, you could lose yourself completely in this man, he somehow smelt like cinnamon, whiskey and sweat, a combination you’d never thought would send liquid fire through your central nervous system.  You’d give anything to taste him properly, but this was wrong. So so wrong. This was your brother's partner, this was inviting complication to your door, when you were just here to check on Steve. You were here for Steve.

You were here for Steve... 

“... This isn’t a good idea.” You all but whisper, closing your eyes. Regret pulses through your veins at your self imposed restraint. 

“Never is.” He leaned forward and captured your lips. You didn’t have any fight left in you, exhausted and at wits end you embraced your spiral into stupidity instead and your hands glided across the clammy skin of his neck to grab at his short ink black hair. You wrapped your fingers around it to drag him closer to you, your lips clashed, all teeth at first but you didn’t care as his tongue began to fight against yours for dominance. 

He tasted as good as you imagined, he was the right combination of sweet and bitter, with undertones of whiskey and tobacco on his tongue. Your response to his assault on your mouth told him it was go time, Javier pulled you into his lap and his hands lowered to your ass. Your body was flush with his own as your breasts pressed against his chest, you could feel every solid line of his lithe body against your own. 

You licked at his honied tongue, before withdrawing and pulling his bottom lip into your mouth and sucking on the soft plush skin. His mustache tickled your upper lip, a sensation you weren’t used to but could so easily grow to love.  This made him tighten his grip on your backside in response and he let out a throaty groan at the meat he found there, Javier was definitely an ass man, you felt his bulge pressing against your core as you both began grinding against each other in earnest. You felt like a horny teenager as you grinded on a man you barely knew. 

You felt him grip at the bottom of your tank top and begin to lift it, except he stopped, and began to rub patterns on the stomach he exposed. Javier’s mouth descended from your lips to begin to suck and lick at your throat. Your eyes rolled into the back of your head at his work as pleasure rippled throught your body. His hands slid the length of your body to grab at your chest, which conforming to every stereotype was heaving, he palmed your breast blindly as his face was still buried in your hair, sucking and kissing along to your ear, before he raised his mouth a mere inch and whispered  “Te follaré toda la noche niña.”

He said it with such surety that your body convulsed in on itself without even needing to know what the man above you was saying. You could only hope it was absolutely filthy and profanity ridden, because then at least, the sentiment would be shared. He bit at the lobe of your ear before his hands left your breasts and travelled to the hem of your tank top, getting ready to pull it over your head.

It was strange to say that you remembered your brother was on his way here as a man tried to take your t-shirt off, but that’s just the way it went. You knew if that top came off, dry humping would be the most PG action of the night and if Steve turned up and found you mounted on his partner, he probably wouldn’t be too thrilled. 

You couldn’t stop yourself from stroking the man's hair whose face was planted in between your tits as his hips rose against your own pushing his hardened length up against the seams of your jeans, you gasped as he hit that sweet spot. You let out a noise that sounded like a wail. You wanted nothing more than to lie back and let this man have his filthy way with your body. And you know, from the hour you’ve spent with this man it would be phenomenally filthy. The kind of sex that would ruin all men for you, but no. You had to be a good sister. Like a fuckin loser. 

Sighing, you threw your body sideways before you could change your mind and ended up on your back. Javier followed you, caging you with his frame as he covered your body with his own.  Gripping your face like he was a starving man and you were the only sustenance he’d ever need. It would be so easy to get lost in him, to give in to that magic tongue but you couldn’t let this go any further so you placed a hand on his chest.

Taking your cue he paused his tongues assault on your mouth and stopped, resting his forehead against your own. You were both breathing heavily trying to come back down to reality, his eyes were no longer the chocolate brown you’d been comforted by when you met, but rings of obsidian staring into your soul. You wanted this man, my god you did. But this would make more problems for Steve.

The two of you stayed that way for a while, foreheads and bodies pressed against one another until both of your breathing evened out. The silence dragged, heavy in the air as you two strangers both waited for the other to break it. 

“...Is Steve okay?”

“...No... He’s been fuckin’ mess ever since Connie left.” Javier sighed whilst closing his eyes and breathing deep. You raised your hands from his chest, which was difficult as he was crushing his body to yours and cupped his cheek, you joined your lips once more, much like the first kiss. This was sweet and there wasn’t a carnal appetite behind it but rather an understanding. 

The loud knock on the front door startles you both as you’d been so wrapped up in one another you’d not heard the steps leading to it. The two of you split apart like a pair of guilty teens caught in the act. You both stared at each other for a second before he nods at you and walks to the front door whilst rearranging his bulge discreetly in his jeans, this was something you pretended not to see as you sat back up right on the sofa. You had only a moment to fix yourself, as you pulled your tank top from where it was hooked by your breasts and ran your fingers through your hair so you didn’t look like you’ve just had the ravaging of a lifetime. 

Javier pulled open the door and you clutch your hands into your lap, not quite sure what kind of reception you were about to receive from your brother. You hear the two men greet one another in hushed whispers, you couldn’t make out Steve's voice much until you hear his voice clear as day “...what the hell was so important it couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

You stand from your spot on the sofa and quickly realise the button on your jeans is undone; if you’re honest you don’t even know how he managed to do that without you noticing, even though it's not the time you take a solitary second to commend Javier on his artistry of disrobing a woman. Turning quickly you pull the rivet back through the hole and swing around as Steve crosses the threshold from the hallway.  

Steve looks from you, to Javier and then back to you once more in complete surprise. It takes his brain a hot second to process that you’re here in front of him and in Colombia before he rushes you. Clutching you tight and hugging you to his chest. You hear something that sounds suspiciously like a sob leave your brothers chest before he collapses into you. The front door and Javier’s bedroom both in rapid succession, giving you the privacy you knew your brother would need after breaking down like this.

You couldn’t support Steve’s weight with your considerably smaller frame and the two of you fell to the ground as you held your broken brother. His body shook with silent sobs as he buried his face in your shoulder.

You said nothing as you held him and stroked his hair. In that moment you thanked your every instinct that screamed at you to come to Colombia. 

This had definitely not been a mistake. 

Part Two

#javier pena x reader #javier peña x reader #narcos fic #pedro pascal x reader #I LOVE THE BLACK FUCKING SHIRT #narcos fanfiction #javier peña #murphy!reader

[pennyserenade]

tags: nameless female oc x javier peña, nameless female oc x javier pena. rating: e ( explicit ) warnings: smut, language, talks of violence, unprotected sex, heavy angst, mentions of death, guns, pregnancy.  word count: 3k+ summary: not everything can be spoken the way it can be felt.  notes: i somehow managed to do this despite feeling entirely unmotivated all day, so that’s nice. this takes place during episode 3, season 2, near the halfway mark.   original gif by: @javierian

una guerra sin piedad 

scene eight, scenes from a marriage

Javier is a good husband, or at least he tries to be. He doesn’t mean to do this--probably doesn’t even recognize that she knows he’s doing it. He is faced with so many objectives in a day's time, Javier doesn’t realize how easy it is to catch on to his lies. They are hardly coated, though, obvious to anyone who pays attention to him as much as she does, but that’s just it--he doesn’t pay attention at all.

He’s unaware that his fingers are shaking right now. It is a subtle act, a tremble hardly notable to the untrained eye, but these are the fingers that have been touching her for twelve years; she has seen them and felt them and come to know them better than her own. They have remained steady and nimble even after too many cups of coffee and one too many pieces of harrowing news, because they are trained to be fingers that don’t give way to anxiety. A stone body, a man meant to be unflinching in the face of the most awful of tragedies, but here with her, it allows his lies to leak out without his consent. It’s pleading, this body, asking for respite because he won’t go easier on it.

She holds his hands, keeping them steady before they can reach out and lay flat against her growing stomach. Javier looks at her and confusion sprinkles across features that are too pale to be normal, even to him. His eyes reveal an undeniable sadness, too, some sort of impact from war that he’s on the verge of losing simply because he refuses to ask for help. He is all alone in there.

“Me estás mintiendo, Javi,” she tells him, voice level and collected. “Te mientes a ti mismo también.”

He looks startled, and perhaps it is warranted. The glass case he enclosed himself in wasn’t so transparent or frail to him, after all. 

He takes his hands away slowly. 

“No,” he responds. “About what?”

“No sé. Not completely,” she shakes her head. “That’s why I said it.”

“I’m not lying about anything.”

“Javi.”

“What?”

“The cigarettes.” 

She watches his face fall. 

“You smoke them when you think I’m asleep but I do your laundry, and I can smell them when you get back in bed,” she shrugs. “You don’t hang out the window far enough either, and you always get ashes on the ground.”

“I can’t quit,” he confesses. “Not now.”

“I never asked you to.”

“Yo sé, pero…” he begins, but falters. “I wanted to.”

“I would rather you smoke than you lie.”

“Okay, but that’s all,” he confirms. “Only the cigarettes.”

“Javi.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

“You of all people should know withholding information is just as incriminating,” she huffs, “I’m stronger than you ever give me credit for. You aren’t the only one who sees the blood in the streets, you know. I saw it too, still do, because we live here and that’s the reality and I’m sick of having to deny it.”

“Baby,” he groans. “Please. I don’t ever ask you to postpone these things, but I cannot do this tonight. I cannot.” 

“What happened tonight, Jav?”

He shakes his head. Lips straighten into a tight line and his Adam’s apple bops. 

“It was nothing.”

“Please,” she pleads, in the same vein as his own. “You don’t know how bad I need to know what is happening in your mind.”

“Nothing.”

His eyes start going blank again, despite the small smile he forces onto his lips. It has gone quicker than it had come. 

She frowns. 

He senses that his control over this situation is ebbing away. Lies, denial, the cruel act of simply not telling—it oozes out of him. 

Deception ages poorly, if this is anything to go by. It is grotesque what the truth can do to something beautifully fabricated as their marriage has been the past few months. Those tiny cuts that had existed before are now bloody wounds, infected with the spoils of their selfishness.

He cups her face in his hand; she lets him. He swipes the pad of his thumb over the warm skin, and looks into her eyes; she lets him. He leans forward to kiss her; she does not let him.

She’s never done that. It hollows him out, digging deeper in the already sensitive heart he’s carrying around.  

“Te amo mucho,” she begins, taking the hand that cradled her face in her own, “but you are hiding from me and it hurts to see.”

He face twitches, as if he’s going to say something, but he grows hesitant. He realizes what he might lose, realizes what’s at stake. 

It is not that she hasn’t seen the violence, or that he thinks her too weak to handle it. He knows what she can bear, knows that before he ever met her she was reporting on what he found. Anyone in Colombia, reporter or not, knows, because this is what happens. Violence. She can’t not know. 

What she can avoid knowing is his involvement in it. Withholding the truth is just as incriminating, she is right, but she’s been here long enough to know that crime runs rampant. It infects the entire country with its allure—that promise of getting to better places faster—and he is someone who has been swept dangerously up in its tide. 

She does not need to know. Some things shouldn’t be told, just as those things shouldn’t have been done. 

Doesn’t need to know it had been a boy. Just a fucking mouthy kid who had been washed into a war he didn’t deserve to comprehend let alone contribute to. 

The gun was held by someone who should’ve protected him, too. Noble American hero he was, Javi stood by and watched. He hadn’t even wanted to tell Steve—was coerced out the way he refused to be with her. 

He swallows harshly and thinks once more about the line of English he muttered before it had happened. It was a plea the boy wouldn’t have understood or grasped, said because deep down Javier knew what was about to happen. He didn’t say it in Spanish, though. He has to reconcile with the fact that the plea was more for himself than it was the boy with the gun in his face. Has to reconcile with the fact that he won’t speak about it again, too, even though he knows it’s wrong. She doesn’t need to know that, does she?

“I’m not going to tell you,” he speaks with a harsh finality. Maybe it’s not so harsh; maybe it’s just the fact that it’s so final that really hurts.

She holds her breath, the pain of his answer sharp and sudden and irrevocably real regardless. 

“I can’t,” he repeats. 

There’s no way he doesn’t know he’s hurting her now, and she supposes he’s doing this for a good reason, but the ache of it still burns just as bad. 

“I know,” she says. Then, a sacrifice, “S’okay.”

Javier’s eyes shift down to her stomach. He has found an increasing need to keep his hands and arms wrapped around her nearly all of the time lately. Given, he has always loved the way she melts into his body when he wraps himself around her, but this is different; it is a sort of comfort that stems beyond liking the warmth of her. This is a need to protect. 

His feelings about the child still lean more towards confusion than they do anything else, but he’s begun to accept the fact that it is real. It’s hard to deny such a thing as her stomach begins to grow, but a part of him sort of likes knowing that it’s there now. He has given her something that isn’t pain, something that will be beautiful and innocent. He watches her, too, sees the way she holds her stomach and hears the way she speaks to it when she thinks he’s in a different room.

He remembers when she had told him that she was meant to be so much more than just someone’s mother or just someone’s wife. That felt like a century ago, those two people entirely different than the ones that lay here now and talk with each other. He doesn’t mourn for it, that time and those people, but he does think about them. 

She is still so much more than a wife and a mother, to be fair. Maybe she never accomplished everything she had envisioned when she had told him that, but there’s something so fiercely independent about her still, something entirely separate from anyone, even the one who grows inside her. 

She kept her last name. She reads all the time and piles books all over the house, adding personality in a way he never favored beyond his own shit until she came. She still writes. She’s compiled an entire record collection, full of artists and bands he’s never heard, and sometimes ones he has, the special sort that remind him of being a kid. She can sew. She is good at puzzles. She always burns her own toast but never his. She is good at oral because in the same way she had dedicated herself to a lot of things in life, she had also dedicated herself to learning how to suck a cock (her words, not his). She is filthy in a way that makes him ache sometimes, it’s so goddamn hot. She is kind. She is his everything. 

He isn’t happy or proud of the fact that he cannot find it in himself to admit what he has done. He knows she doesn’t deserve to be in a relationship filled with lies, ones so concealed she can’t even begin to find out what they are. Cigarettes are nothing in comparison to the things he witnessed tonight, and even those break her heart. 

His love for her is selfish, but it is still the very best part of him. 

“Let me touch you,” he whispers, hands ghosting lightly over her bare arms. “I just wanna make you feel good right now. Will you let me do that?”

She nods, and then, without him asking, she raises the slip she wears over her head, leaving her perfectly naked on top of him. He leans forward soon after and takes a nipple in his mouth. Her fingers rake through his hair as he runs his tongue against the sensitive flesh, but this time they do not tug. There is no rush or hunger in the way they are choosing to be with one other right now. Their bodies are too weak from emotional ware and tear, and their minds too numb from resisting the confrontation of the heaviness tonight has brought upon them. 

His fingers travel down to her core and when they find her clit, she pulls her back from her chest and kisses him, stealing a moan from his mouth. She breathes into him. After she pulls back, she rests her forehead against his own. Javi focuses more intently on her pleasure, measuring his success from the way her breath begins to quicken and the way her hips begin to rock up into his hand, desperate for more. He buries his face in the crook of her neck and she bites down gently at the skin of his shoulder, muffling herself as his fingers quicken the pace. She’s getting close, he knows. 

“That’s it, mi amor,” he tells her as she works herself on his fingers. “Use me, baby.”

It doesn’t take long until her lips part from his skin and find themselves letting out sharp moans, hips coming to a slow halt as she finishes working herself through the wave of her orgasm on his fingers. 

She presses her lips onto his, panting gently as she does so. When she allows herself to rest against him, he can feel how wet she is through the fabric of his boxers. 

He grabs onto the back of her neck and deepens the kiss. She wraps her arms around his neck and begins to rub herself against him, and he lets her for a few moments, enjoying what he can of her like this, before he rests a hand on her hip to stop it. 

“I want to taste you,” he tells her. She just looks at him. “Por favor.”

She nods, beginning to get off of him, but he grabs at her again, stilling her. Her eyebrows raise in confusion. 

“Sit on my face.”

“Javi, I’m too—“

“No you’re not,” he assures. He begins to lay down, pushing a pillow beneath his head. “C’mon, you like it.”

“Baby,” she hesitates. 

Javi tugs gently on her hand, urging her forward. She sighs, but caves in. 

He helps her, guiding her forward on his chest and she goes, but he can feel how nervous she is still.

He nips at her thighs before he adjusts herself over him. “I like doing this,” he tells her before he guides her forward the last few inches, and immediately he can feel all the tension ease from her as his tongue dips into her. 

She grabs a handful of his hair and licks between her folds, lapping up the last bit of her previous arousal. His nose grazes gently over her clit every so often and she cannot help the moan that escapes from her when it does. He is losing himself in her, transforming all the lies into nothing even for the briefest moments. 

He may not be the best husband, but he can make her feel good. He likes it too, genuinely enjoys the taste of her on his tongue and the accomplished, satisfying feeling of knowing he makes her legs weak and is the cause of the moans that part from her when she truly gets lost in this. And God, how they fall now as he sucks her clit. She unintentionally moves her hips forward. 

“Sorry,” she says, but Javi is quick to gently shake his head, not wanting to lose her. His hands wrap around her ass and he encourages it, going as far as moaning into her when she begins to develop a good pace. He gropes at her ass and she cums again, twitching gently this time. Javi cannot help the grin that forms on his lips as she does this. 

She guides herself off of him, collapsing next to him in the bed. Before he has the chance to wipe her arousal off his lips, she’s pulling him into a kiss. 

She loves this man. He may hurt her and hide from her, but she never feels unloved in his presence. Maybe that is enough. Maybe asking for any more than that is wrong. He is a good man. 

She kisses a trail down his chest, moving back in between his legs before she reaches the halfway point. 

“No,” he says, holding out his hand. 

“Why?” she questions.

“You don’t need to just because I did,” he says. “You don’t have to touch me at all.”

“I want to, Javi,” she tells him, hands shimming down his underwear. 

She kisses down his happy trail, then peppers light kisses around the base of his cock. His breath hitches, anticipating her next move, and he is delighted to find it is her tongue licking the underside of his sensitive member. He nearly jolts out of her hand, the sensation of her feels so good. 

He cannot help but tell her, saying, “Fuck, you do it just right.”

Despite all the ache still present in her, she manages a soft, unaffected laugh. He notes that, feels just as moved by that as he does the way her mouth wraps around his member and begins to be worked. 

She twirls her tongue around the top each time she comes back up, and she moves back down slowly, drawing multiple moans and “fucks” from his lips. He cannot look at her while she does it, unable to refrain from coming in her mouth if he does. He’s already dangerously on the edge as she includes her tongue when she’s going back down on his choke, running across each vein and causing his hips to twitch just as hers did. 

“I’m gonna—“ he pauses, fighting the urge to release with all he has in him. “I’m going to cum soon and I want it to be in you. You—“ he pauses again, breath leveling, “—you gotta stop or I won’t make it.”

“I don’t want you to,” she manages, before returning to his cock, going up and down at an increased rate. His fingers clench the sheets beneath him as she does this, losing it when she moans against him. He can’t stop it, can’t resist the urge any longer and doesn’t truly want to, knowing she’s not going to let him. 

He opens his eyes and watches her wipe a line of his arousal from her chin before she swallows down the rest of it. Tired and spent as he is, he still manages to rise from his back quickly to kiss her. He can taste himself on her lips, but he does not mind it. The kisses are not as lust filled, more tender and caring, and he is all the more pleased when she guides him backwards again, before settling next to him and wrapping one of her legs around his. His heart beats rapidly and his mind is not yet void of thought (he isn’t sure if it will ever be), but the tension between them has dissipated. Even if it is temporary, and even if it is something that is going to come back ten times worse, Javi values this for what is now and appreciates her submission once more into this fantasy land with him. 

She herself wonders, despite all the unspoken heartbreak, and despite all the unknown truths, what their baby might look like and what qualities it might possess from him as she lies silently next to him. Wonders because what she has learned is that the future is her friend and that imagining it does no harm.

It is a place where nothing is broken or harmed, the future. A place where she can cling to the vestiges of hope she’s granted even when he holds her and doesn’t tell her what he’s done or seen. It’s a place beautifully untouched by the unfair quality of truth and pain; a place where he stands in the doorframe of their bedroom with a small, newly born child and looks happy in a way she hasn’t seen in so long; a place where she will never have to fret about whether she will ever get that from him or not, because it is hers and she does. 

The future has always been kind to her, kind in the way the present never, ever seems to be. She clings onto Javi and even manages a sad sort of grin at the thought of a child who’s hair curls the same way his does when it gets too long. 

She doesn’t share these thoughts with him, though—hardly ever does—because she needs things for herself. Admitting these notions into the world is to corrupt them, or to corrode the meaning they have to her now. She loves him, but these are her thoughts the way whatever he battles are his. 

This is a scene of a war without mercy; this is scene eight from a marriage. 

javi tag list : @wyn-dixie , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @disgruntledspacedad , @melaniermblt , @walt-breslin , @theorganasolo , @amneris21 , @over300books

forever/everything tag list : @astroboots , @frannyzooey , @wyn-dixie , @rosiefridayrogersunday , @melaniermblt , @theorganasolo​ , @amneris21​

scenes tags: @gravegoth​ , @sarahjkl82-blog​ , @cmonkeepmoving​

#javier pena x reader #javier peña x reader #javier peña x oc #javier pena x nameless oc #javier peña x nameless oc #javier pena x female reader #narcos fanfic #narcos #pedro pascal #fanfic

[egyptian-sun-god]

Never Have I Ever (mildly critical lens)

1. BIG THING. NHIE is not a show that was made directed at me. Yes it has similarities with my heritage as Indian but I am not American. Not born there nor raised. I am a diaspora Tamilian though, and my schools throughout most of my life have had very little Indians and even fewer Tamilians in them. Usually its just me.  So while there is overlap, Devi and I would have innately different experiences and worldviews.

2. Why is her last name Vishwakumar and her Dad’s name Mohan? Where that coming from. Correct me if I’m wrong, but most to all Tamil people use patronymic's right? Like am I right or am I tripping? Someone correct me. I checked Mindy Kaling’s bio and she took her father’s last name so I might be tripping? 

3. Okay straight off the bat, Devi annoyed the hell outta me. Like no joke...I really dislked Devi. But she’s a traumatized teenager who has no common sense and too much hormones. I’ve seen ppl like her so I’m fairly happy we have a flawed and messed up portrayal of a POC and doesn’t feed into the idea of perfection. But also Devi’s mom is suprisingly lenient to Devi’s disrespect man. like I see why but woowowowowo....she’s uncharacteristically tolerant sometimes. 

Now even though I get that Devi is supposed to be flawed and unlikeable. Because she is immensely selfish and bitchy with shitty communication skills. Devi’s friends forgive her waaay to fast. Like ladies, what are you aiming for? SAINTHOOD? Like at least let her grovel a little bit for being such a bitch. 

4. Love interest. Y’all heard me. WHY THE FUCK IS BOTH OF HER INTERESTS WHITE or at least definitely white passing. Like they did Paxton dirty man. Like was it too much? Was it too much to wish for Devi to have more Indian friends or like an Indian/POC love interest? I feel personally that it is such a weird precedent that has been set with POC centric love stories. And this definitely should be a critic that has come up before. 

You know which love stories resonated with me? Nalini and Mohan. Because it represented the possibility of like marrying someone (going off the assumption they were arranged to be married) and falling in love after marriage. A very real scenario for many many couples. Kamala’s entire shenanigan with Steve and Prasanth and having to choose between the uncertain boyfriend situation but losing family but keeping family and going with an arranged marriage. Also props to Kaling for not demonizing arranged marriages. Please please let season 2 explore Kamala’s struggle more. Hell even that one off thing with Eleanor and the tech crew boy was funny. 

5. Kamala’s whole character was many vibes. Because counting down and stressing about marriage is such a goddamn relatable feeling. I ain’t that much younger than Kamala and let me tell you the anticipation/fear is REAL. And like her talking in Ganesh puja and like weighting the options of being a social outcast or going with the arranged marriage and with the hope that like you’ll find someone cool.

6. I don’t like how Devi tries to reject her Indian culture and I really really hope they develop that next season or something and get her to find a balance. Because at the end of that season she did get a good talking to about trying to be Indian enough or too Indian and finding that balance but it doesn’t feel like she’s finding that balance and her being jealous of the other Indian girl does not bode well for me. 

ALSO THEY FUCKING MISSED OUT SO BAD. You make a series about a Tamil American girl and you don’t name drop any famous stars. Thala Thalapathy, Superstar??? VJS?? Surya? Dhanush? Nobody? Why? Like Devi doesn’t know them...makes sense. But like Kamala is from town right? She has to have carried some of that. Like that scene when she called them for a movie right? Why not name drop some famous ass classic like Baasha or Sachein or Roja? Like a cool nod to the Tamil kids out there watching this series to see parts of their culture and language included. Like even the soundtrack and songs have no Tamil songs? Like not even one for the heck of it?? WHY? IS THAT NOT SO SO MUCH MISSED REPRESENTATION? Like typical Tamil things like making a beat out of random shit, Tamil kuthu songs, Typical Tamil mega serials, food and enjoying food together. Like why wasn’t the food stated or name dropped. 

Personally, NHIE was really really really white palatable and it didn’t really get it into any roots of our culture especially for a girl struggling to find roots as in where she fits. Like you gotta show both cultures and let the audience and Devi figure out where she fits. If you show long Netflix shows like Pretty little liars, show alternatives like mega serials such as Chitti or Mudiyaathu Karuppu or Mettioli? Or if you wanna be more modern name drop Tamil webseries’s? If you wanna show English pop hits, show Tamil album songs and kuthu beats. IF YOU WANNA REPRESENT, THEN ACTUALLY REPRESENT. Don’t pull this generic ass BS on me!

5. I hope the lack of tamil culture in the series gets corrected next season somehow. I don’t have ANY ANY faith that it will. But I can be hopeful. Also I lowkey like that Devi has like a “rival” of another Indian girl. I don’t like that is is rivalry cause brown sisters gotta support each other and that’s sort of been the general motto from where I’m from. But like I get why and it would make complete sense. 

I really really hope that Aneesha is like super super Indian. Proud of her culture and brings a lot of her culture and its facets to discussions and not afraid to make her culture a focal point of herself.  It would be a really good foil to Devi and it might spark some thought into her and accepting or at least recognizing the cool shit about being Tamil. I wanna see that mainly cause I used to be lowkey ashamed for having a strong accent when I speak cause I was made fun of and I didn’t like having different lunches or listening to different music and not being part of the more Western culture. But I learnt to ignore that and became like 3000 times more proud of being Tamil and wore like traditional clothes to school, ranging from kurti tops over jeans at first and eventually wearing full on chudidaars and saris (saris to proms at least, I couldn’t wear a sari on a daily, half sari probably, sari would be hard). Bringing traditional sweets and food and distributing them to anyone who would ask and trading lunches.  Please let me see a brown kid who is proud to be brown and straight up in your face about it at times. 

(Unrelated but to Tamil/Indian ppl who had other Indian/Tamil kids in your school like was trading lunches or like sharing lunches common? Like its a pretty common Tamil thing to do and I brought that culture of taking some of everybody’s lunch and giving everybody a part of mine everywhere I went. But like was that a thing? )

#nhie #nhie season 2 #nhie spoilers #never have i ever #netflix #tamil representation #tamil #nhie review #critical analysis of shows #sorry y'all I have a lot of feelings about this show

[forbidding-souda]

Yo, this is not a typical request you get.

I was exploring the deaf community hashtag on tumblr because I’m trying to seek some advice on how to join the community, and actually do so. I was born with profound hearing in my left ear and moderate-severe hearing in my right. Of course “I’m already apart of the deaf community,” but it doesn’t feel that way because I was forbidden learning sign language growing up. I was forced into hearing. My left ear, profound already, was damaged by continuous use of a hearing aid that caused me to have chronic ear infections. I stopped wearing it by my own choice when I was 9, and thankfully my parents gave up pressuring me to wear it. My father tried to help me be integrated in the Deaf community when I was young, but my mother forbade it. She was the one behind most of the BS I dealt with as a kid. The thing is, it’s hard to integrate in a community where you can’t speak their language and were forbidden from learning. Ever since then I’ve felt out of place by society, surrounded by people who are ableist towards Deaf people. Calling me “psychopathic” for being irritated by the lack of accommodations for Deaf people. I hate it. I don’t want to be apart of the hearing culture anymore. So, what I’m asking is, do you have any tips on leaving the hearing community and joining the Deaf community? I’m learning American sign language, so I know that’ll help. If there’s any clubs or organizations for adult deaf people to meet each other, please let me know.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this.

WAS IT A HEARING AMPLIFIER??? BECAUSE I HAD TO USE A HEARING AMPLIFIER BEFORE I WAS ACTUALLY DEAF DEAF AND I THINK IT MADE MY HEARING WORSE LMFAO

and i'm gonna be real (obviously i don't know you or your thought process + i don't know if you already know this) it is extremely extremely rare for deaf people to be apart of the deaf community when they are growing up. Deaf people will understand and sympathize with your situation - I would just like to point that out.

There's DeafExpo (DeafNation?) that I go to (funny story one time I started speaking to someone instead of using asl because I am so used to talking and it embarrassed the fuck out of me lmfao it's one of my most embarrassing memories).

I know there are also ways that you can volunteer at Deaf schools, like working with Deaf kids and stuff (I think you could do it because you're deaf, a lot of Deaf people in highschool specifically who go to mainstream schools get offers like this all the time, I did too).

This site will help

On a social level I would say learn about Deaf movies and shit because god damn idk if it's a bay area thing but all the older Deaf people I know will look at you like you're crazy if you don't know like every Deaf Culture movie ever LMFAO.

The DeafLympics are on May first I think so if you wanna become a part of the virtual Deaf Community you can just go on twitter and live tweet while you watch it lmfao (like people did with the superbowl).

But yeah contact a Deaf school in case there are any local or in-state specific things going on! You can go to the Deaf school's football games to, I would do that even when I didn't attend the school. There are also very few Deaf schools like ever so if the one near you is like an hour away then... yeah </3. mine is at least.

I joined the Deaf community by going to Expo, talking to Deaf people online, and gaining many Deaf friends (and ki ki'ing with Wawa ooo) so that's the advice I can give personally.

-Mod Souda

#not an imagine

[danniburgh]

Rushingly Bittersweet (Javier Peña x f!reader) part 18

Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc//f!reader with name.

Summary: After the fall of Escobar everything starts happening way too fast for Javier; his raise, his new office, his new team, the Cali cartel’s operation, the sudden arrival of a new agent that was transferred to his team for no apparent reason, the way he was falling in love with her almost unintentionally.

And he couldn’t seem to stop any of that.

Word count: +3.8k

Chapter warnings: mentions of captivity, kidnapping and death, hints of misogyny, even more feels omg

A/N: This chapter is set in season three, episode eight. // look guys at this point its all plot lmao, so yeah... also, please, please get ready, next chapter is gonna be almost the double of words and feels so... just a heads up

ao3 // fic index // Masterlist // fic playlist

comments and reblogs are eternally appreciated 💓 let me know if you wanna be tagged

←previous // next→

gif: @bratdjarin ​ 

The time after that call went faster and faster. 

You found yourself running through the embassy hallways along with Feistl to let the ambassador know Javier had Christina Jurado with him, then assuring him she would be safer staying in your house, making sure Feistl backed you up so Crosby wouldn’t be a pain in the ass and asked you if you could handle any strong situations that may concur while she was with you.

Then you went and made some arrangements to get another field agent to be your second as Feistl and Van Ness still had to fix their own shit. By the time you finished running around, Javier was back.

The office was almost empty, spare from Stoddard furiously typing into his computer, from the entrance you could see Javier standing in the middle of his office with his arms crossed on his chest and Christina Jurado sitting in front of him in the loveseat, both in complete silence.

You almost ran through the bullpen when you saw him, crossing the doorframe to his office and throwing yourself at him.

“Fuck, you’re okay,” you whispered, wrapping your arms around his neck and fisting his shirt while he let out a soft oof. Javier let himself embrace you back, letting his arms down and around your waist, you shoved your head in the crook of his neck, not caring that he smelled like sweat and smoke and gunpowder and death. 

You didn’t want to ask him what he had to do to bring back Christina, and you were sure he wouldn’t tell you.

Javier let out a heavy sigh when he felt you finally inside his arms again, for a moment he forgot where he was and let himself breathe you in and out, using you yet again as an anchor to the real world.

You broke the embrace and cupped his face, making double sure he was unscratched, making double sure he was whole, making double sure he was good, at least physically.

He didn’t hold your gaze; he was looking behind you and you turned around.

“Christina,” you muttered, she looked up at you quizzically and for some reason that you didn’t want to dive in at the moment, you wanted to hug her.

There she was, a gorgeous, brave woman who had spent days in a place you were sure was worse than hell, with people that didn’t care about her, sitting there in one of the safest places in Colombia, just waiting for her fate to happen.

You couldn’t stop your brain for comparing and making parallels of your life to hers; she was the wife of a narco accountant; she had been living under the radar for a long time and she seemed to hate it, she merely loathed it and everything that had to do with what her husband was doing; and you, unmarried, oddly loved and chasing down the guys that practically paid her bills. You were about the same age and yet your lives had taken deeply different paths. And both of those paths had brought you both there. To a shitty office in an american government facility in a country neither of you had been born in, looking into each other’s eyes, relating to each other on more than one level.

For a moment you let yourself think what would’ve happened if you would’ve been the one that talked to her instead of Javier. It was a horrible thought; it was terrible to think and utterly useless, but maybe, just maybe, some things wouldn’t have happened.

“Hi,” she whispered, her voice was deep and quite hoarse, she leaned to rest her hands on her legs and you stepped towards her.

“I’m agent Martín, I’m gonna be with you until your flight tomorrow morning,” you explained to her, and you saw her let out a sigh, as if she was more relieved with you there “I’m gonna take you to my house so you can clean up and get some sleep, if that’s okay with you,” you saw her look at you with precaution and pondered the answer, then she just nodded.

“Is Javier gonna come?” she asked, bewaringly, you looked at her attentively and she glanced at him behind you for less than a second. You knew she had seen what he did to get her out of the place she was in and you understood, with the way she was sitting and staring at everything but him, that she wasn’t really fond of the methods.

“No, he’s not,” you assured her, feeling the deep stare of Javier in your back. Christina deflated slowly and breathed in, as if relieved, you stretched your hand to her. She looked at it and then looked at you for a few seconds, deciding if she would trust you or not, you tried to give her a reassuring smile and she took your hand, standing up, “have you eaten?”

“No,” she looked at the floor as you guided her to the door. You turned to look at Javier and he was frowning at the way you were managing the situation. You didn’t need to read his expression or his body language to know he just felt guilty because he didn’t have the same rapport in him. At least not anymore.

He wanted to ask you what the hell were you thinking to take Christina out of the building, but instead just looked at you, trusting you would at least read in his face how insecure about it he was feeling. You shook your head once and gave him a hard stare. He stiffened, and tightened his jaw, then mimicking you and nodding as well, knowing he had to let you do your part.

“Let’s get you some food as well,” you muttered to Christina, who turned to look at Javier one last time.

“Thank you,”

“Don’t thank me, let’s go, someone is waiting for us downstairs and you have a flight early in the morning,” you said, pulling her softly a bit closer to you, as you both walked out of the office.

The next morning came by. You and Christina were sitting in the backseat of Javier’s suv, him driving and another agent sitting next to him in the co-pilot’s seat. Christina was looking through the window, watching Bogotá waking up with her arm curled around yours.

The drive was quiet but tense, and while you felt Javier’s staring at you through the rearview mirror, you remembered the conversation you had with Christina when you arrived at your place the night before.

“Are you Javier’s girlfriend?” she had asked you, sitting on the couch, waiting for you to finish talking with the other agent that had to spend the night at your door and settle next to her. By the way she had asked you could notice it had no double meaning, she was genuinely curious.

“You… could say that,” you replied, biting your lip to stop yourself from smiling, “we don’t really have a name for… this,” for some reason you didn’t know you found Christina really trustworthy. You reasoned that it was maybe because she was trusting you to take care of her safety until she could be in her own country, so it was the logical thing to trust her back. She sighed at your reply.

“I don’t think you really need a tag, y’know,” she had said, and you nodded. She kept quiet for a moment and then grabbed your hand, her skin was cold and her hands were shaking, “I also fell in love with a dangerous man,” she said, making your breath hitch.

“Christina…”

“Don’t let him do to you what being married to Franklin did to me,” she muttered, almost as in secrecy. You looked at her and wished you could just take away all the shit she had lived in all the time she was captive.

The sentence lingered in your mind and settled itself in that nagging part of your brain that made you overthink things. You didn’t know exactly if she was referring to the inevitability of danger into the jobs her husband and your… Javier had, or maybe something else.

She tightened the grip on your hand, bringing you back to the moment, and for a second she lost herself, staring at everything and nothing at the same time. You wanted to ask her so many things and make sure she was okay. You didn’t find the strength in you to take her out of her trance, knowing maybe that was just her way to cope with… everything. 

“I didn’t know if I was going to get out of there,”

“Christina,” you called her and she looked at you, still absentminded “I’m sorry, I have to ask, did they… do anything to you?” the question took her by surprise and her eyes watered. You could see she was already tired of crying and by that point she was past feeling sad. You watched her take her time to answer with expectation, and she shook her head, provoking your chest to fill with air, contented that at least they had spared her that one horror.

“No, they didn’t, but they wanted to,” she had muttered, making you shiver.

It amazed you how receptive your body was being to what she said. And yet again, you realized that you couldn’t avoid comparing yourself to her.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that, Christina,” you told her, putting your other hand on top of hers that was gripping you. She looked at you and narrowed her eyes slightly.

“Are you really?” her question caught you off guard more than you would’ve expected, she was asking again, genuinely, still having some barrier that wasn’t thrown for you, and you couldn’t blame her for that. You could see she still was scared of something or someone and you could also see that she was angry, not exactly directly at you, but angry.

“Of course I am, I was supposed to bring you to a safe place when you were… when they took you,” her trembling hands moved awkwardly and she stared at you “after Javi arrested your husband, he told me to go to your house and get you to safety, but when I got there, you called him and told him you saw cops and left,” you remembered the call Javier had given you after that, you still recalled the tone of his voice, desperate and frustrated, similar to the one Franklin Jurado had in one of his calls with Christina. You wondered if that could be taken as a parallel of your relationship, but decided not to go there, wasn’t really useful to keep comparing.

“That’s when he told me to go to the embassy,” Christina muttered and you nodded, her gaze got lost again and once again, you saw something inside her eyes that screamed and shouted even though she was sitting in front of you in almost utter silence. She was angry, so, so angry. And you couldn’t blame her for that either.

“I was actually waiting for you,” you told her, she sighed and you bit your lip again, “and when you didn’t arrive I just… I’m just really glad you’re safe, you didn’t deserve any of that,”

Christina shook her head a few times and took a deep breath.

“No, I didn’t” her reply confirmed what you were just seeing. You wanted to tell her so many things, you wanted to tell her that she wasn’t alone, that she was going to get through all the shit, that she was going to see her husband and that even though he was in jail, he was protected and she would be able to rebuild her life, no longer in the shadows, you wanted to tell her that everything was going to be okay… But you didn’t, because you didn’t know that. “what’s gonna happen to me now?” she asked, and for the first time since you’d been talking, you heard a tremble in her voice, hesitation, insecurity, and it didn’t suit her.

“He’s gonna fly you home, you’re gonna see your husband” you had said, trying to make things at least a little more bearable, but she just let out a huff and turned to you.

“Are you coming?” Christina asked, her eyes set in you. You weren’t sure if you had that kind of power.

“Do you want me to?” 

“Please”

After that you showed her the bathroom, gave her some of your clothes and almost forced her to sleep in your bed. Then, when you were sure she was at least more comfortable than she was when she arrived, you had called Javier to tell him she wanted you in the plane with her.

You arrived at the airport and Christina was escorted by you, Javier, the other agent that had spent the night at your place’s door, and two police officers. You got settled in a private waiting room and Javier made sure the only ones inside it were Christina, you and him.

“I’m really sorry for taking away your clothes,” Christina said, still grabbing your arm, you were watching Javier looking through the window of the room and turned to her, shaking your head.

“Don’t be, they look better on you,” you reassured her, feeling quite better with yourself for having her smiling at you, a female voice talks through the speakers and Javier turns to you, he captures back your attention and you give him a small smile.

“In less than an hour, we’re on that plane,” he says to Christina and walks to sit behind the two of you “your husband knows, he’ll be waiting for ya,”

Christina said nothing, she just squeezed your hand and you for once tried to be silent, not wanting to meddle in whatever they had, as the mood inside the room had changed and apparently you were the only one that could feel and almost see the palpable tension they had with each other.

“It’s all behind you now, Christina,” Javier muttered, you turned to see him with narrowed eyes and a quirk in your face that asked him if he really just said that.

“And you think I should thank you for that?” Christina rhetored bitterly at him, not even bothering to look at him, you turned to see her and realized who her anger was directed to. And you… understood.

“No, no I don’t” Javier deepened his voice at her.

“No, you think you’re a hero because you, what, executed a bunch of farmers to get me out so that my husband would testify for you?” Christina’s hand gripped yours harder and you tried to keep your calm. You could feel Javier’s gaze glued to your face and you didn’t turn to see him. Not ready to see in his face what you thought you had heard in his voice.

“I did what I had to do and I’m sorry for what happened to you,” your head snapped almost involuntarily at him, your eyes wide and your mouth parted in surprise. He tried to remain serious but he knew you almost completely and you knew him as well. You saw in his face that he really didn’t mean it, you saw in his face that he was only saying it because his ego was hurt. And you noticed in the way he was avoiding your eyes that he knew you already knew. Un fucking believable.

“No,” Christina looked at him and made a quirk that told you she really didn’t believe him, and you couldn’t help but notice the difference at the gesture her face made the night before, when you told her the same thing. You bit your lip to avoid popping out and ask her why she did believe you but didn’t believe him, but you were pretty sure you already knew why. “no you’re not, and you know it,” your gaze stayed in Javier’s face, in his thumb brushing his lower lip, in how his eyes looked at everything but you or her or himself, on how he had stretched his legs to the sides and left his hand hanging, and you saw it, one of his many faces but not the one you were expecting to see, not the one you wanted to see. The agent face. The police enforcement mask, one that showed, maybe even unconsciously, that he only cared about the operative, about the mission, about the main goal. Not about the woman that had lived through hell and he had pulled her out of there himself “you’re a piece of shit.”

Christina turned to the front, still holding your hand and your eyes were trying to get Javier to look at you.

Javier knew himself, he couldn’t bear to look at you because he knew you already had a pretty clear idea of what was going through his head and he was embarrassed. Because he knew you cared, he knew you cared deeply and he felt guilty that he didn’t care as much as you did, he felt embarrassed at the fact that he couldn’t bring himself to care. He wanted to, he really did, but he was just so damn tired.

Exhausted didn’t convey exactly how he felt, he didn't even know if there was a word that could fully express how he was feeling sitting there in the middle of an almost empty waiting room in an airport waiting to take a woman he had promised himself to take care of to convince her husband to risk his life and betray his employers.

Javier thought Christina was right, he was a piece of shit. A piece of shit that didn't deserve to look at your beautiful, ever understanding eyes.

Javier didn’t look at you, and you didn’t like the way he was acting. And for a brief moment you saw a flash of something running through his face. It was anger but wasn’t, it was sadness but not quite, it looked like pride. Was his… ego, hurt?

The time to board the flight came and you felt Christina relax besides you. The whole convoy of police enforcement was escorting Christina to the gate when Javier’s phone rang.

“Yeah,” Javier answered the call and you turned to look at him next to you, “yeah, we’re about to get on the plane, we’ll be in Miam–” he was suddenly cut off, he stopped walking and you did too, Christina saw you and turned to see what was going on “when?” he asked into the phone and a shiver went down your spine, the woman beside you felt your body stiffen as Javier finally looked into your eyes and with one single glance told you everything, “let me call you back.”

“What happened?” Christina asked, trembling next to you, as if she already knew the answer.

“He’s dead” you murmured, still looking into Javier’s eyes. You felt a heavy pull next to you and suddenly a pair of officers were next to you. Christina was collapsing on the floor.

Javier’s eyes fell to Christina as yours filled with unwanted tears. Why were you crying? you quickly tried to analyze what you were feeling and learned that it wasn’t really because of the case, the case and the trial and the testimony was all shit anyway, you knew it, but he didn’t.

It was because your mind was playing with the parallels. You related to Christina even if she didn’t relate to you, and now she lost her husband, while Javier was standing in front of you feeling guilty for all the pain he thought he had caused. You could see the irony, then the question was if you were about to lose Javier as well.

“She needs to go to Miami anyway,” Javier said to you a few moments later. You nodded. His eyes were in yours and he stole a handgrip from you “let’s go,” he said, aiming to walk away from the gate, you frowned at him, giving him a look that asked him if he was out of his mind. He felt a tug in his chest, knowing already you would fight his plea.

“Don’t leave,” Christina was being helped to stand and she grabbed your other hand, making Javier drop the one he had taken, you could see the hesitancy in his face.

“She’s gonna be escorted all the way back to Miami,” Javier’s tone was dubious, the way you were looking at him made him doubt himself for the briefest of moments.

“I’m gonna go with her and make sure she gets to safety” you said. Javier sighed at your willful tone of voice.

“Florencia,” he called and you tightened your jaw, you knew he knew better than to try and contradict you right there and then.

“I’m going,” your voice softened slightly and you turned to Christina “can you go ahead and board? I’ll be right behind you,” you reassured her, she nodded slowly and one of your partners helped her get to the gate, you turned back to look at Javier, noticing how much he was struggling to come up with something to say. “whatever that was, back in the waiting room, I need space from that,” you blinked your unshed tears away and he just nodded back at you, knowing exactly what you were talking about and understanding, begrudgingly, why you wanted to be away from him for a while “I’ll be back tonight and maybe we can talk,”

“I don't thin–”

“Javier,” you cut him off, shaking your head softly to stop him “I’ll see you when I get back.”

Your hand reached to his wrist and you gripped it as strongly as you could for a few seconds, his eyes seemed a bit lost and even though you knew he was having a thousand and one reasons to not let you go, to keep you in Bogotá with him, to need you with him, you had one strong reason to get away from him at least for a day.

One that made you feel hypocritical and traitorous; if he reacted with little empathy and pride to what Christina had told him, how the fuck would he react when you told him the truth?

So you let go of him, gave him a last stare and turned around to walk to the gate, board the plane and take Christina home. For the first time, while flying through the Gulf of Mexico, you had plenty of time to think about all the mess that you had gotten into. And your mind came to one conclusion: there was no way on earth that Javier would forgive you for what you were doing to him.

←previous // next→

pedrito's perma list: @queenofthefaceless​ @northernpunk​ @pascalesque​ @sleep-tight1​ @cheekygeek05​ @bii-aan-ckaa​ @letaliabane @starlightmornings​ @mouthymandalorianalso​

Javi's babies: @pulplorrd​

RushBit tag list: @shestillwrites1​ @absurdthirst​ @supernaturalgirl​ @alliterative-albatross​ @disgruntledspacedad​ @thoughtfulpandawasteland​ @wifeofdindjarin​ @lank-sextburg @the-ginger-hedge-witch​ @helloannbananalove​ @diogodxlot​ @pascalslittlebrat​ @sarahjkl82-blog​ @pedritobalmando​ @a-court-of-feysand-and-elorcan​ @mamacitapascal​ @dobbyjen​

#javier peña #Javier Pena #javier peña x reader #javier peña fanfiction #javier peña fanfic #narcos #narcos netflix #narcos fanfic #Pedro Pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #Jose Pedro Balmaceda Pascal #pedro pascal characters #rushingly bittersweet tag

[d-criss-news]

Actor And Producer Darren Criss Reveals His Creative Process

The producer, singer and actor talks his approach to songwriting, discovering his sound and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

We don’t know about you, but we’re currently experiencing the Bank Holiday blues. With the realisation that our days of summer maybe coming to an end were in need of uplifting sounds and singer-songwriter Darren Criss is keeping the energy going with his fun-filled EP “Masquerade”. Between the slick alt-pop productions and high-octane energy, the artist puts his theatrical abilities and prowess at the forefront of the EP. Laced with serene dance floor-ready melodies, the actor and musician instantly gets the party going on the project, kicking it off with “f*kn around”.

“The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven,” the artist revealed when discussing the project. “I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting.”

No newcomer to the scene, the artist has spent the past decade gracing our screens in the cult favourite Glee and the thrilling Assassination of Versace: American Crime Story. Wanting to continue his musical journey in the form of producing and writing, we caught up with the multi-faceted artist talking his growth over the years, staying creative in a pandemic and how he’s ready for the next chapter.

Check out the interview below now…

Hey Darren, how are you? How has this past year been for you? It’s a strange question to answer because everybody’s answer is so much more complicated than what you can say in a quick easy tight polite answer. You know, I’m well, as well as one could be given the situation. I feel, you know, luckier than most. Even with the music that I just put out there’s still more that I’d like to do, but I got to do even more than I thought I’d be able to. So that tends to be kind of the theme of the past year and a half. I feel like I’ve been so consumed by working on so many things for so long, that not a lot of people outside of my inner circle know about that. You know, it’s been a lot of high output but seemingly low visibility. So now finally getting to put out some of these things and talk about them… tipped scale of visibility versus output is hopefully having a chance to even out for a bit, to where the amount of work I’ve put in can somehow match that people you know may or may not know about what I’m doing. You know, I’ve been really busy. I’m the kind of guy where if you give me a white canvas it’s a more…I wouldn’t say stressful, but I’m more likely to fill up a blank canvas immediately with as much shit as possible – I guess that is more stressful than having only a few places to fit things in, and I usually keep pretty busy. Ironically when I’m really busy, that’s when I can get stuff done. Like you know that phrase ‘if you want something done ask the busiest person in the room’, and I think there’s a degree of truth to that because you know, the chaos kind of begets chaos, and productivity begets productivity, and in a lack of anything else to do it was like ‘I wanna do all these things!’ and then it gets really crammed, so it’s nice to be kind of simmering down from this overwhelming call to arms to get as many things done as I could with this new unprecedented free time that I had. So, in short, I guess, am well if you wanna use that! I feel, I’m just relieved that a lot of this stuff can exist somewhere outside of my head but it’s a complicated answer, I’ve been able to do a lot more than I thought I’d be able to.

With everything that happened last year, was your creativity affected? The time that it yielded is the kind of time that a lot of creative people fantasise about. Of course, we would have all preferred it in a very different way when you say ‘if only I had time to sit down and work on this’. I think we all have; I say creative people but we all say, ‘if only I had time to paint the kitchen, learn a language, get in shape’, you know do something different that requires a bit of time and focus. We were all given that golden ticket, of course take that with a massive grain of salt, I’m fully aware of the price with which that came, of course if we had the choice, I don’t think any of us would have wanted it to happen the way it did. But none the less, for those of us who did take the time to focus, to hopefully be productive and proactive with the situation we were thrown into, it was creatively beneficial to finally get to address things that had been sitting kind of on deck and dormant in my mind, and it was just a matter of having the time to give them any attention. One of the joys of jumping between acting and music is there is a battle of time commitment, because neither one is a thing you can do casually. If you’re acting in something, there’s a great degree of scheduling that really eats up a large chunk of your day. While I’m in an acting project, I’m writing stuff and playing music but the actual logistics of producing music is as time consuming as the acting. I am envious of people that can kind of just show up, sing a song and leave. I, unfortunately, am not that kind of person. Writing a song is only a small piece of putting music out. Production really does take a large part of my emotional and intellectual efforts, and I really dive in head on. And that’s not even mentioning the promotional side of it. So, it really does take a lot of time to dive into those things, and I was finally given that. If anything, it was hard to decide what part of my musical menu that I wanted to serve up. It just came to a matter of what felt right at the time, what seemed fun. I kind of wanted to put out something that was positive and fun, and unapologetically so. And something that really showed up for a side of me that I felt like hadn’t been represented in the past. The musician side, and unfortunately, we haven’t been able to perform these very much. We’ve done little videos here and there. Stuff that really showed my roots as a musician, a garage rock guy, a guy that really likes getting in the weeds of production. In the past I’ve put up things that are a little more analogue, singer-songwritey, and this is more me as a producer and a musician.

How did you first get into music, what sparked the interest? Well, I’ve been playing music my whole life, and not casually either. It’s such a massive part of my identity, and that’s one of the main driving forces of me wanting to put out as much music as I possibly can. These five songs on this EP are a small part of a much larger body of work that I’m dying to get out whenever I can. When you’re a songwriter, or just in general a creative person, you have more ideas back logged than your body can execute. This is only a small part of a much larger puzzle, and a lot of these songs, the ones that I’ve put out and the ones I’m still trying to put out, are ghosts that have been haunting me however many years., some more than a decade, some more than two decades. The reason I mention this is because I’m trying to illustrate how pivotal music and making music has been throughout my life. I started playing violin when I was 5, and that was a big part of my cultural education, learning how to play an instrument that is so dynamic and requires a pretty specific ear and technical ability. Now I’m not saying I was fantastic at the violin, but I think the training that I had on it from 5 until my late teens really shaped the way that I would create music and think about music, certainly as a writer and a producer, but with just how I would jump between other instruments as well, because the violin was such a great touchstone for me to end up taking up the piano or guitar, or drums, or other instruments that would really formulate how I create music. Between being the orchestra nerd kid that played a lot of music throughout my young life, and also being the guy that would play in bands, its just been such a huge part of my life. As I’ve gotten older and gotten to understand this other version of myself that exists in more of a public view, that has little to do with that I know, I have started to notice that person, that avatar of myself, isn’t necessarily associated with music. And that was troubling to me, so I wanted to rectify that.”

And now you’ve just dropped your EP, talk us through your mindset going into the project? If I was just a recording artist, and that’s all I did, I’d like to think that I’d have a much larger body of work to show for. I feel like a lot of songwriters feel this way. There is just simply too much music…now I’m not gonna say it’s all fantastic, there’s a reason you have to triage the ones that you think are the best at the time, and there are many songs that I feel would be outdated, they feel very of the time 10 years ago. But you’re always trying to put your best foot forward with the pile you have lurking behind you. So, it is a hard thing to decide which thing you want to put out. Killing your darlings is always a hard thing, figuring out which ones to really focus on is difficult and it usually comes down to who you decide to collaborate with – right before the pandemic was one of the most tumultuous times of my career where I was producing and acting in a show for Netflix, and I was also kind of show running, acting, writing music for, editing, doing everything for this other show I created called ‘Royalties’ on another platform. I was doing both at the same time, and one of the things that made this possible was the people that I would collaborate with. A young man by the name of CJ Baron who I produced and wrote this EP with, he’s sort of the midwife that I chose out of working on Royalties because we had a lot of great songs together. I keep referring to myself as a producer, but I do it from a much more cerebral space, whereas he is a much better technical producer than I am. We really shared a lot in common, so by the time I realised that I wanted to make a piece of music you have to decide ‘who do I want to go down this yellow brick road with?’ And when I decide with CJ, that kind of already hinted at the kind of music that I would put out because he has his own fingerprint, and so I thought there’s something that I have that might mesh well with that fingerprint, so that kind of helps the decision process along of what songs am I gonna put out. But in another world CJ wasn’t interested, so then I think ‘Okay let me try and produce an album with this person’, and that person would reveal a different selection of songs. I’m very open to seeing what the universe is allowing and pushing towards, and I kind of follow that northern star to figure out what songs I’m gonna put out. But the mindset was always ‘put something out’, on a completely pragmatic level. What did I want to have to show for if whenever we got out of this crazy, new age of ‘what does this pandemic mean? We have time to do stuff, when it’s over what do I want to sit there and say that I accomplished?’ And at the very least I needed to put out a few songs, so that was really my mindset – no excuses, this is the time that you used to hope for, and so what are you gonna do if you’ve got the golden ticket, you’ve won the time lottery – so don’t fuck it up Darren! That was my mindset.

You describe them as character-driven singles, why is this? The dirty secret is that every song is character-driven, I just chose wording that could perhaps aid people into understanding this exploration of genre, this self-aware exploration of genre a little more. For those people that only know me as an actor, I’m trying to guide them into this notion of music and songs being a form of acting. The number one question I always get it ‘which one do you prefer?’ and I always say they are the same to me. When I’m an actor I treat characters, characterisation of my voice and body, characterisation of how I deliver words like a piece of music. You’re scoring it the same way, there’s cadence, dynamics, volume, nuance, all kind of things that can make ‘a piece of music’ unique to a person. And that’s how I treat dialogue and characterisation. The other side of that coin is I treat music like I’m acting, like each song has its own character when you’re playing live or recording in a booth. You are donning the proverbial mask of that character and what it requires. I really wanted to keep people into this idea that at the end of the day, it’s all performative and all part of a narrative that don’t necessarily have to do with each other and the way that if you ask Alexa to play a ‘Jack Nicholson playlist’ it would be very disjointed. It would be like okay The Shining, that’s a vibe, and then it would go to As Good As It Gets, and that’s a completely different vibe. They wouldn’t necessarily be on the same playlist, but they are distinctly and undeniably Jack Nicholson. So I always thought that it was a bit of a double standard that actors can do this but in music, you know, I’m proud of this but it’s also very annoying – a lot of my songs would probably not playlist together on the same genres because you have more jazz songs, like a trip hop chill tune that might end up in the back of a Starbucks, but that wouldn’t necessarily go on the same playlist as a tune like ‘I Can’t Dance’, which is a crazy song because it doesn’t even sound like me, I’m literally putting on a different voice, I’m singing like two different people putting on an affectation. There’s a lot of things that are very different but uniquely and distinctly me. The word masquerade is a celebration of a lot of different masks, and in theatre we talk about ‘The Masque’, and how each Masque has it’s own style, history and culture, and I really love the genre, and I love Masques, and I love things that make them interesting, and celebrating things that make them unique, and really trying to maximise their effectiveness as a genre with whatever tools I have as an artist, so that’s really what I’m trying to go for, this whole character driven idea is – it’s all a masquerade.

It very much has a fun-filled vibe to it, was this your intention and why? I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I sat in a studio saying ‘Hey lets not have fun!’, especially during a time that was as fraught with a lot of troubled times. This EP was recorded during very troubling times, so I think I’d be delusional to think that whatever joy is in this EP was not some kind of reaction to that, trying to offer something positive is definitely my MO in life in general, so that’s always gonna bleed its way onto my records. Like it or not. The intention is to record things that can be effective. If the vibe you feel is fun, great. If you feel any vibe at all, whatever the fuck that means, that’s a win for me. If that happens to be the word ‘fun’ then awesome, there’s a lot shittier adjectives that can be derived from this body of work so I will absolutely take it. My intentions are again to try and honour the songs. When you write something it has its own magnetic pull, it has it’s own gravitational pull that you have to kind of follow. If a song sounds a certain way, you want the lyrics to feel the same way that it sounds, and you want the production to feel the way that it vibes for lack of a better word. All songs have different body types and dressing it up and knowing how to tailor it to accentuate the things that make it fun or sexy is really sort of a strange alchemy. It’s not up to me how people experience it, but that’s what makes it fun. Once you put something out into the world it’s up to other people to use their own adjectives of the suit you tailor. I’m always excited when it leaves my head and becomes somebody else’s experience. So hey, if it’s fun – great!

What do you want people to take away from the project? Obviously, I hope people enjoy themselves. Any musician or artist would hope that there’s some kind of memorable experience to be had from it. If I was talking about what I hope people take away from it, that doesn’t have to do with the music itself, I hope that every time I put out music it’s me broadcasting this notion that this is something that I do, and that this is a big part of my identity. I think the songs themselves and what they’re about and how they feel are less of an insight into my identity as the notion of me putting out music is, because I feel like for any artist your journey is a constant negotiation between how you see yourself and how you would like to be seen, and how audiences are willing to see you. And you know, sometimes that balance is not always even. Sometimes the way they see you isn’t the way you see yourself, and sometimes the way you see yourself isn’t the same as the way they see you, so you want to be somewhere in the middle. And ‘Masquerade’ is a huge step forward for me to try and represent who I am and what I’m about to folks who might not see that. So that’s the biggest goal I think with any release but particularly this one.

Who would you cite as your inspirations? I’m one of those people that, when I say that everything inspires me, I’m not trying to be cute. It’s a problem. It’s an actual scourge on my life, where I find everything interesting. I find everything inspirational. It’s such a core belief that I have that there is inspiration to be derived from every walk of life. Stuff like from a lawn chair to a Bach cantata, there are so many things that can be interesting and incorporated into some creative output. It’s just all about how you look at it and how you can perceive and understand where it comes from. There are so many things that are inspiring to me. Of course, this is the massive macro answer that you weren’t looking for, you’re probably looking for ‘what artist are you inspired by?’ I think I’m just inspired by people who are really genuine to themselves, and this is an ironic answer considering that I actually try to be as many different people as possible. It’s a strange thing that actors are celebrated for not being anything like themselves professionally. And musical artists are separated for being as close to themselves and putting their souls as close to the chopping block as possible. I think I’ve really found my niche as a storyteller. I’m envious of some of the great troubadours of history, that can put their souls out on the record for us and put their own personal experience into things. Leonard Cohen and Joanie Mitchell, and Carole King, more modern people like Taylor Swift who really can just bare their souls for us. I really admire them because that’s not a muscle I have. And when you’re an artist I think ‘Okay so what muscle do I have?’, and I think ‘Okay I’m like a playwright, I can make each story for these songs and try and bring them to life with as much accessible ability and reality, and as much truth as I can convey, that’s not to say they’re disingenuine, they’re born from a genuine idea but they’re supported by my background as an actor. Baring myself isn’t something that comes as naturally for me, I really admire those people and I try and perhaps emulate a lot of their song writing in whatever limited way that I can. Genres are inspiring to me, lets talk about song writing, and then there’s producing which are two different things to me, because when I hear music I hear chords, I hear melody, I don’t listen to the snare sample, but I always hear the bare bones and then I think about production. So as far as producing is concerned I think it’s really important to know all genres and to listen to what makes each one interesting and respecting those genres, and then when you are producing something yourself, and then taking from each thing by knowing why and how they work within that genre, so again to use a song like ‘I Can’t Dance’ which is a nod to late 70s/early 80s, somewhere between disco and new wave, I’m employing the things that make those genres fun, to me at least, and trying to smoosh them together in a way that sounds cohesive. So…everything is inspiring to me, it’s hard. But each song has a different source of inspiration, but they don’t transfer between all songs.

You’ve also wrote for animated series and for Glee, is the process different for producing? “This is actually a very good question. I think this ties into what I was saying before about writing for narrative is something of a calling that I think I’ve realised more recently is kind of where I can plant my feet more easily than any other type of song writing. I was mentioning the people that can bare their souls, some people have a really good ability of putting themselves out there but also writing as a satirist of character that he creates. The person that is a master of this is Randy Newman, he’s one of the greatest American songwriters of the 20th century. He has an amazing ability to create these scenarios or create first person accounts of people that aren’t actually him, but he can contextualise with his literal voice, his song writing voice, and make those their own sort of satirical version of himself. There’s a lot of layers going on there, but I’ve always thought of him as really excellent. He’s like a playwright with music, he’s writing musicals, I mean he’s won Oscars for writing music for narrative! That’s something that I’d really like to do – from a technical standpoint it’s actually very liberating because when you’re writing music with your name on it, you’re the artist, then there’s this sort of weird expectation that you’re trying to service which is why I like this idea of putting the mask on and separating the songs from my own personal experience, because I need to separate myself from my own experience of the music you’re hearing, at least on the surface. My big break was A Very Potter Musical, that I feel to this day are my biggest hits because I don’t really have hits, but as far as the songs that people know that strangers know of songs that I’ve written, they were songs that were written for characters. It’s a bit like painting by numbers. If you just write a song from scratch about anything, it’s like the canvas I’m talking about again. You can do anything, or go anywhere, and that’s overwhelming. Having parameters, knowing where the gates are, is extremely helpful, knowing when the deadline is, knowing how long your party can go for. It means you can maximise the space you know you have. When you write for narrative you go ‘this is the character’, ‘this is how they speak’ – so you already have your lyrical information there – ‘this is how they talk’, ‘this is the singer, the singer has a great range that goes from this note to this note’, ‘in this scene we need the character to go from point A to point B, and we want it to be a song that sounds like X’, so you create all these amazing little ingredients, and I look at artists like a service industry, I really enjoy servicing what the person or the experience requires. When I have a menu of ‘we want this, this, this’, it’s like okay great I’ve got you! A three-and-a-half-minute song that sounds like this song, but has to be in this key and has to be a duet, I really thrive on that. And it’s probably one of my more favourite versions of song writing. And usually there’s a deadline, so I can get it done! Because I need to get it done for production. I really enjoy coming back to writing for narrative, because I did that for Royalties with CJ, and when I realised how much I enjoyed doing that and how productive I was when I was writing for a narrative, that’s when I got into the idea of ‘I need to stop trying to bare my own soul in music’. I think if I treat it like I’m writing for a character, not only can I get it done faster but I feel like I can make things stronger. So that’s when I decided that’s what I’m gonna do for this next EP. Writing for other shows and characters is what helped me realise my strengths as a songwriter.”

What is next for you? What are you most excited for? “As I mentioned I think productivity begets productivity, and that’s exactly what happened with this EP. Even if the pandemic hadn’t happened and I didn’t have the time, I think I would have been just as emboldened from working on Royalties with CJ and it got me very excited about working on music and how much joy that gives me. Any artist will say the same answer, but I think by the time stuff comes out artists are already over it because they’ve been living with it for a year and a half, and in my case over a decade with these songs, so I’m always ready to move on and go to the next thing. Everything is a stepping stone, so I’m very happy that this EP is out, I think it’s a great representation of a lot of stuff that’s been unaddressed for far too long. I just wanna get going, it gets me excited about keeping the ball rolling as a songwriter or as a producer, I just don’t want this to be like ‘This is the thing I did during the pandemic’, I want to keep it going and be more proactive about keeping time aside for it, because that’s the name of the game. When you’re acting or doing music, you have to balance it with time, and this pandemic has shown me how much I enjoy spending time on music, so I’m gonna carry that on. But of course, as soon as I say that, that’s when something unexpected and something too juicy that I can’t keep my hands off it happens on the acting side. One learns to be pretty flexible, because as soon as I say one thing something else will happen, and that’s been the narrative for the past decade of my life. I hope to just keep going. I’ve been this lucky for this long so I’m not gonna pretend like I’m going to keep being this lucky. If I get to act great, if I get to do music great. I can’t believe I’m in a position where its like ‘oh if the acting thing doesn’t work out, I’ll just do music!’ or the other way around, it’s a highly privileged list of options, and I’m fully aware of that. So as long as I can have one or the other to fall back on, I will always be excited about option. It’s not always up to me, so we’ll see. Everything that I’ve put out is just a way for me to renew my lease with my ability to show up for myself as well as people that I don’t knows ability to be interested in what I have to do next. But I won’t flatter myself, I’m not gonna say that lease is forever, so I’m just trying to put in the time and work to keep it at the very least somewhat interesting.”

Photography - Amanda Demme

#darren criss #wonderland magazine #masquerade ep #press #sept 2021