#white numbers are their ages at specific times

[artsyhamster]

Rediscovered the Disco Elysium timetable I made for myself, and figured someone else might find it useful. maybe, lol

Dates are taken from the wiki, I hope I made no error

#disco elysium #white numbers are their ages at specific times #red text below is general stuff from the wiki was going on in those times #mostly made this for myself bc i kept confusing for how long jean and harry were partnered #and how long dora stuck around. because honestly wow she stuck around for longer than I thought

[bakugoushotwife]

blessing and curse

summary: yuuji is a wonderful boyfriend...you just wish he was able to fuck you... warnings: post shibuya, aged up duh, yuuji struggles with ptsd, night terrors, as well as anxiety, you both see therapists, oral (fem receiving), penetrative sex, fem!reader, pet names, (pretty girl, baby, cutie, etc), rough sex. wc: 3k a/n: this is my first yuuji piece nom nom nom i'm actually obsessed and soaking wet tbh i'm thinking thoughts for yuuji.........anyway to my lovely requester i hope you enjoy this <;3 jjk masterlist here

yuuji feels things very intensely. it’s a blessing and a curse, though the latter is more often experienced than the former. guilt, loss, regret–all things that nearly swallowed him whole while he fought for his friends and the people of japan–for the whole world. it’s so hard to be him, to live with what he carries on his shoulders–on his soul. he’s unloveable. he’s the one who caused all of the pain—things would have been easier if he died. there’s a number of people whose lives ended because of and for him. he was only just adjacent to a murderer. months after the fighting ceased and the war was won, he would wake up numerous times through the night with night terrors. he couldn’t even call them nightmares because they weren’t fabrications of his imagination. they were all too real memories that kept making their rounds–reminding him that he would be forever burdened with a layer of hell no one else could claim to know about. 

he met you in the waiting room of his therapist’s office. he remembers seeing you and wondering what you could be talking to his specialist about. it meant you also had to be a sorcerer—clearly he couldn’t see a normal one about his specific traumas and baggage, and apparently neither could you. he remembers not even knowing you and his heart still hurting for the pretty young girl that must be hurting like him. he remembers hoping that you hadn’t been through anything like what he had—the anxious voice in the back of his mind wondering if somehow he caused your pain via sukuna’s rampages or the destruction and death that followed him. he remembers you meeting his eyes on a seemingly unremarkable thursday afternoon, catching him in the middle of one of his staring way too long episodes. you narrowed your eyes and tilted your head at him in amusement. 

the rest was easy. you were easy to talk to, to admire, to hold, to love. you made him feel intense things in a good way–in a way he had nearly given up on. his world had slowly become a mixed palette of blacks and whites and muted grays–but your smile brought color back. your touch made vivid purples and yellows; your laughter the brightest of pinks and the most warm oranges. you became the blessing where he was the curse, the savior of a damned man bound to paint on smiles and pretend that sacrificing his soul and everyone he’s ever loved was worth it. now he felt unimaginable comfort and love by getting to know you. his smiles weren’t so fake anymore—and the only things that woke him in the night was losing you. truly the only fear that yuuji itadori has left: cursing his blessing. 

you thought he was the best boyfriend around and an even better man. you’ve slowly but surely unraveled the reason he was visiting the therapist through his eventual opening up to you and telling you just a fraction of what he’s experienced in his life and you can understand his intimacy issues. see…yuuji is easy to love. he’s wonderful, attentive, sweet, careful, strong and chivalrous. but he won’t fuck you. you’re too nervous to push him any further—all too aware of his fears of letting anyone in, of loving and showing that in ways that make you vulnerable. he’s all too conscious of what it would mean—of the danger he would be putting you in.

there’s been many times here lately that you’ve thought that line will finally be crossed—heavy petting and make-outs that get you squirming in his lap and soaking through your panties. it always goes this way, no matter how innocent the two of you try to keep your dates. move night, game night, even cooking together ends up with yuuji’s tongue down your throat and his hands under your shirt. tonight is no different, some youtube video plays in the background—a forgotten video game walkthrough that yuuji had been paying careful attention to until you leaned in to rip it away with those teasing kisses to his jaw. you know exactly what buttons to press after four months of nothing past second base driving you to a point of restlessness. 

you just wanted him to see your perseverance. you would do this for as long as it takes, anything to prove that you’re here to stay. you want to make him comfortable enough to tear those walls down—the ones that make his eyes flutter shut and his hands fist at his pants in order to keep them to himself. his eyes close to will himself to concentrate on something–anything—other than the feeling of your warm lips tracing his pulse, smooth fingers sliding under his shirt to outline the dips and muscles of his torso. it’s not that he doesn’t want to this, he craves you like nothing ever before. your touch is the medicine bringing him back to life, but he can’t allow himself to ruin you—taint you. but as you move into his lap and change your kisses to more intense nips and sucks at his skin, his body betrays his mind. he can feel the blood rush to his cock as your thighs trap him beneath you, and he moans out at the same time you do. the pressure of your clothed cunt sitting against his needy dick has his hands moving before he can tell himself to stop. he grabs your waist, accidentally and automatically rutting up against the friction you offer with a hiss. 

“fuck, cutie.” he groans, your lips covering his parted and pouty ones to keep him from protesting further. his fingers only dig into your side as the two sides of his mind argue with each other. he wants you badly, your body slotted against his perfectly and the way you kiss him like you’re trying to touch his soul drives him crazy. anyone with a girlfriend as hot as you would be a fucking idiot to keep denying himself of her. his hands knead the warm flesh of your body as an instinct, his body knowingly responding to your advances. his tongue slides over yours in a frenzy, his head becoming fuzzy as saliva trails down his chin—something in him telling him to stop when his hands slide upwards to palm your chest. you cry out at the feeling—so starved for his affection that you know you’re soaking wet already. just his rough hands scraping over your sensitive nipples sends you into rutting rhythmic circles of your hips over the tent in his pants, breaking your sloppy kiss in order to remove your shirt fully in a silent show of what you wanted to happen next. 

“aw baby—you know i can’t,” he whines, his lips swollen and even pinker than usual. he drops his hold to your hips, making comforting circles over the bone beneath his grasp. your face drops to instant heartbreak and he can feel his own heart try to rip itself apart for making you so sad. he never thought about how this must affect you, a woman with needs and desires for her boyfriend. he knows this can’t last much longer or he’ll lose you anyway. the room is just a mixture of your heavy breathing and the monotone droning of the tv for a few moments, and then you whine in retaliation, picking up his hand and moving it back to your breast. you search his eyes, seeing the fear flickering in those brown embers of his. you just need to show him there’s nothing to be scared of, that you need him worse than you need the oxygen in this room and would do anything for him today and forever. 

“yuuji,” you gasp out in such a voice that he knows he won’t be able to hold back this time. four months of seeing your body in your cute date outfits and in his shirt after you’ve spent the night; the feeling of your curves under his fingers as he guides you to the safe side of the sidewalk or the swell of your hip as he guides you through the door he’s just opened—four months of draining his balls after he’s sent you home with nothing more than a few wet kisses and tit-squeezes. the way your eyes shine like you’re about to cry if he denies you one last time…it’s too much. “please—i need you,” you breathe out, reaching those gorgeously soft hands out to sweep against his cheeks, to plead with him to be a good boyfriend. he can’t make you suffer any longer—”i need you so bad yuuji, please don’t push me away…i’m your forever girl!” 

oh fuck. he might cum in his pants from hearing that alone. suddenly, silence falls upon his mind. he can only hear the echoes of your cries for him–no more voices in his head arguing about the best way to continue, only you. a guttural groan rips from his throat and he stands with your legs wrapped around his body, a broad hand snaking up your back to keep you pressed against him. you squeal a little at the sudden shift and the deep growl that he let out, his face now devoid of that playful man you’ve come to love. he looks so focused, so serious, his brow furrowed as he looks over your face. 

“i’m sorry i made you wait so long, pretty girl.” he nods, letting your body bounce on the bed as he’s set on immediately removing the remainder of your clothes. he pulls you to the edge, legs dangling over the sides. you almost think it must be too good to be true, sitting up on your elbows to catch a glimpse of that ravenous fire consuming his previously kind eyes. he’s leaned back to peel his own clothes off, but his eyes never leave your body. he looks over your lip pinched between your teeth to your pebbled nipples to the glistening slick coating your inner thighs. he doesn’t even know where to start, but he’s going to ensure that you’re finally taken care of. “i’m a dumbass—thought i was keeping you safer like that.” he mutters, leaning over to kiss the space between your ribcage. he makes his way to your jaw, licking a hungry stripe between your breasts and claiming your neck with bruising nips at the delicate flesh that greeted him. 

you’re set to mewling immediately, the flip switched in your boyfriend making you rub your legs together in anticipation. he chuckles and you can feel him smile against your skin as his hand snakes down to keep you from squirming. he quickly pecks your lips. “m gonna make it up to you now, baby girl.” his eyes are wide, but glazed over with affection. you nod, feeling his strong fingers dig into the supple flesh of your thigh to keep you from closing them, his abs raking over your sensitive clit as he lowers himself to his knees at the foot of the bed. your face burns as you realize what he’s going to do, but he doesn’t give you time to think about it before turning your mind to mush from the feeling of his fat tongue splitting your lips apart and breaching your tiny hole. he seems pleased by the way you react—back arching off the bed and hands gripping at the sheets from the surprising burn. it’s a good burn, the kind you’ve been craving for the months you’ve been with a man who loves you like he does, your wanton moans just cementing that his choice was the right one. he’s growing addicted to this already; your flavor on his tongue, your moans echoing in his ears and your thighs pressing in to the sides of his face. he feels your silky walls clamp down on his tongue, making his eyes roll back at the thought of putting his dick in something so tight. he slurps at the arousal slipping out, sliding his tongue to the hardened bud waiting at the top of your cunt. he wraps his tongue around your clit, making you jolt at the sudden increase in sensation. it’s amazing—goosebumps prickle out over your skin and you reach down to tug at the silky pink locks woven between your fingers. you can feel every nerve running through your body and how it builds with a fiery pleasure that you know only yuuji can give you. “oh my god—yuuji!” you cry out as that pleasure mounts to a tipping point. his teeth scrape against your hood to encourage you to fall over that line so he can see what he’s been denying you of for four achingly long months. 

you make the sweetest face when you cum, it has him closing a fist around his own dick to calm himself—the promise of having your pussy making him jerk at his own touch. you even sound so pretty as you shatter, legs jerking and your grip on his hair yanking almost painfully hard. it only makes yuuji smile wider, feeling a bubbly sense of satisfaction ripple in his own gut from making you feel so good. 

“nngh, yuuji–” you whine, your vision returning to normal after a few seconds of respite. he’s already pushing you back to the pillows, manhandling you into the bent position he wanted. you’re on your back, knees by your ears and a boyfriend giving you no time to be anxious about the angry and leaky horsecock sliding through your folds. you thought he was a sweet man, and maybe he still is–but his own excitement to have you has him forgetting his normal chivalrous behavior. “fuck–yuuji!” you claw at his biceps, fighting against that true splitting burn. his tongue was nothing compared to the girth he pierces you with—and he’s smiling so tenderly at your wiggling and struggling. 

“s’okay, cutie. you can take it, you’re already taking it!! didn’t you ask me to?” he raises a brow, face flashing with mock-confusion as your hands shove at his chest, all in an effort to get used to the feeling of him inside you. his thumb brushes your cheek, his other hand keeping the back of your thigh shoved back. “nyeh—you begged me! come on pretty girl–you gotta loosen up!” he laughs airily, moving the hand from your face back down to pinch and roll your aching clit. you jump at first, the touch sending another jolt of pleasure circulating to your brain–and then you relax enough for him to move. he’s got you folded in such a way that you can hardly breathe–or maybe that’s from how he slams into you recklessly, tip catching on your poor, innocent, cervix each time. it hurts, it burns everywhere—but it’s the best feeling in the world. his breathing grows ragged once he settled into a pace, brutally slamming into you in a way that led you to believe he wasn’t doing this on accident. 

soon, your hands around his biceps slip to your sides, eyes lulling into a pleasure-induced haze. you watch him, the twitch of his nose and the way his hair gets curly once it sticks to his forehead from his sweat. he’s perfect, and he’s finally giving you all of himself, really devoting himself to you, conquering any fear. you don’t mind if you’ll be bedridden for the next week—feeling his heavy cock in your chest from how hard he ruts into you—it would be well worth it to hear his grunts and whimpers of satisfaction, to feel the bruising grip he has on your body like he’s afraid you might disappear. it’s all so good, and exactly like you craved. “there she goes—takin’ it like a champ now!” he cheers you on, panting a little as he leans over your body and grabs the headboard, deepening his angle as if he wasn’t already fucking you brainless. 

the new angle makes your jaw drop in absolute earth-shattering bliss. you two could be the only people left on earth and you would never know—to consumed in yuuji itadori to notice anything else. you’re back to pawing at his chest, the coil in your gut building rapidly as he fucks into you like his life depends on it. you wanted everything, he’ll make sure he gives you everything. the headboard creaks, the bed moans with you and you truly do worry he might break it for a split second–but his broken moan of your name swallows up any wandering thoughts. a bead of sweat slides down the slope of his nose before it drops onto your cheek, the evidence of his hardwork. he moans your name again, warning you that the end was approaching. you nod as he moves your legs to his shoulders, leaning as close as possible to wrap you in his arms and kiss you in short, desperate bursts. he treasures you more than he thought possible, that look you give him right before your eyes roll back into your head from your orgasm makes his own dick jump within your vice-grip of a cunt. you make that sweet face again, a face he knows he’s hooked on—your pussy spasming around him to welcome his fat load gets him to make his own kind of special and beautiful face, lip between his teeth and adam’s apple bobbing at the same pace his balls slap into your backside. you swear you can feel his heart beating, his lungs filling and emptying as he flattens his chest to yours and fills your guts with his loving cum. he keeps thrusting even after he’s done, just watching your face contort and shift, your body bouncing in his arms. he likes the ache of overstimluation, and loves the way you mewl and hug him, eyes all sleepy and far away. 

“that’s it, you did it, so so good.” he praises in a soft tone, kissing your lips and then your nose and then your forehead with equal adoration. “can’t believe i kept us from feeling like that!” he shakes his head, kissing your cheeks to continue showering you in his love if not to keep you awake. he sits back up and slides out of you, quickly snatching his t-shirt up to catch the spillage. it’s hot, watching his seed trickle from your abused pussy—he whines a little at the sight, puppy dog eyes flickering over your body as if to wonder if you could take another round…

now that you’ve gotten him to start, you may never get him to stop.

#kyleewritesjjk #jjk x reader #yuuji x reader #itadori yuuji #yuji itadori x reader #yuji itadori #yuji x reader #yuuji smut #itadori x reader #jjk yuji x reader #yuuji x fem!reader

[purplesuitcowboy]

this is so long, my god but i love a sexy maid moment.

tw: rape (under negotiated kink and consent with coercion)

This job had not been Brittney's first choice. She'd been working at the restaurant one night when a man far to wealthy to be eating at an establishment as shitty as the place she worked had gotten her attention and slipped her his card. He'd told her that if she was ever interested in expanding her work opportunities and entering into a lucrative new field, she should give the number a call. At the time, she'd brushed off his proposition, thinking him a creep, but she never threw out his card. Of course, she'd gotten fired a week later for tardiness and after weeks of fruitless job hunting, she had re-evaluated his offer. Maybe, it wouldn't be that bad? He was pretty posh so she didn't imagine they have her doing hard labor outside or anything.

She checked her bank account and the minuscule balance helped her steel her nerves. She didn't have enough money to pay her rent this month. The leasing agency had been lenient with her thus far but she knew that eventually their patience with her late or missing or incomplete payments would wear out and she'd be out on the street. She'd called and found out that the number was for an agency that matched attractive young women with wealthy clients who needed extra assistance performing common household tasks. She'd asked the agent for more information but hadn't been able to get more out of them then vague statements about client confidentially.

She'd agreed and gone through the strangest application process she'd ever experienced. She'd never been asked to submit her measurements to a job before. She thought that maybe they just had specific uniform standards but she never received anything. The only pro about the whole thing, other then the pay check, was that it didn't take them long to match her with a client. She was sent an address, date, and time to arrive, and was told not to be late under any circumstances unless she wanted to be terminated immediately. This seemed like a lot for a job cleaning houses but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

That's how she'd managed to find herself in the swankiest building she'd ever been in on an elevator headed to the penthouse. The doors opened to a small hallway that lead to an ornate door with a gold door knocker in the shape of a lion. She knocked once and stood there in front of the door. Just how rich were these fucking people? She heard a series of locks being released and then the door opened, revealing a older man with salt and pepper hair, and strong jaw. He was obviously in great shape for his age, and she struggled to find the right place to look at him so she wasn't just shamelessly ogling her employer. He had a stern look about him and Brittney was happy that she wasn't late. She did not want to what he looked like when he was angry.

"Oh, uh. Hello, sir. I'm-", she started speaking quickly, trying to introduce herself but he cut her off.

"I know exactly who you are Brittney. Please come inside," he turned on his heel and briskly walked into the spacious apartment, not bothering to check and see if she was following behind him.

She squeaked in surprise and followed quickly behind him. The door immediately shut behind her and she heard a series of clicks as all of the locks fell back into place. It was the nicest apartment Brittney had ever seen. Everything was clean and white with the kind of modern minimalist furniture that only rich people liked. The best thing about the apartment was the windows. It had the best view of the city, that seemed to sprawl out like an ocean beneath them.

"We have much to discuss so why don't you get changed into your uniform and then we'll talk."

"Oh, I don't have a uniform. I thought the company was going to provide something but nothing ever came," she told him apologetically.

"I'd certainly hope not. We have a uniform for you here. It's in the other room there. It's based on your measurements so provided you did not lie, it should fit just fine."

Brittney looked at him baffled. She waited for him to provide more of an explanation but he did not so she walked into room to get changed. It was guest bedroom with an attached bathroom. Laid out on the bed was what looked like a slutty maid costume which was odd. She wandered around the room, looking for her uniform. Upon finding nothing, she poked her head out of the bedroom door.

"Excuse me, sir. I don't see my uniform," she told him.

"It should be on the bed," he told her, which would mean that the skimpy maid costume was her uniform.

"Oh, I'm sorry I can't wear that."

He looked at her for a moment with an expression on his face that seemed to communicate that he thought was was very stupid.

"Tell me, Brittney. Did you happen to read the contract before you signed it?"

Her face redden. She had looked at it but not very carefully. It just looked like a normal contract to her so she'd signed it without much thought.

"I see," he replied, voice cold." In the future, I would suggest you read contacts before you sign them and certainly before you show up at a clients house for a job. If you'd read it, you'd understand that employed in this capacity I own you - all of you. If you wish not to continue, please tell me now so I can send you on your way and we can stop wasting my time."

Her eyes widened as the reality of what she'd signed up for dawned on her. She'd figured that the job was weird but she didn't realize that it was going to be this. He was giving her an opportunity to leave and she should take it but she knew that if she did she could kiss her check good-bye.

"My apologies, sir. Please forgive me. I'll get changed right away."

She ducked back into the bedroom, closing the door gently behind her. She changed out of her clothes and into the skimpy costume. She'd original thought that it was one piece but it was actually three. It also came with a matching choker, tights, and high heels, as well as a little metal thing shaped like a tear drop with a heart shaped jewel on the end but Brittney couldn't figure what that was suppose to be for.

The top was something like a triangle bikini top with a matching shrug that only covered her shoulders. The triangles of the bikini top covered her nipples, which had come to points in the cool air and were visible under the thin fabric of the top, but little else. The skirt, which had a white apron sewed onto it, was equally immodest. It hugged her hips well but barely covered her shaved pussy. She'd looked around for underwear but found none. Brittney tried to pull her tiny skirt down to cover a bit more of her ass but it was in vain. She hoped that he wasn't going to have her picking anything up because she'd be completely exposed. With the addition of the accessories and shoes, she was (barely) dressed in her uniform. She walked back into the main room of the apartment where her client was waiting for her, holding the small metal object in her hand.

"I'm dressed, sir," she told. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to do with this though."

He walked around her in a circle, looking over her body appreciatively.

"It fits you well," he told her, taking the item from her hand. "Don't worry. I'll help you. Now, I am going to tell you about this job and you are going to listen. Today is going to be unlike your other days here. Consider it an introduction to the job."

He slide the item in his pocket and with his hand free, he grabbed Brittney by the waist and pulled her towards him. She stumbled forward, landing with her hands on his broad chest. He cupped her ass with his big hands, squeezing and kneading the soft flesh. Brittney gasped, at the sensation of his hands on her. This was bad. He was her boss, he shouldn't be touching her like this and she shouldn't be enjoying it. Despite her reluctance, she said nothing, afraid of pissing him off and losing her job.

"As I previously mentioned, while you work in this capacity, I own you and I mean this very literally," he told her, as he turned her so that her ass was pressed tightly against his thick cock. He ran his hands up and down her lithe body, groping her full tits and upper thighs.

"You are going to do what I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and who I tell you to do it with," he continued. With one hand, he freed her tits from the confines of her tiny top, teasing her sensitive nipples with his fingers, and the other, he sneaks between her legs to rub at her little pussy. He runs two thick fingers against her slit, coating them in her juices, and then plunging two of them inside of her. Brittney moans in response, hips bucking to take in more of his thick fingers.

"You will not talk back, and you will not make me repeat myself. Do I make myself clear?" When she doesn't respond quickly enough, he pulls his fingers out of her cunt and roughly spanks her pussy, earning a yelp of surprise from Brittney.

"Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes," she replied, but she quickly learned that this was not the response that he was looking for as he delivered another series of slaps to her pussy.

"Not quite, try again," he told her, his hand hovering over her wet cunt ready to deliver another series of slaps if she fucked up.

"Yes, sir."

"Good, girl," he tells her and she shudder's at the praise. "Now, I am a firm master but I am not unfair. It is expected that you will make mistakes but you will be guided and corrected as needed."

He slips his fingers back into her waiting cunt, scissoring them to stretch out her hole and then adding a third finger, pumping them in and out roughly. While he fucked her with his fingers, he used his thumb to rub her tender clit until her legs began to tremble. He lets her get close to the edge but denies her, over and over again. To Brittney, it feels like her pleasure stretches into eternity. She has no conception of how long they have been standing here in his living room with his devilish fingers playing with her pussy. Letting go of her tit, he reaches into his pocket and pulls out the object from before.

"This, my dear, is a butt plug and it is apart of your uniform. I expect you wear it whenever you are working in this capacity. I'm sure this seems daunting now but I'm sure you'll grow to love it."

He pulls his fingers out of her cunt and pushes the plug inside, coating it in her juices. Brittney whimpers at the sensation but offers up no resistance. Slowly, he fucks her with the plug until she's close to cumming but slips it out before she can. He carefully pushes the plug against the tight ring of her anus and watches with satisfaction as it stretches around the toy. Brittney groans as her ass is slowly stretched and filled by the unfamiliar object. With the body of the plug snugly in her ass, the only thing that can be seen is the twinkling heart shaped jewel between her ass cheeks.

"That's a good girl. I think, you've earned an orgasm."

With her ass filled by the plug, his thick fingers in her pussy and against her clit felt even more intense. She came with a scream, as her legs buckled and she sagged against her employer's broad chest. She'd never cum that hard before. She felt like she'd been shot into space.

"Now that you've cum, I think it's time that you show your appreciation, huh?" he told her, as he pushed her to her knees and pulled out his hard cock.

#daddy k!nk #rough kink #bd/sm kink #degrading k1nk #fr33use #daddy d0m #daddy's brat #daddy's wh0re #rap3 fantasy #r@pe kink #r@pe fantasy #r@pe k!nk #cnc fr33use #cnc k!nk #cnc brat

[leidensygdom]

Okay, I will try to explain this topic as well as I can. I will preface this with the fact this comes from personal experiences, and that they may not apply for everyone who has ties to this culture, but let's get to it:

What's the issue with Fortune tellers / "Exotic" circus performers, sexualized belly dancers and other forms of orientalism/Romani depictions?

So, as someone in the TTRPG world (specifically, the DnD community), this sort of trope is seen quite a lot. From the portrayal of Vistani (which has been tried to be fixed, but not... too well), to player characters in home games, as well as popular canon characters and podcasts, it's got quite normalized. Most of these tropes are based on Romani, which is a widespread ethnicity present all across the globe. Now, it feels almost strange to call it orientalism, given how Romani have been in Europe since the Middle Ages, even though they do have roots outside of Europe.

Romani face one of the biggest diaspora in the world: You will find Roma people under many names in very different countries, with cultures and traditions that can clash heavily. Their numbers can range from few hundred in some countries, to over a million in those they have a biggest presence. My own experience is tied to Spanish Roma, known as Gitanos, which is where my mother's side family comes from.

Gitanos are a widespread group, although they're most numerous in the southern part of Spain, Andalusia, where their presence has shaped the culture. Flamenco is thought to have been born from Gitano culture, and it has been adopted as a staple of the Andalusian identity, and the whole of Spain. Gitanos are hard to understand as their own ethnicity in Spain: There's been centuries of Gitanos and Spanish people mixing, and the average Andalusian is quite tan to start with (given Muslim presence there has also been pretty firm). It means it can be hard to "clock" a Spanish Romani person from a non-Romani one. It means you can find Romani people most would consider white, at least by Spanish standards. Most of the discrimination Gitanos face is cultural (and the whole ordeal can be a bit harder to explain from a more US-centric view).

Now, even when Gitanos have influenced Spanish culture a lot, they still face plenty of discrimination. They are one of the most marginalized groups out there. Laws have discriminated against them for centuries, on and off, which have put them in poverty. And poverty often develops into criminality, which has only seeded the idea that Gitanos are criminals, "lowlies", the bottom of society, "uncivilized", etc. Now, here comes a bit of my own experience with this.

My entire family is Andalusian, but both sides moved from there (the south) to Catalonia (north-east) in order to find a job during the Francoist (fascist) dictatorship. I won't get much into the specifics of the Catalan vs Andalusian beef because that's a bit of a massive topic too, but the important thing here is: My mother's side is Romani. My grandma faced some horrifying forms of discrimination, including the theft of her first child during the fascist dictatorship, which was taken from her by nuns (who ran hospitals at the time) to be placed into a "proper" family. (This is something that happened repeatedly at some hospitals during these times).

Now, she had two other children: My mother and my aunt. My aunt remained closely knit to Romani culture, and took part in it, which included marrying a Romani guy. She always did her best efforts to be part of it. I know she was into some culturally-related dances, which included some forms of bellydancing (which is also partially tied to Roma culture). But my mother decided she'd rather cut ties with her culture and become "civilised", by abandoning said culture.

This isn't too uncommon for Gitanos, to be honest. I've met a few people who come from similar backgrounds through my life. One of them was in university, where a fellow classmate gave an oral exposition about how his family had done a great job at "becoming civilised" by cutting ties with their own Roma roots. My university was a fairly progressive space, but no one batted an eye at that: The sheer hatred of Roma culture runs so deep even people who normally abhor racism and xenophobia consider Gitanos to be worth the hate.

There's a social pressure to do that, too. Everyone "knows" Gitano are criminals. I can't really even begin to explain how deeply does this sort of discrimination run. Roma are amongst the most hated minority groups in all of Europe (as well as most of the world). You will find that even in very leftist circles. People will try to erase the fact Roma have their own culture, and just make the world equal to "criminal", call them gy***** (which is a slur, btw), and detach them from being an actual culturally (and often racially) distinct group.

Now, this is only empowered by how media has taken our culture (it is almost hard for me to call it "our", given how much my mother ensured to take that away) and made it into a bad trope. Growing up, I was told my aunt was a sexual deviant who partook in indecent dances. Bellydancing is often seen as something very sexual (Wasn't, in origin), very unfitting. In media, bellydancers veer on the side of being a f*tish, and the common trope is the "bellydancer who seduces people in power for their own benefit". There's also the whole idea of shady fortune tellers and other magical tropes, that sort of weird mysticism that falls rapidly into orientalism. The idea that Roma will hex you, curse you, place an "Evil Eye" on you. And also the idea of travelling circus, people who perform in them being again full of that alluring exoticism, but beware! For they will enchant you, steal from you and run some massive criminal schemes on the way.

Now, when every tie a culture has on media is portrayed in a negative light, it's much harder for that culture to recover any sort of respect from the general populace. And that includes even people who are part of said culture, or people who have been removed from it. It has taken me so many years to unlearn a lot of these biases and realize where it has come from, and now I'm far too distant and far away from my grandmother to actually ever significantly connect to my heritage.

I've had the opportunity to witness what Romani culture is actually about, as I used to live with my grandmother during summers. A lot of the "mysticism" she took part of was actually about wards and protection. A lot of them were actually medicinal in nature, even if others were more superstitious. Red thread in the forehead for sickness and protection to curses, parfums (which contained alcohol or other antiseptics) on wounds, that stuff. My aunt was never a "sexual" deviant, she was keen on recovering and partaking on traditions from a culture that is slowly disappearing. The entire "promiscuous" idea is bullshit, Gitanos place a massive amount of power to marriage and loyalty. I had the luck to witness my cousin's marriage, which was a festivity like none other I had seen in my life, a colorful spectacle full of the most delightful attires, and my mother was whining the entire time over about how it was all an "uncivilised circus".

Now, this is why representation in media is key. Roma culture is broken into a thousand pieces and lost with every passing day. When someone decides to write an ambulant circus performer/fortune teller clad in exotic clothes full of golden jewellery, writes them as a criminal and makes the entire thing extremely sexual, they are feeding into the negative stereotypes about Roma.

Now, there's a lot of people who aren't even aware what culture does that trope even actually come from. I've seen people draw characters clad in Romani attires (often in, uh, rather pin-up or sexual contexts) and claim they're inspired by "x piece of media", where the trope is portrayed in the first place. I literally saw someone make a drawing in that way and call it "inspired by x (non-Roma) artist" instead of acknowledging where does all that come from.

I'm not asking people to not portray Roma people in media. Far from that. I just wish representation was better. Good representation is key towards making a culture seen in a more positive light, and teaching other peoples about it, and making people from said culture resonate with it. The very few times I've seen positive representations of Roma I've felt a bit of that connection with something that was taken from me. I want people to do a bit of research before giving a try to a Roma-coded character. Make an effort to not make Roma always the morally dubious fortune teller, the exotic alluring circus traveller, the bellydancer seductress. It's hard for Romani to produce widespread mainstream media because of how impoverished most communities are (because of the systematic discrimination Roma face all around the world), so the least non-Roma people can do is to be kind when they use their voice to talk or represent us.

I know this is a massive post, and I'm tagging it as "long post" for that reason, but I hope it is helpful for people. Feel free to ask or add your own experience if this is something that resonates with you too. Ask away if you want. I've been wanting to tell a bit my own personal experience, as this has always been a hard spot for me, and even if just a handful of people read this and understand what is this all about, I think it will have been worth it.

#roma #romani #gitano #romani culture #representation #culture #folk #tradition #people #spain #spanish #romani in media #bellydancer #bellydancing #fortune teller #dnd #vistani #long post

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Anna Magnani (Rome Open City, Mamma Roma, The Rose Tattoo)—don't take my word for it, here are some of the things she was called during her career: "la lupa (the wolf) of Italian cinema," "passionate, fearless, and exciting," "the volcanic earth mother of all Italian cinema," "one of the most impressive actresses since Garbo," "Whenever Magnani laughs or cries (which is often), it's as if you've never seen anyone laugh or cry before: has laughter ever been so burstingly joyful or tears so shatteringly sad?" and maybe best of all, from Tennessee Williams, who wrote multiple roles specifically for her: "She is simply a rare being who seems to have about her a little lightning-shot cloud all her own...In a crowded room, she can sit perfectly motionless and silent and still you feel the atmospheric tension of her presence, its quiver and hum in the air like a live wire exposed, and a mood of Anna's is like the presence of royalty."

Rosemary Clooney (White Christmas)—Rosemary!!! Her singing voice is incredible, she looks stunning in everything she wears, she has this quiet gravitas on screen that I haven’t seen anywhere else!! She deserves to be known as a lot more than George Clooney’s Aunt (if anything, I think of him as Rosemary Clooney’s nephew who also went into the business). Also when she got older she had this amazing sexy raspy voice (which sadly was due to smoking a lot but doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s very very sexy)

This is round 2 of the tournament. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage woman.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Anna Magnani:

An icon of post-war neorealist italian cinema - an unbelievably good actress. Also, the first non-english speaking actress to win the Oscar for Best Actress (in 1956)!

realness!! amid the typical hollywood pristine glamour anna magnani stuck out as sexy in a really real, grounded way. so much so that even shallow 40s hollywood allowed her to come over from italy to be in some high profile movies. an icon

She smoked, she drank, she didn't give a f-. Her acting was described as explosive, with a lot of emotions and drama and they called her a she-wolf. Playwright Tennessee Williams became an admirer of her acting and wrote The Rose Tattoo (1955) specifically for her to star in, a role for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress, becoming the first Italian – and first non-English speaking woman – to win an Oscar.

Rosemary:

Rosemary Clooney made very few movies, and built her career mostly as a singer--however, anyone who has ever seen her in White Christmas understands that this was Hollywood's loss, because she exudes glamour and charm and does a wonderful job acting it as well. She's gorgeous, she has a beautiful voice, she has one of those faces that the screen just loves, and she is, frankly, hot as hell.

An absolutely amazing singer and so stunning. Her performance in that black dress in White Christmas just takes my breath away every time. She's also George Clooney's aunt.

She was a very cool woman, who had a very hard life. She had severe mental health struggles throughout her life and left the stage for quite a while, but fought hard to make her career comeback later in life with a little timely help from good friend and frequent collaborator Bing Crosby. She also duetted with Marlene Dietrich early in her career

Okay so obviously she's more a singer than an actress, but she was still one of the best musical actresses of the era! They just didn't know what to do with her. She really wasn't a dancer at all, so you'll see most of the numbers in White Christmas she's got a convenient prop to sweep around. However, this ~weakness brought about a love story for the ages! Dante Di Paulo (you may know him as the mustachioed townie rival to the Pontipees in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers) was hired to teach her to dance and they fell in love over rehearsals. Separated by filming schedules, Rosemary ended up marrying José Ferrer and breaking Dante's heart, but 20 years and two divorces from José later they met in traffic. Not about to miss her second chance, she honked her horn and yelled her phone number at him (talk about carpe diem). He moved in a couple of months later but they finally made it official in 1997 because "our grandchildren want us to get married". They were utterly devoted to each other and he was very much a Wife Guy.

when she. when she. 'love you didnt do right by me' from white christmas-

She was very funny and very civic-minded, she campaigned with RFK during his presidential run. She had a very close bond with her nephew (that George Clooney yes), he even had her songs on the playlist when he proposed to his wife! She didn't enjoy singing this song from White Christmas, as it wasn't quite in her range, but she's incredibly powerful and undoubtedly very hot in this scene (fun fact, oscar winner George Chakiris is one of her dancers here, before his big break!) -

#rosemary clooney #anna magnani #fuck that old woman #hotvintagepoll #ladies 2 #Youtube

[mspaesthetic]

Tidbit: The “Posterization” Effect of Panels Due to the Consequences of GIF Color Quantization (and Increased Contrast (And Also The Tangential Matter of Dithering))

There’s this misconception that the color banding and patterned dithering found in panels is an entirely deliberate, calculated effect Hussie manipulated the image into looking with some specific filter, but this isn’t the case, exactly. It wasn’t so much a conscious decision he took but rather an unavoidable consequence of the medium he partook in: digital art in an age where bandwidth and storage was at a premium.

Not to delve too deeply into the history and technicalities of it, but the long and the short of it is back in the early nineties to late aughts (and even a bit further into the 10s), transferring and storing data over the web was not as fast, plentiful, and affordable as it is now. Filesize was a much more important consideration than the fidelity of an image when displaying it on the web. Especially so when you’re a hobbyist on a budget and paying for your own webhosting, or using a free service with a modest upload limit (even per file!). Besides, what good would it be to post your images online if it takes ages to load them over people's dial-up Internet? Don't even get me STARTED on the meager memory and power the average iGPU had to work with, too.

The original comic strip's resolution was a little more than halved and saved as a GIF rather than a large PNG. That's about an 82.13% reduction in filesize!

So in the early days it was very common for people to take their scans, photographs, and digital drawings and scale them down and publish them as smaller lossily compressed JPEGs or lossless GIFs, the latter of which came at the cost of color range. But it had a wider range of browser support and the feature to be used for animations compared to its successor format, PNG ("PNG's not GIF").

You'd've been hard-pressed to find Hussie use any PNGs himself then. In fact, I think literally the only times he's ever personally employed them and not delegate the artwork to a member of the art team were some of the tiny shrunken down text of a character talking far in the distance and a few select little icons.

PNGs support semi-transparency unlike GIFs, which is why Hussie used them to preserve the anti-aliasing on the text without having to add an opaque background color.

While PNGs can utilize over 16 million colors in a single image, GIFs have a hard limit of 256 colors per frame. For reference, this small image alone has 604 colors:

For those who can't do the math, 256 is a pretty damn small number.

Smaller still were the palettes in a great deal of MSPA's panels early on in its run. Amazingly, a GIF such as this only uses 7 colors (8 if you count the alpha (which it is)).

Not that they were always strictly so low; occasionally some in the later acts of Homestuck had pretty high counts. This panel uses all 256 spots available, in fact.

If he had lowered the number any smaller, the quality would have been god-awful.

To the untrained eye, these bands of color below may seem to be the result of a posterization filter (an effect that reduces smooth areas of color into fewer harsh solid regions), but it's really because the image was exported as a GIF with no dithering applied.

Dithering, to the uninitiated, is how these colors are arranged together to compensate for the paltry palette, producing illusory additional colors. There are three algorithms in Photoshop for this: Diffusion, Pattern, and Noise.

Above is the original image and below is the image reduced to a completely binary 1-bit black and white color palette, to make the effect of each dithering algorithm more obvious.

Diffusion seemingly displaces the pixels around randomly, but it uses error diffusion to calculate what color each pixel should be. In other words, math bullshit. The Floyd-Steinberg algorithm is one such implementation of it, and is usually what this type of error diffusion dithering is called in other software, or some misnomer-ed variation thereof.

The usage of Pattern may hearken back to retro video game graphics for you, as older consoles also suffered from color palette limitations. Sometimes called Ordered dithering because of the orderly patterns it produces. At least, I assumed so. Its etymological roots probably stem from more math bullshit again.

True to its name, Noise is noisy. It’s visually similar to Diffusion dithering, except much more random looking. At least, when binarized like this. Truth be told, I can’t tell the difference between the two at all when using a fuller color table on an image with a lot of detail. It was mainly intended to be used when exporting individual slices of an image that was to be “stitched” back together on a webpage, to mitigate visible seams in the dithering around the edges.

To sate your curiosity, here's how the image looks with no dithering at all:

People easily confuse an undithered gif as being the result of posterization, and you couldn't fault them for thinking so. They look almost entirely the same!

Although I was already aware of this fact when I was much younger, I'm guilty of posterizing myself while editing images back then. Figured I may as well reduce the color count beforehand to help keep the exported GIF looking as intended. I view this as a complete waste of time now, though, and amateurish. Takes away a bit of the authenticity of MSPA art, how the colors and details are so variable between panels. As for WHY they were so variable to begin with, choosing the settings to save the image as requires a judicious examination on a case-by-case basis. In other words, just playing around with the settings until it looks decent.

It's the process of striking a fine balance between an acceptable file size and a "meh, good enough" visual quality that I mentioned earlier. How many colors can you take away until it starts to look shit? Which dithering algorithm helps make it look not as shit while not totally ruining the compression efficacy?

Take, for example, this panel from Problem Sleuth. It has 16 colors, an average amount for the comic, and uses Diffusion dithering. Filesize: 34.5 KB.

Then there's this panel right afterwards. It has 8 colors (again, technically 7 + alpha channel since it's an animated gif), and uses Noise dithering this time. Filesize: 34.0 KB.

The more colors and animation frames there are, and the more complicated dithering there is, the bigger the file size is going to be. Despite the second panel having half the color count of the first, the heavily noisy dithering alone was enough to inflate the file size back up. On top of that, there's extra image information layered in for the animation, leaving only a mere 0.5 kilobyte difference between the two panels.

So why would Hussie pick the algorithm that compresses worse than the other? The answer: diffusion causes the dithering to jitter around between frames of animation. Recall its description from before, how it functions on nerd shit like math calculations. The way it calculates what each pixel's color will be is decided by the pixels' colors surrounding it, to put it simply. Any difference in the placement of pixels will cause these cascading changes in the dithering like the butterfly effect.

Diffusion dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 25.2 KB

This isn't the case with Noise or Pattern dithering, since their algorithms use either a texture or a definite array of numbers (more boring nerd shit).

Noise dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 31.9 KB

Pattern dithering, 16 colors. Filesize: 23.1 KB

There's a lot more I'd like to talk about, like the different color reduction algorithms, which dither algorithms generally compress better in what cases, and the upward and downward trends of each one’s use over the course of a comic, but since this isn’t a deep dive on GIF optimization, I might save that for another time. This post is already reaching further past the original scope it was meant to cover, and less than 10 images can be uploaded before hitting the limit, which is NOWHERE near enough for me. I should really reevaluate my definition of the word “tidbit”… Anyway, just know that this post suffers from sample selection bias, so while the panels above came from an early section of Problem Sleuth that generally had static panels with diffusion dithering and animated panels with noise dithering, there certainly were animated panels with diffusion later on despite the dither-jittering.

Alright, time to shotgun through the rest of this post, screw segueing. Increasing the contrast almost entirely with “Use Legacy” enabled spreads the tones of the image out evenly, causing the shadows and highlights to clip into pure black and white. The midtones become purely saturated colors. Using the Levels adjustment filter instead, moving both shadow and highlight input level sliders towards the middle also accomplishes the same thing, because, you know, linear readjustment. I'm really resisting the urge to go off on another tangent about color channels and the RGB additive color model.

Anyway, there aren't any examples in MSPA that are quite this extreme (at least in color, but I'll save that for a later post), but an image sufficiently high in contrast can be mistaken for being posterized at a glance. Hence the Guy Fieri banner. In preparation for this post, I was attempting to make a pixel-perfect recreation of that panel but hit a wall trying to figure out which and how many filters were used and what each one's settings were, so I sought the wisdom of those in the official Photoshop Discord server. The very first suggestion I got was a posterization filter, by someone who was a supposed senior professional and server moderator, no less. Fucking dipshit, there's too much detail preserved for it to be posterization. Dude totally dissed me and my efforts too, so fuck that moron. I spit on his name and curse his children, and his children's children. The philistines I have to put up with...

In the end, the bloody Guy Fieri recreation proved to be too much for me to get right. I got sort of close at times, but no cigar. These were some of the closest I could manage:

You might be left befuddled after all this, struggling to remember what the point of the blogpost even was. I had meant for it to be a clarification of GIFs and an argument against using the posterization filter, thinking it was never used in MSPA, but while gathering reference images, I found a panel from the Felt intermission that actually WAS posterized! So I’ll eat crow on this one... Whatever, it’s literally the ONE TIME ever.

I can tell it's posterization and not gif color quantization because of the pattern dithering and decently preserved details on the bomb and bull penis cane. There would have had to have been no dithering and way fewer colors than the 32, most of which were allotted to the bomb and cane. You can't really selectively choose what gets dithered or more colors like this otherwise.

Thank you for reading if you've gotten this far. That all might have been a lot to take in at once, so if you're still unclear about something, please don't hesitate to leave a question! And as always, here are the PSDs used in this post that are free to peruse.

#tidbit #homestuck #problem sleuth #gif #dithering #posterization

[user2772636]

Douzième Fille

12th girl

××《☆》××

××《☆》××

You can't deny beauty, so don't do it at all. Some time is spent at the beach with a boy you're trying to quietly reject. Begging, though pitying, looks good on our one-eyed boy.

===

Joseph Descamps x Reader

Warnings: boys being boys (ft. grown ass men), swearing, sl?!t shaming, bullying, smoking, angsty-er than normal

Also, another reference, now from the show Normal People and the movie (500) Days of Summer

===

Song: Salvatore by Lana Del Rey

(For some reason, I can't display it. Sorry about the technical difficulties.)

===

Chapter seven: Salvatore

===

I walk the unfamiliar streets of the town, only now headed this way. I was instructed by my mother to pick something up from a lady's house this morning, specifically a box of sweets.

It was delivered to the wrong address, and my mother got in contact with the company, which gave her the contact number of the address they gave it to, and the two women made arrangements.

I look up at the plain white door with embedding, knocking on it gently. I hear footsteps from inside, then the door opens with a creak.

"Good morning, ma'am. I was sent by my mother, Julliete Pardine." The woman smiles down at me, the elevation of her house making her taller.

"You must be Y/N. Come on in." She ushers me inside, opening the door wider. I take careful steps on the stairs, eyeing my feet to not fall and embarrass myself. Looking up was something I regret.

In all his glory, after being completely ignored for two weeks, Joseph Descamps stands in front of a drawer and mirror, eye wide open, mouth parted slightly, and looking as pretty as he always did.

I get snapped out of my trance when the woman, now I know as Mrs. Descamps, hands me the box of cookies.

"Now, Y/N, where do you study? I hope I'm not making you late this morning." I turn my focus to her, ignoring the butterflies wanting to escape my stomach through my throat.

"You're not. I study at Voltaire." Mrs. Descamps' eyes widen like her sons, and she smiles a bright smile.

"Oh, what a coincidence. My son goes there, too. Maybe you could walk each other. It's always good for a girl your age to have some company when walking the streets. Maybe you already know each other?" She glances at her son, nodding her head towards me. I look at Joseph, and something reminds me of a promise I made him before.

We're sitting on my bed, writing some notes for Maths. Joseph's voice comes alive.

"Hey, what do you think will happen to us in college?" I look up from my paper, eyeing Joseph steadily.

"What kind of question is that? You're thinking about college already?" I don't mention the fact that he's thinking about us two when talking about what'll happen.

"Well, you know, since schools are mixing boys and girls now, and it's going pretty well, so in college, it might be continued. I just wanna know if we'll still be... friends." I scoff slightly, letting go of my pencil to reach for his free hand.

"Joseph, let me assure you we'll still be friends. I promise." Joseph looks at me, squinting his eyes and pursing his lips. I tilt my head in worry.

"But... what if we don't end up in the same college? And when you're with your new friends, then you see me, you'll act like you never knew who I was?" I scan his face, his beautiful face, biting gently on my bottom lip. I caress his hand with my thumb.

"I would never act like I don't know you." I say in a whisper. He doesn't say anything after that, collecting my words somehow.

"Can you promise that, too?" I smile gently at him, lifting his hand up to my lips, kissing his rough knuckles.

"I promise."

I would've never thought what might happen in college happens so soon.

So when I look at him, all I can think about is his soul, and that even in a matter of weeks, it's filled me whole.

"Yes. We know each other." I look at Mrs. Descamps again, and her face lights up brighter than before.

Her son looks like her. The way both their eyes wrinkle a bit under when they smile, the way their cheeks shows lines, and the way their eyes light up. I barely see that in him anymore. And the last time I did, it was with me.

"Good. He shall walk you to school this morning." She walks to her son now, grabbing his arm to drag him closer to me. I don't look him in the eye, my heart still aching from the afternoon in the alley.

I can sense him tilting his head, brows etched in worry and body leaning towards me. He feels so warm even from far away. I want him closer.

"Anyways, I made you a sandwich for lunch. I know what food's like at school." Mrs. Descamps tells her son. I look at her now petite image, even more small when standing next to her child. Well, if he even is a child anymore.

"Thanks." He replies simply, head down. I try my best not to hold him like I used to. To ask him what's wrong.

"I saw the ophthalmologist. He thinks it's time." I furrow my eyebrows, not sure what type of doctor that is.

"Oh, yeah?" Fuck. Why'd he have to say it like that? Butterflies fill my stomach again. Not here. Not infront of his mom, for fucks sake.

"They've made great strides." She ruffles his hair. Damn, I used to do that. I miss it. "They can match your eye colour exactly now. You can't tell the difference."

"Have you ever seen someone with a glass eye? One eye moves, the other doesn't." Oh, so that's what this is about.

His mother cups his face. "My son is not a pirate. You'll be handsome again." I speak before I think.

"Your son is handsome." They turn their heads to me, and I flush in embarrassment. I finally look at Joseph, and there's a glimmer of hope in his eyes. His cheeks are flushed like mine, and he searches my face.

"Well, I'm glad you think so. But I think he should get it anyway. The mother knows best, like they say." Joseph doesn't even turn his head to his mother's direction. He doesn't even hear her. All he's looking at is me, and I can't find myself to look away.

"Well," I stutter out, looking to Mrs. Descamps. "It was nice to meet you. See you soon, ma'am." She smiles at me, rubbing my shoulder gently.

"Would you like to come to dinner tonight? I'm making a roast." Before I could answer, Joseph does it for me.

"Mama-" I cut him off. "Yes. Sure, ma'am. I'll come for dinner." I say, placing the box of cookies in my satchel. She laughs in glee.

"Alright! That's settled then. Now get going, or your teachers will have a field day with you two." She ushers us to the front door, closing the it once we're outside. I glance at him for a second, then start walking in a fast pace.

"Y/N!" He calls out.

"Oh, first name basis again? Didn't know we were that close." I say, Joseph catching up to my side.

"Please, I can explain. Let me." I scoff, disbelief in my face.

"No, thanks. Go have some fun with your girlfriend." I try to walk faster, but he catches up anyway.

"She's not my girlfriend, I swear. Y/N, please. You're killing me here." His voice cracks in desperation, and it takes all my strength not to stumble from my suddenly shaky legs.

"Good." He whimpers. Fucking whimpers. Holy shit, please give me strength.

"Y/N. Please. Just, please." I slow down a bit, pitying him.

"You have one minute." I face him, crossing my arms.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Ex then?" He shakes his head profusely.

"No. I don't even know her. She just came up to me and started getting all over me."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"Please do. Because I swear on my life, Y/N, I would never do that to you."

"But you did. You did when you were talking shit about me to your friends. You did when you let her get all over you." He doesn't speak, and my throat goes dry.

"Exactly. So don't even fucking talk." I turn around and walk away, tears pooling my eyes. I can't believe him. I can't believe me.

××《☆》××

I stand next to Simone in front of the gate, tapping my foot against the gravel.

"What are we doing here again?" I ask, seeing Simone bite her lip in anxiety.

"We're waiting for-" Simone cuts herself off, shouting for Michèle. I walk towards the both of them.

"Michèle, it's been weeks. How long will you be mad?" I delay behind them, trying to give both girls privacy.

"How long have you been seeing my brother behind my back?" Oh. So they got together. I'm happy for Simone, though I already had an idea, but this was the moment she was dreading to come.

They get through the gate. "I wanted to tell you." Simone explains.

Michèle only glances at her. "You played me for a fool."

It's worrying to see both my closest friends argue because you don't know whether or not they'll recover and stay friends.

"It wasn't like that." Simone breaks my thoughts.

"Does he know about Alain?" Michèle says, seemingly angry if her brother did know.

"Of course not. I never told him anything you shared with me." Simone flushes. "If he knew anything, you'd have known about it." They stop walking. I keep my distance.

"I never said it was Jean Pierre, but the rest was true." Someone calls out for Michèle.

"I miss our talks." That was the last thing Simone said before Michèle got dragged away by some girls.

I walk up to Simone, smiling slightly.

"So..." I pause, looking up at her. "Jean Pierre?"

This gets her so smile a bit, red covering her cheeks.

"Yeah." She tucks her hair behind her ear, and I can't help but giggle at her antic.

"He was Eugène the whole time?" I question. She looks at me with even more red on her cheeks.

"I knew it." We both giggle in our girlish nature as we head inside the school.

××《☆》××

Two beeps are heard outside the gate of Voltaire, and I rush down the ramp. I accidentally bumped into someone, and I say a quick apology. I glance behind me, having to do a double take at the one-eyed boy. I look away quickly, walking to Callum's car.

"Pretty girl." Callum hands me a bouquet of pink tulips, and I smile at the sight of it, forgetting about Joseph for a second. Just a second.

"Where are we headed?" I ask, thanking Callum for opening the passenger's door for me.

"The beach. There's a car meet I was invited to take some photos of. Do you mind?" He opens up the roof, letting the wind outside and the heat hit us.

"No. Don't mind at all. Let's get going." He smiles at me simply, and I fail to notice some things he brought on the back of his car.

The drive to the beach was comfortably quiet, wind messing our hair up, the smell of salt and soil filling our senses.

From up the hill, I see the mounds of cars on the white sand below. I smile at the sight, ready for Callum's lovely rambling of all the different cars.

Callum once again opens my door for me, even rolling on the hood of the car for comedic action. It works, and I laugh at him. All he does is smile, offering his hand out for support.

The rest of the afternoon was spent taking photos of the cars, some of which he asked me to model for him again. I did so, adding some fun with the comfortable aura that surrounded both of us.

We moved the car to an area further from the meet, deciding to go out for a swim. I unfortunately wasn't ready for the trip, not bringing any swimwear, so Callum wastes no time to go to the shops behind us, telling me to get a new pair. He even paid for it, then waited for me to come out.

In Callum fashion, we took more pictures. We went for a swim, him wearing no top and just a pair of shorts. It didn't feel awkward around him. It felt so natural, like I'd known him longer than I do.

So when we finished playing in the salty water, and the sun was setting, we settled down on the mat to watch it.

"Y/N?" I turn my head to him, humming in response.

I see him fidget with his fingers. "I've known you for a while now, and in the time I've known you, it's been the best time of my life."

I get a sense of anxiety in him, so I grab his hand, and it feels familiar to a moment I shared with someone else. I push that thought down.

"Callum, talk to me. Is there something wrong?" He looks up at me, adoration in his brown doe eyes. I've seen that look before. Suddenly the smell of the ocean is suffocating me.

"Y/N, I love you. Nothing will ever change that." I breathe in a shaky breath. "I love that you care and that you're just effortlessly an amazing person." Tears pool under his eyes, and I cup his cheeks as they fall, wiping them away. He cups that hand with his.

"You're amazing, and I would never wanna lose you. I don't want to let you go." He pauses, and I await his next words. "But I have to."

I furrow my brows, wondering what he meant. I nod at him to go on.

"You love him. It's so clear that I'm surprised you don't even know it." My mind blanks.

"And it's completely fine. You don't have to worry about me, because if you'll let me, I'll stay, and I'll love you while you love him." He sniffles, and my heart breaks for him.

The sky is orange, with pinks and blues popping out through some clouds. The ocean waves crash against the white sand, foam popping as it loops back. I can hear our hearts beating, our breaths shaking, and our skin grasping at the other.

"Callum, please don't hate me." He chuckles, kissing the inside of my hand.

"I could never hate you, pretty girl." Tears seep out of my eyes as it did his, and he hushes me, pulling me in his bare chest, caressing my back as I sob apologies to him.

It goes on for a while, and we sit there, the sun gone, cars revving in the distance, waves crashing, seagulls squawking, the moon shining on our bodies, and tears as salty as the sea.

When we pull away, he cups my face and stares. He stares at me with a smile, his broken heart still beating. And I look at him like he's a saint. And he is.

We don't talk on the way home, still a comfortable silence between us. As we stop walking infront of my flat, he says something to break the long silence.

"Still up for tomorrow?" I nod. I had told him this morning that I had some errands to run. He agreed to take me around town. I'm glad he still wants to come through.

Before he walks away and disappears around the corner, I call out for him. He turns around, hand in his pockets.

"You know I love you too, right?" He smiles that sweet smile. I can't help but do the same. He walks back to me slowly, cupping my cheek like he did in the beach.

"I know." He whispers, leaning in to kiss my forehead, lingering. He pulls away, still smiling, and walks away for good.

I get in my flat, closing the door and looking at George.

"I don't wanna talk about it." He meows. I lift him up to go cuddle in my room.

××《☆》××

The next day goes through smoothly. Callum picks me up at the end of the day. We stopped by my flat first, and I picked George up, deciding to finally take him out of the house.

The first stop was the pharmacy, and the person I've been dreading to see was there. I asked Callum if he needed anything, and all he does is shake his head. I open the door with George in hand, standing eye to eye with the taller boy.

"Descamps." I say in greeting. He's heaving, eye scanning my frame like he always does. I purse my lips, greeting the pharmacist. The pharmacist greets George, seeing I've brought him around from time to time. George was basically a regular here.

"Pardine." He greets, but his voice shivers. I almost ask him what's wrong, 'till I remember.

George wriggles out of my arms and into his. He loses his balance a bit, regaining it as he holds George like a baby, like he did before. Fuck, I miss him.

"Hello, George." He smiles softly at the cat, and I can't help but melt internally. I take a deep breath, trying to regain my composure. He's holding him so gently, and my heart pound in my chest. Hard.

I grab my things from the pharmacist, thanking them quietly before trying to get George. He growls at me, and I stare at him in shock. Joseph looks up at me. When I look at him, I don't look away immediately.

"I can take him to your car." He says in an almost whisper, turning his head down. He's so shy, and I just want to hold him.

Before we could get out, Michèle goes through the door of the pharmacy. I smile at her gently, greeting her a hi. She greets me back. I wait for her, wlaking with her outside.

"Laubrac, what a surprise." She says, and I roll my eyes at her. She looks at me sheepishly, making a pointed look at Joseph. I understand the sign.

"Did you plan to meet here?" I wave at Laubrac, and he smiles, cigarette in between his fingers.

"What are you doing here?" Joseph asks Laubrac as he eyes the boy up and down, the shy demeanourhe had with me long gone. George is still in hand, but now he carries him with one arm.

"My parents' butcher shop isn't far." Michèle cuts in. "I have to go, or my mom will kill me. See you at school." She bids off to the three of us.

"Aren't you working with your chickens today?" Joseph asks Laubrac, and I glare at his rudeness. He doesn't notice.

"Even farmhands get time off." Laubrac answers simply. There's a pause.

"Okay, I'll see you tomorrow." Laubrac walks off now, leaving me and Joseph infront of the alley.

"Let's just go." I walk to Callum, seeing him smoking a cigarette in the car, window opened slightly. He spots the two of us and unlocks the door. Joseph's quick to open it for me, and I just look at him, flushing at the gesture.

"Thanks." I whisper, ducking my head to get seated. Joseph crouches down, kissing George's head, and placing him on my lap.

"Joseph. Long time no see." Callum raises a hand in greeting, throwing the dead cigarette out his open window.

"Callum. Saw you pick her up yesterday. Where were you guys headed?" Joseph raises a brow, some sort of annoyance in his voice.

"Took her to the beach to a car meet. Did some swimming, she learnt something about me, and I told her something about herself." Callum puts simply.

Joseph doesn't like his answer. "Told her something about herself, huh?"

Callum notices his tone and chuckles. "Yeah. Something she needed to set straight. You know, something she knows deep down, but she's not doing anything about it." Joseph's gripping hard on the door handle, his knuckles going white.

"And what would that be?" Callum smiles at him.

"Can't tell you. Only she can. Actually, you can probably help her out with it. I'm sure you're feeling the same way she does." That's when I whip my head to face the boy, face as red as a ferrari, heart beating faster than a race car. Sorry, Callum's rambling is affecting me.

"Yeah? What's she feeling? I doubt that it's anything bad, considering that's not how I feel about her." Joseph looks at me, leaning against his now crossed arms in the window shield. With both boys' attention on me, my breathing hollows.

"It's nothing. Bye, Descamps." Callum chuckles, getting the car to start, then beeping it at Joseph as a goodbye. Once we're far away enough, I hit Callum on the shoulder.

"What was that for?" I scream out, embarrassment flooding off of me. Callum won't stop laughing.

"Oh, come on. You two knuckleheads should just get together! You're so obviously in love." I groan, covering my face with my hands. George meows at me.

"I can't believe you, Callum."

"Plus, summer's in a few. You're gonna have to tell him before you leave." Shit. Summer. Paris. I haven't told him yet.

"Fuck. I hate that you're right." I think for a while. "But we're still on bad terms!"

"You just want to be on bad terms because you don't wanna confront him about it. I can see, very clearly, actually, how much you guys want to be together."

His response makes the gears in my head turn. He's right, I admit it. But how do I tell him? When? Where?

Then I remember the girl, and he'll probably forget about me before I even leave. He won't notice that I'm gone.

So, now that I think about it, it won't be so hard. So why can't I bring myself to be relieved? As if I want it to be hard. For him to beg for me not to leave. Not to go. Not to move.

Because if I do, I'll forget about him. But I could never forget him, no matter how hard I try. Because he's Joseph Descamps, the boy who I love too much for my own good. The boy with one eye. The boy I think about when looking at the future. The boy that will always stay in my mind, heart, and soul.

It'll be easy. If not for me, for him. He'll fall in love with some girl, marry her, live with her, have a family with her, grow old with her. Then I'll just be there, thinking about him day and night, counting the endless possibilities and what ifs.

And if I had just realised earlier, told him earlier, loved him earlier, then maybe, just maybe, I'd be happy.

That's not the case. Not now, not ever. And I'll have to live with that 'till the day I die, with him in mind.

××《☆》××

There was a test that morning. Laubrac came in late. We finished the test. The day ends. It was simple. Quiet. But, chaos came in an errand again.

Joseph walks into the butchers, and I internally gape at the sight of him. He's so, so beautiful. I think I might cry. I can't even describe how beautiful he looks right now. I wish I could kiss that patch again. Cup his face with my hands again. Brush his hair, hold his hand, and feel his lips on mine.

The store is quiet, and customers look at the walking image of beauty, including Michèle's mother. She calls out for her husband.

I just stare at Joseph. He doesn't notice I'm there, fully focused on the couple.

"I hear the Magnan's like to sleep with foreigners and thugs." I furrow my eyebrows, frustrated at the juncture.

"You're the only thug here." I keep my eyes on Joseph, trying to figure out his next move.

"The thug is that foster kid sleeping with your fifteen year old daughter." Joseph answers. I purse my lips disappointedly.

"You didn't know?" He says, acting all innocent. "I'm sorry, but it's true. Your son's too busy fooling around with a foreign girl to warn you."

What the actual fuck. What's gotten into him?

"Get out!" Mrs. Magnan says. "It's all lies. Lies!"

He chuckles, and why the fuck is it so attractive?

"Really? If it was, you wouldn't be so upset."

He has a point there, but it's still an asshole thing to do.

"You little shit." Mr. Magnan mumbles.

"Say hi to Jean Pierre for me."

"I'll teach you a lesson!" Mr. Magnan shouts as he walks to the exit, but I beat him to it.

I walk up hurriedly to Joseph, pulling at his shoulder to face me.

"What the fuck was that?" I shout, anger pounding jn my veins.

"It's true, and you know it. Why are you so angry?" He says as if it's simple.

"They're my friends, Joseph! Why the fuck wouldn't i be upset about it?" I push his chest.

"Back to first name basis, Y/N? Go back to your boyfriend and talk about those feelings of yours." This makes my hear shatter against my chest.

"For the last time, he isn't my boyfriend."

"Why does it seem that way, huh? Do you like leading people on? Should've known. Went through it anyway!" He starts to walk away.

"You go back to your girlfriend, asshole!" He turns around and flips me off.

I fight the urge not to just sob in the middle of the street. Unbeknownst to me, he feels the same, too.

××《☆》××

I received a call in the house as soon as I get home. I pick it up, wiping the tears on my cheeks.

"Hello?" I try to hide the shake in my voice.

"Y/N, darling? This is Mrs. Descamps." Shit. Worst timing.

"Oh, good afternoon, ma'am. Is there something wrong?" I ask, worry etching my voice.

"Well, I meant to ask if you were still coming tonight. But there's also something else I wanna talk about." I furrow my brows, sniffling a bit.

"Um, sure, I'll still go." I shut my eyes in regret. I should've said no. "What is it you want to talk about?"

"Well, Joseph came home a bit gloomy. He hasn't come out of his room, and whenever I ask him what's wrong, he just tells me off. I'm worried, you know, as a mother is, and I was wondering if anything happened at school." My heart aches for the woman.

"Well, to be honest, ma'am, I think it's better if you ask him. I don't want to say anything I'm not supposed to."

"Oh, well, that's alright." There's a lace of disappointment in her voice. "Well, I'll see you later, darling. Come by 7 or later." We bid each other goodbye and hang up.

I put my pearl necklace on, the item in contrast with my red dress. It's quite formal, but that's what you wear for dinner, right? There's a semi-big bow on the back, wrapped around my waist like a present.

Time passes as I get ready. The whole time, my heart pounded in my chest. I'd have to see him again. Talk to him. And after that argument.

So when I arrive and knock on the door, and Joseph answers, my heart stops its beating.

Thankfully, Mrs. Descamps ushers me in her home once again, and we're at the dinner table, eating silently. Well, just Mrs. Descamps really. Me and Joseph don't touch our food, keeping our head down.

"Something wrong with the food, children?" Mrs. Descamps says, and I'm quick to dismiss the idea, not wanting her to feel down about it.

"There's nothing wrong with the food, ma'am. I just... I ate a bit before coming here." I take a hold of her hand, reassuring her.

"Oh, that makes sense." She grabs her sons hand. "What about you, my angel? You haven't eaten anything when you got home."

I glance at him in worry, his eye catching me. We put our heads down at the same time.

"Just no appetite, Mama." He purses his lips at her.

"I hope you're not mad about earlier. I won't make you get the glass eye anymore." She looks at me again, a mischievous smile on her face. "At least Y/N here thinks you're beautiful." I flush at the mention of the incident, wanting the ground to swallow me whole.

"Good. That's the only opinion that matters." He whispers to himself, but I heard it clear.

"So," Mrs. Descamps drops both our hands and gets back to eating. I start on my plate, too. "Is there something you two want to tell me?"

I blush profusely. "What do you mean, Mrs. Descamps?"

"Well, there's obviously something between you two." Mrs. Descamps shrugs. Joseph calls his mother out, and I flush even more in my seat.

"Okay, just because I'm old doesn't mean I don't know what love looks like. Me and your father-"

"Mama, please stop." Joseph groans through his hands, Mrs. Descamps laughing at her son.

"Okay, fine. I'll talk to you later." Mrs. Descamps winks at her child, then suddenly, the air isn't so suffocating anymore.

When dinner ends, Mrs. Descamps makes Joseph walk me out. We're outside their house now.

"She doesn't know about your girlfriend?" I put simply, not letting him know my heart is in shambles. He rolls his eye at me, and I have a feeling it'll make his head ache soon.

"She's not my girlfriend." I hear feet pattering against the dark cobble stone street. I turn my head, and there she was. The girl we were just talking about.

"Well, she doesn't think that." I observe her nice puffy dress, jewellery shining from the moonlight, her hair done up. She even has a bit of makeup on. I smile at her, turning back to Joseph, but not looking in his eyes.

"I called her to meet here." Joseph states, and I chuckle. He seems to have gotten what it was I was chuckling about. Tears rim my eyes in frustration.

"It's not what it seems like-" I quickly cut him off, passing by the girl in a hurry.

I hear him call out my name, and I almost trip at the desperation of it. He's always giving off the idea that he wants me, but in the end, I realise I'm in a loophole and I'm finally aware I've been a fool.

I hate Joseph. I hate his toothy smile. I hate his messy ash hair. I hate his towering frame. I hate the dirt colour eyes he has. I hate the way he walks fast with his long legs.

Fuck. Why does it always end like this? I always say I hate him, then I don't, then, like a loop, I do. When will it end? When will I finally decide how I feel?

For now, it's all his fault. It's his fault for making me feel this way. His fault for being so pretty it hurts. His fault for being so... so... Fuck.

Just plain fuck.

××《☆》××

End- Chapter seven: Salvatore

Next- Chapter eight: Joseph, Joseph, Joseph

××《☆》××

DONE W THIS CHAPTER AND ONLY 3 MORE CHAPTERS TO GO!!! We've come so far and my heart hurts for the both of them but it's part of the process. To all the Callum haters, I told u guys u would regret hating on him. We love Callum and I don't accept the hate. So guys love him pls he needs it. Anwww happy reading (not so happy this chapter is pure angst)

#joseph descamps #joseph descamps x reader #mixte1963 #michèle magnan #simone palladino #jean pierre magnan #alain laubrac #enemies to lovers #fanfic #reader insert #angst #cars #salvatore #lana del rey #one sided love #rejection

[rafaslittleboy]

a hand to hold mine

pairing: sonny carisi/little sister!reader

description: sonny’s baby sister is a victim of a hostage situation. things come to light, and sonny considers what you are to him.

rating: dead dove don’t eat, dark fic, taboo fic. incest relationship between older brother and (legal) little sister. reader is taken hostage and sonny makes everything all better. hospital sex. bio brother/sister porn. fingering, clit rubbing, orgasms, loss of virginity, unprotected p-in-v sex, some dirty incest talk. (if I missed any out, let me know!)

if you’re sensitive, don’t read!

dc: @flowercrowns-goodvibes bc she wanted it sooooooo badly

When Carisi got the call that a girl, between the age of eighteen and twenty-two, had been caught in a hostage situation, Amanda had told him to come down immediately.

As an ADA, he barely got to go to hostage situations. But the perpetrator? He asked for Carisi specifically.

Someone he had crossed back in his detective days, by the looks of it.

As soon as Dominick arrived, he was given a bullet proof vest and Amanda filled him in on the situation.

Man, in his late thirties, has a record for pedophillia and murder, was let out on good behaviour only two weeks prior. His name was David Ortez—and Sonny was the undercover cop that built a case against him and put him away.

“it’s your sister, Sonny.” Amanda told him, sympathy in her tone.

“My… my sista’?”

What one? Was the question. He had four sisters, Bella, Theresa, Gina—and the baby sister, you. Just started college, your whole life ahead of you.

Amanda said your name and suddenly Carisi felt light headed. Bile rising in his throat.

“How long has she been in there?” He said, and he could barely hear himself.

“Almost an hour, listen… he’s done a number on her. He phoned nine-one-one every time he hurt her.”

Sonny clenched his fist. David Ortez was a disgusting man. When Sonny was undercover, that man told him in detail about the things he watched, things he done to his kids, his nieces and nephews. Things that made him sick then and made him sick now. And now he had you, his little sister, of all people.

“He’s phoning again.” Olivia raised her finger for everyone in the trailer to stop talking. She answered the phone.

“David?”

“Miss. Benson… it’s been a long time since we last spoke. How’ve you been? How’s Noah?”

David smiled into his phone. He watched through a blind spot in the window, watched how the building he was in was barricaded by armed police. Kept his eyes on the white trailer dead centre of the road.

“What do you want, David?” She spoke.

“I want to speak to Carisi.”

Sonny took the phone from Olivia’s hand despite her orders for him to stay quiet. He wasn’t a detective anymore, she said, you’re an ADA.

“I’m here.”

“Dominick.” The man smiled into the phone. “Got your baby sister here, she was stupid enough to help a poor… injured man.”

The way you became his hostage in the first place was because he had came up to you after your class, faking a stabbing. Spending the last two weeks stalking you, understanding your routine and schedule—and he got you at the right time. As soon as David got you into a room, he pistol whipped you and kicked you in your side to keep you down.

“She’s got a kind heart,” Sonny said, “how ‘bout you just let ‘er go? Huh? This is ‘tween you n’ me.”

“No can do, Dominick. Think I might keep her, actually. Take her abroad, get her pregnant, start a family with her. Sounds good, doesn’t it?”

David traced the gun up your temple, smirking down at you.

He had your hands tied behind your back and has you sat against the wall below the window. A strip of duct tape over your mouth.

And David had beat you well. Bruising littering your body, your nose bleeding and a gash in your forehead and eyebrow dripping blood down your face.

“No way in hell.” Carisi growled at the David.

“Am I on speaker phone?”

“Yes.”

“Take me off. Unless you want your squad to learn some real shitty stuff about you.”

Sonny looked around, Olivia, Amanda, Joe and everyone else who was in the trailer was looking at him.

Olivia gave him a nod of permission, and Sonny pressed the button on the phone. It was just Sonny and David now.

“Good. Don’t think I don’t remember what you told me. What I made you do.”

To gain David’s trust while Sonny was undercover, he had to befriend David. And David was paranoid, it took months for David to trust him.

“One thing,” David said.

“Anythin’” Sonny replied.

“Prove what you did to her. Your little sister? You told me you raped her since she was four. Looked through your wallet and you have a photo of her.”

“What about her?”

“Want you to jerk over her. Now.” And David passed Sonny the picture of you as a little girl. Sonny kept it in his wallet for a reason to keep going, to keep doing what he was doing.

Sonny held the picture between his fingers and he looked down at the picture of you. He swallowed, hard and looked at David and nervously smiled, “C’mon… I’m past that now.”

“I’m not giving you a choice.”

The picture was placed back in his wallet ten minutes later, stained with his milky cum.

Sonny hears you yelp, and he can’t imagine what David is doing to you. “Don’t touch her.”

“Why? Give me a reason not to rape her right now, Dominick.”

“She… she—I ain’t ever… done what I said I did. To her. I was undercover, had to learn more about ya.”

“Obviously. This little girl adores you; fairly obvious you didn’t do a thing you said you did.” And he tugs on your hair.

“You put me away, Dominick. Worked your way into my head and put me back in prison. Do you know what they did to me in there? Do you?!”

David yelled down the phone.

“David… I’m sorry, if it were up’ta me, it would’ve never of happened.”

“But that’s the thing, Dominick. You had a choice. And now, so do I. Life is all about making the right choices.”

You squeezed your eyes shut as the barrel of the gun stared back at you. Your breathing got worse.

“Theres two ways this can go. Put me back on speaker phone.”

Sonny done as he was told. Immediately.

“Option one: I shoot the little girl and then myself. You never get to see her again. You never get closure.”

David pauses. Sonny’s palms are sweaty. His heart beating out of his chest.

“Option two: You get me a car, you get me a million dollars and I take your little sister anywhere I want. And I promise you. I’ll keep her alive.”

Both options take you away from your brother. Away from your family, friends—the life you built.

“I’ll give you ten minutes to decide. And if you don’t? Well…” David took the safety off the pistol. “I’ll decide for you. Times ticking, Dominick Carisi.”

Then the line went dead.

Sonny threw the phone on the desk and wiped a hand down his face.

“I’ll get a car,” Olivia told him. “We have two Snipers are already aimed at the door, Sonny, don’t worry. We’ll get him.”

If only Sonny could believe that. He’s seen how some of these things go. How there’s no happy endings.

“It’s option two; we get a car, lure him out and shoot him dead.”

“Nah, no.” Sonny put a hand on his hips. “Could hurt her. I ain’t gonna hurt my lil’ sister.”

“Sonny, hurting her is the least of our problems. We want her alive, and we want her out. Now. This way, we get her out and she’ll be alive and she’ll be safe.”

Sonny bit his lip. Amanda was right. This was the only option they had to take. The only option Sonny could agree to.

“Call him back. We have a car on the way.” Olivia told him.

And sonny picked up the phone and dialled David back. David picked up within the first ring.

“Dominick. Your choice?”

“Two. I have a car on the way, we have your money. I know you, David, you… you stick to your word. I know you’ll take care’a my sister.”

“Good choice, Carisi. Knew you’d come to your senses. Hey, I’ll send you a postcard when she births my children. Don’t get too jealous.”

David watches as a black Jeep pulls up outside the barricade and how the police move around it, to give him space. “My money in that car, Carisi?”

There was no money. The objective out of this situation was to shoot David point blank.

“Yes,” Sonny replied. “It’s all in there. In a bag. Untraceable. The car’s untraceable, too.”

“Wow,” David smiled, “Really doing everything to protect your sister, eh? Do you remember when I made you look at a picture of her, made you jerk your cock over her?”

The phone was on speaker. Everyone could hear what David was saying.

“No.” Sonny swallowed. “I don’t.”

He does. It crosses his mind frequently.

“I do. I don’t blame you.” David lowers the phone to you, “Hey, sweetheart. You wanna say goodbye to your big brother?”

“S—sonny—“ you sob. And it’s the first time he’s heard your voice in months. He regrets leaving your text messages on delivered or read, he regrets not reaching out to you, calling you.

“Hey, doll,” he panics, he brings the phone to his ear. “You’re gonna be okay, doll, my little angel.”

“Of course she is, she’s gonna be my wife.”

David grabs your arm and pulls you up. “Bye, Carisi.” And he hangs up.

David brushes off your shoulder and smiled wickedly at you. “It’s just you and me now, little one. Your brother gave us his blessing.”

You start crying again. Closing your eyes just so you don’t have to look at this horrible man. In your little mind, he’s won. He’s going to take you god knows where and you’ll never get to see anyone you love again. You’ll never get to see your mom, your dad, your older sisters—your big brother.

He’s always been a busy man. Recently, after he came an ADA, he hadn’t had any time for you. It hurt you, but you were a big girl—you could understand that sometimes his job had to come first.

David ripped the duct tape from your mouth and tapped your bruised and cut cheek.

“Oh, don’t cry, baby.” David cooed, “it’ll all be fine soon enough. come on, start walking.”

David shoved you forward and put the gun at your spine. It was enough for you to do as you’re told. You walked, but you couldn’t feel yourself walk. It was as if you were floating.

David opened the door and the sun blinded you, your eyes flinched at the bright light.

Inside the trailer, Amanda was staring at the computer screen. “We have eyes.” Amanda yelled and Sonny didn’t waste any time and pushed past Olivia to leave the trailer.

He saw you, oh god, he saw you. You were there, alive. Breathing. His beautiful little sister.

“I want a clear pathway!” David yelled, “or the kid dies!”

Sonny was so close. He felt sick.

Sonny thought about how you grew up with him as your role model. He was in his late twenties when you were born, and his ma’ and dad were too busy with work so they handed you off to him. He raised you when they weren’t able to. His life with you flashed through his mind, like it was his last minutes with you. How you grew up to be a pretty little girl. How he isn’t so different from some of these men he puts away.

It’s a thought that he pushes to the back of his mind. A disgusting part of him that only comes out at night.

A part of him that wanted his little sister. And David knew that fact.

David walked down the steps with the gun to your temple. “Your brother is right there, front row seat. You wanna know that he’s real jealous of me right now. He knows that I’m going to fuck you real good, fill you up with my babies. He wants it to be him instead.”

You couldn’t see your brother—wherever he was. You couldn’t see anything. Your eyesight was blurry with tears.

David moves from behind you and walks in front, approaching the jeep.

Not even a second later, a loud gunshot rings out in the air. The bad man slumped to the ground in front of you. Your face splattered with his brains and blood, eyes squeezed shut.

Time went so fast, your ears rang.

Sonny shouted your name as he pushed heavy armed police out of the way and into the barricaded zone, where you were.

You felt arms wrap tightly around you, smooshing you against a broad chest. You recognise the feeling, the safeness of his arms. It was your big brother.

“Sonny,” your voice cracked as he held you tight, he breathed you in. You were here, you were alive, breathing. Hugging him tight to your body.

“S’okay, doll, m’right here.”

His hand cupped the back of your head and started to guide you into the police car just a few feet back. Blood on your face wasn’t a good look, the fear in your eyes made his heart hurt.

His little sister, a little girl he watched grow up, had a gun to her head because he put a rapist—murderer away a few years ago, and he got out early. It was all his fault.

The EMTS came over and tore you from his grasp, telling you that you’re going with them.

“I’m ridin’ with her,” Sonny tells them, “I need’a make sure she’s okay.”

“Okay, Counsellor.” They agreed. “We’ll let the other detectives know.”

———

You had passed out in the ambulance on the way to the hospital and the paramedics had to reassure him that you were okay, that your body probably just had to relax—so it forced itself to sleep.

It didn’t give him the peace of mind they hoped.

You were asleep for around six hours and Sonny didn’t leave your side once. The second you woke up, he sat up and held your hand to his chest.

“Hey—hey,” he weakly smiled, his hand extended and hesitated to touch your hair. “You okay?”

You coughed and looked around the room you were in. “How… did I get here?”

“Ambulance brought ya here, doll, ya passed out just after you sat down.”

You swallowed a lump in your throat. “I just… I was so scared. He… he said he’d shoot me, or he… he’d gut me. He said it all depended on your answers.”

Sonny tears up, and it stings his blue eyes.

“Oh, doll…” Sonny sat forward and kissed your forehead, lingering so you wouldn’t see the tears in his eyes. “M’so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.” You tried to make him feel better, it wasn’t all the time you got to see him emotional.

“It is,” he says and he kisses your forehead repeatedly, “it is—my stupid work, brought ya into this.” and he holds you close, closing his blue eyes tight.

“i love you, sonny” you hiccup.

It was his emotional and vulnerability caused your own emotions to topple over, and you sobbed. Being in his arms, being with him, grounded you and made you understand that you were alive. You were safe. Your big brother saved you.

“I… “ and he doesn’t think, he just leans his chin forward and captures your lips in a soft, timid kiss.

A way a big brother should never kiss his little sister.

But he does it anyway. His big hand on your cheek keeping you close. Your eyes closed, any negative thought you had in your head disappeared as fast as they were thought.

“Was… “ Sonny swallowed, “was that okay?” he says below a whisper. Your eyes slowly open—your lips tingle with the aftermath of him giving you your first ever kiss.

You nod.

“Can… you kiss me again?”

Sonny didn’t expect you to ask for a kiss. He expected you to… well, do something else. Scream, yell, tell him to get out and that you’ll tell your parents. But no, you wanted him to kiss you again.

Sonny chuckled, then tilted his head to kiss you again. This time, with just a little more pressure than his previous feathery kiss. His hand came to cup the back of your head and press your lips harder into his.

As the kiss deepened and got more hot, he licked on the seam of your lips, opening your mouth to him. Taking advantage of your gasp, (obviously you had no idea that that was how real kissing started).

“what if a nurse comes in?” you say, breaking the kiss briefly. Your lips were swollen, breath uneven. Eyes blown.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, babygirl.”

You felt his hands roam up and down your arm slowly, the arm that wasn’t hooked up to machines, that was. He leaned in to kiss you again, humming into your mouth as his slender hand dipped further and further down your arm and onto your thigh.

Sonny’s fingers touch your pussy tenderly outside of your little pink panties, his thumb twirling the little purple bow. Your soft moans as he kissed you just egged him on.

You broke the kiss briefly when you felt his finger slip into the waistband and slowly pulled your panties to the side, the cool air of the poorly conditioned hospital room hitting your hot pussy.

“‘M gonna touch it now, doll.” He whispered against your lips, and you barely had a second before the pad of his middle finger drifted upwards from your slick hole to your clit and he rubbed in slow, big circles.

“oh…” and your brows furred together.

It wasn’t as if you hadn’t touched yourself before, it was that no one had ever touched you before. It felt weird—and the wrongness and guilt of the person who was the first to touch you being your older brother was still deep in your tummy.

“You okay?” Sonny says softly. He knows he’s pushing his luck, kissing you after a traumatic experience and now he’s touching you inappropriately. Testing the waters on just how much you’d take what he’d give you.

You could barely nod, barely speak. “f—fine,”

“Feels good?”

And he puts just a little more pressure on your clit and watched how your knees parted open subconsciously.

“yeah,” you breathe.

He couldn’t miss how your eyes couldn’t stop watching from his hand moving between your legs.

Sonny’s eyes are fixed both on your face, how your face contorts to each repeat pleasure of the circles he drew on your clit. And how your hips roll ever so slightly on his finger.

His finger slipped in—and that’s one thing you hadn’t done to yourself. Your fingers had always been too short to reach anywhere. But Dominick’s fingers were long, and just one of them sliding inside you and crooking just enough to press down on something that made you whine what was meant to be his name.

“oh my god—“ you choke. And it’s too much too soon, the way his fingers leave your pussy and push back in and curl has your breathing quicken.

You don’t think—you turn your head and kiss him. Your mind so clouded with lust that you just knew you had to have his tongue in your mouth.

Making out with him sloppily as he speeds up his fingers inside you. The obscene sound of squelching filled the room and Sonny and yourself’s laboured breaths.

“Feels—“ you try but words fail you, “feels—“

“like ya gonna cum on ya big brothers fingers?” Sonny answers for you. He can feel your walls tighten on his fingers, feel how wet you have his hand and dampening the flimsy hospital sheets beneath you just by a simple finger-fuck.

You bite your lip and clench your fists, the orgasm building and building and building—until it burst, and you were cumming, hard, on your brother’s fingers. Squeezing and clamping down those two fingers that were still moving inside you. You moaned your older brother’s name, reaching down to clasp your weak hand over his wrist, puffing out of a breath.

“T—too much.”

Sonny smiles at you, “Doll, ya pussy just keeps tryna suck my fingers back in ya.” And he curls his fingers again and your knees cross, touching each other and thighs clamping down on his hand.

“Could make ya cum again, if ya want. See how you’d take three fingers.”

God, you didn’t know if you could take three of his fingers. His fingers were so long.

“Or… I could give ya my cock instead. Got me real hard after that little show, doll.”

Your mind was fuzzy.

“Please.”

And he smirked, withdrew his fingers from inside you and lifted his knee so he got onto the bed with you. On his knees above you, and he slowly undone his belt and pulled it through the loops.

All he had to do was pull down his fly and pull his cock out.

It wasn’t the first time you had seen Sonny’s cock, having to share a bathroom and your bedrooms across from one another. You had a fair amount of times of walking in on him changing, or in the showering, or pissing into the toilet bowl—only once while he was stroking his cock in the dark, you didn’t see it, but you saw the motions of his hand twisting around his hidden cock.

But you saw it now, hard and poking out from his fly just for you.

“can i… can i touch it?”

And Sonny glances at you, “Course,” and lifts your wrist so your hand replaces his. He bites back a groan but not even a second later it comes out when he feels your small, warm hand softly squeeze his hard cock.

“Jus’ like that, doll.”

You do it again, then you try and copy his previous hand movements by slowly stroking up and down his cock. Getting yourself used to the weird feeling. It looked like hard stone, but in your hand it felt squishy and stiff.

“Is… i think… your… thing… is crying,” you tell him

“Huh?” Sonny peaks open an eye and looks down. The red tip of his cock has a bead of pre-cum that’s threatening to spill out.

“Oh, doll. That ain’t my cock cryin’, means ya makin’ me feel real good.”

You smile slightly, “I like making you feel good, Donmy.”

Oh, god. He shouldn’t be feeling like this. But the things you done to him just by existing, being innocent, inexperienced. It made him hotter just thinking about how in that hospital room, he had been your first’s.

Sonny needed more. Craved more of you.

He softly wrapped his hand around your own that was still lazily pumping his cock. “M’gonna put it in ya,”

You looked up at him, and then at his cock. Oh, right, he wanted to put it in you. How could you even be surprised? The little videos you watched, the man always put his penis inside the girl. Now it was going to happen to you, a deep pit of nervousness settled in your tummy.

You wondered if you told him right now that you had never had sex, would he shy away? Leave you alone and never speak of it again?

Your rolling negative thoughts were stopped briefly when sonny shifted back and pushed up your hospital gown just over your hips. Your baby sister pussy on display for him. Wet and swollen from the orgasm he so generously gave you.

“That’s a good fuckin’ pussy I’ve ever seen one,” Sonny licks his bottom lip and dipped his hand down just to touch it again. His cock twitched as he inserted a finger again, so tight just around one finger—he couldn’t wait to feel it around his cock.

He quickly took his finger out and wiped your slick on his cock, along with a glob of his own spit. He knew he didn’t need any more lube, you were wet—so fucking wet for him. He loved, in particularly, your little button clit that was already puffy with arousal.

Your older brother had seen your pussy a few times growing up, when he had washed you, or helped you get changed. He was even there when you first started to experiment with touching yourself. He was only trying to give you your freshly clean clothes, but he stopped by the barely open door and was able to see just enough on how you unskillfully tried to rub your clit with one fingertip before giving up due to over sensitivity. The imagine was burned into his head, but he wasn’t complaining.

The tip of his bare cock bumped against said clit and you moaned, hips intuitively raising. Your pussy craved him—his cock—with the need to be filled.

It happened too quickly, Sonny angled his hips just right and pushed lightly against your hole. The feeling of a bulbous tip pressing against you was so good, hell, he watched as your pussy let out yet another streak of wet arousal.

But the second he started to push his hips forward had your heart in your mouth. “Sonny I… I’ve not—“

“‘know, doll,” is all he said back.

Dominick knew full well that he could get in a lot of trouble for this. Detective turned Assistant District Attorney, he knew quite literally all the laws in New York. This was against quite a lot of them. But it didn’t stop him.

He dipped his head to kiss you, swallowing your sounds.

There was no going back when the tip of his cock disappeared inside your virgin pussy. Popping the cervix open, claiming your virginity for himself. Your big brother’s head snapped up to look at your face when you let out a hissed moan due to the fact that his cock broke your hymen.

“You okay?” He breathed.

“Uh huh,” you moan, “it just… hurts a little.”

Sonny was happy he had got you as wet as you were, he couldn’t handle the thought of hurting you. Not unless you asked for it, that was.

Your pussy was so inviting, clenching so tightly around the thick mushroom head of his cock, trying to suck him in until there was nothing else left of him.

“Can I move, kid? Stuff you full’a me?”

And you nodded, “uh huh,”

Sonny bit at your lips, “Gonna need ya to use ya words, can ya do that? Speak up for ya big brother?”

Your walls throbbed, you needed him to fuck you. You needed him to hold you down and pound his cock inside you until it left you paralysed. Your body craved him, his hands and lips and everything about your brother.

And he pushes forward and you can’t stop the whine that escapes your throat, head tipping back only slightly against the hospital pillow as your pussy walls stretched to accommodate the foreign cock—your legs spread wider and Sonny immediately got comfortable.

“God, doll—fuck—“ and he slides right inside you, until the fabric of his dress pants settled against the back of your naked thighs. His full cock was inside you, stretching your walls until his tip was pressing against your untouched cervix. Any guilt he had previously faded away fast, his whole mind was focused on you. Solely you.

“You’re—all the way up here,” you choke and point to where your cervix would be on your tummy. Sonny roughly pushed up the gown over your exposed breasts, leaving you naked for him.

You heard him growl—growl—and it was the most attractive thing you had ever heard in your life.

“Yeah? M’ all the way up here?” And he pressed down where you pointed, and fuck, he felt himself settled deep inside you. He was able to feel the puckered tight hole of your cervix,

“Sonny—“ you moan, and it was loud. If it wasn’t early hours in the morning, someone would have definitely heard you.

“Beautiful lil’ girl—all mine, ain’t ya?” He growled as he started to thrust his hips. It was far too much for your poor cunt, still so sensitive over the orgasm he gave you before—every thrust of his cock inside you has a little spurt of liquid leaving your baby pussy and onto his cock and pants.

“All. Fuckin’. Mine.” He repeats as he feels your wet pussy dampen the crotch of his pants. Your mouth falls open, the arm that isn’t hooked up with wires reaches out to touch Sonny’s bicep to ground yourself.

“So—Sonny—you’re—my—“ and you’re already rendered dumb. Eyes barely able to stay open, unable to make a coherent sentence.

“Yeah, I’m ya big brother, ain’t I? Big brother makin’ ya pussy feel so good, huh?”

The hospital bed shook with the power of his thrusts, the sound of your wet pussy taking his cock over and over again filled the room. You had never imagined sex felt like this, always imagining it as an In-And-Out session.

His hand gripped your chin, “Answer me, doll.”

“Uh huh—yeah—you—you make my p—pussy feel really really good—“ you broke off into a moan as he gives you a thrust that’s hard, punching at your cervix and his balls right up against you.

And you nod, “so—so scared, tho—thought I’d—I’d never see you again.”

Sonny tips his head so his forehead, resting it against yours, his breath fanning across your lips with his efforts in fucking you. “Never gonna let that happen,” and he links your fingers together. “Gonna keep ya safe, keep ya just f’me—keep ya in my apartment, come home to ya everyday n’ fuck you deep every night.”

You moan at his words, “y-you’d do t-that?“

“My lil’ sister, love ya so fuckin’ much, my whole world.” He cuts himself off as he kisses you deeply, and you open your mouth to him and let him explore and get acquainted with your taste and the map of your mouth. “Gonna fill ya up with my cum, doll, hope it fuckin’ takes.”

Your breath hitches at the thought. Belly swelling with his baby—your big brother’s baby.

“Yeah? You like the thought a’ that? Dirty lil’ girl,” he smiles and then one of his hands came between you to rub, rub and rub on your clit and your back arched. “Need ya to squeeze my cock when ya cum, cum real hard f’me,”

“I—i—“ and he kisses you yet again, then you cum. Walls clamping down incredibly hard on his cock and liquid spurting from your pussy. Your orgasm was to powerful that it almost pushed his cock out from your hole, but Sonny pushed back in and fucked you hard through your orgasm.

“Fuck yeah, angel, squirt on my fuckin’ cock—gonna make me fuckin’ cum—“

And he fucked you rough, his cock pounding into you and the sounds you let out were downright pornagraphic.

Sonny squeezes you tight as he feels his orgasm reach its peak and he groans deep, head tipping onto your chest as he fucks his cum deep, deep inside you. Holding both of your hips down onto the bed and fucking you through the remainints of your orgasm and through his own.

You felt him slump down on-top of you, his heavy weight holding you down. You feel… like you’re in bliss, satisfied. Your thighs trembled slightly with pleasure that coursed through your whole body.

That is, until his stomach pressed down on the place you were kicked this morning.

“Ow..” you whine and Sonny quickly sits up, looking concerned.

“Did I hurt ya, doll?” and his hand lightly touches the red blotch of a bruise on your side.

“I’m okay,” you tell him, still breathless. Sonny checks you over anyway, his cock softening inside you as he does it.

Sonny pulls down your gown (after a subtle-not-so-subtle fondle of your breast) and smooths it over. Pulling his cock out of you at the same time, and you hissed at the new feeling of feeling empty.

Sonny wished he could see his cum drip out of you, but that could wait until next time. You needed to recover.

The crotch of his pants was wet with your orgasm, but he didn’t mind.

Sonny grabbed the blanket and pulled it over you, making sure to tuck you in and then settled beside you. “Gonna have ya stay with me for a lil’ while,” he says as he nuzzles into your side, his arm wrapped around you. “Afta’ today? I was… scared for ya.”

“Sonny…” you close your eyes. You hate what happened earlier.

“No, listen to me. Had a gun on me… was about’a go in there n’ shoot him dead before one’a the cops did. He hurt you.. my lil girl, harmed ya pretty face.” And he lifts his head and hand to stroke the few cuts on your cheek. “For peace of mind… I need ya to stay with me. Just for a while. Need’a know it’ll neva’ happen again.”

He held you close.

“what about… us?” You asked him. You just had sex with your brother, your older brother. And you really enjoyed it.

“What do ya want f’r us?” Sonny lifts his head to look you in the eyes.

“I dunno,” you trail off. “I… well, maybe we could… “

“Angel..” he smiles and cocks his head, “ya want me to be ya boyfriend?”

You bit back a smile. “you are my brother…”

“I know that, kiddo.” And he cranes his neck to press his lips to you. “we’ll figure it out, doll.”

#sonny carisi x reader #sonny carisi #law and order SVU #Dominick carisi #peter scanavino #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba

[avocado-writing]

I Know That I Should Let Go, But I Can’t

I know you said fem!reader but tbh, when I re-read it, there’s nothing specifying gender in this one. I also found this one a bit more challenging so it’s a little more love/hate relationship bc i love that shit with Tangerine

GN!Reader x Tangerine

@honestlywtfisgoingon @white-wolf-buckaroo @felhomaly @sinfulrefugy @venusthepirate @lunarpansexual @wanderedaway @georgiee-riviere @mushywutty @apieceoffabulousshit @4ng3l-0n-34rth @minjaz @starl1g4t @earth-elemental18 @luhvbot @underratedboogeyman @july-is-summer @vocalvixen20cp @northerngalxy​ @piechans (thank u mndvx for the gif!)

Tangerine believes he’s eloquent.

Well, he likes to believe that, anyway. He might be overly fond of the word ‘fuck’ and throw it into his sentences a little too often, but ‘fuck’ is a good word and usually helps describe how he feels.

And then he met you, and words failed him.

You’re always there, popping up whenever it’s most inconvenient to him specifically. Stealing kills from under his nose. He wishes he could get one over on you, once, but you’re like steam. You disappear into thin air and are impossible to catch.

You’re… you’re frustrating. That’s the word for it.

So why does he feel his heart race whenever he sees you?

Like right now. He’s just walked into the office where he’s meant to take down the leader of a local gang, only to find you sitting on the windowsill, swinging your legs back and forth as you play with a piece of paper. His mark is sat in a desk chair, a clean bullet wound through the forehead.

“Oh, no. Absolutely not,” says Lemon. Lemon has gotten tired of how often Tangerine talks about you - well, complains - and wisely chooses to extract himself from the situation. He’s not going to inflict this on himself up close again.

“Nice to see you Lem!” you call after him. He throws you what’s either an archer’s salute or a backwards peace sign over his shoulder as he leaves, and you laugh. You keep the smile on your face as you meet Tangerine’s eyes. 

“Alright, handsome?” you ask, cheerfully, as if you haven’t just killed his target. 

“See you’ve gone and fucked my job. Again, for some fucking reason,” he says through gritted teeth. Your grin only gets wider.

“What’s that line from that old song? ‘It gives me thrills to wind you up’.” He recognises the lyric and it makes him bristle. 

“You make my fucking tits ache, you know that?”

“If you hate me that much, pull out your gun and shoot me.”

The two of you stare at each other from across the room. He doesn’t. When you’re sure you’re safe, you beckon him to come closer.

Carefully he closes the distance between the two of you. You brandish the paper you’re holding at him. It takes him a moment to work out what it is.

“Chatterbox,” you say, helpfully. Tangerine’s brow creases. A folded fortune teller. Last time he saw one he was still at school, his age probably in single digits.

“Oh fuck off, I’m not going to -”

“Please?”

You look at him with wide eyes. He doesn’t like the effect it has on him, because he finds himself relenting.

“Fine. Fucking blue, then,” he sighs, picking a colour. You open and close the paper as you spell the word before prompting him to pick a number.

“Two.”

You unfold the side with a ‘2’ scrawled on it in what might be blood. There’s a single, four-letter word written there.

‘Boop’. 

Before Tangerine can ask what the fuck that means, he suddenly finds your finger pressed on the tip of his nose.

“Boop!” you announce, and topple backwards out of the window. He gapes and grabs the windowsill as he stares after you, a wide-eyed panic setting in.

You have a zipline. Of course you do. He watches you fly down it to street level, where you cut the wire loose and wave at him before running off.

He can feel how hot his cheeks have become, just from one simple touch from you. Fuck. He’s down bad.

You’ve left the chatterbox behind. He takes it, unfolds it carefully. Alone he’ll allow himself to admit he’s curious about what else is written on there.

He finds himself laughing, actually laughing in surprise, when he finds it’s your phone number. 

#tangerine x reader #tangerine x you #tangerine x y/n #tangerine bullet train #lemon and tangerine #my writing #request #bullet train fanfic

[morallyinept]

A full character analysis on TIM ROCKFORD from the adverts for MERGE MANSION

I've created this as a point of reference when writing for Pedro's characters, and I hope you find it useful. Even if you just want to learn more about the character. 🖤

FULL MASTERLIST OF PEDRO'S CHARACTERS ANALYSED

FULL CHARACTER STUDY:

Basic Details:

Full Name: Tim Rockford (Tim is often a shortened version of the full name Timothy, however he is only referred to as Tim in the commercials)

Nickname(s): None confirmed

Appears in: Merge Mansion Adverts, 2023

Age (if known): Unconfirmed, suspected on the range anywhere between mid-to-late forties/early-to-mid fifties, based on physical appearance

Sexuality: Not confirmed

Nationality: American, based in LA, however it's not confirmed where he's from specifically

Family: Not confirmed

Spouse/Partner: No mention of a current partner

Relationship Status: Not confirmed

Current Living Status: Alive

Languages Spoken: English

Education: Presumed at least college educated as he's a detective

Occupation:

Job Role/Title: LAPD Detective

Special Skill(s): Investigation, mystery/crime solving, weapons handling

Notable Colleague(s): None mentioned

Distinguishing Features:

Tattoo(s): Bullseye tattoo on left hand between thumb and forefinger (Pedro's own) however it is also missing in some shots/scenes. V letter tattoo on right wrist (Pedro's own).

Piercings: None

Scar(s): None notable

Other Markings: None notable

Prominent Feature(s): Slightly greying curled hair and beard/moustache

Injuries: Tim is not seen sustaining any injuries

Eye Colour: Brown

Hair Colour: Brown/greying

Personality:

Traits: Questioning, determined, curious

Tim is part of the LAPD according to his detective badge (Los Angeles Police Department). His badge number appears to be either 2316 or 2516 when zoomed in, however the image is blurry to confirm either way 100%.

Tim is softly spoken with a grizzly cadence to his American accent.

Objects seen on Tim's desk include a small black bound notebook, evidence bags and photographs, his name plaque, a radio walkie-talkie, pencil pot, evidence numbers, keyboard and desk tidy, keys and a telephone

The total length of Pedro's seen screen time as Tim, across all 3 adverts, is approximately 48 seconds.

In late February 2024, the official Merge Mansion Youtube Channel & Instagram page, removed all of the adverts starring Pedro as Tim Rockford off their platforms. This is more than likely because his contract with Merge Mansion advertising has come to an end, and usually when this happens, the brand (the game in this case) will remove them ready for a new advertising campaign.

Fashion/Outfits:

Outfits - Tim wears a white dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to his mid-arms, with dark brown slacks and a black leather belt with simple silver buckle design. He appears to be wearing a white tank top/vest undershirt/wifebeater under his shirt. He wears dark black shoes and a mid-length beige/tan trench coat. He wears a black and grey striped tie, in a single, loose knot. He is seen wearing a dark black suit blazer also.

Accessories: Tim wears a silver link watch on his left wrist. He wears thick black-rimmed spectacles. He wears his gold detective badge on his left hip. He wears a black leather, singular gun holster, with his gun holstered on the left side.

Weapons Used:

Weapon(s): (Exact weapons pictured below)

Tim's gun is only briefly seen and it's holstered. From the looks of it, it appears to be a standard issue Glock, possibly a Glock 17 or 19 model, which is usually synonymous with the LAPD.

Modes of Transport:

Vehicle(s):

Tim is driving a old vintage style car from the 70's/80's era. The car looks to be a 1979 Chevrolet Caprice model when compared with pics:

Dialogue:

🗨 See Tim's full dialogue from the adverts, including deleted scenes.

Further Character Links (if any):

Shoes Off - Merge Mansion Commercial, All Tim Scenes - Merge Mansion Commercials

FULL MASTERLIST OF PEDRO'S CHARACTERS ANALYSED

#pedro pascal #tim rockford #detective tim rockford #pedro pascal characters #detective tim rockford merge mansion #merge mansion #pedro pascal character analysis #tim rockford character study

[teecupangel]

What about a kitsune Desmond, a white fox appears shortly after Altaïr's birth white as snow with one black leg and golden eyes it follows Altaïr for his entire life seemingly never aging and smarter than any animal should be. Years after Altaïr's death Des feels a pull and shows up at the birth of Ezio and gains a second tail, the same trend continues with the Frye twins, the Kenways and the other two post Altaïr protagonists whose names escape me right now which if my math is correct leaves him able to get his ninth tail as he steals his infant self from the farm

I'd imagine he'd get more powers from each tail he grows maybe foxfire with his second (fire that burns as bright as the sun) and gaining a human form around 4 or 5

I’m going to be honest with you, nonny, I know a bit about kitsunes, specifically fox spirits, because one of my favorite characters during my childhood is Daji (specifically Dakki from the og Houshin Engi anime) and I never stopped loving her in all her malicious tyrannical glory.

While fox spirits/kitsunes can be benevolent or malicious, a lot of fox spirits are shown to be trickster.

… and seducers.

Like, being able to shapeshift into beautiful women and men who ‘bewitches’ or seduces humans are signs of how old a fox spirit is XD

But I kinda like the idea that Desmond remains as a fox the entire time, never changing in size or weight.

His tails can easily be ‘disguised’ into one tail by making sure they all move as one so it just looks like he has one big bushy tail (which is strange but not ‘mythical’ strange).

Now, we want Desmond to have 9 tails so the list of people would be:

his initial tail

Altaïr’s

Ezio’s

Edward’s

Ratonhnhaké:ton’s

Arno’s

Evie’s

Jacob’s

The ninth tail would be his own infant self.

My suggestion for his powers are, depending on how many tails he has, he unlocks:

Immortality and eternal youth (default)

Foxfire (kitsunebi) – the number he can summons grows with the number of tails he has

Dream sharing with his current connection (Ezio, Ratonhnhaké:ton, etc) – he always appears as Desmond Miles in their dreams

Shapeshifts to Desmond Miles

Shapeshifts to any human he is familiar with (having genetic connections with them makes it faster to shift to their form)

Shapeshifts to anything that is not human

Possession (having a genetic connection with Desmond Miles makes it easier to possess that person)

Ability to cast illusions that are almost impossible to distinguish from reality

Omniscience due to a direct connection with the Calculations

(These are all powers that are more or less seen in kitsune stories. If you think there’s too many shapeshifting powers, kitsunes are also known for being able to turn invisible, can fly, bend time and space or make people crazy)

Oh and making Desmond a white kitsune is *chef’s kiss*. In folklore, a white kitsune has reaches the top of its powers and is called celestial/heavenly which is a good foreshadowing on how powerful Desmond could become.

If I may suggest, whenever Desmond uses his foxfire, his tails is engulfed in white flames like this (but white and gold and without the ‘seal’:

#kitsune desmond #i cannot stress how hard it was to not turn him into a 'vixen' type ala daji XD #also i'm so proud of myself for not making a teen wolf nogitsune remark at all XD #assassin's creed #desmond miles #ask and answer #teecup writes/has a plot #fic idea: assassin's creed #desmond is turned into a creature subgenre

[hyewka]

୨୧ things i plan to write, currently writing, and all other similar updates.

status: all wips listed under are on pause (08/3/2023)

๑ full fics.

— ★ camboy! [c.sb]

catching your innocent, sweet naïve best friend in a compromising position…in front of a camera is not how you thought you’d be celebrating his birthday.

warnings: sub soobin, femdom, anal play, nipple clamps, soobins a virgin, tears, degradation kink, centers around purity culture

progress: 30% [1.4k]

— ★ can i be your boyfriend? [c.bg]

you think after giving beomgyu the most emasculating, humiliating sex known to mankind, he’d know his place and leave you alone. to your dismay, it’s the complete opposite and now he seems to be ten times more obsessed with you than he already was. [part two to boyfriend]

warnings: bratty sub!beomgyu, soobin & reader have a thing, mentions of infidelity, pet play (barking, going on all fours, collar), degradation, mean femdom, praise kink, nipple play (m receiving), use of a flesh light, dacryphilia

progress: 65% [3.2k]

— ★ untitled [c.bg]

it's been a year since you've properly talked to beomgyu, distanced from him due to being in a relationship. now, you're single, broken up with your boyfriend a few weeks back and the realization dawns on you— you painfully, and utterly miss your best friend. striking up a conversation with him at a mutual friend's party in hopes of rekindling your relationship shouldn't have taken such a weird turn.

warnings: tipsy gyu (overall drunk sex), sub leaning switch!gyu, sloppy makeout, blowjob, angst, reader isn't usually dom and gyu isn't usually sub so there's that background info, pull out method, quickie

progress: 10% [0.7k]

— ★ love me p. 2 [c.bg]

progress: 3% [0.4k] — scrapped and restarted 😭

— ★ white t’s [c.bg]

stoner sub beomgyu. piercings. and a goody two shoes mc.

progress: 20% [1.1k]

— ★ possibility of a million (and its consequences) [c.bg]

unreasonable ego and a pain in the ass smartypants, mansplaining asshole is the only way to describe beomgyu from psych 101. you’re not too surprised he’s a prude and also the most virgin-virgin you’ve had the (dis)pleasure of meeting. but like how all beginnings begin, one drunken night and you find yourself in a bed with the person you truly cannot stand for more than thirty unsupervised minutes— and holy fuck does the events from last night hit you like a brick with a dooming realization. you took the virginity of choi beomgyu.

progress: 87% (4.6k)

— ★ night after night (ibfyr) [c.bg]

the number one rule of having a hot roommate is to not fuck them— and well, you’ve broken that rule more than you could count (high libido call for desperate measures). but at least none of you have feelings, and don’t have to go through the mess that is dating the person who shares the same lease as you. too bad a confession during a fuck flips everything on its back. just give him seven days and beomgyu swears he can convince you to give dating (him) a try.

warnings: soft dom gyu

progress: N/A

— ★ younger, hotter [k.th]

you’re convinced that the new (younger, more efficient, more charismatic) hire at your division is there as your replacement due to the numerous layoffs your company has been officiating. it takes one wrong misguided initial impression to conclude that kang taehyun might just be the first person you’ve ever considered a mortal enemy.

warnings: sub!tyun who usually doms, noona kink, semi public…sort of (sex in a public bathroom’s stall), fingering (f receiving), desperate simp tyun for pussy bcs yes, unsafe sex, pullout method, just the tip trope, mc’s a complete bitch unprovoked, heavy degradation kink, use of ‘boss’ during sex, specific age difference not mentioned

progress: 15% (1.2k)

★ number of fics: 8

๑ series.

— ★ intro to love 101 [c.bg + c.yj]

you don’t believe in the concept of love. someone you consider your other half is the complete opposite. beomgyu falls in love every other week, and god does he love hard. with that comes a million heartbreaks, boxes of tissues, and your hoodies drenched with his tears and gross snot. you cannot bear to see your best friend hurt again so, you do the genius thing and create a step by step guideline on how to not fall in love the minute he's provided with attention. it should be easy, you are his best friend and practically the number one pessimist when it comes to romance. all he has to do is strictly follow through.

parts: five

— ★ to stardom [ot5]

managing your fuck buddy’s band and all its complications.

parts: six

๑ drabbles. (includes asks)

— ★ perv gym rat taehyun

— ★ spitroasting with soobin and kai

— ★ yandere bsf!yeonjun

— ★ beomgyu first time (anal play)

— ★ switch hybrid yeonjun

— ★ freshman!taehyun x junior TA!reader

— ★ sub taehyun

— ★ childhood friend sub!hyuka

— ★ expansion on perv!beomgyu + perv!soobin

— ★ beomjun threesome (might be a full fic)

— ★ sub! yeonjun + oral fixation

— ★ enemies to ??? w/ secret femboy!yeonjun (might be full fic)

— ★ best friend taehyun with virgin reader (might be full fic)

— ★ phone sex w/ beomgyu

#rana’s wips #i take ages to write a response to one ask so please be patient with me 😞 #and if you dont recognize your ask under the drabble list thats because i havent gotten to it yet #these are the main things ill be focusing on checking off😭😭

[sgiandubh]

Whiskey, not whisky

Kentucky bourbon it is, for McTavish, as formally announced on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CvxuLwXBDgt/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA%3D%3D.

Website, here: https://mctavishspirits.com/. Very instructive: The Sassenach vs. The Warchief. How original.

With a hefty pricetag. Heh, and Mordor thought the Sassenach was a rip-off?

The similarities apparently also extend to the marketing pitch: young, struggling actor dreams big, goes to the States, finds relative critical success there, walks down memory lane. And shares with the world his real, real passion he's "been working on for a while".

Yes. I am selling it. I don't have to pay for it, but... you do. Ugh. I have no words, wow. Oh, the entitlement and the smugness. Completely expected.

Let's unpack:

This is by no means or stretch of imagination a whimsical, vanity project and is carefully differentiated from a white label, which would have meant that the guy was basically lending his beard and voice to the (generic) product, in the hopes it will sell well enough and for as long as possible. No: it is, to quote the leaflet, "meticulously hand selected". Oh.

This is also a long-shot, well prepared blow:

Sorry: the website thinks I am a robot, even if there's just one and only R2D2 in our universe, but you should be able to get more details by yourselves. It is an LLC (easy-peasy, no hassle), filed on July 27 2023.

For the moment, the SM reactions are rather glacial. Sam's crowd is not amused, and with good reason:

I saw it coming, now the elephant is on the couch in the middle of the parlor and I have to say I am still perplexed, in a way, even if I shouldn't.

Sam's project is not the only thing he copies, btw. Check this out:

Yes, it's a Scottish brand I know absolutely nothing about (all input welcome), but still (http://thespiritscompany.com/portfolio/sir-mactavish-scotch-whisky/?age-verified=4b7d1b53bb):

McTavish, Sir Mactavish... Potato, potahto. In Europe, and specifically the EU , it would go to court for trademark infringement in 4, 3, 2, 1, especially since it could cause confusion, deception, or mistake. For comparison, Sassenach's German lost legal battle was sparked by way less than that: a mere partial homophony with the (obscure?) Sasse distillery in Schoppingen, somewhere in Westphalia (https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainment/celebrity/sam-heughan-loses-legal-battle-25578518 - this is the link I found first). But McTavish is clever enough to clearly go for the US market first and foremost.

And as a reminder, in S's situation, the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO)'s position has been particularly, and might I add, gratuitously, aggressive. I am intrigued enough and might get back to this in a separate post: don't hold your breath, though.

I still need to digest that and the question asked a couple of evenings ago remains open: what prompted S's sudden change of schedule? McTavish Anon might have been onto something, perhaps.

Tu quoque, McTavish? MIK, my earasaid. Now you understand why the sudden, subtle change on S's Twitter bio? Not only related to the SAG-AFTRA strike, I bet whatever you want on it (there's only a limited number of times I can bet my farm, heh).

[Much later edit, November 2023: It turns out this is an unashamed white label project. My bad for not immediately seeing it.]

#BoozeWars

[mingkist]

[8:45PM] Wooyoung is a liar. So is Mingi. So is San, Yeosang, and Yunho apparently. To sum it all up your friends were all filthy liars who likes to make your life a little more 'exciting' as they say it.

"For the last time," you say sternly. "I am not going to propose to someone just for us to get free dinner." And then, frustratingly, you remind them what they'd told you earlier this afternoon. "You five said it'll be on you this time."

"Well that was before we remembered that we're all 'engaged'," Wooyoung says. "I literally got 'engaged' to San last week, they won't believe us."

"And you think that me going up to a stranger, then asking for their hand in marriage will magically pay for our dinner?" You retorted.

"I mean it worked before," Mingi mumbles, "I got engaged to Tzuyu, and they even gave us a balloon."

You blink at him. "Who's Tzuyu?"

"This girl I proposed to for free dinner," he shrugs. "Girls will always say yes when you're as handsome as I am."

"Or Tzuyu is just a really nice person who likes to help people scam restaurants," you snickered under your breath. "I'm still not going to go up to a total stranger and propose to them, that's just stupid. Why can't I propose to Yeosang or Yunho?"

"Because we're engaged," Yunho answered with a bright grin, he lifts his left hand up and scrunched his nose. "I accidentally ate our ring."

By ring, Yunho means ring pop, of course.

At the look on your face, San smiles reassuringly. "You’ll be fine,” he mumbles first, reaching into his pocket. “That guy looks our age." He then adds, handing over a velvet box that contained your ‘engagement’ ring. "Go ask him."

And with a final shove, you got up onto your feet, taking in a deep breath as you approached a table where three men around you and your friend's age were sat.

"Hi," you say first, smiling —albeit awkwardly. You lowered your voice once the three gave you their full undivided attention. "Would you mind doing me a super quick favour?"

"What is it?" A man with tiny hands and split dyed hair sets his utensils down.

"This restaurant does this thing where if you get engaged you'll get dinner on the house," you explain. "And I was wondering if one of you could get 'engaged' to me?"

The man brow's furrows, his attention turning to his friend with platinum blond hair and the other who looked more than just amused. "What do you think, Hwa?"

Before 'hwa' could answer, the other man chirps in. "What's in it for us?"

"You could also get free dinner?" That was a lie, or a half truth, you didn't know. There was a chance they could also get free dinner but you weren't sure. "I think?"

"You think?" The man chortles, and the man with the tiny hands warns him off with a stern 'Jongho, behave.' He then turns to Hwa, watching him as Hwa observes you. "How about you propose to Seonghwa and in return he gets your number?"

Your eyes narrows at Jongho, was he being for real?

But . . . It’s just a small price to pay, for free dinner you guessed. "So—" You turn to 'Seonghwa' (at least he was cute). "— my number for a little white lie?"

Seonghwa nods, and stands up. For a split second the two of you looked at each other without so much as a word, unsure of what the other is doing. And when his eyes shifts to your hand, and the tiny velvet box in it, he reaches for it. He gestures towards his seat. "Sit."

And when you're doing what Hwa’s told you to, the man with the tiny hand asks you for your name —full name. You tell him yours and he tells you his in return. "Nice to meet you, Hongjoong."

"You too."

In front of you, Seonghwa gets down on one knees, eyes sparkling as he looks up at you. From the side of your eyes, you spot your friends —Wooyoung to be specific, holding his phone up as he lets out a loud cackle at the scene before him.

Seonghwa says your full name with as much affection he could muster. "Within the last five years (minutes, he means) I've known you, I've felt nothing but love for you." He pauses dramatically, opening up the box and you play into your role by gasping, a hand delicately placed on your chest in surprise. "Will you do me the honor in letting me be your husband?"

You choke out a fake sob. "Yes!"

Seonghwa returns the hug when you quite literally throw yourself into his arms. You then made quick work in thanking the three once more, adding your number into Seonghwa's contacts before leaving with another thank you.

Once you were finally out of ear shot, Hongjoong turns to Seonghwa with a mischievous look. "So when’s the wedding?"

Seonghwa turns to the side sheepishly, his cheek turning the slightest tinge of pink. "Shut up."

half way through writing this i decided that i hated it, but oh welllllll

p. ateez: @italiekim @realjonko @aestheticsluut @rielleluvs @youngestdelacour @alanniys @dogsongy @mingiholic @sankatchu @stopeatread @miriamxsworld @ka-ni-ma @sstarrysshit @nvmbheart @lazypostfandomer @side-effectss

#⇔ timestamps: ateez #ateez x reader #ateez x you #ateez au #ateez fanfiction #ateez humor #ateez texts #ateez x yn #seonghwa x reader #seonghwa x you #seonghwa x y/n #seonghwa slayyyyy

[system-architect]

no one tagged me in it but i rlly wanted to do a character tag meme like ive seen ppl on my dash doing so,,, :"") here's the one that's been going around, for plex!

personally obsessed with the fact that his ingame visage is extremely babied boy and then when i draw him it reveals the fact like oh this is a very tired, awkwardly built, angular guy who's nearing 30. ok anyways, stuff below the cut!

-- B A S I C S

Name: Plex (fully titled: Infotechnist Plex)

Nicknames: (none. his handle on various console software is pl3x tho)

Age: 28

Birthday: 63 Scion 1308

Race: Asura

Gender: trans dude of some kind, he/him

Orientation: gay

Profession: he is an Inquest Technician very literally! minus the wiki bit mentioning magic since the stock npc is an ele lmao. ingame he's an engi, but as a character he has no combat skills whatsoever other than basic required training on how to use a firearm (which he hopes to never have to use)

-- P H Y S I C A L A S P E C T S

Hair: white (technically very very platinum blonde, natural)

Eyes: they're technically black with permanent yellow nightshine going on in his pupils. or irises. whatever the yellow dots are. don't worry about it.

Skin: albino (w/ light cream-tan stripe markings)

Tattoos/Scars: he's got a Y-shaped scar across his chest, and a couple of metal ports embedded on the right (viewer's left) side of his chest near his sternum, which have scarring around them

-- F A M I L Y

This section of the report has been obscured from view by the Inquest Legal Bureau at the behest of Redactor Trejj. Please contact your krewe's Overseer to initiate the proper clearance check measures if you believe this was in error. If you do not believe that it was in error, and instead that your ability to access this report whatsoever was unintended, please close the report at your earliest convenience and report to your facility's Inquisitor to be disciplined for reading this far.

-- S K I L L S

Abilities: Adept programmer with an eye for detail, and a photographic memory for numbers/strings of code specifically. Excels at combining complex pieces of information.

Hobbies: Gaming, movies/animations/shows, putting together model kits. Gets in a lot of arguments on programming and golemancy forums.

-- T R A I T S

Most positive generally helpful traits: Hard working (....usually), fast + thorough at things he puts his mind to, prefers to stay out of other people's business, good at keeping secrets, relatively open minded, has a pretty big capacity for empathy (even if he doesn't always show/use it)

Most negative generally unhelpful traits: Has a big mouth/isn't able to suppress his opinions about certain things, picky/fussy/whiny, socially awkward, tends to make interactions tense quickly, deep insecurity that bleeds over into how he acts around others, wants to 'win' things constantly, easily gets an inflated ego from said 'wins' that leads him to bite off more than he can chew after that

-- L I K E S

Colors: black LOL. also yellow (matches him!)

Smells: fresh coffee, cool rain on concrete, lemon, pine, canned air

Textures: leather and suede, soft fabrics (but not 'plush')

Drinks: coffee of course... also novelty flavor energy drinks even though they make his stomach feel like it's caving in on itself every time

-- O T H E R D E T A I L S

Smokes: lord no he'd start coughing on it

Drinks: his alcohol tolerance is about -2 so this is also a no. the man's veins and stomach lining are made of like.. tissue paper

Drugs: what do u think

Been arrested: no.. aside from being in the inquest (Which Is In Itself Literally Not A Crime) he's a fairly law abiding mild-mannered citizen lmfao. i mean he probably torrents things under a vpn but that's very low on the list of concerns for the peacemakers,

#my stuff #plex

[inamindfarfaraway]

So I saw your post here [https://www.tumblr.com/inamindfarfaraway/690058488775327745/batfamily-fanworks-that-purport-to-be-set-in-the] and oh my gosh YOU ARE SO RIGHT!

As much as I enjoy it, Hush is definitely to blame for this as it is held as THE end-all-be-all of all BatFam stories yet Cass (who an acclaimed ongoing series as Batgirl around the same time) was suspiciously missing from it along with Steph. Yet we only ever get flashbacks to Bab's time as Batgirl so that storyline also ended up cementing Bab's legacy as "the one and only Batgirl". Methinks a certain editor in charge at the time mandated for Cass and Steph to not appear in Hush because they-according to him-"were way too toxic" for said storyline. Because you see, as soon as he became a leading editor, his number one priority was getting rid of Steph and stripping Cass of her Batgirl role.

And so the age of darkness began...

First, there was War Games that solely existed to torture Steph in the most vile, most voyeuristic ways before killing her off. Then there was Robin: One Year Later, one of the worst, horrific character-assassination storylines since Spider-Man's One More Day, where Cass was suddenly turned into an over-the-top Saturday Morning cartoon villain obsessed with killing everyone, giving long-winded "together we can rule the world" speeches and being able to speak and write in fluent Navajo. ONE OF THE MOST DIFFICULT LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD. Then there was Redemption Road which, despite its good moments and happy ending, did even more damage to Cass's character. And finally, we have Battle For The Cowl which ended up pushing Cass and Steph so far into the background, they were basically erased from the BatFamily altogether.

Yet despite Steph's well-received run as Batgirl, DC's poor marketing and the lead up to the New 52 prevented the series from becoming a proper bestseller and it was cancelled without any fanfare whatsoever. Still, all those horrible decisions and storylines (like War Games and Robin: One Year Later) did such massive, long term damage to the characters that, even despite all the small good things (Steph's Batgirl series to the excellent Gates Of Gotham mini-series starring Cass), they were buried from public consciousness. As for Duke (another character, I'm a fan of), I think its just a case of him being a very recent character, a lack of marketing and higher-ups not knowing what to do with him.

As for the asshole editor who everything to burry the Batgirls, he was eventually fired for creating an "unsafe working environment". And yes, his name rhymes with "Ban Video".

As for the people who keep erasing Cass, Steph and Duke from fan works, I know it sounds depressing but hear me out: Fandom, be it comics, video games, films, cartoons, TV shows, ect, has an unconscious bias of white male favouritism. (Yes, I know Dick is Romani, Damien half-Arabic/Asian yet they're still quite white-passing)

YES! THANK YOU! ALL OF THIS!

It is so sad and frustrating that these bias persist even in communities that are meant to be about joy and love; but of course the Batfam fandom has issues with sexism and racism when the canon also has for so long. I'm sure most fans don't try to be prejudiced, but male and white-passing characters are so much more popular than others. The unfair treatment of Steph as Robin and both her and Barbara in making Babs Batgirl again for no reason is one of the things I wrote Robins: The Musical to vent about, and that's only the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks for the explanation! I was already familiar with most of the context you generously provided, but I still really appreciate it as a specific comics shame/recommendation guide and education for others. I wasn't aware of Gates of Gotham and will read it! Black Bat my beloved. Dan Didio when I catch you...

(My original post is here)

#batfam #batfamily #batfam fandom #dc comics #dc #dc fandom #cassandra cain #batgirl #black bat #stephanie brown #spoiler #duke thomas #the signal #comics history