#just not in the way he would if he was attracted to women if that makes sense.

[immortalmolloy]

Daniel was relieved that she wasn’t offended. He really just wanted to be close to her too but without the pressure of sex. He didn’t blame her for wanting or needing sex, because he was a very sexual person. It just wasn’t always as easy for him to perform with her since he wasn’t generally attracted to women. With her, he loved her and was connected to her in a way that sometimes inspired him to be intimate sexually. But it wasn’t always a guarantee that he could get it up with her. He did hope that she found the right person to be her lover, besides him, at some point. Though it wouldn’t always be easy to share her, he did genuinely want her to have someone to satisfy all the needs he couldn’t and to be there when he couldn’t be. She deserved it. For now though he would enjoy having Mina all to himself. He was glad that she accepted him the way he was. Their relationship was certainly uniques but it worked for them. “That sounds great,” he said, relief obvious in his tone. “I would love that.”

“So, you want to interview vampires, so you?”

[vivwritesfics]

Slow Down, You're Gonna Crash

Chapter One

In her defence, she didn't know it was a Navy bar. In his defence, he didn't know that she was an F1 driver. It shouldn't matter when it's just a fling (but it's not just a fling, is it?)

Bradley 'Rooster' Bradshaw x Verstappen!Reader

In her defense, she didn’t realise that The Hard Deck was a Navy bar. The sign by the beer taps should have given it away. Disrespect a lady, the Navy, or put your cellphone on my bar, you buy a round. She had taken in the final part, keeping her phone in her pocket as she ordered. 

Because that was all that she wanted. A drink, a moment of peace before she hit the road. The bar was empty as she sipped her very first drink, tucked away in one of the booths. The longer she sat there, just slowly sipping her drink, the longer she had to stay in San Diego, away from her family. Good. The longer she was away from them, the better. 

By the time she had finished her first gin and tonic (something she had gotten a taste for because of her big brother), the bar began to fill up. Men and women in khaki uniforms walked through the doors. Some went up to the bar, some reserved tables for themselves and their friends, and some gathered around the pool table.

The woman behind the bar released a whistle and the group around the pool table turned towards her. She held out two pool cues. “You know the rules, Hangman!” She called and a handsome man approached the bar. 

“Trust me, Pen,” he said, green eyes sparkling beneath the bar lights, and handed his phone to her. Another man, equally as handsome, followed him over and passed her his phone, too. She gave over the two cues. “We know the rules.”

She kept looking at the group. The more she looked, the more she realised how attractive they all were. The girl with her dark hair in a bun, the man with the wire rimmed glasses, the shorter man with the close cropped hair. A group this attractive wasn’t natural, she thought as she drained the last of her glass, sipping the gin and tonic mixed with ice in the very bottom of her glass. 

Standing up, she grabbed her keys from her pocket and moved to leave the bar. But her eyes were still on the group, too intrigued to leave just yet. 

Naval officers weren’t like the people she normally hung around with. They were thin and lithe, athletes trying to keep themselves as light as possible. These Naval officers were big, broad shoulders and all muscle. It made sense for their jobs, she thought. The muscles in their arms became more evident when they began playing pool, their biceps straining the cuffs of their short sleeves.

The one woman in the group leaned over the pool table. She hit the white ball, knocking one of the striped balls into the pocket. It was insanely attractive. 

“Would you like another?” The bartender asked and she tore her eyes away from the woman in the khaki uniform.

She immediately went to stand. “I can get it,” She said, but the bartender shook her head, promising to bring her another. Another full glass of gin and tonic and she wouldn’t be able to drive.

The bartender brought over her second gin and tonic and placed it down in front of her. She thanked her quickly and lifted the drink to her lips. As she sipped her drink, another man walked into the bar. 

The only similarity he had to the naval officers that filled the building was the aviators sitting low on his nose. It didn’t matter that it was dark outside, he still wore them. A Hawaiian shirt was on his body instead of a khaki uniform, the buttons open to reveal the white wifebeater beneath. She had seen her fair share of moustaches on her friends, fellow drivers, her heroes growing up, but none of them looked as good with one as he did. 

Colour her intrigued. She sat back as she watched the way he moved as he walked over to the bar and ordered himself a beer. As soon as the beer was in his hands, he walked over to the group playing pool. 

For a minute, she lost sight of him, more interested in the drink in front of her. Just this one and she would be finished. The keys in her jacket pocket were heavy as she drained the glass, drinking until only the ice and the fruit was left. 

Suddenly, he walked past her. The man in the Hawaiian shirt walked past her booth. He sat at the piano beside the jukebox and pressed a few of the keys. His aviator friends, the ones that were playing pool, surrounded him at the piano, singing along with joy as he played. 

She couldn’t look away from him, couldn’t look away from the naval officers that surrounded him. It was quite a sight, all of them singing along to Jerry Lee Lewis. Maybe it was something he did regularly, often enough for his friends to know the words. She had seen celebrations like this before, when her big brother had won his first world championship. 

The man in the Hawaiian shirt stopped playing and everybody returned to what they had previously been doing. There was still that energy about them, that happy, electric energy that filled the entire bar. His aviator friends walked past the both that only held her and went back to the pool table. He went to join them.

She watched, watched the way he held his beer in his large hands, the way his Hawaiian shirt moved with every step as he moved towards the pool table.

But, suddenly, he slipped into the seat opposite her. She was unable to keep the surprise off of her face as he sipped his beer and said, “Hi.”

That was it. Just a quick, casual ‘hi.’ Being chatted up was nothing new for her and she was used to it. Even when she was a kid in school, boys flirted with her in an attempt to get close enough to meet her brother. She should have been immune to it by now. 

But this one little word from the gorgeous man across from her and she was ready to slip from her seat, melting into a puddle on the floor. 

She held her composure. The way his dark eyes stared into her own, the way a small, pretty smile played beneath his moustache, wasn’t making it easy. “Hey,” she responded, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible as she picked up her drink. Her media team had trained her for stuff like this. But one look at him and she wanted to get it all. 

“I haven’t seen you around here,” he continued. 

She didn’t think he knew who she was when he first sat down, but this confirmed it. It sent sparks firing off inside of her. This was freedom.

“I’m just stopping by,” she replied, a coy smile playing on her lips. 

He held his large hand out towards her. She couldn’t stop her mind from wandering at the size of his hand, much larger than her own. “I’m Rooster.”

She took a hold of his hand, still unable to get over the size of it, and shook it. “Well, Rooster. Do you always start chatting up random girls in bars?” She asked. 

For a moment, a very brief moment, she watched as panic shot through him. But soon he saw the smile playing on her lips, he immediately let his body relax. “Only the pretty ones,” he replied.

Suddenly, she saw an opportunity. She sipped her gin and put it to one side, focusing entirely on him. “Well, if I’m so pretty, then you wouldn’t mind telling me your real name. Because I’m betting it’s not Rooster.” She crossed one leg over the other, letting her foot bounce, occasionally hitting his knee. 

He shook his head. “You’re right, it’s not actually Rooster,” he answered. “I’m Bradley. Bradley Bradshaw.”

The name suited him. Bradley. She hadn’t yet said it outloud, but couldn’t wait to feel it on her tongue. Even if it was only for one night. 

In return, she gave him her first name and her first name only. 

“Have you got a last name?” Bradley found himself asking. 

She didn’t tell him what her last name was. Instead, she pulled out her I.D. card and pushed it across the table towards him, getting him to read it. He took it, the I.D. card looking tiny  between his fingers. “Ver… Vershtap…” He tried to say it again, trailing off in a confused mumble. 

“Close,” she giggled and linked her fingers together, resting her chin on her hands. “Verstappen.”

Bradley continued to stare blankly at her. So, she decided to teach him. “Repeat after me. Ver.”

“Ver,” Bradley repeated. She couldn’t help but laugh; it wasn’t like it was a difficult name to pronounce. 

“Stap.”

“Stap. Verstap,” he said, nodding as he put all of it together.

“Pen. Verstappen.”

“Verstappen,” he said slowly. But then he said it again, quicker this time, surprising himself with just how easy it was. “Verstappen. It’s pretty. Where is it from?” He asked and took a swig of his beer. 

“It’s Dutch,” she answered, curling her fingers around her glass. “On my dad’s side.”

Bradley said her name in full. The way it rolled off of his tongue, she could have listened to it on repeat. 

He looked at her I.D once again and the smile dropped from his face. “You’re only twenty four?” He asked in surprise. 

She nodded her head and sipped the melted ice at the bottom of her glass. 

“I’m thirty six,” he replied. 

Bradley went to stand up, to take his beer with him and leave her to sit alone yet again. But she shook her head and grabbed his hand. “It’s not a problem with me,” she said and he stilled. “You’re younger than my brother’s girlfriend and that is my threshold.”

So, Bradley sat back down. As she drank, she spoke. Bradley ordered her another when her glass emptied. 

“So, what’re you doing here in San Diego?” He asked as he put the gin and tonic down and joined her on her side of the booth. 

She tapped her nose twice. “That’s for me to know,” she said and giggled. But she really wasn’t going to tell him. She’d learnt by that point that, once somebody knew who she was, they were going to start treating her differently. 

She didn’t want that with Bradley.

She didn’t know when they started kissing. But her hands were in his hair, tugging at it as she felt his moustache against her lip. Bradley had his hands on her ass, squeezing lightly as he pulled her onto his lap. “You wanna head back to mine, find out why they call me Rooster?” He whispered against her lips. 

She pulled away and nodded her head. At that, Bradley squeezed her hip. “I’m gonna need your words, pretty girl,” he said and she kissed him again. 

“Yes Bradley,” she said through a shuddering breath, her forehead against his. “I want you to take me back to your place and show me exactly why they call you Rooster.”

Bradley grinned. He took her hand and led her out of The Hard Deck. He took her past the rest of the Dagger Squad, catching the grin the female Naval officer sent his way. 

“Which one is yours?” She asked as they walked out of the doors and over to the car park. She wasn’t going to point her car out to  him, the McLaren she was currently borrowing from the man that had stolen her job. But more on that later. 

Still holding her hand in his, Bradley took her over to the blue Ford Bronco. 

She let out a whistle as she looked at it. “This is sweet,” she muttered as she walked around it. 

Bradley beamed, watching as she walked around the car and to it all in. The Bronco was his pride and joy, that fact clear by how well taken care of it was. “You know about cars?” He asked and she nodded her head.

“You could say I’m a car mechanic,” she said and giggled.

Bradley opened the passenger side door. Taking her hand, he helped her to climb into the Bronco. 

She fiddled with the radio for most of the ride back to his place. If it was anybody else sitting in his passenger seat, Bradley would have slapped their hand away, stopped them from fiddling with the settings on his precious radio. He had it set to the station he liked, and nobody was allowed to change it. But he didn’t mind when she did it. When she found a station she liked, she settled into the comfortable passenger seat of the Bronco and hummed along. 

Bradley was a gentleman. As soon as he pulled the Bronco into the driveway of his beachfront house, he pulled open the door for her and held onto her hand as she jumped out. He pushed the door shut and immediately pressed his lips to her own, hands cradling her head as he held her against the Bronco. She couldn’t stop the gasp that escaped her lips. “Fuck,” she whispered, his lips so damn soft against her own. She’d never kissed someone with a moustache before; it was a different sensation, brushing against her lip as she fought him for control.

Control Bradley didn’t easily give up.

She pulled back, chest heaving as she stared into his dark eyes, his pupils blown wide. She was sure she looked the same. “So, are you gonna take inside or what?”

a/n: i've been promising to rerelease this for ages and it's finally here! i'm really proud of this chapter, especially compared to the original version. overall, this series will have more smut than the first time around. more smut, more detail, more emotion (i love rewrites) - let me know if you wanna be tagged!

a/a/n: this series has a sister series! written by @nurse-floyd it'll be a driver!reader x rhett abbott! (aka if you are like me and obsessed with cowboys and f1, you'll love it, even if you don't know rhett abbott)

tags: @biancathecool

@nurse-floyd

[a-sketchy]

considering yosuke's character is based largely on internalized societal values and toxic masculinity, how do you think he would be like as a cis girl? i feel like he would be hyperfeminine and probably to the point as a typical mean girl and the other possibility in my head apart from that is being a femcel who resents other women for managing to be pretty, get a boyfriend, etc since yosuke would quote on quote 'fail' in 'womanly' roles. but im curious for what your intepretion would be

ooooh, interesting question! i think first of all, the way in which yosuke is ostracized would change, so the way she reacts to it would change, at least somewhat. i don’t think cis girl yosuke would be hyperfeminine or a mean girl cause both of those things are very social, they’re only really acceptable if they’re what your clique are doing, and yosuke doesn’t have a clique. my interpretation is probably closer to your second option, though i think she’s more inclined to envy and self-deprecation more than resentment.

i think femininity wouldn’t “come naturally” to girlyosuke, so she’d overcompensate and double down on anything she can perform, say heterosexuality. like how i believe canon yosuke is more interested in women as an extension of masculinity, i think cis girl yosuke would be more interested in men as an extension of femininity, but those dynamics aren’t quite parallel. pursuing men isn’t performing acceptable femininity. not pursuing men isn’t acceptable femininity. there isn’t really an acceptable femininity at all, no comfort of doing it right. i think girlyosuke would still have an interest in fashion magazines, just womens fashion. so she’d parrot the same kinda “guys like girls who” shit, especially as justification for her own taste lmao, but she wouldn’t then use that to be hyperfeminine herself, cause trying too hard to be pretty/attractive to men despite being plain will get her figuratively murdered, socially, especially when she’s already in a precarious position as the face of the thing that everyone loves to hate. i mean, not trying hard will also result in her ostracism, but that’s the baseline. girlyosuke is so dire. she’s even more like saki. she’s simultaneously put on a pedestal and degraded as the princess of junes. i think she’d be pretty desperate for any friendship she can get, while resenting the town that shuns her.

honestly girl yosuke is just yosuke + misogyny. vast swathes of her deal are the same just flipped, then reconsidered how she would be seen by the society around her keeping in mind misogyny.

the things i think would most change are her relationships to those around her, depending on if they’re also cisswapped or not. girl yosuke with guy yu is (superficially) uninteresting like every romance in p4, except it would be like a romance in p4 even if the writing around it wasn’t p4, you know? cishet souyo is inescapably very persona 4. it’s plucked straight out of yosuke’s dreams. the comphet + bisexuality combo… dire. a guy she genuinely likes coming along willing to tolerate her? she’d think him a saviour. it’s fun to think about. but if yu’s also a girl then it’s as it is in canon + internalized misogyny, which is also very fun.

the most interesting thing that i think would change is girlyosuke’s relationship to saki, chie, and yukiko, if they’re also girls. with saki it’s that they’re then very very similar, and without the looming spectre of heterosexuality (other than what’s peddled by yosuke lol) i think saki might be a fair bit more open to her. girlyosuke would still like-like saki. and saki would still find the way she desperately clings to her annoying and etc. but they might be closer than they were in canon, which of course would make what comes next worse. in this situation, i think you could get girlyosuke’s shadow explicitly acknowledging that which shall not be named (bisexuality), which is awesome and could have lasting effects on her character arc compared to canon yosuke. with chie and yukiko, i think girlyosuke still wouldn’t necessarily fit in with them, especially with her penchant for heteronormativity and acting stupider than she is, but they’d be more sympathetic and not outright hostile to her. (also, it’s neither here nor there, but imagine the homoeroticism of girlyosuke saying the exact same shit she says about them in canon. fun.) three people that tolerate her starting out the story is pretty sweet, but they also all come with caveats, and she wouldn’t feel safe being attracted to them as she is, so.

[gothic-auntie]

This is such a radical misreading of both Jonathan and Mina that it seems like projection on Moore's part, based on his narrow vision of masculinity and what he thinks women should find attractive.

Jonathan is soft, gentle, sentimental, and completely lacking in common sense, but he's also brave, kind, devoted, and shockingly non-judgemental for a Victorian Englishman, with an equally shocking empathy towards women. He doesn't just care about them in a paternalistic way, he identifies with them in a way that would have been read as suspect by his peers (there are a lot of queer readings on Jonathan that I really enjoy) and sees them as more fully human than Victorian men were supposed to.

Jonathan isn't a macho tough guy, he's terrified for most of the novel, but he keeps going and doing very brave, dangerous things anyway both because they're the right thing to do and because he loves Mina so much. The man very obviously has PTSD and is still willing to seek out the cause and fight him personally despite being thoroughly outmatched in terms of sheer raw power because he loves his wife and would do anything to protect her. He's not remotely put off by either her vampiric wounds or the host burn scar on her forehead in the novel, and would rather be damned with her than find salvation without. The idea that he would be, or that Mina would think he was a "milksop" is directly contradicted by the text, and wholly out of character for both of them.

Vulnerability and gentleness aren't the same thing as weakness but it's always interesting when someone thinks they are.

just now I had a flashback to 20 years ago reading the Alan Moore graphic novel THE LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN which features Mina Harker having a rather disturbing sex scene with Alan Quatermain after telling him that she and Jonathan divorced because he couldn't bear the sight of her vampire scars

and Teen Suzannah hit the roof because Jonathan "if my wife becomes a vampire I will face God and walk backwards into hell" Harker WOULD NEVER

and I had nobody with whom to share my outrage back then but Tumblr you get it you know how I FEEL

[ninkaku]

“they had something” and it’s gihun and frontman ?? im sick

[hanzajesthanza]

geralt is also a most real depiction of good quality fatherhood and great girldad representation because EVEN THOUGH witchers don’t even experience aging at the same rate as non-GMO humans, EVEN THOUGH it would be “biologically impossible,”

geralt having had been raising a pre-teen girl for maybe a few months to a year already “gave the impression of having aged,” his “face slashed by wrinkles.” the emotional toll on this man from raising she-devil ciri

and this is only the very beginning of the saga. BEFORE everything goes to shit. the wrinkles have set in

[tabellae-rex-in-sui]

I'm new to Sade so sorry if this is a stupid question, but was Sade gay? I'm currently reading Justine and noticed the passionate, semi-romantic descriptions of m/m sex, which contrast with the crude descriptions of f/m sex. I've not read all of Sade's books, but the ones I have read also feature characters who're mostly disinterested in women, who give off self-insert vibes (e.g. Dolmancé). Am I reading too much into it? IDK but I was wondering if you could shed some light.

Happy deathday to Sade!! lol

Really all that can be said with certainty is that he definitely wasn't straight lol. Like anyone who died before modern queer theory, Sade's sexuality can be difficult to label with today's terminology. He was certainly attracted to both men and women, so for simplicity's sake I just say he was bisexual. But really, who knows...

Characters that he uses as self-inserts like Dolmancé in PitB or Bressac in Justine are pretty exclusively attracted to men. Like you said, there's multiple times in his writing where characters will praise m/m sex and show blatant disgust towards sex with women. But if you look at Sade's life, there's only one known* male sex partner and many women. There's also several women Sade was in love with throughout his life, but there exists no letters of him professing love to any man. Could this be because male victims were less likely to go to the police, therefore less known to us? because women were easier to pursue in public? because even he felt the pressure of societal norms? because he kept relations with men better hidden? because any such letters or records were selectively destroyed by a relative? Who knows! It could be some, all, or none of these things. It's really up to the interpretation of the reader. The misogyny, philosophical extremism, and very culturally different ideas about sex add so many different variables to Sade's sexuality.

To add further confusion: gender and sexuality were much more correlated in Sade's writing (and seemingly in the time period in general, I mean look at the bisexual Lord Hervey being referred to as "the third sex"), male characters who get sodimized call it them "becoming women", women who put on strap-ons "become men", even women who get sodimized are masculinized: Saint-Ange says she wants to be a "Ganymede" to Dolmancé. So sodomy seemed inherently gay to Sade, regardless of the sexes involved or what roles they played. Whereas today, that's definitely not the case. Beauvoir follows along with the sexuality-gender correlation and suggests that Sade felt more feminine than masculine and his written contempt for female genitalia was a product of his own gender frustrations. From what I've read, most modern historians tend to avoid labeling Sade with anything other than "sodomite" and "libertine" only using "bisexual" and "homosexual" to label certain actions he performed like "homosexual sex" "bisexual orgy" etc. This is when the word queer is godsent.

Tldr; He's too 18th century libertine for modern labels. Colloquially, I default to calling him bi, but we'll never really know. Maybe he would have preferred gay due to his preferences/philosophies. Who knows. Safest bet is to just call him queer.

*Should go without saying but, there were obviously more. Latour is just the only named one with recorded proof.

[lucabyte]

stray homestuck2 thought: there's something about how jake likes blue ladies; and jane, who is coded blue, but chooses to wear red.

[taxi-boi]

GUYS I JUST HAD AN EPIPHANY

APLATONIC LUCIFER

[theoldworldsrunnerup]

Okay so um. To the Soichiro enthusiasts who don’t headcanon him as straight (specifying this because I’m assuming straight is the most commonly agreed on), what do you headcanon him as?? Personally my default headcanon is that he’s bisexual but genuinely just doesn’t realise he’s attracted to men, but him being a really closeted gay man is also really fun to explore. Idk I want to hear people’s thoughts

[igotthatgirlfailureinme]

how it feels to be one of three people who simultaneously thinks that zoro could potentially be attracted to women as well as men and also not be fucking everyone in the series

[yourgamemasterthewhiterabbit]

Of my 2% capacity to be attracted to anyone, my type is like 90% women, 5% pretty men and 5% men you would swear are super fucking manly, and never questioned being straight and cis, but are now suddenly *stressed* that they can't figure out why their attraction to me [fully socially interpreted as a woman and labelled that way up until relatively recently] feels incredibly fucking gay

[philtatosbuck]

no matter how strange marcel and rebekah is they could have easily fixed it with having rebekah be daggered while marcel was being raised sure it'd still be weird but it wouldn't be As weird.

[vintage-bentley]

The worst part about fandom culture being majority OSA women/girls, is that they all just expect you to share their attraction for the male of the day. They fan themselves over these dudes and try to get you to join in and you don’t know how to explain to them that you literally feel nothing when you look at these men. At best it’s like looking at a nice painting and at worst it’s like looking at a wet diseased rat. It’s like grade school all over again where everyone is bonding over their boy crushes and you’re expected to play along or be alienated.

It gets even more awkward when they try to hide the fact that they’re attracted to these males by saying it’s “gender envy”, or claiming that they’re some form of “asexual”. And you just want to say come on, you’re clearly attracted to this man, say it with your chest and stop trying to find a way to get me to rave about receding hairlines with you.

[6okuto]

one day people will stop looking at misogynistic men and saying they're secretly gay, and finally realize implicitly associating non-queer men's hatred with queerness as well as disregarding the patriarchy's pervasiveness helps (checks notes) literally nobody

[spicypussywave]

huh. turns out i don't have many men i want carnally