#non trad week | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

honeyhoshi · 9 months ago

Text

you do it naturally

summary: the hiding, the secrets, and staying back to watch him shine has never been an issue. until today.

it’s the night before the biggest show of his life, but it’s soonyoung's turn to show her that he’s her biggest fan.

this is a part of the playlist universe

genre: social media au/trad fic hybrid, solo idol au, celebrity x non-celebrity

wordcount: 4,606

pairing: solo idol!hoshi x afab!reader

warnings: discussions about self-esteem issues, body image/weight, feelings of jealousy, plenty of frustrated tears, afab reader, female anatomy, fingering, squirting, oral (f receiving), unprotected sex, creampie, crying during sex (good!!), dirty talk (lovingly), pussy drunk hoshi (canon), implied chubby/bigger reader

author's notes: unfortunately i am horribly in love with hoshi so this is my humble contribution to his smut tag

As someone whose life revolved around sugar, butter, and flour, this was a new world. The tension in the air is palpable and the flurry of activity is so different from the kind of rush you’re used to. You’re nearly tripping over your feet trying to catch up to the member of the staff who's been sent to assist you. This must be so out of their scope of work, it's almost embarrassing how clueless you are to all of this.

It’s been three years since you started dating Soonyoung, and while you’ve never missed one of his shows in Seoul, this is your first time attending one of his rehearsals. He’s notorious for being laser focused and demanding of his team, making sure everyone remembered their collective goal of an amazing show. You never wanted to get in the way of that or to be considered a distraction.

In fact, that’s always how you’ve operated as his girlfriend. You understand where you stand, what your role is, and when it’s time to work, you will stand back and let him shine.

But when you make it to the front of the stage, taking a seat close to Soonyoung’s managers after giving them a friendly smile, you can’t help the wave of pride that comes over you as you take everything in. The stage is massive, the largest Soonyoung’s ever had, and over thirty dancers are on stage with him as he adjusts the blocking and tweaks steps.

Then he catches your eye.

His eyes disappear as he smiles and you can’t help but do the same. You fight off the urge to wave, wanting him to get back to what he’s doing knowing full well they have limited time to go over everything before resting for the evening. You can’t take your eyes off him though. Preparations for concerts usually take him away from you for weeks at a time, and with the scale of this one, you hadn’t seen each other in the flesh for a month.

Just seeing him in front of you now already makes you feel sated.

“Can we do another run of the new song with the pair choreo. We just want to see which works better,” the director calls from the tech booth.

“Nari-ssi, please come up. Everyone else, take 5,” the choreographer on stage with them calls into her mic.

Soonyoung had mentioned he was debuting a new song at the concert. It was something he and Jihoon had worked on last minute that he couldn’t stop talking about, wanting to drop hints but also saying he wanted it to be a surprise for when you would see it at the show. He had dropped the topic dead a few weeks ago.

Nari bounds up the stage with a glorious spring in her step, bare faced but glowing. Her practice clothes fit her like a glove and her overall vibe gives off the energy that she herself was an idol.

That ugly feeling starts to simmer in your stomach as what you suppose is the song starts to play. The intro is slow and sultry and the sweat in your palms starts to grow uncomfortable. Only an idiot wouldn’t understand the sensuality of this song from the get go.

The love of your life is standing right there but you can’t take your eyes off of Nari as she finds her blocking before the verse starts. Nari smiles at Soonyoung and makes a comment you can’t hear from your seat. You feel sick.

Soonyoung and Nari are facing each other with one of his hands on her chin, lifting her gaze to him. His other hand is resting on her slender hip and in a three count from their choreographer, they move in unison.

“Three, four, five, ‘oh baby, cause I’ da, da da!”

The MR only covers the backing vocals but still you know that’s Soonyoung’s crooning and matched with the way his and Nari’s hands and bodies move, you’re transfixed. Horribly.

You avert your eyes, unable to focus and try to play it off as replying to an urgent message, but you’re startled when you hear a loud “SOONYOUNG FOCUS!”

Your head flies up to find Soonyoung staring you down from the stage, eyebrows furrowed and looking, dare you say, nervous.

“We need to see how this is actually going to look like tomorrow, so please let’s put more effort into this. Poor Nari’s giving it her all, Nyoung-ah.”

Soonyoung tries to communicate with you wordlessly but your unwillingness to keep eye contact makes it difficult for Soonyoung to get whatever it is across.

The music plays back again and they return to their starting positions and you know he’s turned it On.

The look on his face, the focus in his eyes. This is what he looks like when he’s locked in, and when his body starts to move, everything falls away.

But Nari.

They move seamlessly, sensually, and just Right. She matches every beat, wave, and touch he gives her. And gives back that same sultry energy with a flick of her wrist, dip of her hip, and when she leans her head back on his shoulder, allowing him to move her body to the music.

You could never move like that. You could never fit in his arms like that.

The song ends and the dancers around them hoot and jeer and Nari blushes as she and Soonyoung finally break their grazes, breathless.

They would never cheer for you like that.

This has never gotten to you this badly. Usually, the distance between the two of you allows you to compose yourself when things get muddled in your head, able to piece yourself together when the fear and insecurity claw up your throat. But your usual proximity is nonexistent and the gap has been closed.

Being with an internationally acclaimed artist meant busy schedules and only being able to squeeze in the littlest dates every now and then. You had time to prepare for those, give yourself the pep talk of It’s been three years. If he wanted you gone, he’d have said something by now.

In preparation for the show you two had made prior plans you would stay with him, an impromptu long weekend “getaway” you had put in at work almost 3 months ago. But now it feels like you’re trapped. You’ve been short with him since his rehearsals wrapped and you’d met up with him in his private dressing room. You could only stomach to say surface level good jobs and you’re always so amazing!

There’s no way he hasn’t picked up on it yet because the air in the car was nonexistent. It was stifling and you could feel the waves of anger simmering underneath Soonyoung’s skin, just waiting to burst forth the moment the two of you were alone.

He knew something was wrong. He always knew.

The ride up the elevator to his unit felt like the longest and shortest elevator ride of both of your lives and the second Soonyoung had let you into his place and locked the door behind him, you wanted to cry.

“Can we finally talk about this?” He starts.

“What?”

“Babe.”

“Soonyoung.”

“Are we really doing this?” He sighs, exasperated.

You feel bad. But the sadness is gnawing at your head and heart and neither are working correctly.

“We’re not ‘doing’ anything, Soonyoung.” You say as you toe off your shoes and put down your bag before facing him.

And what a glorious face it is. He’s always been the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. He looks best like this, you think. Soft and free of makeup and tired and home.

“I’m sorry,” you start, face beginning to crumple and the sting of hot fresh tears threaten to spill.

“No, no, no, baby. Come on, come here,” Soonyoung’s scrambling to pull you into his arms, “Hey, hey, shhh. Look at me, talk to me.”

He pulls her face into his hands and tries to lift her gaze towards him. But she fights and tries to keep her head down.

“Baby, you have to talk to me, okay? You have to talk to me and tell me what I did wrong, hmm?” He respects your refusal to look at him and instead hugs your head to his chest, resting his chin atop the crown of your head.

Soonyoung wraps his other hand around your shoulders and maneuvers the two of you to lay on the couch, You’re still sobbing, large tears falling from your eyes and dampening the shirt he’s wearing.

When he moves to lay down on one of your favorite spots to cuddle in his home, you freeze in his arms, sobs stopping and shoulders going rigid. You push yourself off of him, hands going up to brush the tears off the face.

“No, no, I’m too heavy, I'll crush you.” It is almost business-like how you snap back into this cold tone.

Soonyoung stops, sits up straight, “What are you talking about?”

You groan, “Soonyoung, I don’t want to get into it. Please, you’ve had a long day, tomorrow is going to be—“

“No,” he cuts you off, “We don’t get to talk about tomorrow until we talk about today. Until we talk about what’s going on right now.”

“Soonyoung—I just. I don’t know how to talk about this. I’m just blowing things out of proportion. It’s nothing, I swea—“

“It isn’t nothing, though, is it?” He says, softer now. He reaches up for your hand, “You’re upset. You’ve been upset since I saw you after rehearsals. We have to talk about this, baby. We promised each other we’d talk things through.”

Your eyes sting again, a fresh batch of tears ready and threatening to make their appearance. That sharp feeling in your nose is there, any second now.

“Tell me how I can make it better, baby.”

The dam breaks and you fall boneless into Soonyoung’s embrace. You straddle his lap and wraps your arms around him, pressing the two of you chest to chest.

You bury you face in Soonyoung’s neck and let out a shuddering sob.

“I’m sorry, I’m being so, so immature and so unreasonable. You didn’t do anything,” you say, still slightly unintelligible from the tears.

“You’ve never done anything that’s made me sad or angry, Soonyoung. It’s me, it’s me and my stupid brain.”

“Hey, hey, no. Please please don’t say that, hmm? Let’s work this out together,” Soonyoung coos.

“I-i-i just felt so horrible, Soonyoung!” You finally cry, “She looked so beautiful and perfect and just so RIGHT in your arms and God, the way you two moved and how everyone watched the two of you.”

Soonyoung pulls away, grasping you face in his hands and finally locking eyes with you.

“I know I said I’m okay keeping this a secret and keeping everything simple and under wraps, and it’s fine! I promise, it really isn’t that.”

“Then what is it, baby?”

You’re quiet for a bit as Soonyoung traces the path of your tears with his thumbs, wiping them away.

“I’ll never be able to do what she can. Nari. I’ll never look like her or act like her or move like her. I can’t even dance with you without looking like a fool.”

Soonyoung feels his heart sink. His own eyes start to grow bleary and when he blinks a tear falls to his cheek. He drops his head to your chest and breathes you in.

“I’m sorry—“

“Oh no, Soonyoung it isn’t yo—“

“I’m sorry that things have gotten this far that you’ve grown to feel that way. I’m sorry because I know in some way or form all of this has become that and I didn’t catch it.”

When he lifts his head, tear tracks mark his pretty face and his nose is red.

“But you have to know,” he starts, eyes very serious, and not daring to look away from you, “You have to know that you are everything. You are everything to me. You’re even more than that.”

“And we are going to dance. Oh we are going to dance all the time. I am going to dance with you in the kitchen when we’re waiting for focaccia to bake, we are going to dance in the bedroom when we change the sheets, and we are going to dance when I marry you. And everyone will have their eyes on you and they will clap and cheer because just look at the woman I love.”

“Soonyoung—“

He stands with a start and you instinctively wrap your arms around him, elbows hooking over his shoulders. His hands are under your thighs, fingers pressing into the soft flesh. He’s carrying you into his room.

The lights automatically flicker on as he enters and kicks the door closed behind you, “In fact, baby, why don’t we start now hmm?”

“What, start what?”

He grins and any semblance of sadness has vanished from his face. He smiles and something in your heart is elated.

“Dancing, of course.”

Soonyoung is known in the industry as an ace — able to sing, rap, compose, choreograph, and above all things, dance. And dance with you he does.

The way he can make your body move is unexplainable because once he placed you at the center of his bed, he’d strummed at your body, mouthed at your pulse and had gotten you out of your top and jeans before you could even fully comprehend.

His mouth is hot on yours and he breathes in your air as soon as you exhale and you’re growing lightheaded as his hands continue to undress you. In an attempt to get some air in both your lungs, he pulls away to frantically tear his shirt over his head, not daring to take his eyes off you. He flings it over his shoulder unceremoniously, not a care in the world where it lands and makes quick work of his sweatpants.

“What, you thought you’d get lucky tonight?” You quip at him, “Even when you knew I was feeling tilted?

He’d gone commando.

“Good mood, bad mood, whatever the fuck mood, I want you,” he laughs as dives back in to kiss you.

His hands are everywhere, like he doesn’t know what and where to touch, wanting to feel you everywhere before settling on the thickness of your thighs. He spreads your legs slightly so he could slot himself in between them, cock pressed perfectly to your center.

And then he grinds. The head of his cock nudges perfectly at your clothed clit and you let out a mewl.

“There you go, let me hear you,” he groans into your ear, “Y’sound so good for me, sweetheart.”

“Soonyoooouung,” you can’t control the drawn out moan of his name. After everything you’re pent up and everything feels too much already.

He lets his mouth trail wet, open mouthed kisses from your jaw to your neck as his hands busy themselves undoing the hook of your bra. He scrambles to get it off of you and immediately pulls one nipple in his mouth, nipping and soothing it with a slow lave of his tongue.

He grips your other breast in his palm and squeezes, biting his lip at how your flesh molds to his touch.

“Fuck your tits are fucking perfect.”

This man was groping and grinding against you, and you blush as he compliments your breasts.

He continues kissing down the valley between your breasts and you hold your breath as he starts pressing his lips onto your stomach. It dips and springs back as he moves and your eyes zero in on the deeper colored lines of your stretch marks. There are more on your thighs to match.

But he makes no comment.

He instead groans whenever he stops to suck a bruise and to run his tongue over the mark he’s made.

“You’re so,” he starts, almost breathless, “You’re everything.” He laughs at his own inarticulate thoughts before hooking his thumbs into the elastic of your underwear.

He pulls them off and moves back up to press a deep kiss to your mouth, “I want to make you come three times, love.”

“What?” You’re dazed.

His right hand moves down to trace your ass and hook under your knee so he can spread you open.

“First, I’m going to fuck you open on my fingers,” he breathes, “then when you’re nice and wet and open for me, I want you to sit on my face, alright?”

With all his talk distracting you, you’re suddenly startled when you feel his thumb on your lower lips, starting to spread you apart.

“Then when you’ve come all over my face, I’m going to fuck my come into you, just how you like it. Right, baby?”

He slips in two fingers into you with no warning and you keen, high and wanton and uncontrollable.

Soonyoung is rough and quick when he fingers you and no matter how slow and sensual the lovemaking is, this will always be fast, hard, and messy.

While one hand is busy pumping two fingers into you, the other pinches your clit and quickly rubs, wanting your first orgasm to come as quickly as possible.

Your lower lip is close to bleeding as you try to keep your voice down but Soonyoung only chuckles when he sees your attempts at restraint.

“Baby we’re soundproofed in here. Make all the noise you want.”

You want to slap at his chest playfully at least, get him to feel some semblance of shame, but just as you try to make some quick remark, his fingers brush that spot inside of you and he presses down hard.

You’re unable to hold in the scream that rips through your throat as his arm flexes and he roughly thrusts his fingers in and out of you.

You clench your eyes shut as you finally let him have your first release. It’s almost explosive and you spill messily all over his fingers and arm, his other hand making a bigger mess, spraying drops of your release letting them fly further.

Breathing comes hard but he’s already pulling out of you and moving your body around until you’re on your knees.

Soonyoung lays on his back and tugs at your hands to grip at his headboard, “Fuck I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Soonyoung, what if—“

“If you want to stop, we’ll stop. Just say the word,” he says, propping himself up with his elbow.

“You have to do the same,” you say shakily, still trying to get your bearings after the mind blowing first orgasm.

“Unlikely, but you know I’ll tell you everything, love.”

And just like that he lays back again, looking more eager than you could have ever imagined. You kneel over his chest and slowly inch upwards before lowering yourself over his mouth.

Soonyoung’s always loved eating you out. He loves when sex is wet and messy and loud. He loves the taste of you and making so much noise while he’s pressed up against your pussy it almost seems like he’s the one getting release.

Every flex and curl of his tongue has you whimpering and you can’t help the way you throw your head back as his nose nudges at your clit, still sensitive from your first orgasm.

He coaxes this second one slower but it hits you just as strongly as he continues to mouth at your core even when you’re crying and shaking from the sensitivity. You almost topple off the bed as you climb off Soonyoung to lay back next to him on the bed.

You turn your head to Soonyoung and the entirety of his lower face is wet with your release and your face burns. But Soonyoung is aglow with arousal and just so much love.

He coaxes your mouth to meet his own and it is a reprieve from how quickly he moved for you to reach your high twice in such a short period of time.

You can taste yourself on his mouth but it makes you groan as his tongue pushes its way to mingle with your own.

Despite the desperation at which you both moved, this is slow and quiet. Just you lips moving against each other and the sheets rustling fills the space.

Soonyoung pushes himself off the bed cautiously, desperate to keep his lips on you as he positions himself between your thighs.

Just like that a switch flips and the urgency to have him starts once more. He pressed his cock against your entrance and let the underside slide against your wet cunt. It offers you little relief, the friction hardly enough to get you there.

He pulls away and brings one hand to your face as the other holds him over your body.

Soonyoung’s hooded lids and glazed eyes are a sight to behold. His hair is damp and the shorter strands that frame his face are plastered onto his forehead. There’s a bead of sweat that’s clinging to the cut of his jaw and you ache to press your mouth to it.

His thumb traces the curve of your cheek, the plumpness of your lower lip, and slowly he’s pressing the finger between your teeth. You press your tongue against the pad of his thumb and wrap your lips around the finger, and suck.

God, I love this man. I will always only love this man.

“I love you,” he gasps as he finally presses in and sinks into you.

Any other day and it would be embarrassing how close you both are to the edge, but you both know that his evening was far from normal. Your heart is hammering in your chest so hard you feel like it’ll rip itself out of its confines. Everything feels too good and too much and you want it. You want this every single day if you could.

Soonyoung sits up and uses both hands to grip onto your hips and to brace himself. What he does next makes your head spin.

“I’m so close, baby. You gotta say it.” He stands on his knees, changing the angle slightly. Then he lifts your hips just right and the noise you let out as his cock sinks into you perfectly is completely pitiful.

“Say it.”

“Soonyoung!” you cry out. It’s a sob, really. Depraved, almost, in the desperation and the raw fucking feeling thats burning through your nerves.

“Just say it baby, you know the words. Say it and I’ll make good on the very last fucking promise I made tonight,” he says, the edge in his voice making itself known. He wanted to make this evening soft, slow, and for every movement to have meaning. But he has always been hungry.

Hungry for the stage, bigger venues, brighter lights, more challenging steps, and of course for you.

He breathes in through his nose sharply and tries to exhale slowly and paced, “Just say it baby, I know you can.”

“You’re mine.”

“That’s it. I’m yours. I’ll always be yours.”

The years of precise practice and this industry expertise has made the man you love into the most exquisite lover.

He thrusts quick and deep and the undulations of his hips have you seeing stars and tearing up once more. He’s everywhere, in your eyes, head, lungs, heart and you’ll be damned if you ever let him go.

The insecurities and the problems and the people will always be there, they will always cause uncertainties but this is one thing you will always be sure of. You will always be sure of him.

Soonyoung comes with a cry of your name and the most beautiful gasp against your mouth as he pumps you full of his cum, pushing you over the edge and he swallows the cry you let out.

He pulls away to press breathless kisses against your face and any other part of you he can get his lips on mumbling, “I’m yours, I’m yours. I’ll always only be yours.”

It starts slowly, warm, and comfortable. The rustling of the sheets and the hot wet press of his mouth slowly coaxing you into that soft space of barely awake, but able to slip back to sleep if you stayed quiet enough.

“I gotta go, baby,” is Soonyoung’s whisper, cheek resting atop your head.

You hum in response, not fully coherent to put together words after he’d pulled endless strings of moans and cries from your lips the night prior.

He presses a kiss to your hair, “Didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye. I’ll see you tonight, gorgeous.”

You feel the way the bed dips and the blankets move as he goes to stand. He slips on his shoes and, unable to leave so easily, moves back towards the bed and kneels by where your head rests on a pillow.

“I love you, think about what I said last night, okay?”

You tried to keep yourself collected, keep the frantic energy sizzling in your veins at bay. Soonyoung had put on the show of his life, something that happens just a few times in a performer’s life, you’re sure. Pride had swelled so grandly in your heart. You had been so lovestruck watching him that it felt like he could see you whenever he had turned his head in your general direction.

Backstage is still abuzz from the end of the show. You’re sure people are still running around making sure the egress goes smoothly, that all the fans are able to exit the stadium safely. But everything comes second the moment you hear his voice.

“Has she been escorted from her se—“

You can’t help it. You’re so happy, so excited, and so in love with him. You’re running toward him. He’s changed out of his encore outfit and into a sweater—oversized the way he likes them— and sweatpants. He could slip into bed any second now it looks like.

“Soonyoung!” You call out, stealing his attention.

He turns to you and the most breathtaking smile spreads on his face and you throw yourself into his arms. He catches you and you wrap your legs around his slender waist.

“It was amazing, you’re so amazing. Congratulations, oh my god!” You’re blabbing, you can feel your mouth going a million miles an hour but you can’t stop.

You pull him into a crushing hug as he gently puts your feet back on the ground, keeping your arms around his neck.

“And that new song, Jesus you weren’t kidding, it’s so good and the choreo! The way you moved! You changed the choreo last minu—“ In a split second, his lips are on yours and you can’t help but smile against him.

You break away, breathless when you remember, “Soonyoung, everyone can see.”

He gives you a silly quizzical look, “Only thinking about that now and not when you jumped into my arms?”

You’re speechless. He’s right.

“I’d be happy if everyone knew,” Soonyoung says simply and pulls you in again for another kiss.

When you pull away, you suck in a large breath and say, “Okay.”

There’s a small smile that he can’t hide as he asks, “Okay…? To what, exactly?”

You blush and bury your head in his chest. You want to while, he’s so annoying.

“To everything. To everything you said last night,” you mumble into his chest, trying to muster enough confidence to keep going.

“Okay, I’ll move in with you. Okay, I’ll tell all my friends about you. Okay, let’s make us public.”

-`✮´- if you've come this far, thank you. if you’d like to drop a like or reblog this, it would mean the world to this new author!

#frizzy fiction #hoshi x reader #hoshi smut #hoshi smau #hoshi imagines #soonyoung x reader #soonyoung scenarios #soonyoung smut #soonyoung imagines #seventeen imagines #seventeen x reader #seventeen smut #seventeen scenarios

437 notes · View notes

honestsycrets · 1 year ago

Note

hi sy! first things first, you’re a fantastic writer. i am in LOVE with your western series! second, may i request an idea? it’s the 1920s, and miguel is one of the top mobsters in nueva york, while the reader is his mob wife. after an attempted hit from one of miguel’s rivals that nearly kills her and gabriella, the reader decides it’s time to her and little girl to skip town, but miguel will be damned if his family tries to leave him. cueeeee angst, drama, the whole shabang!

canary I: a threat | [miguel o'hara x reader x gabriel o'hara]

❛ pairing | miguel o'hara x reader, gabriel o'hara x reader

❛ type | double shot; 5k

❛ tags | non-monogamy, some angst, 1920s inspired piece, irish clan inspired piece, bootlegging and mention of hits, explicit, a depiction of killings, some jealousy, some trad-roles elements, f!reader, 1920s slang and Spanish not translated, time period birth control (cervical cap).

❛ sy’s notes | i have spent weeks staring at this piece. it's a bit longer than my usual works and for that reason i decided to split it up into two chapters. this piece takes on a little bit more of a generalized irish mob approach rather than italian. this chapter is more domestic than the subsequent one will be.

Miguel O’Hara hated it when his kills ran. No matter how many alleyways they ducked into, shoddily constructed fences they tumbled over, or crappy cars they tried to hitch a ride in, he always found them.

His fingers were blisteringly tight around his kill’s throat, sure to leave certain bruising if the man made it out alive. He wouldn’t. Not based on the blood that seeped over Miguel’s tanned hand. He gurgled underneath Miguel’s hand, the kill messier than he imagined. Any number of his hitmen could have carried out this contract but instead, his crisp white top was slathered in the contract kill of the week. He recalled the sudden memory of his hand on your slight waist, the kiss on the top of your head with the promise of his night. He snarled the memory away.

Should’ve just shot him, Miguel thought. Mierda.

With the fading of the man’s life, his choked grunts drifted into silence. Miguel allowed the man to slump over. Silence fractured, his world bursting with sound. The salt-laden wind whistled past his hair as ships sailed into the pier, carrying cargo, and his latest shipments. Bootlegged booze had its own benefits-- poor training and numbers among agents, for example. A crackle of an engine sped down the road was followed by the bright beams of an electric headlamp.

“¡Oye, Miguel!”

Of course. Under the bright moon that shone arrogantly in the dark sky, the figure came into focus. His polished suit was just a tad too big for his toned, but hardly muscular frame. Even in the darkness, he had the kind of smile that made people feel like they were the special ones. It matched the gentleness in his eyes behind that swoop of chestnut brown hair. If the feds published men of their color on army recruitment posters, he’d certainly make the cut. Handsome, but not too handsome. Strong, but not too strong.

“Gabe,” he breathed. “The lights.”

“Lights? The lights!” Gabriel looked back at his shiny black car. He bounced back toward the car, bellowing. “This a Spot boy? You did a number on him.”

“You sap. Could you be any louder?” Miguel threw aside. “Why are you here?”

“Thought you could use me tonight, big shot,” Gabriel said in that sugar-dipped tongue of his. It works less on Miguel than it had on you. It was oddly discomforting. As the days wore on, he loathed his brother’s silver tongue.

“I could use someone watching my girls.”

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I was. They're sleeping." Gabriel booted the man, more than minced meat when Miguel was done with him. “You had some beef with him, huh?”

“No.” Miguel mumbled, looking at the man’s body rather than his own, something sharp hovering there. There was nothing he wanted less than to stand in the biting cold listening to his baby brother prattle on a moment longer. He wiped his blade on his once-was-crisp slacks and slid it back into its sheathe. “Let’s hit it.”

“Jake,” Gabriel said, an annoying rendition of an okay. Gabriel was full of shitty terms from his stint in the big house. Almost as many as he picked up at Miguel’s speakeasy.

“Say. Miguel?”

Gabriel’s voice was soft, almost strained. Miguel caught his eyes, knowing subconsciously what his brother would say. He sucked in a breath to calm himself from a reaction to thin, sharp words. They balanced on the point of a knife as Gabriel spoke them into existence.

“They're our girls.”

This setup wasn't going to last. One day, you'd probably settle with Gabe. Miguel jerked up to the sensation of your fingers ghosting his chest, twiddling around his inky black chest hair, gliding across scars. He senses the source of his disquiet, your small frame draped over his side, watching him with a foreign curiosity.

“Muñeca?” he murmured sleepfully, tucking a lock of your hair behind your ear. “What's it? Did Gabriel sleep in?”

He finds it hard to believe that his chirpy brother would do such a thing. Mornings were notoriously his favourite part of the day. Unlike Miguel, who shunned the light that streamed in from your thin curtains.

“Coppers took him in for questioning,” you murmured, leaning in to lay a small peckish kiss on his lips. That was quick. His eyes swept down to your lips, lingering there as you spoke. “Gabi said you’d come with me to iglesia.”

“Chingado. He passed the buck onto me.” Miguel groaned, dropping his head back onto the pillow, weighed down by such a stupid request. You thumbed the golden necklace he’d forgotten to take off, gliding one of your legs up his hirsute thighs. He finds himself hiking your leg higher up his thigh. “That’s what you woke me up for?”

“‘Course not,” you muttered. “I missed you last night. Where’d you go off to?”

“To finish intake.”

You didn’t believe that.

“Promise it didn’t have nothing to do with what Gabi got carted off for?” He holds you in a working gaze, something that tells you he isn’t about to answer something like that. You are his woman. Yet, some secrets aren’t ones that he’s willing to disclose. It could put you in a compromised position. Most men, namely the Italian boys, had enough sense not to drag a man’s family into problems between the mob and the clan but in this world, not everyone had sense.

“Miguelito, you’re scaring me.” Your breath quickened, palpable with your chest against his. His large hand encompassed the middle of your back, guiding small, consolatory circles.

“Some things you’re better off not knowing,” Miguel worked at an explanation. Some things like the amount of hits he was getting for Spot boys. The booze going missing from the speakeasy. Some of his girls licked off the street. Just-- some things. “Got it?”

“Long as it’s not another dame,” you mumbled, fisting his necklace around your fist, dragging him forward for emphasis. A smile tugged at his lips, somehow pleased with your response. “What? You been out the house more times than not.”

“I share you with my brother,” Miguel worked the back of his neck. “Better that I skip town than hear you moaning for him. Might hem him up one of these days.”

You laugh-- but Miguel doesn’t find a lick of it funny.

“You got me now,” your hands drifted up to Miguel’s massive shoulders. “How ‘bout this. You fill me all up for church, wear that spiffy dark blue suit. Then we take Lyla out to get her some cherry coke at the apothecary’s. Maybe I’ll even sing you a whole song today if you’re lucky.”

Church, again. Miguel rattled a groan. Of course, he couldn’t have one day off from frateurinizing with people who hated the fuck outta him. Church folk. He didn’t know why you insisted on going with people who openly called you loose.

“Can do without one of those things.”

“If you want me, you go to iglesia, Miguelito.”

West-Side Violence at All-Time High! Italian Enforcer found dead! The West clan’s Gabriel O’Hara facing added charges on suspicion of--

Tch. You interrupted the scowl on his face with a well-placed kiss to his cheekbone, sliding a piping hot mug of Joe before him. Wafts of steam warmed his cheeks. You set down his morning’s breakfast, a plate loaded with fats. No tamales today, but baked beans from a few well-established Irish wives in the area. You wiped your greasy fingers off on a dirtied apron. Miguel stabbed a hunk of sausage as you spoke.

“Gabi’d never do that. They’re trying to hem him up like that capo last month,” your voice quaked, strutting back toward the cabinets. “It’s too personal. He’d… fill ‘em up with lead sure, but a stabbing? It just don’t make sense.”

Sure didn't. Miguel dropped the paper to the side of the oak table, tracing lines of worry that grew into spiderwebs of panic across your forehead. You spoke so feverishly in defense of Gabriel, whose absence was palpable. He often talked about the latest hired singer, sneaking behind your waist for kisses on your nape when Miguel could barely drag himself out of bed in the morning after pulling all-nighters.

“I have someone on it.”

“I bet Papa did it.” His daughter-- or Gabriel’s-- they were never quite sure. He glanced to his foot where Lyla sat. A full seven-year-old, Lyla was a spitfire of a thing, her hair in a bouncy bob topped by a silky ribbon. She glanced up from the dreidel she was spinning around and around. His lips pulled into a minced smile. “What? He’s a liar.”

“Miguel.”

Couldn’t even eat in peace.

“Lyla,” Miguel gestured toward the door. “Go wake up Maeve. Go on kid, get.”

That kid had a smart mouth. He watches her roll her eyes, only budging when you supply her with a hunk of pan dulce. She takes a mean bite, eyes locked on Miguel as she hopped out, somehow less bothered than she was a few seconds ago. You closed the metal door behind your daughter, a hand balled up on the bend in your waist as you watched her skip down the stairs and out of view.

“Most girls don’t talk like that about their papas,” you mumbled. Your arms crossed one over the other for support. “Does she hate him that much?”

“Most girls don’t grow up in the life.”

“Mi culpa.”

With his breakfast all but spoiled, Miguel pushed the plate away. His hand was soft on your waist, nose burrowed into your hair, tracing the notes of jasmine and rose, vanilla and sandalwood. The scent was unmarred by the stench of speakeasy smoke so early in the morning. Your hand came over his, steadying yourself from the rushing thoughts by leaning into his touch.

“I need a girl at the speakeasy tonight.”

Unlike his brother, Miguel’s requests rarely offer a tone of choice. It rolls off his tongue dry and hits your ear like a spike. Nothing about your relationship with Miguel was easy-- it was marred by the rivalry among the brothers-- and as you suspected-- interloping from your grandfather.

“Y Lyla?”

“Maeve is her nanny.”

“How can I step in there without Gabi?”

“He’d want you to. And I want to see you out of this dumb apron.”

“It isn’t dumb,” you pursed your lips, somehow more convinced despite your reservations. Most days, you spend the day in the house-- isolated from any life you came to Nueva York for. Any half-formed excuse that was on your tongue flopped. He nearly has you. “It is right dumb, isn’t it?”

“Sure is. What happened to my canary?”

“She met a pair of terrible brothers who don’t care for pulling out.”

“Don’t blame me.”

He pushed himself against your back, twiddling your fingers against the pantyhose that clothed your thighs. A smile tugged on your lips as Miguel leaned over to kick the front door shut, dipping onto his knees. It wasn’t often that he allowed you to ruin his perfect face before work. Today is a special treat.

But… if you thought back, you really should have.

Took a long time to get any mail from the island. Almost impossible.

In your hands is a sloppily penned letter-- You should be married to one of those boys-- your grandfather. He isn’t stupid enough to think that you’re opening this for the first time tonight, here and now, right in front of him. If you’re ‘reading’ it, you must be wanting him to take a hint. Miguel bent down, placed a kiss on your temple, gliding his hands over your own to place the letter onto the vanity.

He used those very same hands that were meant for maiming against the clasp of a set of pearls around your neck with gentle precision. His fingers coursed along the curls at your nape as he clasped them together.

“How long before your set?”

“Half an hour… maybe.” You stood to face him, pursing ruby-red lips, whispering in his mother’s tongue. He never liked it when his mother barked at him in Spanish, but when it's off your tongue, he knows how sweet it could be. Your hand inched its way over his chest, tracing the fat knot against his throat.

“What’s the issue?”

“I don’t-- feel very perfect. You have all these shebas out there--” women who not only knew how to sing but weren’t terribly mottled by stretchmarks or burdened by the eviscerating effect of motherhood. They’re beautiful, free canaries when they sing in his speakeasy. As much as you loved singing-- you felt shy on that ruby-red stage lately, before a dozen ruby tables and the hopping band.

“They’re to bring in the sugar.”

“Uh-huh, bring in the sugar until they take you away.”

“I’m satisfied.” Miguel took a step up, communicating the way he knew how, by settling his large hand over your jaw. His strong hand glided to your chin, urging you to look him in the eye. “I’m not going anywhere. Tied me down with Lyla as it is.”

“Words are just words. Why buy the…”

“Cow if you can get the milk for free, sí, I know what your grandfather says.” He slips into your chair. “Què quieres?”

“I don’t know, Miguelito. A promise. A marriage. Algo.”

“You want me to wife you up? Don’t remember ever talking about this.” He gestured you to come closer. You stepped up, knocking between his legs. Miguel’s gaze falters, chasing the glint of your tassels as they come to a stop.

“What’s the issue?”

“Nothing. I thought you’d ask Gabe.”

“Gabe gets around.”

“You believe those rumors.” You slap his large hands groping up your thighs, climbing over his lap like it was your throne. His massive frame eclipses the chair, suppressing your comparatively smaller frame. “And don’t think I do?”

“Do you?”

“No,” he laughs. Or, not recently. It’s hard being a father-- harder when he has a whole ass business to keep on top of. Most women wanted those things: jewels, a new pair of silk knickers, and a home. “If that’s what you want, you got it.”

“Oh Miguelito,” he suckled your neck, drawing horrendous marks to the surface. Marks of his ownership in the absence of a ring. He hears the pleased hum of your voice, low and sweet, and knows that’s exactly what you wanted to hear.

“I haven’t put in my cap,” his fingers danced across the outside of your thighs, slipping past your stockings to your silken shorts. He slotted his fingers underneath the fabric, grazing his fingers through your neatly kept curls. Your breath came in deeper bursts as he melded his hand over your vulva, expecting you to grind back on him. You did, ever so eager for him.

“Don’t bother me with that,” he said in a low, husked voice. “You know how I feel about your birth control.”

It was your idea, primarily. Gabe was ever too content to simply be with you-- he didn’t need a large family like the rest of Miguel’s Irish clan. Four, six, sometimes more. Unlike Gabe, Miguel wanted the exact opposite. You shifted over his thigh, obeying his desire to have you ride him. Miguel urged your hips down, working his thumb over the precious button as you did. Miguel’s leg trembled up against your slit, bursts of warm friction warming your hungry body. With his slacks freshly cleaned, you worry about soaking them, soaked in lubricant as you were.

“Come here,” you surrendered a soft moan to him, leaning forward now, less to ride his thigh than the bulge in his slacks. He does not quite care for the idea of ruining himself inside the confines of his pants, but if you want to feel him, he has no reason to deny you. You’re wonderfully spoiled, juddering your hips over him like any whore walking the streets in exchange for a coin or two. What he’d give to have this to himself.

It donned on him-- he could have it to himself. This time, he’d be certain of who the child belonged to. He adored his Lyla, though his irritation with her quips was ever palpable, this-- right here, the ability to fill you and be certain filled him with fat hunger and possessive need to burst into his slacks.

“Stop-- Muñeca-- stop,” Miguel tipped his head back, gathering his focus by digging his hand into your hair, stopping you immediately. His harsh grip loosened, followed up by loosening the button of his slacks and shoving them below the curve of his ass. His cock slapped your silken shorts, beads of his desire dripping from his cockhead. “Take those off. I’m finishing inside.”

“Miguelito,” you slipped onto shaky feet, enough that Miguel could force the shorts underneath your dress to the floor. “We agreed that babies would be--”

“You asked to be my wife. Ain’t this what wives do?”

“I know bu-- not there, deja, let me,” you stopped. His cockhead clumsily poked here and there, until finally, your hand guided him properly. Your mouth fell into a hazy moan when Miguel’s cock shoved forward, breaching your cunt with a snap of his hips. You seated yourself back onto his fat cock, reminded of the absence of your cervical cap in your cunt.

For all your talk, you ached for him, dipping your intertwined hands down to your mound. The rhythm was as sloppy as whatever singer was on stage right now, her voice giving way into a distinct crack. Whatever-- if it bought him more time to properly seed you, he didn’t mind.

He buckled forward as you clenched down upon him, holding him prisoner deep in your body. Liquid soaked his slacks-- and Miguel huffed, puffs of hot air warming your back. That was going to be fun to walk out in. His wife’s cum soaking his crotch.

“Hold still. It’s almost showtime,” Miguel’s voice was thin, his hand splayed on your waist as he used you less like his woman and more like a toy for his pleasure. It didn’t take long for Miguel to find a proper rhythm, his muscles flexing against your back. You were preoccupied as it were with the pain of Miguel’s teeth sinking on your shoulder, spiking hot as his pleasure crested. Soon enough, you felt his warmth fill your core, your head lulling back against him only after his thrusts ebbed.

“Don’t clean up, go on stage leaking.” Miguel held out his hand for you to take, allowing you to pull your shorts back up your ass, nestling his leaking cum in the fabric. It helped ease the anxiety of having you on stage, somehow, to see you in such a state.

“When you knock me up, you’re telling Gabi. I... can't.” You told Miguel, smoothing your dress over your shorts. There was a nervous flush in your eyes-- shame, he placed the emotion. He scrubbed the smile from his face. He had at least a few weeks.

“Sure thing.”

There was a certain delight in seeing you dressed up in that little black dress, all bright red lips, and sultry song. Not that you didn’t look tasty in that stupid apron you wore not to dirty any one of the pretty dresses you wore to church-- like you weren’t a heathen for warming the bed of two O’Hara boys. The people knew it. The church knew it. Damn well, the town knew it.

“Pal, that’s her on stage,” went an Italian boy. An allied family through nothing but contract killing and coin, he was safe here for the time being. One little lapse in a contract could shake it all. “That’s their kitten.”

“She married?”

Miguel turned his gaze back to you for a long moment. Your warm, sweetly lidded words slipping off your tongue, making his mind sluggish and relaxed after a long day. He captured your eyes, minding how your hands fell to the tasseled ends of an already short skirt, daring to expose your skin obscured by pantyhose to the crowd. You knew the game, how far you could lift your skirt without your would-be husband jumping his cage.

“Don’t be goofy. Miguel’d get sore if Gabe tried. She has ‘em both around her finger. Has a kid by one of them. No one knows whose. I got my money on--”

Stupid kids.

“Kid, I’m gunning for another.” Miguel cut the boy off, eyes crinkling at the edges. Something in the way you moved on stage reminded him of Lyla’s pregnancy, perhaps the glitter in your eyes when you met him at his table, instead of backstage, holding his large hands in your own. Some sparkle in your eye, a ginger announcement in his ear. Half elation, half… something else. Something, not quite fear, swirled in the boy’s eyes. Miguel watched with a keen interest as the boy flushed.

“Right on, big shot.”

Miguel brought his cigarette to his lips, letting his eyes flutter closed and his mind wander to the past. He should have known you were hands-off from the moment Gabriel wouldn’t beat it with the idea of adding another girl to their speakeasy.

The best time to tell Miguel about his new girl in the speakeasy was when he was in a good mood: catching any bootleg thief put him in a good mood. Not that he was particularly partial to grey matter and blood spraying him like a fresh pinata, but… he was more partial to money in his pocket and a good reputation. His boys cared for much of the violence in the West of this shitty little town.

“You hired a new girl?” Miguel repeated, drawing a long hit of his cigarette with blood-smattered fingers.

“Spanish girl. Like us. We don’t have a Spanish girl in this joint.”

“Gabe. Most of our clients are Irish. They don’t speak Spanish.”

“You should see her Miggy. She’s got this angelic little face,” Gabe whacked his elder brother, his grin growing ear to ear. There it was, his baby brother got blinded by his dick again. “When she sings you-- well, you get all twisted up.”

“Angelic face,” Miguel mumbled under his breath, tapping excess off of his cigarette. For the price he paid his girls, she had better have the face of Mary herself. The last few Gabe had pulled were mistakes. Some drug-addicted. Others whose husbands always caused a mean stir. He drags his hand down his face, weighing the costs. “She another dumb--”

“She’s Daniel’s littlin’. You remember Daniel? Taught you how to use a kn--”

The sigh that sat in his chest dissipated like vapor, perfusing into his tissue. Miguel looked at the paper Gabriel set in his blood-tinged fingers. He rotated it, gave it a look with his tired eyes. Talk to Gabriel. That old man knew just what Miguel would have said: get your ass back on a boat and go home to whatever rinky-dink island you foolishly sailed off of for this shitty city.

“Lemme see her sing.”

He doesn’t pay attention when Gabriel introduces you onstage for the first time, focusing on the paper ledgers Peter arranged for a review. Unlike his Italian connections, he don’t mind mixing it up with the Jewish boys. They’re twice as smart on the books and twice less likely to be hauling in trouble. Bootleg booze was one thing— the opium, the heroin, the cocaine, and morphine another. It packed too much heat from the coppers.

He hadn’t meant to look up.

It didn’t occur to him that you could have a sickly sweet voice, tempered by the rich Spanish on your tongue, only rivaled by those beautiful looks. His abandoned ciggy threw smoke into the air. He slumped back into the chair with a heavy thud, unclenched his tense jaw, and listened to a siren’s song that felt both familiar and distant all the same.

You had the sort of eyes he swore he’d met before, despite knowing he’d never seen a face like yours around. He’d remember sinking his teeth in that delicate neck that sat under pearls that he supplied most of his singers for their performances. His eyes hungrily cantering down your tassel dress. Not one he provided, no, he knew most to all the pieces in the back. There was a simple beauty in the gown.

You were trouble. He caught your eyes with an intent expression and expected you to blush and look away. You smiled. He wasn’t sure if it was for him or Gabriel, who flicked a grade-A smile, and a twiddling wave of your little fingers. He wants to feel them scratching down his back.

“--anyone home? Miggy? Miguel. Don’t tell me you’re already stuck on her.” Gabriel teased, elbowing Miguel in the arm. “You are! Told you she could sing.”

“Pipe down.” He jammed his ciggy in the dish.

“Sorry.”

He watches you a moment more, the slide of your legs to the tune of the band. The way your laugh resonated through the speakeasy when a patron stumbled onto the stage for his take on some stiff-legged swing. Most women would push them off, look to him for help in the swing, but you ran with the twirl the drunk led you into. He hated to admit that Gabriel was right. Among all the girls in his speakeasy, you brought a lightness to the life of a drunkard he’d not seen in a while.

“Gabe,” he mumbled, standing up and whirling his suit jacket over his broad shoulders.

“Yeah?”

I told’ja so, Gabriel’s voice sounded in his head. He could already feel the stiff annoyance that would be Gabriel’s fist connecting with his shoulder. Why did Gabriel have to know him so well? Miguel spoke with an undercurrent of annoyance.

“Let’s keep her.”

“You don’t gotta tell me twice.”

A hail of loud pops ruptured his sweet, distant memories. He reaches out to snatch his gun from the table, settled between the fresh flowers he plucked for your show. For an instant, his world wasn’t quiet. It wasn’t sounded out by the deafening assuredness of a kill, but very real panic under the singled out by the shrill of your scream.

They're going to push up on us, Miguel told Gabe. He never did take anything outside the speakeasy seriously.

Except tonight, there was no Gabriel. Miguel clasped his hand around his gun, whirling for the source of the flame. The barrage of gunfire is put down as quickly as it began. With a host of Irishmen in the bar, he should be so unsurprised. One of the Italian kids slumped over on his table.

There’s blood-- a lot of blood. Hysterics bound all around, some soothed by their partners or friends. The other Italian boy just stares-- lips slightly apart-- jarred by whatever horror was before him. Miguel finds it hard to believe that he hasn’t seen worse. Others burning his ears like the morning sun in his eyeballs every day you forgot to pull the curtains closed.

“God damn it, Peter.” Standing there is the scrawny little devil of a bookmaker himself, smiling cheesily.

“Hope that’s a good god damn it.”

He shoved his way from the tables, numbing out the complaint of the Italian boy. You were long since gone, probably a good thing that you weren’t here, that’s for fucking sure. It’d been the first time since Gabe’s incarceration he managed to drag you out of there and now… you were somewhere, undoubtedly frightened. Maybe even hurt.

“Boy, wonder who this kid crossed. Say, about Gabe, I got good news--”

He seized a chair, flicking it past Peter, a sure hiss for him to shut the fuck up about his baby brother in the can. Peter put his hands up reflexively, tracing Miguel’s rising shoulders.

“She ran to the back.”

The slender hallway down to his office is cold, only illuminated by the occasional pull-pin light bulb swinging overhead. He came here most days that he wasn’t on shift, taking a hit, or caring for his boys. Keeping track of everything was the best way to stay ahead. And even still-- he missed something from one of Spot’s boys.

You didn’t bother to close the door, balled up in a corner of his small office. He has a glorified cot for a bed in a corner, a heavy desk that nearly killed Gabe trying to hike it down the stairs years ago, and a rack stuffed with any number of books.

“It’s me,” his voice filled the room. You peered up from behind your arms, wrapped around your knees. What a stupid oversight, he thought, whoever was in charge of the damn door let someone in that was… going to be a problem. He was good with Lucky’s crew. Now he was gonna have to pick up that wired phone and tell him some kid was dead.

Your heels scratched across the ground, scooting back to the cool wall. You weren’t hurt-- just, sort of shocked. Maybe being conned into church with you panned out somehow.

“Muñeca.”

“That ain’t… ever happened with Gabe before.”

Gabe. Dy by day that he heard his brother’s voice, it became more of an annoyance. It wasn’t fair to make the comparison-- Gabe caring for most things that went on in the speakeasy, Miguel caring for interpersonal deals and security. With Gabe away, he’d not… it didn’t matter.

“It won’t happen again.”

“If Lyla were here--” You’re a shark-- going after the one thing you knew would hurt. The little girl back at home who he went to great lengths to make sure was safe. She was… his, even if he felt was his brother’s, putting more salt into an ever widening sinkhole that was his irritation.

“She wasn’t.”

“But what if she was?”

“Cállate,” he barked.

“Fine, I’ll beat it. You can holed up all alone down here like you like to be, you-- you-- big lug.” You recoiled for an instant, before forcing yourself up, rubbing at heavily fallen tears in your pursuit of the door. Your cheeks were kissed by raw agitation, all pink and in any other situation, beautiful. Miguel swayed to catch your elbow.

“Discúlpame,” he murmured, a rare apology if you could even call it one to begin with. There was a long pause, and he wondered if you would be upset with him for the rest of the day. “Don’t go. Don’t leave me.”

He knew he made it damn hard not to.

That was the thing about Miguel. He made it hard to get close, but even harder to leave. No matter what he did, you wanted to stay there right by him-- because he was the complicated brother. The one who… well, hell, you wanted to be about. Gabe was good and easy, your Miguelito was…

“Dios mio, Miguelito. This hinky stuff ain’t happening again. Or-- Or I’ll leave you both. Take Lyla right back to the island I came from and marry a man who isn’t in wrong with the police.”

You should have known the day that you gave birth to his daughter that something like that wasn’t going to happen.

#miguel x reader #miguel o'hara x reader #miguel o'hara x y/n #miguel o'hara x you #atsv imagines #atsv imagine #miguel o'hara/reader #miguel o'hara imagine #miguel ohara imagine #miguel o'hara smut #miguel ohara x reader

324 notes · View notes

thesightstoshowyou · 27 days ago

Text

A Trick for a Treat

- A Series -

~~ Over the next few days, I hope to get out a few shorts detailing what my favorite characters are up to on Halloween ~~

(Part 1)

Part II

Asa Emory (The Collector) x Cricket (OC)

- Less Torturemurder AU -

Second part to this

The scratching of the pen pinched between Asa’s fingers is barely audible over the giggling and screeching of children just outside his office window. The Collector curses his office location. Every year he forgets about this little event until it’s too late.

It is time again for student volunteers to host the annual Trunk or Treat in the university’s parking lot. The promise of a “Safe and Sweet” Halloween always draws a sizable crowd. Sizable and noisy. Now, his vehicle is trapped among the throng of wildly dressed children, parents, and college students and Asa is forced to finish grading here rather than in the comfort and silence of his home office.

Gritting his teeth, he makes a particularly aggressive mark in red pen. Truthfully, his thoughts are elsewhere, his mind hyper-focused on the intricacies of a new trap design. It just needs a little fine tuning, something he cannot do from this god forsaken office. He’ll need to put a reminder in his calendar for next year so this doesn’t happen—

“Dr. Emory?” A voice like the delicate twinkling of a wind chime sounds from his doorway. Asa lifts his gaze from his work. Instantly, his throat dries when his dark eyes land on the figure in his doorway.

It’s the girl. The heterochromatic one. The ballerina taking the anatomy lab across the hall from his Thursday lecture. The one who has haunted his every fantasy ever since she’d wished him a “Good morning,” in that sweet voice the second week of classes.

The woman who’d baked him cookies and asked him on a date.

She’s dressed in a black leotard that glitters here and there in the low light. A frilly tutu sits around her slender waist, and black ribbon snakes up each of her perfect legs. A costume, obviously. She must be volunteering outside.

“Yes?” he replies finally, beyond relieved he managed to keep any emotion out of his voice.

“I saw your light was on,” she comments, taking a small step past the doorframe. Her hands clasp together before her and Asa finds it difficult to tear his gaze away from the graceful bend of her wrists.

“…Do you make a habit of checking my office window?” His expression is blank, but there is a slight teasing tone to the rasp of his voice. The little upturn of her lips tells him she caught the jest.

“Kinda hard to miss it when you’re the only one working late.” Another step closer. He hums noncommittally and the pen falls to the desktop with a quiet clatter.

“Can I help you with something, Miss—

“You didn’t call.” It’s not accusatory, or chiding, or petulant. Just a simple statement that teeters on the verge of a question. Asa glances to the drawer where he’s kept her number hidden for two and a half weeks. Slowly, he leans back in his chair and rests his chin on a fist.

Her comment isn’t entirely true. He did call, but he only let it ring once before slamming the receiver back down. Taking her on even one date is a terrible idea, no matter how he looks at it. It’s reckless. Dangerous. If he lets her in, allows her past this carefully constructed wall, she will inevitably start asking questions, questions he will never be able to answer.

Asa’s chest rises when he breathes in a steadying inhale. “I…didn’t think it appropriate.”

“To date a student?” she finishes for him. Another step. She’s almost to his desk now.

Asa nods. She bites her lip and the muscles in his shoulders tense. “I’m a non-trad though.” She’s teasing back now.

“And that somehow makes it more appropriate?” He can’t stop the way the words leave his mouth like a purr. Tentatively, the girl completes her approach. One, elegant hand lifts slightly so her fingers can trail daintily across his desktop as she slowly steps around the side.

“It’s not like I’m fresh out of high school or anything,” she murmurs in response, offering a little half shrug. She winds around his desk, then leans back against the edge. He can smell her now, the floral notes of her perfume invading his senses and making him salivate like a predator catching the scent of its prey.

Dark eyes that glitter like her costume rake over the ribbon encircling her legs. He allows his gaze to linger there, too long to be “appropriate.” Slowly, his eyes slide up to meet hers—one green, one brown. There’s pink tinging her cheeks, a soft blush spotted with freckles.

Careful and measured, Asa rises from his chair. Calloused fingers slide against smooth oak as he places his palms on the desktop, one on either side of her hips. He cages her in, dwarfs her slight form with his, invades her space until he can feel the warm little puffs of her breath against his lips.

He’s not touching her though, not yet. Asa fears if he were to feel the soft, pliant expanse of her flesh under his hands, his resolve will crumble away entirely. Though, with the way she shivers now, trapped between him and the desk, he’s mere seconds from losing it anyway.

“No, I suppose you’re not,” he rumbles quietly, his words only for her. His gaze darts down to admire the way her teeth catch her bottom lip before quickly returning to her eyes. “What was your goal in coming here?”

“I…” her voice cracks, the single word escaping as a quivering chirp. She clears her throat and tries again, cheeks now a deeper shade of red, “I thought that would be obvious…Sir.”

Asa’s eyes snap shut as a jolt of arousal arcs through his gut like lighting. Fucking. Hell. He would do almost anything to hear her call him that again. Sucking in a breath through his teeth, he looks down at her again.

“…Why do you keep coming back?” The question is harsher than he’d meant it to be, but she doesn’t balk or look offended. On the contrary, she appears more determined than ever.

“Because I want to know you. I want…you. And…I think…the feeling is mutual.”

If she knew how right she was…. He replays her words in his head and it dawns on him then that she feels the same. Asa searches her mismatched gaze for hidden meaning, but all he finds is earnest sincerity.

One hand leaves the desktop. Slowly, purposefully, Asa’s fingers graze her throat and curl around the back of her neck. His thumb comes to rest on her pulse and finds it racing. Her eyelids flutter closed as he leans in, inch by agonizing inch.

The first brush of her plush lips against his shocks him all the way down to his toes. It’s impossible to stop his other hand from coming up to grip her jaw, from crushing his lips to hers, from opening his mouth to swallow the little whine that escapes her throat. When his tongue slides past her lips, he tastes mint and the chocolate she’s been handing out to trick or treaters.

Her hands raise to settle against his chest. She gasps when he grips her wrists in one hand and squeezes, not hard enough to hurt, but forceful enough to get her attention. Against her mouth he growls, “Keep your hands to yourself until I tell you otherwise.” The hitch in her panting is not one of fear.

“Yes, S-Sir.”

It takes Herculean effort to rip his lips from hers. Asa breathes in deep and stomps down the heat raging in his blood so he can grit out, “You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into.” He hates how hoarse he sounds. The sight of her swollen lips parted, eyes half lidded, cheeks blushing so pretty and pink for him nearly destroys the remaining vestiges of his self control.

“M-Maybe not,” she stammers in a whisper. Her hands tremble in his grip as she continues, “But that d-doesn’t make me want it any less.” Asa clenches his teeth and forces out a shuddering exhale. Inhaling again only pulls more of her scent into his lungs and dumps blazing need into his belly.

“…Then I suggest,” he murmurs, fighting to keep his tone steady, “We find a way out of this parking lot before I show you right here in my fucking office.”

“I’m parked in the side lot,” she breathes out and jerks when Asa slams the file on his desk closed.

“Lead the way.”

#asa emory #the collector 2009 #the collection #asa emory x cricket #asa emory x oc #the collector x cricket #the collector x oc #thesightstoshowyou #Halloween writing event #a trick for a treat #less torturemurder au

25 notes · View notes

folkdances · 2 months ago

Text

most major high fashion brands were made by men but little boys are yelled at if they play fashion games and men that go into fashion are seen as effeminate. trans women are men unless they get assaulted and then it's "well you wanted to be treated like a woman, didn't you? 😂". step-family porn is one of the most searched genres of pornography but every man wants to vote for the right-wingers or the fascists because "they're the only party that cares about family values". a woman's place is beneath her husband's. fathers are the fun ones and mothers are the cold bitches. trad-wives with millions of instagram followers are the iceberg's tip of women that live that lifestyle, and no one cares about them. women in the office are not as assertive, not as domineering, not as gung-ho as their male coworkers. women have to wear makeup and heels and get all the non-head hair ripped off their bodies every week. women cannot under any circumstances cry or show any negative emotion in public. female fascists and right-wing politicians are girlbosses breaking the mold while female activists are randoms that want their five minutes of fame. every man thinks they know better than a woman about her own health and safety. fake tits and fake lips and a fake ass, but men like them all-natural. women want reverse sexism. women hate men. no abortions, ever. no saying no, ever. lie down under his feet. roll over like the good bitch you have to be. be good. be good.

#txt

23 notes · View notes

eyeslikewatercoolers · 5 months ago

Text

6 Sentence Sunday- More Non-Trad College AU

My life has gotten incredibly busy the last few weeks, but I really wanted to get this out. So enjoy some planymphia!

As Anetra and Kira took their final bows with the others on stage, Nymphia reached into the small paper bag for a mochi donut. Instead of the sweet treat, she felt long fingers instead.

“Oh, sorry,” Nymphia said as she retreated her hand.

Jane smiled at her as she handed her a donut. “It’s okay, you have soft hands,” Jane playfully shrugged.

Nymphia took the donut as Jane helped herself to a different one, “Should you be telling me that when you’re married?” she asked, pointing at the ring. She tried to keep her tone light and playful.

Jane shook her head, a hint of sadness in her eyes, “Widowed, actually,”

#6ss #planymphia #non trad college au #my writing

21 notes · View notes

papirouge · 10 months ago

Note

I’m pro life but I made the mistake of reading the pro life sub reddit and I’m convinced that these men are just incels. One post I saw had a man fully say confidently that we should just kill women because of false rape allegations and no fault divorce laws. Then try to spin that as a pro life message? Wtf? I really really hope people aren’t going to read that sub and believe all of us are like that. I mean, I typically ignore or block men in this movement because this is a women’s issue but still. I think incels are trying to hijack it and religious spaces too. I see the worst things about women from incels in the Christian subreddits too

I always said that scrote being so extra about false rape allegations and trying to reinforce ridiculously harsh sanctions to women making false rape allegations was an indirect admission of guilt. Because, if it was about justice, why don't they have the same energy against other false accusations when it comes to homicide, harassment, etc ?

They focus on rape solely because deep down they do know that rape incriminates men as the main culprit. Men represent 95-99% of rape perpetuators. And it makes them lose their damn mind whenever women remind them this fact. I know this firsthand bc as few weeks ago I made a TikTok pulling out rape stats in my country and how they were championed at 95% by men. It started to get kinda viral, and got a consistent flock of scrotes coming out of the woodwork pulling out the most ludicrous excuses to delegitimize thoses stats (mind you, they were from the INSEE which is a STATE FUNDED statistic agency - so a very reliable source), or deflect the discourse on immigration (as if most illegals committing crimes weren't MALES too 🤡). I had to eventually turn off the comments so much this was overwhelming (and annoying bc arguing with liars & delulu is extremely frustrating).

Men are extremely in denial when it comes to accountability so they will make all bunch excuses to redirect the responsibility somewhere else. Such as women making false rape accusations. Or pushing that psychological war on women that is enforcing ridiculous policies against false rape allegations. The end goal is always to silence women.

And yeah, I'd advise any pro life woman to avoid sharing spaces with men when it comes to discuss sensitive topics such as abortion, fertility, (sexual) abuse, etc. Those space are heavily invaded by incels, Christo fascists, trad degenerates, etc because 1) they allow them to mingle with women/pickme 2) shit on the "bad" type of women (liberal, pro choice) but with the moral excuse of "protecting children uwu".

I'm personally extremely suspicious of pro life male online activists because they in the most case have a deep seated misogyny they try to hide behind a mask of benevolence, but it always ends up slipping (calling abortive or non married sexually active women "whores"... while never having the same energy to shame the men with the same behavior).

The good thing is that Christian culture protects female only space so I'd encourage you to look into them instead

#answered #pro life

8 notes · View notes

darkrpfinders · 4 months ago

Note

🍡 Hello hi! 20nb looking for 18+ fandomless rp partners! I've been craving some more platonic rps! I'll still accept some romantic, but I prefer platonic right now. m/any or nb/any for all pairings. I would play male or an enby character! My writing style ranged from literate to possibly novella? A minimum of two paragraphs is what I'll type if the scene needs it. Lastly, I write in 3rd person, past tense.

I would love to do something with omegaverse or littleverse (possibly combining them!). For omegaverse I can play any of the subgenders, but prefer the Alpha role! For littleverse I can play either the little or caregiver (I think a pairing with a neutral could be interesting too). One thing about me is that I adore world building! Please talk to me about all ideas you have even if we don't agree!

I don't have any set plot in mind, but would like something w/ complex dynamics (I'm in love with non-trad pairings)! I have a few pairing ideas that can be built upon! Looking for something that's discipline focused/oriented!

If we add nsfw or have any other non-sexual kinks to include, that's fine by me! Discussion of triggers/limits/kink will be in dms. (I would die for something w Mommy kink no matter your oc's gender).

I try to respond when I can, but sometimes forget. Don't hesitate to @ me if it's been like a week and I haven't spoken ooc. I don't mind slow replies either! I roleplay in tumblr dms, discord (dm or server), and on a shared Google doc w zero favor towards any.

I use rl and/or anime fcs, if you’d want to use something else or none I won't mind!

🍡 If you're interested, just like the post, and I'll reach out!

#oc rp #oc roleplay #fandomless rp #fandomless roleplay #omegaverse roleplay #omegaverse rp #mxf #mxm #mxnb #fxnb #nbxnb #dark roleplay #dark rp #spicy

6 notes · View notes

prpfz · 4 months ago

Note

I use rl and/or anime fcs, if you’d want to use something else or none I won't mind!

🍡 If you're interested, just like the post, and I'll reach out!

Leave a like, and anon will get back to you!

#oc roleplay #oc rp #oc x oc #m/m #m/f #m/nb #f/nb #nb/nb #dead dove

4 notes · View notes

aucatgirl · 7 months ago

Note

why do you dislike d*dbastian? I'm not into it either, I just like their difficult employer-employee, predator-victim relationship as is (not s*bciel tho, i dislike it). also, I don't hate the father son parallels, I'm just sick of strict nuclear family dynamics to describe non-romantic relationships in fandoms😅

MY CALL WAS HEARD thank you anon I feel less alone. My reasons are pretty similar, I’ve been in fandom long enough that I’ve grown super weary of the trad family default that so many people seem to carry. And yea, when people refer to their dynamic as familial I’m mostly chill with it because 1) it’s been alluded to in canon (though largely dismissed by canon as well because it’s more complicated than that) 2) I’ll take that over seb*ciel any day of the week, lol

I saw someone mention that d*dbastian is basically the opposite way from seb*ciels to deal with the hints that Sebastian cares about Ciel and that makes me lol because it’s so true. But I think both camps take it a bit far in the attempts to categorize them. I’m personally of the opinion that Sebastian was “traumatized” (as much as a demon can be) by the Campania and that’s why he acts the way he does around Ciel these days, because outside of Ciel being in danger he still doesn’t seem to care about Ciel’s feelings any more than he did at the beginning of the manga, but maybe I’ll be proven wrong by the investigation, I don’t mind either way. Otherwise, Sebastian cares in a way that someone cares about the pig they’re raising to slaughter

Their dynamic is so complex and fascinating and it’s frustrating to see it lumped into strict categories by the majority of the fandom, whether it’s romantic or dad-son. It all feels OOC in different ways. It’s frustrating to see their very often eerie, unsettling dynamic ignored and/or flattened into “omg he’s being a dad” (I saw comments like that on s4’s ED and it’s like uh, no), and it’s simultaneously frustrating to see shippers act like you can’t fully enjoy the series unless you like the ship and it’s like blech, no thanks

I would argue that this extends to the whole Phantomhive servants too because I often see them lumped into traditional dynamics when the whole dynamic is automatically strange because Ciel is both a child and their employer. They love Sebastian like family and he is also their boss. I love found family servants as just that, found family. Their canon dynamic is fantastic, no notes. There’s no need to apply strict specific labels to each and every dynamic because every single one is complicated by their circumstances

#🐈#this took a long time to word properly because my feelings on them are so complicated lol #I will say that I do really enjoy C0attails though it feels natural but I honestly consider that it’s own separate series at this point

2 notes · View notes

sizzlingpatrolfox · 9 months ago

Note

What is your dream non-music content for Jimin? I personally would love a weekly or bi monthly show where he goes to dance classes around seoul/korea and learns all different types of dance. You could do a couple ballroom eps, trad korean dance, hip hop, go back to the aerial/silks instructor they used for run, a ballet class, then grand finale fly to Japan and do a figure skating special episode with Yuzuru Hanyu. My literal dream. I would also love it if after he did an adult ballet class, he taught like a 4/5 yr old ballet class, that would be so cute.

I don't really think about stuff like that tbh, about Jimin or anyone.

Speaking about my experience with face, I didn't have any particular expectations about it either. I knew it was going to be kind of "abstract" just because of how his previous songs had been, and I knew it was going to be very focused on dance. Still, nothing could've prepared me for how blown away I was with the whole album.

Dance in general is something I always wanna see from him. No doubts. I don't particularly mind the format of the content, but just him dancing is enough. BTS dance practices used to be my favourite type of BTS content; I've watched each of them a dozen times. Same with Jimin's fancams at concerts and music shows, I studied them. I still watch like crazy and smf2 dance practice from time time.

So, I loved him doing tiktok challenges, and then the random tiktoks with his own choreos. They were brilliant, he's brilliant. I loved that he wasn't following trends and doing the dumb, terrible choreos all the other idols were doing, but instead it was all his own vibe and ideas. I also liked them because it was really refreshing to see him interact, and work with people who aren't BTS. I've spent so much time watching him be with the other members, so this was a nice change. Just seeing him in a different social context, while still working.

Well, I'm rambling. To sum it up.. I don't really have like a detailed idea of what I'd like to see him doing the way you do. I guess we both agree on the fact that I'd also love to see him put out a lot more of dancing content, and meeting lots of new people.

I don't have a set up idea about what I'd like to see him do, but sometimes I see stuff and I just know that he'd kill it. Last week, I saw this photo and immediatly thought I so badly want to see him doing photos like this one 😭

4 notes · View notes

lotsofthinkythoughts · 2 years ago

Text

I posted 2,702 times in 2022

15 posts created (1%)

2,687 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@gingerteaonthetardis

@saecookie

@doctorhelena

@deardiary17

@lavellenchanted

I tagged 2,685 of my posts in 2022

Only 1% of my posts had no tags

#lotr - 261 posts

#fanart - 232 posts

#art - 158 posts

#lol - 142 posts

#peggy carter - 117 posts

#dragon age - 85 posts

#steve x peggy - 80 posts

#pride and prejudice - 77 posts

#embroidery - 73 posts

#cross-stitch - 61 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#but i am gonna say they’re robbing a generation of repressed bisexual girls an ‘oh’ moment as they crush on the most pretty boys in a show

My Top Posts in 2022:

📓 for the ask game. doctor x rose (your choice as to which doctor)

Welp in addition to the ones I mentioned in the last answer, There's just... SO MANY Eight/Rose AUs. Just like... terminal brainrot levels of EightRose in my brain.

So how about the one I did ... sort of start writing but never got far with it; A College AU where she was a child star and he's a return student both studying in the same theater program. This got long, so under the cut it goes!

They meet for the first time at open auditions for the term, and they start talking there, and realize they have a class in common when they see each other the next week.

There's two plot threads really, Rose and her attempt at Normalcy and escaping the assumptions of childhood stardom as she's also trying to reset her mind before pursuing more serious roles. And Eight (John, because I'm lame) and his really shitty political family and their expectations and how they constantly have made him put aside his own desires for his life and the consequences for his decision to break away.

One of those consequences is the fact that after awhile, when his rent goes up, he doesn't really have the funds to stay there anymore. But, luckily he and Rose are friends, and she has a spare room, even though her apartment isn't THAT big. So now, they're roommates.

Insert just... so much 'oh my god they were roommates' and romantic pining content here. There's also a lot of hanging out with their friends, even though they're some of the only non-trad students in their friend group. (Also there's guitar playing and music because I'm a sap and that's just a thing I like)

Then former colleague Jack shows up to visit Rose and being mildly drunk when he shows up in the bar, she's like 'you don't have to go to a hotel, you can stay at my place!' because she's just... like that. And five minutes later she's like 'shit, I don't actually have a spare room anymore' and is apologizing to John and proposes that they share for the day or two Jack's around. It... more or less becomes him just moving into her bedroom because they like cuddling. And each other.

Long story short, the pining reaches terminal levels but they don't want to ruin their relationship, but at that point they're on the road to actually getting together. Rose has, slowly over the course of the story to this point, let go of her discomfort with her childhood stardom and the way some of the professors and other students act around her, so that leaves John's family plot to wrap up, so for MAXIMUM DRAMA, his brother's political campaign wants family shots and video for promotional purposes.

His parents more or less demand he comes home for this, and John invites Rose to come along. His family is not happy about him doing that, but John and Rose decide that fuck it, they love each other, they're gonna be there for each other no matter what, no matter the cameras, no matter the family dynamics they're born into, they get to choose and they choose each other.

Then they go back to the apartment, and live happily ever after. lol. (Also the whole thing totally ends with them having an onstage kiss in a play with just.)

3 notes - Posted March 6, 2022

📚 for Doctor Who ✨

Oh god, there are so many. The Rose-Dimension-Hops-into-the-Time-War fic, the I'm-trash-and-watching-Classic-Who-and-inserting-Rose 'fic' (there is no plot, it's just me wanting Rose and all the companions to be friends lol), the whole CharlEightRose universe. Let me see if I can sift through everything for one that's not... a whole damn cinematic universe in my brain XD.

Oh, man, I had a concept once upon a time of a Nine/Rose epistolary fic, that started life as a supernatural AU where he was like a historical astronomer, but that over the years kinda morphed in my brain just into a more... 'the TARDIS thinks Nine needs a penpal' kind of deal in his wanderings pre-Rose.

And it's just... them writing to each other in 'magic' journals. I still don't know why the journals are magic, it's just a suspension of disbelief point for the concept. But anyway, they write messages to each other, back and forth, in this journal, just... talking about life and the places they go/want to go, Rose talks about how shambles she feels her life is because of her terrible boyfriend (then, eventually, ex-boyfriend) and he just... talks about the places and people he sees.

The whole thing comes to a head when they run out of pages - they're down to the last pages and there's a final message, and then like... the next month he lands on Earth and Whoops, there's Auton's in the shops. Time to save the world. And accidentally meet his penpal lol.

(In the original concept there was unexplained time travel at the end, so I think that's why it ended up morphing in my brain, because like... if he's gonna time travel anyway, he might as well just... be a time traveler.)

3 notes - Posted March 6, 2022

this probably isn't meant for me to answer but 🐹💗 like i credit myself with a decent imagination but i can't bring myself to imagine being intimidated by you because you're so kind and silly and great to be friends with

I just thought it was a cute little ask meme so it’s for whoever wanted to answer.

I don’t see myself as intimidating at all, so like I agree lol. Thanks dear ❤️!

4 notes - Posted August 12, 2022

Okay hi friends. I have not said anything on here, but I’ve been doing NaNo this year. And I have... for the first time ever a) gotten ahead and b) passed 10k.

I usually fail so hard at NaNo, and even if I don’t make 50k this year, I am so damn proud of myself.

That is all, carry on scrolling friends.

11 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Dear god, it’s the year 2022 and I have spent the whole day coming up with Tolkien-verse OCs because of the Peter Jackson films.

Teenage me is still alive and well apparently and she killed cringe culture lol.

17 notes - Posted July 13, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #lol I love how this just proves that I am doing great as an internet hermit #my most popular post's notes are partially myself talking to Abbey XD

10 notes · View notes

angeltannis · 2 years ago

Text

The amount of trads and fash I’ve seen in the OW tag the past week dunking on the game and getting hundreds-thousands of notes is seriously depressing (but sadly typical lol), like people really don’t stop and think for even 1 second that these dudes with blogs filled with the n-word and talking about returning to Glorious Euro Traditionalism probably have a very different reason for celebrating the decline of a game full of women and non-white characters then they do

#and ofc it’s always in favor of a game full of white men lol #also I don’t want this showing up in searches so penis penis penis penis

4 notes · View notes

mariacallous · 2 years ago

Text

On December 13, 2022, a group of Bulgarian activists from the nonprofit United Bulgaria For One Cause (BOEC) tried to enter the offices of Telus International, a global outsourcing company that handles content moderation for Meta, in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. Live on Facebook, they came armed with printouts of posts and accounts they said had been removed from the platform, which they stuck to the office doors.

“We used stickers to symbolically close the doors of Telus, symbolic like they closed our accounts,” Orlin Ezekiev, a member of BOEC, says.

BOEC accuses Telus International of blocking posts that criticize Russia and support Ukraine. Their protest came weeks after a local outlet, Bird.bg, published allegations—which Telus International denies—that the outsourcing company was working with pro-Russian oligarchs to silence pro-Ukrainian sentiment on the platform. The website also posted the names and images of Telus International employees on its Facebook page.

Criticism of Telus International and Meta in Bulgaria reached such a height that the outsourcing company’s chief corporate officer, Marilyn Tyfting, was called to testify in front of the Bulgarian parliament on January 26. “I would also like to confirm that Telus International does not set content review policies. Instead we apply the policies of our clients and comply with applicable laws,” she said in a prepared statement. On February 1, Meta published a blog post responding to claims of pro-Russian bias in its content moderation, calling the accusations “false” and saying “there is no evidence to support them.”

However, experts who monitor Russian attempts to manipulate the information space in Europe say that the truth is more complex. Russian propagandists and supporters of the Kremlin have become adept at abusing Meta’s moderation practices—which are less robust in non-English languages—by reporting content en masse to trigger reviews that could ultimately lead to its removal. The lack of transparency over what gets removed and why has created a sense of betrayal and frustration, which has in turn led pro-Ukraine activists to target the largely powerless moderators responsible for enacting Meta’s policies.

“Facebook is one of the main tools for promoting and silencing others at the same time,” says Ruslan Trad, a Sofia-based fellow at the Digital Forensic Research Lab. “Mass reporting is a very successful strategy.”

Trad, whose own Facebook account had once been suspended after being spuriously reported for hosting extremist content, says that pro-Russian groups will often organize on Telegram and choose which accounts or posts to report and get removed from Facebook. Some of these groups, according to Trad, operate from Russia, while others may be paid-for trolls from within Bulgaria, where labor is relatively cheap.

According to Todor Galev, director of research at the Center for the Study of Democracy, a European public policy think tank, the Atlantic Council’s Bulgarian Facebook page has been banned several times after being mass reported. He says the accounts of prominent pro-NATO and pro-EU journalists and media outlets have also been targeted.

“We suspect that Facebook relies mostly on algorithms for small markets like Bulgaria,” says Galev. “Because human moderation is very limited. There are only a few people working [on moderation] for Bulgaria.”

A former Meta employee who worked on its content moderation systems and policy, and who spoke to WIRED on the condition of anonymity, says, however, that mass reporting could at least get certain pieces of content or accounts flagged for review. And the more frequently a certain type of content is flagged, the more likely the algorithm will be to flag it in the future. However, with languages where there is less material to train the algorithm, like Bulgarian, and AI might be less accurate, the former employee says that it’s possibly more likely that a human moderator would make the final call about whether or not to remove a piece of content.

Meta spokesperson Ben Walters told WIRED that Meta does not remove content based on the number of reports. “If a piece of content does not violate our Community Standards, no matter how high the number of reports is, it won’t lead to content removal,” he says.

Some moderation issues could be the result of human error. “There are going to be error rates, there are going to be things that get taken down that Meta did not mean to take down. This happens,” they say. And these errors are even more likely in non-English languages. Content moderators are often given only seconds to review posts before having to make a decision about whether or not it will stay online, an indicator through which their job performance is measured.

There is also a real possibility that there could be bias among human moderators. “The majority of the population actually supports Russia even after the war in Ukraine,” says Galev. Galev says that it’s not unreasonable to think that some moderators might also hold these views, particularly in a country with limited independent media.

“There’s a lack of transparency around who is who is deciding, who is making the decision,” says Ivan Radev, a board member of the Association of European Journalists Bulgaria, a nonprofit, which put out a statement condemning Bird.bg’s posting of employee information. “This sentiment is feeding dissatisfaction in Bulgaria.” This opacity can breed confusion.

The imbalance between the ability of coordinated campaigns to get content flagged, and that of individuals or small civil society organizations, whose reports go to human moderators, has helped to create an impression in Bulgaria that Meta is prioritizing pro-Russian content over pro-Ukrainian content.

Just over half of Bulgaria’s 6.87 million people use Facebook, which is the dominant social platform in the country. Bulgaria has long been a target of Russian trolls and pro-Russian propaganda, particularly since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Both sympathetic local media and Russian disinformation operations have pushed a pro-Russia narrative, blaming the conflict on NATO.

Ezekiev, the BOEC member, told WIRED that he was never given an explanation for why his content was removed or how the choice was made. “If you raise your voice against propaganda and say something about the war in Ukraine, your account can be suspended,” he says. Meta’s own lack of transparency about its moderation processes, says Ezekiev, makes the entire situation murkier.

It is this frustration that drove BOEC to protest at Telus International’s Sofia office, and led to employees—themselves largely powerless—being doxed and harassed, though there is no evidence that any of the company's moderator deviated from Meta’s own instructions.

In February, Bulgarian media reported that Telus International would be closing its operations in the country and moving the work to Germany. “As part of a consolidation of operations, the work Telus International does for Meta in Sofia will be moving to another of our sites,” says Telus International spokesperson Michelle O'Brodovich. “Telus International continues to work successfully with Meta, ensuring the highest level of professional standards.” The company did not address whether or not the inquiries into its work in Bulgaria contributed to this decision.

4 notes · View notes

krillest1 · 2 months ago

Text

Week 4: Suburban Pastoralism

PREFACE Hello all my dedicated readers. Speaking vaguely, this week has been strange. I was pretty well isolated for the first half, and spent the second half working and being around people. Too much time alone is undoubtedly a bad thing. Still, I find myself shirking more and more. I feel less and less certain around people, and more and more like I'm using them to make myself feel smarter. I am not smart, however, so the interaction inevitably falls apart. Anyway. I had the dubious pleasure of watching the vice-presidential debate this week. I also had the undubious pleasure of starting the New Testament. So, what can I get from smashing these things together?

THE DEBATE I was impressed by the debate this week. I haven't been keeping up with the "conversation" around it, but I found both men pretty convincing, calm, and interesting. Sure, JD Vance might be hiding some pretty gross shit behind his cute blue eyes, but performance-wise the whole thing was enjoyable. There were several points throughout where both parties agreed, and there was a semi-legit back and forth. One point that was quite interesting to me was both sides insisting that we need to build more housing, quickly and cheaply. While I agree that housing needs to be available, I'm a bit skeptical that the current mode is sustainable [I'm disregarding the less-interesting stuff here i.e. immigrants driving up prices and building on federal land]. During the debate Walz had a nice point about living in the same house his whole life, and going back there 'after Christmas mass.' Kind of cheesy, but I get the sentiment. I, however, grew up in the burbs. The burbs, unlike the city, are disparate. There's no 'center' really, though the [absent] city gets close. The idea of a house, or community, gets a bit complicated in the burbs. We, as good and well-read people, know that third places have disappeared. Some of us, as sickos with too much time on their hands, have read NRx etc. explanations of housing and flight [see: Nick Land's 'Dark Enlightenment', racially upsetting but interesting when it comes to things like doughnut housing]. I don't know what percent of new housing in the country is suburban, (I could just google it, but then I might be wrong...) but to move to a place without center is strange, in some ways. To return to the (first) point, the debate focused on housing as a problem (legit), and promoted more construction, without looking at the form our housing/infrastructure takes. America is unique; I'm open to that, and recognize that what works in one place might not work here. Still, how did we get here (and how can I shoe-horn in the bible?)?

THE PASTURE The New Testament is riddled with Pastoral imagery. A shit-ton of the parables focus on cultivation/herding/not 'pure' nature. The lost sheep is a popular one, lots of vineyard talk, people spend a lot of time laboring in fields. Even the lilies of the field, toiling not, feel like they're cultivated or encountered during grazing. They're certainly placed in the context of working (or not working, lazy bastards). The Christian approach, in short, is a pastoral one. We are cultivated, the world is cultivated. Nature is scary, but Christ can quell it and let us traverse it safely. I don't think I'd like to say that Christianity only works in a pastoral setting or whatever, but the language is steeped in it. TJ (known to non-friends as Thomas Jefferson) was also a big fan of pastoral, or at least rural living. He, famously, added a pretty good amount of land to America so we would remain cultivators, and not get caught up in business. America has moved away from that vision (in a lot of ways), but remains Christian and taken by rural/pastoral narratives. People LARP as trad-wife-based-conservative-home-makers, or something. At this point, I should say: I'm really glad I don't have to live and work like this. It's hard and shitty and lame. I do, however, live in the suburbs and I think we can draw a through-line here. Suburbs were (I think) originally places outside of the city set apart for cultivation/grazing/etc. The Levites got the suburbs, or an undue portion, or something, in the old testament. In some ways, the modern suburb is no different. The Christianity-circuit remains strong out here, and the language of cultivation is still somewhat present. People spend less time growing olives, and more time tending to a lawn. No sheep, lots of dogs. You get the (boring, I'm worried) point. The modern suburb keeps the pastoral dream alive, in some ways. In other ways it's a failure. As mentioned above, there's no center. The city has become too yucky [To de-fang Land]. The suburbanite today is, in some ways, more nomadic than those early Christians. They, at least, had some city center they could live in reference towards, and some church body they helped constitute. Now we go to mega churches and avoid the city, cast into the centerless suburb to cultivate ourselves and an image.

DRAWING TO A CLOSE Don't worry, I'm basically done. Both vice-presidential candidates claim to be Christian, and both adopt a policy towards housing that's rooted in the tradition. Still, things have changed materially, and de-centered. On a more personal note, I'm doing alright. I've been working on less self-hatred, as that sets on in a definite (deficient) place, which is ego. It's also not interesting, and I'm basically living for gratitude in knowing and not knowing. Still, I often act like I'm smart when I am not, and I'm not sure how to relate to people when I'm not trying to be interesting/smart. I had a nice chat with someone recently, and they forced me to re-consider my approach in some ways. I'm grateful for that, but it's hard. I also want to quit my job. This week was, like the others, scattered. I kind of just sit down and write these, so I'm thinking some changes are due. First, I'd like to sketch out some argument/direction I'm moving towards. Second, I'd like to get a bit more relief when I write these things (as they are ignored, so I'd like to feel good afterwards), and Third, I'd like to remain not-caring about this project. Love ya, keep up the good work, and vote I guess maybe.

#blogpost #vice-presidential debate

0 notes