#that he called himself italian because his family was italian and then came to US and thought they were more italian than they were

[bumlets-appreciation-blog]

Newsie Names (As Determined By Me)

Jack "Cowboy" Kelly: Francis Malcolm Sullivan (canon)

Racetrack: Ed Higgins (historically accurate, I put him as having an Italian mother and Irish father, both Catholic because Race crosses himself during the nun scene)

Crutchy: Elijah Morris (surname is historically accurate, friendly reminder that Crutch Morris was Jewish and so is Crutchy)

Boots: Benjamin Arbus (surname looks like it's widely accepted fanon, not sure about the first name)

Kid Blink: Louis Baletti (historically accurate, definitely has an Italian father at the least)

Mush: Nicholas Meyers (surname is historically accurate and I'm pretty sure the real Mush was named Nick)

Bumlets: Damian Vasquez/Damián Vásquez (Puerto Rican name, name anglicized after immigration)

Skittery: Roman Kučera (Czech name, @jackcowboyhero came up with this and I just love it so much)

Snoddy: Calvin Angier (also from @jackcowboyhero)

Specs: Leopold Bauer (German name)

Dutchy: Cas Hendriksen (Dutch name, Dutchy was commonly used for Dutch and German immigrants)

Snitch: John Whitfield

Itey: Elio Olivieri (Italian name, Itey was commonly used for Italian immigrants)

Swifty the Rake: Wesley Liu (half white and half Chinese like his actor Kevin Stea)

Pie-Eater: Michael Reeves

Jake the Oyster: Jacob Heaton

Snipeshooter: Gabriel Evans

Flipper: Charles "Charlie" Daley (I've officially chosen Flipper as his newsie nickname because it's more popular and less ridiculous than Crazy Legs, Bumlets still calls him Charlie though)

Tumbler: Andy (another @jackcowboyhero name that I've adopted, he uses Kučera when necessary but doesn't remember his actual last name)

Ten-Pin: Simon Butler

I prefer to be as historically accurate as possible and since most newsies in real life were immigrants or the children of immigrants, I took that into account when naming a lot of the boys. Anglicizing names was common practice for immigrants to better assimilate and since Bumlets's family had to deal with racism on top of regular immigrant prejudice, his father dropped the accents to make things easier for them. Bumlets will probably add them back when he starts working as something other than a newsie (assistant superintendent at Duane Street is my headcanon). I sort of imprinted on @jackcowboyhero when I first joined the fandom so the names they picked for some of the boys (Skittery, Snoddy, and Tumbler) are very near and dear to my heart. I also tried to take into account the actor's race/ethnicity as best as I could (Dominic Lucero was Latino, Kevin Stea is biracial, and I think Marty Belafsky is Jewish but the real-life Crutch Morris definitely was) and used information about real-life newsie nicknames to name others like Dutchy and Itey. If anyone has their own headcanons, I'd love to hear them!

[navree]

Are you French in the way Americans say they are Italian or Irish or are you actually French, because if it's the first one I'm sorry but you are actually not French and it's kinda a bit offensive of you (and of everyone who does it) to say so😭

First of all, no it's not. In any way whatsoever. No matter which way you swing it. God Europeans wanna be oppressed so fucking bad.

Second of all, hi, hello, you must be very new here because this is, like, day one orientation information, my name is Amélie, I am quite literally a card carrying can vote in elections if I so choose French citizen due to a French parent who has spent nearly every summer of her entire life in France, with my French family, who are the closest family members outside of my mom and my dad and my sister to the point where me and my sister and my French cousins almost view each other as siblings than cousins and French is literally my first language to the point where I was given an exception in my school's rules of "no freshmen taking AP classes" so that I could take AP French due to being French, which I mention quite often because I am and have the right to do so without getting the tone police on my case about my own life in my Frenchness on www.tumblr.com. So fuck you.

Third of all, it still wouldn't be offensive even if I wasn't a dual citizen closely tied to that part of my family and just had French relatives because it's not and the only people who think that are cunts. God Europeans wanna be oppressed so fucking bad! 😭

[italian-lit-tournament]

Italian literature tournament - Second round.

Propaganda in support of the authors is accepted, you can write it both in the tag if reblog the poll (explaining maybe that is propaganda and you want to see posted) or in the comments. Every few days it will be recollected and posted here under the cut.

Propaganda in favour of Primo Levi by @itsmalombra

What to say about Primo Levi? Jew, a leftist until his death, Holocaust survivor (thanks to beng a chemist, he was considered useful by the SS and wasn't killed as soon he arrived to Auschwitz), he condemned with decades of advance the first cases of violence from the just started Israel occupation aganst the Palestinians, having still care for the difficulties that many jews like him were experiencing in Europe. He is one of the author you have to read if you want to understand the contrast and the difference between anti-semitism and anti-sionism. The horrors he endured were the cause of hid death in 1987, possibly by suicide.

About his relationship with other italian jews who moved in Occupied Palestine/Israel but at the same time his distrust to Menachem Begin policies and latent antisionism: Levi was clearly inspired by them, but not enough to follow their example and join his fate in the postwar period to the Zionist project in Israel. He had a complicated relationship to the country. […] Like other Jews, Levi kept up with news from the region, especially during times of crisis. His responses to two of these crises reveal a strong attachment to Israel on a personal level but also some sharp differences with the country’s policies. His criticisms were political and generally lined up with the views of the Italian Left. They came to a head in 1982, during Israel’s incursion into Lebanon in Operation ‘Peace for Galilee’. […] Much of public opinion in Western countries, including Italy, turned against Israel, especially following the Christian Phalange militia’s massacre of Palestinians in Sabra and Shatila in September, 1982. Levi joined his voice to the protests, signing letters urging Israel’s withdrawal and calling for Begin’s retirement from office. In turn, he himself came under criticism from prominent leaders of the Italian Jewish community, who called for communal solidarity at such a time. Fearing an intensification of hostility against Jews in Italy as a result of vehement anti-Israel and antisemitic demonstrations breaking out across Europe, they also thought it unwise for Jews to join their voices in protest against Israel, as Levi and others were doing. Levi’s Italian Jewish friends living in Israel, some of whom lost family members in the country’s War of Independence and subsequent fighting, also spoke out against him. ‘I retain a close sentimental tie with Israel,’ he confessed at the time, ‘but not with this Israel’. [source]

Another article about this important part of him is here, unfortunately is in italian.

I don’t think there is another author as representative of the Holocaust horror (and war horror in general) in Italy like Primo Levi, considering also is eminence in contemporary literature, his interviews with Philip Roth or Judith Butler, him being the namesake of various international associations against discriminations and violence like the Primo Levi Center, the raw and vivid power of his writing and poetry:

You who live safe In your warm house; You who find, come evening, Hot food and the faces of friends: Consider if this is a man Who struggles in the mud Who knows no peace Who fights for crumbs Who dies because of a No or Yes Consider if this is a woman, Nameless and hairless Without strength to remember Vacant eyes and a womb Cold like a frog in the winter: Consider the fact that this has happened: These words I suggest: Etch them on your heart When staying home and going out, Closing your eyes and rising back; Repeat them to your children: Or may your house crumble, Illness bind you And they turn their faces away from you.

If This Is a Man, Primo Levi, 1947.

To describe his importance not only in the italian, but also european and world-wide canon, it takes months and pages of space, a thing that sadly now I don't have, but if you, readed, have never heard of him, you have in front of you so much of books, essays, poetry and writing by Levi that will let you amazed by his depth of though and sensivity, but most importantly, vote now for him👆.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Propaganda in favor of Guido Cavalcanti by @eresia-catara

May I add further propaganda for Guido: He's a noble, he disdains aristocrats, he was Florence's number one Server of Cunt, he was the city's faggot, he was heretical, he went on a random pilgrimage but interrupted it and managed to be buried in a church anyway, he had an archenemy who sent some men to murder him on said pilgrimage, he came back and tried to murder him back in plain daylight, he gave zero fucks about politics, he got exiled because he was considered a menace for the city. He SAW DANTE's poetical talent, encouraged it, shaped it, and through him the whole of italian literature. Think about it. Also they became besties until they evolved to a tormented psychosexual haunting dynamic (see break-up poem) where Dante himself actually exiled him. In the 13th century his poetry anticipates so many of the literary themes of the XXth century, going from fragmentation of the self (his is basically vivisection and dispersion of his parts), to dissociation from one's own mind and body, lack of identity, irony, desecration, his poetry is full of schizophrenic-like hallucinations, reading them is truly a trip, and yet his language is profoundly meoldic and sweet. And there's also gender-fuckery. and theater, of course, because his poems develop like a scene from a theater (adding layers to the dissociation). So really he has it all guys.

Guido Cavalcanti propaganda by @girldante

GUIDO CAVALCANTI PROPAGANDA ABBIAMO:

LA DISSOCIAZIONE SCHIZOFRENICA:

IL COMICO, IL SIMPATICO BURLONE, IL MEMATORE ANTE LITTERAM:

IL MACABRO, IL GORE, I SINTOMI™

IL BREAKUP TOSSICO PASSIVO AGGRESSIVO CON DANTE

in conclusione

[dyns33]

Family trust

The Shelbys and the Solomons are back again with some new adventures about stupidity and love.

First there was a call from Tommy. Simple, short, straight to the point, her brother only telling her that her husband had been seen in the Russian quarter.

Several things were important to understanding this call. The Russians were dangerous, the last time the Shelbys had dealt with them it hadn't gone very well, and Alfie Solomons was partly to blame for it, because even though he hated the Russians, he thought of himself and his business first.

Her brother just wanted to know if Y/N knew anything about that. After all, maybe it was nothing. A necessary detour, without there having been a secret meeting. But he wanted to check.

She didn't know, but she promised to find out.

If she had asked Alfie directly, there was a chance he would tell the truth, or be unable to keep from groaning while trying to lie like a child. He would do this when she asked him if he had eaten the last loaf of bread, accusing Cyril.

To be sure of having an answer, Y/N asked Ollie if her husband had met the Russians.

"… Why are you asking me that, Mrs. Solomons ?"

“So that’s a yes.”

"I didn't say that, Madam ! I mean… You'd have to ask him, I wasn't there. He doesn't always say what he does."

“But you know he had to see them.”

"… I know he asked for a meeting. He came back in one piece, without a drop of blood and looking satisfied. I don't think it was important."

With his big eyes, Ollie silently begged her not to push it, because his boss was really in a good mood lately, and everyone wanted to keep it that way.

Y/N didn't go to see Alfie, and she hesitated to tell her brothers. Maybe it wasn't anything important after all.

Then Polly called her, to warn her that there had been an altercation between the Russians and the Peaky Blinders. Some men had been killed or arrested by the coppers. John and Arthur were injured.

“Tommy told me your husband saw these sons of bitches recently.”

"… Yes, but there is not necessarily a link."

"I don't believe in coincidences. Your brother is coming to Camden, I wanted to warn you. He needs to speak with Solomons to make sure he hasn't betrayed us again."

It wasn't really a surprise to see her brother walk into her house a little over an hour later. What was surprising was what he said.

“Get your stuff.”

"Tommy, what's going on ? Pol told me you wanted to talk to Alfie about the Russians, what did he say ?"

"Nothing. He wouldn't tell me anything except that I could go fuck myself. I know he's involved. Now you grab your things and come with me. You're not safe here. I should never have let you go."

Part of her wanted to protest, refusing to believe that her husband could have done such a thing, and asserting her right to stay with him if she wanted.

The problem was that her husband was perfectly capable of such a thing, having done it several times in the past. He had framed Arthur, he had participated in the Italian assassination attempt on Tom, he had let Charlie be kidnapped.

For all these things, Alfie had apologized, each time, several times, but that never stopped him from doing it again.

Everyone had thought their marriage was proof of change. Of trust. If he truly loved their sister, he would never go after the Shelby again, because that would definitely hurt Y/N.

And in the months that had passed since their union, that seemed to have been the case, until today.

If he had still given them to the Italians, Y/N would have almost been able to understand. Even to the Americans. But the Russians ?

Alfie spoke Russian because his mother was Russian, his mother who he loved as much as he hated those pretentious vodka drinkers who hated Jews and chased her through the snow with dogs.

He didn't do business with them, or only to make sure they wouldn't try to encroach on his territory.

If Alfie Solomons gave you to the Russians, that meant something, something terrible.

Y/N still remembered those many marriage proposals. Of all those nights when he looked at her with passion, whispering that he was the happiest man in the world since she became his wife. His love seemed strong and sincere, more important than anything else.

But maybe he lied. Or perhaps he had finally grown tired of her. He was able to realize that people had been right at the beginning of their story, that she was not good enough for him, that she shamed him, this little gypsy bastard.

So he no longer had any reason to be good with the Peaky Blinders. She left no words as she followed Thomas, taking nothing with her and quickly patting Cyril on the head who tried to follow her to the door.

Her departure seemed to come as a shock, because Alfie called. It was Arthur who answered, shouting throughout the house that he had no interest in trying to contact his sister, who should never have married him, and that he would be dead the second he would try to contact her again or if he was seeing in Birmingham.

After hanging up, his rage didn't go away immediately, and Arthur yelled at Y/N, asking her how she could have agreed to marry that stinking rat. But he calmed down when he saw his little sister's sad eyes, muttering apologies as he took her in his arms.

The anger completely passed, worry took place in the family, because Y/N remained sad. At first, they didn't understand why, because they had clearly told her that they didn't blame her, that it wasn't her fault, and that they still loved her.

Then, as she left her sobbing on her shoulder, Ada understood that her sister was sad because she missed her husband.

She loved her family and so she would choose them, but this betrayal had pierced her heart. She had loved Alfie, she had never imagined he would do such a thing. It was like a bereavement and she had difficulty accepting it.

They tried everything to cheer her up. Jokes, going to the sea, horse rides, nothing helped. Y/N was mourning the loss of her dear Alfie.

So it was with an air of shame that Tommy came and sat down next to her, taking her hand, remaining silent for a long moment.

"… Alfie didn't sell us out to the Russians."

"… What ?" Y/N asked as she came out of her trance, turning to her brother.

"I got some new information. I don't know what he was doing with them, but it had nothing to do with what happened. I… You were right, I'm sorry."

“But you went to see him.”

"As I said, he refused to tell me what he was dealing with, that it was none of my business. He looked suspicious, so I thought… I was wrong. There didn't seem to be any another explanation."

"… You were wrong. You are sorry. I abandoned my husband, who must hate me now, who will never want me again because I humiliated him, and you are sorry ?"

"Little sis…"

"Leave me !"

It seemed impossible to return to London. It had been weeks since she had any news, since she had not called, not trying to find out if he was innocent and leaving him without the slightest hesitation. How could he forgive such an act ? Y/N wasn’t sure she could.

She therefore remained locked in her room, her health deteriorating even more, causing her whole family to panic. They wouldn't be able to get over it if she died of grief, but she didn't want to talk to them anymore, not even her sister or her aunt.

Hiding under her blanket, she didn't move when someone came in, probably begging her to eat or telling her they were all sorry for the hundredth time. It seemed pointless to react, they quickly understood that they were not welcome when they saw that she did not respond.

“Treacle ?”

Her body moved before her mind fully understood what was happening. In an instant, she was sitting up, discovering Alfie kneeling by her bed. He looked terribly tired.

"Alfie. What… What are you doing here ?"

"Thomas called me. He told me you weren't feeling well. It's obviously even worse than the time I came for that nasty flu. Tea probably won't be enough, uh ? What’s wrong with you, love ?”

"What's wrong ?! I left you ! You must… You must hate me now." she cried, unable to stop the tears from falling.

With his large hands, Alfie wiped them all with patience and tenderness, drawing her to him to rest in his arms.

"Don't cry, love. I don't hate you. I'm not angry. At first I panicked when I found the house empty. Then Arthur said you didn't want to see me anymore, and I believed that you left me because I was a poor husband."

“You are the best husband in the world.”

"Yeah. You must have a fever or obvious lack of sleep. Tommy explained to me about the Russians. He asked me what I was doing with them, but he didn't mention the little problems that he had, otherwise I would have understood better what I was being accused of."

"I knew you wouldn't betray us. I knew that, but they said… They were sure…"

“Shh.” her husband said kindly, caressing her back. "I know. We have a complicated past, I understand why they would have believed that. I should have talked to your brother, I was afraid he would ruin the surprise."

"The surprise ?"

As usual, Alfie blamed Ollie and his men for the whole affair. And their wives. Because they had all noted the date of their boss's wedding, and they had told him that it would be good if he did something special for their anniversary.

Alfie hadn't thought of that. He didn't think it was that important, since he treated his wife like a queen absolutely every day.

But he had seen the couple's arguments about it, and besides not wanting to sleep in the living room, he wanted to make Y/N happy. He had first thought about buying a house in Margate. Paradise on Earth. They would still have their accommodation in London, but they could go there to have peace of mind.

When he talked to Ollie about it, the young man replied that it might be a little too much, or not enough. It was Alfie's dream to have this house, not Mrs Solomons', who would probably prefer to stay close to her family.

So he asked advice from these employees who were so good with women, and after hearing about flowers, perfumes, and food, someone mentioned diamonds.

He had given Y/N a lot of gifts, but never diamonds. Real diamonds, magnificent, pure, worthy of her. And the best diamonds were the Russians.

It actually meant something if Alfie Solomons agreed to talk to Russians for you.

Keeping her close, he took a necklace out of his pocket, placing it on the bed. A pure marvel indeed, far too beautiful for her. Y/N had never had jewelry like this.

“That’s what Ollie said.” Alfie sighed, resting his head on hers. "You little bastard. No gift was right for him. Well, I think he wanted to make sure you'd be happy, and since you're a goddess to my bakers, no gift was right. I can't totally blame them, I guess."

"I'm sorry."

"Nah, love. You didn't do anything. It's the Russians and your brothers' fault. A few weeks isn't that long. I told everyone you were visiting your family, and that I was very happy to have the house all to myself."

"And you were ? Happy ?" she asked shyly, still immersed in her sad state.

"Hmm. Maybe all of Camden will tell you that I wandered around like a lost dog, barking at everyone, and maybe even cried in my office once over whiskey. But people are liars."

"I missed you too."

"I wanted to come several times. I didn't care about your brother's threats, but I wasn't sure you wanted me to come, so I hung out on the station platforms, and I gave lots of contradictory orders to poor Ishmael, and finally I went home like a coward."

“I would like to go home now.”

“In London or Margate ?”

“… You bought the house in Margate ?”

"Of course, treacle. I've been thinking about it for a long time, before I even met you, and since I've known you, I can't stop imagining you there. It will truly be heaven on earth as soon as you're in this house. If you want to come with me."

Seeing her coming down the stairs, Tommy couldn't hold back a smile, relieved to see that his sister was better. He made a sympathetic comment about the necklace, but it was obvious that he too thought it was too much.

Still a little angry that he took his wife away, Alfie quickly greeted them to go wait in the car, giving Y/N time to say goodbye properly. She might have been furious too, but they had already paid for their mistake, now knowing what would happen if they separated the couple without a good reason.

In addition to these extravagant wedding anniversary gifts, Y/N learned that the Russian gang had been almost completely arrested by the police, thanks to an anonymous informant. But Alfie, with his lying face, said he didn't see why she was thanking him.

[spaghoffee]

Finally, meet my Stardew OC, Kyle!

I've also made some more portraits and a wholeass sprite sheet with seasonal outfits and costumes for him, but I'll post those separately! ^^ I've been going insane over him for the past week lol, I wish I could actually mod him into the game ugh

vV Tons More Info About Him Below!!! Vv

-Born and raised in Pelican Town, his café used to be his parents' bed and breakfast. At age 6, his family moved to Zuzu City for several years to give him a proper education, but they kept ownership of the building. After graduating college where he majored in Business Management to follow in his parents' footsteps, Kyle had the old and unused bed and breakfast renovated into his very own Kreamy Kafé, with the help of his parents' good friend Robin, of course! She already started working on the building while he was on his last year of college, so when he moved back in on that winter day it was mostly just to unpack his personal belongings, and he quickly got to work in less than a week!

-The reason why he started a café business instead of just reviving the bed and breakfast is because he's actually autistic and coffee is his special interest! He loves everything about it, from the sprouting seeds to an intricately decorated cup full of the delectable liquid. His café has a mini greenhouse attached to it on the side, where he grows his own coffee beans!

-Despite being transmasc, he doesn't want to have to present as hyper masculine for his identity to be respected. He's quite comfortable with his femininity and his body, and he quite frankly just wishes the world around him would change instead to just accept that yeah this feminine short dude is just another guy .👍👍👍 Which is why he feels closer to the rest of Pelican Town (who welcomed him with open arms) than his own parents, which he never actually came out to because of the mildly transphobic remarks they've made about other trans people when he was growing up, and he decided to not trust them with that information about himself. He'd rather be misgendered by them than disowned, as he is still reliant on them at times.

-Bisexual, falls for people easily but just as quickly makes negative hypothetical situations in his head with that person to kill off those feelings asap 😁👍 that did not work completely when it came to Victor lmao! Loser!!!

-He has a custom latté called Kyle's Special (because he isn't very creative lol) and it gives you +3 speed instead of the +1 regular coffee and triple shot espressos give! The downside (to balance it out) is that it does -30 health and the speed buff only lasts for a mere 30 seconds before your player experiences a sugar crash XP He likes his coffee sweet unfortunately!

-Harvey hates that coffee because it is literally a health hazard, thus they have awkward tension lol

-He's coded as half Filipino, half Italian! Honestly I just got his surname from the dude who invented espressos, Luigi Bezzera, and I took a z out cause that made it look more like a Filo surname LMAO, but after some thinking I gave up and made him half Italian anyway. My poor son is wasian now by an impulsive decision SDKJKSDD

I could add soooo much more info but I'll leave it at that for now ^^ You'll get to know him more in sooner posts!

[asslover4]

Ultra specific Romeo Lucci headcanons no one asked for

A lot of these aren't based off of canon at all, just on vibes and intuition

- He's from Campania, specifically Naples, and lived there until he turned 17. That was when he moved to Tokyo, and a couple of years later he started at Darkwick

- One of 4 siblings, but, as the eldest man, he was always seen as the heir of the family, so his father viewed him as more of a tool/an extension of himself than his son. As a result, he isn't super close with his parents, but he's close with his nonna, who effectively raised him as best as she could (grandmother)

- Speaks both Napulitano (Campania's dialect) and Italian, but he only speaks Napulitano with his nonna. As a kid, he used to constantly get the two mixed up, which would cause his father to tell him off for not speaking "proper italian,". He still mixes them up sometimes if he goes for long periods of time without speaking one or the other

- His father had a gambling problem, which was one of the things that caused the collapse of his family. This is why he can't stand gambling. Despite this, he still runs the Sinostra casino/works as the campus drug dealer because he was always trained to take over his father's empire

- Also dislikes drugs, despite his upbringing. However, he'll have a glass of expensive red wine with his meal or the occasional cigarette

- His family isn't particularly religious, but because of the state of a lot of public schools in Italy, he got sent to one of those private Catholic schools, and he absolutely despised it

- Would have been bullied for having a pretentious name (Scorpius💀) but no one even tried because they knew he came from one of the most powerful families in the city

- Still keeps in contact with his nonna by writing letters when he can, but not with the rest of his family

- She's also the main reason why he's pretty fond of his region's dishes. He has them in Japan every chance he gets and has ordered his men to recreate them several times, but they were never quite the same. His favourites include pasta alla puttanesca and pastiera

- Pansexual. Had some internalised homophobia due to spending years in a Catholic school, but he's mostly unpacked that now. A big part of that for him was exploring fashion and self care, which is part of the reason why he's so passionate about those things (he also loves looking hot, yeah). One of the reasons he initially bonded with Leo was that he felt like he understood this

- Only buys clothes from Italian luxury brands because he thinks the quality and the designs are just "superior"

- Definitely had a bidet installed in the bathroom of his private office as he "just couldn't carry on living in such a disgusting manner"

- Despite pretending to find it stupid, he's pretty invested in national football and always watches Napoli's serie a games in his private office

- One of the reasons why he hates people calling him "Romeo" is because he can't stand the butchered pronunciation, and having everyone around him willingly call him "Fico" (which is easier to pronounce and is slang for cool/hot depending on the context) kinda gives him a power trip

- Definitely does the wealthy immigrant thing of having products you can't find in Japan shipped from Italy. This is mostly with things like wine and tailor made clothes/jewellery, but occasionally with local foods to

[drama--universe]

Vincenzo & Han-Seo Headcanons

Requested by anonymous: Requested by anon: Hello! Can you please write dating headcanons for Vincenzo? For reader's background : Reader's family used to be close friends with the Cassano family. Vincenzo and Paolo both always loved her. But she left for Korea because she didn't like it there. When Vincenzo went to Korea, he searched for her and they worked together. And when Paolo came to take revenge on him, he saw her. 💥💥 bonus points if Hanseok/Hanseo also loves her. Tysm 😊

Pairing: Vincenzo Cassano x fem!reader (a bit of Han-Seo x fem!reader)

Word Count: 0.6k words

Vincenzo hated the fact that he and Paolo both liked you

because it creates a riff between the brothers

you seem to notice this too

it's yet another reason for you to leave

when you do, it is sudden

you just tell them you're going to Korea only a minute before you step on the plane

then you're gone

years later, Vincenzo heads to Korea as well

not because of you, but it's definitely a bonus for him

he does not know where you live, but he's quick to find out

mafia skills after all, he can track down a person with ease

you are glad to see him

until you find out what he's there for and how

but you help him out nonetheless, after all he is your friend

and a dear friend to you at that

maybe more, but you weren't going to admit that

when you meet Han-Seo for the first time, when he first comes to the plaza, you can only laugh as you see him gawk at you

he, unlike Vincenzo, is very open with his affection

the first time, he is literally just staring at you

you think he's cute

Vincenzo finds it annoying

he won't admit he's jealous of course

it becomes a funny sight for onlookers and you just find it hilarious

because on one hand you have Han-Seo

who is very forward, but still shy

and then you have Vincenzo

who is basically a tsundere as he won't admit his feelings

Han-Seo doesn't mind that Vincenzo likes you too, clearly

The same could not be said of Vincenzo, who hates that Han-Seo likes you too

but as the mission continues and Han-Seo grows on him, Vincenzo seems to mind less and less

when Han-Seo actually asks you out, he also asks Vincenzo

which is a bit weird at first, but you don't mind much

the date is fun for all three of you

it happens a few more times, always all three of you

Han-Seo is clearly in love with both you and Vincenzo

much like a puppy

Vincenzo is mostly in love with you, but he has a soft spot for Han-Seo

you just liked both men

they're special in their own ways

one cute puppy and one tsundere cat (aka Han-Seo and Vincenzo respectively)

it's Han-Seo that asks you and Vincenzo out

you accept

Vincenzo does too, but he doesn't directly say it

just grunts and such

the relationship is fun

Han-Seo is a cuddler

Vincenzo is more of a watcher

it's because of his mafia stand, Vincenzo can't relax himself much

but he loves to watch how you and Hans-Seo relax, usually in each other's arms

When Paolo comes to Korea to kill Vincenzo

as Vincenzo walks up to the roof, he is painfully aware of the three men on his tail

as they pounce him, he grabs one of the men and puts a gun to his head

"Did Paolo send you?" Vincenzo asks in Italian

the men scoff before freezing as they hear another click of a gun

you put it against the man's head that is pointing his at Vincenzo

"Note of advise, we're always together" you growl as you push your gun closer against the man's skull

the men leave and you pull out your phone, calling Paolo

when he answers, you start cursing at him in Italian

Paolo is completely quiet on the other side of the phone as you cuss him out

does not call back after you hung up on him

Now...

let's talk about the end of the series

You're not there when Han-Seo dies

Han-Seok is dead as Vincenzo holds Han-Seo's body

You only find out the day after it happened as Vincenzo comes home, eyes red and looking as tired as you've ever seen him

he tells you what happens while hugging you

holds you as you cry over Han-Seo's death

he tries to stay strong for you, forcing himself to not cry

you and Vincenzo visit Han-Seo's grave every month for as long as you're in Korea

if you do ever move back to Italy, you will visit Han-Seo's grave twice a year

his birthday and the day of his death

[welldonekhushi]

Call of Duty OC: Vasili "Bell" Sokolov 🔔

OLD DESIGN:

NEW DESIGN:

Finally, I came up with my Bell's bio-sheet as well! I abandoned him for nothing, but now I decided to give him some depth and character for good <3

BLACK OPS 6

GENERAL:

Name: Vasili

Full name: Vasili Mikhailovich Sokolov/Vincent Stephens

Codename: "Bell", Ворона (The Crow, by the KGB)

Alias(es): Vasya, Vince, Vasen'ka (by his parents), Adler's protégé (by Woods), Scary Old Man (by Sims), Major Sokolov

Age: [REDACTED]

Gender: Male

Nationality: Soviet (as Vasili), American (as Vincent)

Languages spoken: Russian, English, Spanish, Italian, German and fluent in many other languages

Date of Birth: [REDACTED]

Place of Birth: Kamyshin, Russian SFSR

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: KGB (retired), Perseus Operative (formerly), MACV-SOG (currently, but after the true ending he leaves)

Status: Unknown

Universe: Black Ops: Cold War

Faceclaim: Danila Kozlovsky

Song: "Ostrov Nevezeniya" by Andrei Mironov

Biography: Bell, unaware about his own existence and his past, sought to assist the CIA special agent, Russell Adler on the aim to hunt down Perseus. Every moment that passes, he starts gaining his lost memory back, which makes him question himself about what he truly is. Would Bell choose the right side of history, or choose his own?

Get to know about his parents too!

AFFILIATIONS:

KGB (Committee for State Security)

General Anton Charkov

Major Dimitri Belikov (double agent)

Major Vadim Rudnik

Lev Kravchenko

Perseus Faction

"Perseus" (leader)

Arash Kadivar

Anton Volkov

Qasim Javadi

The Safehouse

Alex Mason

Frank Woods

Russell Adler

Helen Park

Lawrence Sims

Lazar Azoulay

Aleksandra "Aleks" Clarke R. (@alypink)

Yume Sieheart (@cyberghostdraws)

Koa "Hunter" Nikau (@islandtarochips)

Charles Moore (@deeptrashwitch)

SKILLS AND ABILITIES:

Weapon induced: Knife, MI6A1, M60, MP5, Type 63, LW3 — Tundra, AK-47, Throwing Knife

Fighting style: Systema, hand-to-hand combat, a little martial arts

Special skills: Has a good sense of observation and quick to react to the situation, can compose himself in many identities

Talents: Vasily could learn languages easily at a fast rate, even after getting brainwashed, he still retained those qualities within him

Shortcomings: Has frequent headaches, loses focus at times, not very confident when it comes to taking a decision, becomes absolutely dependent on his superiors

MOODBOARD:

PERSONALITY:

Myers-Briggs Type: ISTP (The Virtuoso)

Is aware of his surroundings: Because of his career as a special agent, Bell conceals himself in terms of his personal life in seclusion. Even knowing he's hunted everywhere, he intelligently makes himself invisible from the outside world which makes others difficult for him to locate or recognise.

Works in solitude: Vasili/Bell has always prefered to work alone, but it doesn't mean he doesn't mind going on missions with the team. But, as his habit of being a special agent, that trait normally came from him back in his days when he worked with the KGB.

Observant and intelligent: Vasili was able to survive any sort of situation because of his good observant skills, and his capacity to act quicker. He was able to learn a lot of languages as well, and posed himself in different identities, that made it harder for the intelligence agencies to track him down.

Is reserved and introverted: Bell really doesn't speak to anyone much, unless when it comes to planning or going for missions, he needs to form a sort of communication to keep it lively. He is seen being more comfortable with Mason and Woods, but never felt having a good vibe with Adler. It was odd on his part, but it was going to grow very obvious when the truth would have come closer to any minute.

BACKGROUND STORY

Bell, who first used to live under the identity of Vasili Sokolov, was born in a family who had an army background, where his mother and father, both served during the Second World War, and hearing their stories, it gave Vasili a motivation to support his parents legacy by joining the intelligence — which was the KGB, going under the codename "Crow".

THE KGB ARC [REDACTED]

When Vasili joined the organisation, he showed a remarkable performance as a special agent. Some say he was born to join the intelligence and make the country proud, or he was a gifted child who could learn anything quickly and successfully perform a mission by stealing info or destroying any plans that could harm his country, without any failure. He even pointed out possible mistakes while planning out a mission, and in the end they worked out efficiently. Alongside, he made himself a friend, whose name was Dimitri Belikov, and grew closer to each other and worked together as a team.

Sooner or later, Vasili's influence spread all around the world, especially during the Cold War, the enemies of the Soviet Union had a kill/capture on him. "Kill" because Vasili knew too much about them, and "Capture" because, they wanted him to tell everything he has with him, which likely created a risk for the KGB and they couldn't do so. With that, General Anton Charkov gave him the order to "retire" and stay hidden to protect himself along with the organisation. Disappointed, Vasili protested that it was the only thing that "kept him going", but having no choice, the agent decided to leave the KGB, under the General's orders.

PERSEUS ARC [REDACTED]

It was a matter of time, when one was going to collect him instead, realising he was now no longer affiliated with the KGB. Vasili was met with someone who called himself "Perseus", and requested him to join his alliance, since he knew about Vasili from his influence, and promised to give him full security, knowing he was hunted worldwide too. Seeing that as an opportunity, Vasili agreed to join in good terms, directly becoming Perseus's loyal agent.

As he continued his journey in the faction, he had shown his skills again which made Perseus as his most trusted agent, unlike the rest. But, at times Vasili has shown inner conflict towards his ideas. During the moment when he was explained about "Operation Greenlight" with the members, it left a strange feeling within his heart. He tried to protest, but he somehow couldn't refute his superior's words, and decided to acknowledge instead. Vasili had kept showing a remarkable performance, much to Arash Kadivar, one of the faction members, being envious of his relationship with Perseus.

Kadivar lures him to Trabzon Airport, where he takes Vasili, and explains that he didn't want any more "competition", resulting in him shooting the special agent in the car he was present in, leaving him to die and bleed alone. But, sooner or later, an attack situated on the airfield, unbeknownst to the dying Vasili who was growing unconscious every passing minute. Growing lost in his own thoughts, about Perseus that promised him to give him protection from the outer forces, but didn't recognise that his "own" people were against him too, as he questioned his existence at the same time.

SAFEHOUSE ARC

The voices echoed, and the man started to lose his breath.. until he woke up, and found himself in a strange place, where he couldn't remember anything of what happened. This is where, he encounters Russell Adler, a CIA agent who he curiously looks upon, having no idea. Unable to introduce himself, Adler briefed him about his name, being it under the codename "Bell". And this is where, all the very events of the canon game begin from here.

[missinghan]

falling asleep in a time machine ⤖ bang chan

❖ genre : mafia au; fluffy angst; hurt/comfort; female reader insert

❖ word count : 6,9k.

❖ warning : swearing, implied major character death, mention of arson, depictions of vomiting, killing, blood, death, can be brutal (!!!), delusional happy ending. 

❖ summary : four times you try to go back in time and save chan; or alternatively, you keep dreaming about chan to see if there is a way to undo his death when in reality there isn’t — from the world of illicit & priceless.

❖ author’s note : just finished my first term of uni (like actually the first term ever) and I’m so dead inside so here’s a silly little something. I can’t use pts anymore so pls bear with the banner *cries and dusts off this old blog* also I try to explain here why Chan was so attached and pissed off when mc stole his mother’s ring even though it’s accidental.

first attempt —

There are three missions that have altered the course of your and Chan’s relationship.

The first mission goes back to when you were still going on heists and Ryujin had foolishly put a piece of Chan’s mother’s sentiments into your pocket. Neither you nor Chan have come to know or like each other much before it.

The second one is the mansion with a bomb planted in the basement and Chan got locked inside a conference room with a three-layered door, one of them made from the same metal as the fucking Titanic. The third mission involves a casino where the Germans and Italians came together to push Chan toward a dead-end they had cultivated for the Devil himself, to his ultimate demise. They are all too arrogant to admit that Chan will take over the entirety of the East Asian market before any of them can start rolling in their graves.

Three missions of importance and not long after that, you and Chan have agreed to never go on a mission without each other. An unwritten contract. An unspoken promise. Nothing that the mafia engages in is legal so everything runs on trust, on how much faith you are willing to give those who you keep close.

However, there is a fourth mission that the Underworld records will fail to keep because even only a minuscule part of the Bang family is informed about this—how their precious heir has been summoned to bring home the girl he loves.

“Would you do laundry and taxes with me?”

“That’s an odd way to propose to someone, Y/N. And please, you’re asking an obvious question.” Chan looks up at you from his book. His smile is gentle, soft at the corners with his dimples sinking in—it’s how you know that he means it—the way it usually is these days. The way it has been for the past year. It is almost obscure, you think, how you both would have wanted each other’s head on a stick a year ago before one of you managed to make the other person cry out of gratitude.

You lift the book away from his face, glimpsing at the cover. Because Chan is an absolute heathen, he has been reading No Longer Human and you’re being annoying about it because he hasn’t come out to train with you for two days already. “Are you telling me you’ll say ‘no’?”

“We’re already doing laundry and taxes together. We will just have matching rings and a signed piece of paper,” Chan gives you a pointed look; he always looks so serious whenever he wants to correct you as if your sarcasm is that dry. “So it naturally implies as a ‘yes’, idiot,” he nags, even though he doesn’t mean the last part.

“Oh how you wound me, love,” you bite back, even though you don’t mean it either. “Chan, come on. You’re locking yourself up in a prison.”

Chan lets out a long, heavy sigh as if he’s insulted that you have just called his room a prison—which you never verbally hinted at, he simply interpreted it that way. He reaches over to grab the book from your hand, seemingly giving up his reading time for you, and places it on his bedside. 

“What are you–” You watch as Chan walks over to one of his mahogany drawers. “-doing?”

“I need caffeine to talk to you.”

Despite your bristling, he stays true to his words and finds himself a mug, a tea bag, along with a boiler. By the time Chan finishes filling up the boiler with water and turns on the heating switch, your legs are dangling over the edge of his bed as you puff up like a cat, baffled and offended. 

“So,” Chan inquires, a steaming mug of tea in his hand. “What’s up?”

“I find your current state distressing to look at,” you elaborate with glee, a glint coming into your eyes that Chan knows you’re up to no good. “Take a week off with me. We can go anywhere you want, it’ll be a short getaway, just the two of us.”

Chan’s back is turned toward you because he’s too busy searching for a spoon but you can boldly assume that he’s smiling. It’s hinted in his tone when he asks, “You mean a vacation?”

“Brilliant interpretation, Chan,” you smile wryly. “Of course, I meant a vacation!”

“No, you can go have fun by yourself. You have my permission,” he shakes his head. “I have things to attend to. Meetings, banquets, important business transactions. You know how boring the mafia lifestyle is.”

You still, voice low and suppressed in something Chan can’t seem to grasp at. “You’re going back to your family.” It’s barely a movement, a small enough action. Any passerby would think that you have only faltered a little but Chan has observed you for a good while now to notice you’re holding your shoulders back from trembling. 

“I am going back to my family,” he repeats calmly. “Only for a week, though. It’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Chan, I know they want to see me.”

Chan tries not to let anything show on his face. “And they may very well kill you because that is what they are. Godawful, egoistic, and incapable of compassion.”

“Let me go with you, I—” you begin, though you cut yourself off almost instantly. The room is suddenly steeped in silence, unwieldy at the absence of your words. Every noise seems amplified in the quiet: the boys’ chatters echoing dully from the living room, the ticking hands of the clock, and every breath you take to calm the anxiety in your rib cage.

I do not fear death, sickness, or anyone’s hatred. What I fear most is losing you, Chan. It’s all so beyond you because a year ago, you were a thief, taking things as you please and sending them away when they’re no longer of use for your benefit. Now there is someone who you will live for and his kiss you will kill for, his laugh you will die for.

“Chan, do you have any idea what I would turn into if you left me?” You have always worried loudly, from the volume of your attentiveness and the anxiety beneath your skin all lie in the tender manner of how you love Chan—the same goes for him, that you can be certain of.

“I will never leave you, Y/N. We will be okay,” he assures you, unbearably calm.

Chan is a liar. 

second attempt —

Chan is supposed to go back to the Bang family’s estate with Yuriko for the New Year. Yuriko is the housekeeper whom he has retired for about a year ever since you came into the picture. The boys, especially Jisung, have been forced into keeping their surroundings clean because, for some wicked reason, they think you are absolutely terrifying when you’re upset about their muddy shoes dirtying the floor after a mission. Yuriko always giggles at that, her Young Master surely knows how to pick a partner. 

“I’ve got word that your father wants you to back to the estate, Young Master,” Yuriko tells Chan when she finds you and Chan in the archive because you have insisted on reading about something you won’t say a word to him. Surely, Chan recognizes what you’re searching for but he doesn’t mention it. 

“He said he wanted to make sure you are ready to take over his position. And there is a dinner he wants your attendance for,” Yuriko continues, hands clasped behind her back. You didn’t even realize when she stepped in and approached Chan—for a mere housekeeper to be so swift and quiet with her movements, you have long guessed that she’s not just any old woman to be hired by the Bang family.

The way Chan stiffens in his seat is telling all on its own. You are suddenly struck with the recurring memory of how Minho used to babble about how much of an ass Chan’s family is when he has had one too many drinks. “You don’t know how bigshot mafia families treat their children, do you? They kept the world from knowing for a reason. I’m surprised Chan didn’t turn out to be a monster like them.”

“Forgive me, Yuriko, but you can tell the old man to suck it up,” Chan says softly but his voice is dark, tense, riddled with a sharpness you haven’t heard from him in a long time—you were threatened just the same way when you had stolen his mother’s ring. Now you realize Chan only ever speaks so heartlessly if something precious to him is hanging on the verge of being taken away. 

“Young Master,” Yuriko frowns for two reasons; firstly, Chan has never been able to decline his blood family of anything and secondly, there isn’t much that she can do to solve the problem at hand. She’s a mere servant for the Bang family; she doesn’t have much power to begin with and therefore, she can’t exactly tell them ‘no’. 

“No, you can’t make me,” Chan grits because he knows, he understands it all too well. Unsaid words of all the things money can buy hang in the air like bile. 

“Young Master Christopher, you must know what happens if you defy your father.” And there goes Yuriko’s final warning along with Chan dashing out of the archive, straight through the hallway and the front door of the mansion, completely vanishing in the white curtain of December snow.

Yuriko murmurs something under her breath, unintended for you to hear her. You continue staring forward, the file in your hands completely forgotten. “He can come home with me,” you say without actually thinking about it until she turns to stare at you, expressionless before breaking into a fit of giggles.

“I think Young Master would like that.”

With that, you set off to find Chan.

“No one will love you unconditionally like we do.” “You belong to us, so do as we say.” “Work to kill, kill or you’ll die. You were born to kill, it’s a gift that not everyone receives.” “The world will bow before you and sway the way you want it but you’ll have to-”

“I don’t want any of that,” Chan hisses but the voices keep coming back louder, harsher, with more bite than he has ever heard from them. “None of you ever gave me anything that matters! You just can’t admit that you made me a murderer!!” 

The snow around him sinks with each step he takes, their words still echoing in his mind and sending shivers down his spine, driven so deeply inside his skull that he wishes he could have nothing of this reality. “Be mindful of yourself. Control it.” “Your fangs and claws are too sharp for you to be swinging just at anyone,” he hears them again

His nose burns in the cold but Chan doesn’t notice something warm and wet trickle down his cheekbones. “You never cared about restraint. You said I must kill or I would die. You all just want to possess me, you want me not as an heir but as a commodity!!”

“It’s how we’ve been running this family. It’s how we keep things in order. You’re one of us, Christopher, you are this family.”

With a huff, Chan eventually gives in and listens because he has no other choice but to; he slides down against concrete with a white-out vision, a quivering figure with nothing on but his cardigan. “Then you’re just as godawful as any of them,” he tells himself, knees curling against his chest, almost justified in his own lie that he wants to burst out laughing.

Chan knows they have made him more of a weapon than a child, more of a monster than a man and he is stuck with it for good. He has been holding onto life just because he can, not so much that he wants to. Because he never truly wanted anything before or was wanted in any way.

“Oh my god, you’re a fucking man-child!”

He hears someone’s nagging from afar and ignores it, hugging himself impossibly tighter because asking for comfort is unacceptable, they taught him so. “Chan!!” He hopes it goes away with all of the other voices. 

It doesn’t. Instead, it comes closer in a humane form, boots crunching against the snow and warm breaths sounding rhythmically. “It’s been an hour. Do you have any idea how worried we all were- how worried I was?! What the actual hell,” you snap. “Now I’m going to hear all this shit from Seungmin again because I let you run off and he’s too terrified of you to properly lecture you. God-”

Your rambles cut off when you kneel down next to him, rummaging for a scarf, a pair of gloves, yet another pair of gloves, his puffer jacket, and a hat from your bag. Chan quietly watches as he tries to blink away the oncoming tears but he can’t—they keep coming. He doesn’t reply when your scolding goes on because even though your voice is sharp, Chan can catch the worry hidden along the edges. Being cared for and cherished like this has made him realize how much he doesn’t want to come back to his family and he wants to cry like he’s the fourteen-year-old boy who used to refuse to pick up a gun all over again.

A child who was unable to stuff down the overwhelming agony and grief forced upon him. A child who was weaponized. A child who was threatened into killing his own mother. “If you can’t kill what you hold near and dear, you’ll never be able to kill anyone to save yourself.”

“Chan?” you call out to him, unbearably soft. There’s a certainty, a sort of gentleness in the way his name is said that only makes his tears come hotter, more and more of it because your love feels big, overwhelming.

Chan hates crying so he never did, not when they had locked him up in his room, not when they had starved him because of his disobedience, not when they had made him pull the trigger with the gun’s mouth pressing against his mother’s chest. Chan hates crying but it seems to be all he’s doing now. 

You’re wrapping him up so gently and trying to warm him up because you know he’s just as human as any mundane individual out there. Humans shiver when the temperature drops, they shed tears when they’re upset, and they bleed and bruise at the right amount of impact. That’s why humans are so clingy toward each other so they can prevent harm from coming the other person’s way. Because no one enjoys getting hurt and there is no good reason to voluntarily get hurt; it sounds like common sense but Chan never grew up with such things. He never came to think he was deserving of such things.

“Chan, come home with me. Forget your family. I don’t need to know about them,” you smile at him, somehow empathetic and so understanding when Chan has barely given you an explanation, when he is desperate to fill the silence but he knows his voice will be weak with tears, stumbling, and pitching all over the place.

Chan sniffles, finding the courage to say something back because he wants to, not because he feels like he has to, “Can I really…come-come home with you?”

“I’m sure the girls wouldn't mind, they might be a little annoying. Yeji, though, can be wary of strangers,” you shrug, something so relaxed about your posture tells him that you have learned to accept something without telling him. 

A breathy chuckle. “Especially when they’re a mafia leader.”

An exhale. Chan shudders when you embrace him wholly—every moment of pride and arrogance, betrayal and hurt that he has been boxing away—as the beautiful mess that he is. You’re the safest person on the face of Earth not because you are on equal terms with him in power but because you never care about those things. You will let him break something, burn something down, cry, and laugh however he pleases but you won’t ever let go of his hand. You never ask him for anything in return while continuing to save him over and over again.

He’s so unbelievably lucky, Chan thinks but doesn’t say it aloud, instead, he tells you, “If you’ll have me.”

The night after you drive Chan back to your mansion, the place goes up in flames. Only you are able to open your eyes to see the next daylight.

“Welcome home,” you want to whisper but can only watch a last smile bloom on the face of a ghost amidst the orange blaze.

third attempt —

You decide to come home with Chan.

For a non-mafia family, it might go like this.

Meeting Chan’s parents will be the hardest thing you have ever done—and that is coming from someone who has broken through the world’s most modern security systems and got your hands on objects worth billions of dollars. 

You will bow when you meet them, use the politest speech you have taught yourself last minute, and desperately try not to remember how Chan was forced to shoot his own mother as a child. They will pinch your cheek and call you lovely, chuckling at how stiff you are and offering you a ‘Come on in! Don’t mind the mess, it’s always how our house is.’

You will smile and you will play along because you want them to like you so badly it hurts. 

Chan will gawk at you without even trying to hide it because you have given him a completely different experience upon your first encounter. Casual, timid, and quick with your tongues when it comes to those witty retorts.

They will then ask you, ‘‘What are your hobbies? Any sports? Instruments?’’ Purely in the Asian parents’ style. 

You will be so nervous that you forget you play the violin and practice meditation occasionally. You will sit at their dinner table in their cozy, lived-in home, and rack your brain for a proper answer that might be deemed reasonable for a mundane girl. “It can be anything you do for fun, honey. No need to be nervous,” they will say again and you will give them a small grimace in return. 

It’s probably deeply fucked up when the first thing that comes to your mind is ‘I retired from heists a year ago because museums are fucking boring so I have moved on to finding new and creative ways to eliminate anything that might be the cause of Chan’s suffering.’

“…You play the violin beautifully,” Chan will suggest quietly beside you, his hand laced with yours beneath the table. “And you interrupt my reading time whenever you need attention.”

“I…I like to be with you,” you will finally find the courage to say with a firm squeeze of his hand, and the strength to smile when his eyes widen faintly, flustered yet not surprised. 

Still, it doesn’t matter whether Chan was born from a mafia family. You don’t hesitate to hold his hand beneath the table when Chan tenses up from the disappointed gaze of his father, lean over ever so slightly, and whisper, “I like to be with you.” He almost gasps but refrains. “Wherever we are. As long as you allow me to stay by your side.”

For once, Chan lets himself think that he won’t fuck up something before he even gets to have it in his arms. 

You did come home with Chan even if the dinner is anything but cozy and mundane. Their smiles are cold porcelain, a familiarity with death so staggering you feel nauseous. They are all here, though. Every single one of them. “I’ll be back,” you say and excuse yourself to use the restroom, he assumes.

Chan finds an uneasy slick in his throat, almost thick like blood when he sees a bright thing in your eyes. He lets you go anyway. Will things happen differently if he holds you back? 

Minutes after your withdrawal from the dinner table, an explosion goes off downstairs. The mansion quivers with a long string of rumble, a horrible feeling looming over everyone in the room like an ugly shadow. Though, no one bats an eye. Maintaining such a high position in the Underworld for so long is more than enough for the bounty on each of their heads to go up to millions of dollars. 

As much as Chan detests his blood family, he doesn’t want to die here, a horrendous place for his corpse to be found. So he stands as the rest of the room begins arming themselves, doing his best not to pay any heed to his father, and bolts downstairs. 

In situations like this, he is taught to close his heart and kill. Hence why there was barely any screaming when the commotion occurred, only the metallic sounds of bullets being clicked into their chamber. Truth be told, there is a weapon vault on the main floor of the mansion. Chan knows the most efficient shortcut there and can run through any hallways even without any lights on. He did grow up in this terrible place, and now he will make use of that to get you out of here before anything else. 

Chan arrives at the main floor and there is nothing but a giant hole and crumbled metal pieces in the weapon vault—or what used to be the weapon vault, blown up by a bomb it seems. Well, shit, he doesn’t even know how to register this. The entrance to his father’s most treasured place in the mansion has a three-layered door with an extremely lethal surveillance system, who and how the fuck-

He stops. He doesn’t so much as twitch. It gives him a moment of pure chill when the main floor has gone completely muted, both audibly and visually, like his life has just tipped off balance and leaned towards the bad part of a zombie movie. Upstairs, there is a cry for help and the sound of bullets continuously firing. 

“My fucking god,” Chan curses and turns on his heels, steeling himself mentally while rushing up the stairs. 

Upon arriving at the scene, it’s difficult to say whether turning up just five minutes earlier would have made much of a difference. Fuck, but if he had held you back, would things have taken a different turn?

There is a lot of blood. Too much blood to be explained away, and too much evidence to be traced back to no one else other than you. Well, to be fair, you’re the only person still standing and kicking aside from Chan anyway. The shotgun in your hand with a silencer attached speaks volumes, a knife between your teeth, and your left hand is fisted tightly. 

“…Y-Y/N,” Chan utters, in disbelief. “You’re Y/N, aren’t you?” 

You release something in your left hand and several fifteen-bullet magazines drop to the ground, the sound scratching his spine in the wrong way. The knife also hits the ground, metal echoing loudly against hard marble. 

“You’re here, Chan,” you reply, like your hands and clothes aren’t painted red. Swiftly, you duck to fumble for something beneath the dining table. Chan’s gaze follows you suit, prompting uneasiness to crawl down his throat when he realizes everything is, quite literally, drenched in blood. When he manages to snap out of it, you are unwrapping something from a white blanket—Berry, his eight-year-old Spaniel. 

You don’t look one bit surprised to see him—you have been expecting him. You simply keep on tucking Berry neatly into the blanket, murmuring something along the lines of ‘it’s over now’ and ‘I’m sorry I scared you’. Berry offers you a small whimper in return, still startled and recovering from the loud ruckus. 

Chan inhales very slowly. Exhales. “What did you do?”

“I killed everyone here,” you say levelly, as if mass murder is no big deal. “You’re a little late. I thought your intuition would be keener than that.”

“This is no time for a fucking joke,” he snaps. Chan has snapped because he’s mad at himself. He has been living purely by his intuition for more than two decades already, without it he would have died a long time ago. Yet when it comes to you, he’s always the most irrational. 

Your lips twitch like you’re about to smile but realize he’s upset. “You’re right, sorry.” 

Chan moves further into the room, his shoes squelching with each blood-drenched step he takes. He takes the scene in once again and keeps calm because that is what he has trained himself to do ever since the first time he got kidnapped. When his gaze brushes over the corpse of his father, he tries not to think about anything just yet. What’s done is done but Chan can piece the scene together from the explosion downstairs—a bait that anyone will be eager to take and a good way to disarm your enemies—to the scattering of hole-filled bodies, their blood blooming against the marble floor like a grotesque bouquet.

The crux of it is you know all too well he will run to find you without question, lending you the space and time to kill whoever remains.

“Why?”

Your eyes sweep over the mass of bodies, dull and distant. “Does it really matter?” You don’t think it’s fair to say you did it because you love him; it will become a curse that haunts him for as long as he lives. Yes, you love Chan with your entire soul but you also simply want to act as you please, allowing yourself to have your selfish ways of declaring your love for him. 

His chest heaves without any stability. “I thought you said you’re used to taking many things but you don’t take lives!!”

You cut right in, all glass. “Will anyone be able to do anything about it? Can anyone possibly arrest me, Chan?” 

Chan shudders, a sour thing gnawing at the back of his throat. It’s a morbid feeling he knows will become recurring at night, on the bad days. Chan wants to be furious, it feels like a moral obligation to be. Then again, everything the world has learned about empathy is already torn up by his family, they smeared it beneath their feet like it’s common trash. In the end, all of his nightmares and source of fear amounts to this, a mass of corpses with no resolution. 

“Do you want to kill me, Chan? If so, do it. You’re your own person, you are free.” 

Your eyes have turned into ice, and suddenly you have become so intangible that Chan slowly grows afraid. He thinks of terrible things, Am I allowed to have you? What makes you want me so badly? Why am I different from any of them?

The sound of retching interrupts his train of thought. It takes him precisely half a second to stare at how you are folded over your knees, dry heaving at the marble floor with Berry fumbling for help right at your side. Chan rushes to you to keep your hair out of your face as you gasp for air, choking on stomach bile and body raking with shudders. Once his hand smooths over the fabric on your back, you eventually cough and hack out the last of whatever is left that your system rejects. 

You breathe as shallowly as you can. Quiet wheezes, hollow breaths that pull in and out of your lungs too quickly. Chan rubs small, gentle circles on your back and doesn’t expect it when you snap up to look at him with wide, pained eyes as though you didn’t just murder his entire family in cold blood minutes ago, like you didn’t just take out the Underworld’s most feared lineage of demons by yourself.

Chan decides not to say anything, lets you lean into him shakily, and tries to figure out what you’re attempting to do with your hands. Dry blood makes your skin itchy every time your fingers twitch but you don’t mind it. 

“I’m here, I’m here,” he finally whispers with you sitting in the circle of his arms; you’re shaking like you’re sobbing even though you make no noise and cry no tears. Chan lets you squirm with a wild mania in your eyes, frantic and lost. He can’t quite pinpoint what you want until he gets it. 

You stop shaking the moment your head leans against the left side of his chest, right where his beating heart is. A pattern in his rib cage and a rhythm in your ears, relief so immense you feel like you can finally breathe. What you want is just to hear the sound of his heartbeat. It makes Chan feel a little exposed, somewhat scrutinized but he really doesn’t mind taking himself apart to hand his heart over to you. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble, your tone wet and warm with oncoming tears. 

Chan presses his lips into a thin line, feeling like a hypocrite when he keeps you caged in his arms. “What are you sorry for, silly?” From the bottom of his heart, it’s abominable, he thinks—that even amidst such gruesome bloodshed created by your own hands, Chan is relieved that you are not hurt.

“I’m sorry this isn’t real.”

fourth attempt —

Chan is coming home with you. The childhood home you used to grow up in with two extremely loving, a little too oblivious parents who never once questioned their daughter’s occupation in the big city. 

It takes time to adjust but Chan is sliding into your little family without noticing it himself. He manages to impress your mom with his cooking and discusses politics with your dad. You might be going delusional but you swear you saw him chuckling faintly at your parents’ terrible taste of reality TV. 

The house might only amount to one-tenth of his mansion but it smells like fresh laundry all around, tender and soft, smothered in the love of ordinary human beings. So everything just feels that much bigger, a love so warm and overwhelming it stains Chan’s eyes with unfamiliar myriads of emotions. It takes him a few days to finally laugh a little louder, not refraining his speech to specifically formal phrases, and allowing himself to nag you in front of your parents. He even makes a sound of disbelief when you keep telling them he’s only a friend from work.

“Oh my god, why are you so salty about it,” you chide and close your bedroom door. “If I had said you’re my boyfriend, they would have started interrogating you!” 

Chan sits on the duvet you have laid on the floor for him—your childhood bed is too small to share—and mumbles something morbid under his breath, “I am quite good at tolerating any methods of torture thank you very much.” However, he doesn’t miss the look your parents give you whenever you bid them goodnight with Chan hovering over you in a way that’s nowhere near platonic.

You snort, actually, no, it’s too bitter for you to even react. “The worst they will do is leave you out when we watch TV,” you grin to relieve the inevitably building tension, shit-eating and all.

“That’s cruel. You know I love reality TV,” Chan replies, completely monotone. He flings an arm over his eyes like he’s putting in effort to mimic a dying body trying to convey his love in a Shakespeare play. Wrestling with like ten other housewives to buy those eggs on sale for your mom was more of a workout than any gun fights he has engaged in.

“Sleep. Mom said we’re going outside tomorrow,” you huff, tossing him a teddy bear from your bed—the amount of stuffed animals you own is impressive, they easily take up half of your bed so Chan had to accept his fate with the duvet. 

“I thought we’re heading back?”

“We will after going out with her. She said she wanted something from the bakery.”

Chan hums in response, his gaze skimming over the interior of your room again. Light pink wallpapers, white bookshelves and wardrobe lining the corners, and soft hues of blue on your bed and curtains to top it all off. “Truly, you are the designer of a generation.”

“Toddlers usually don’t like black. And I was eight, Chan, shut the fuck up,” you laugh, the sound so hearty it makes him want to bottle it and keep it all to himself like a child hiding his favorite candy. 

“Hurts my eyes a little, but I like it,” he declares and unwinds for the day.

You never realize you don’t really walk around town every time you visit your parents. Maybe it’s because you didn’t have many friends growing up, meaning there’s no one to call up for a hangout, or maybe it’s because all of the memories you want to relive here are with your parents, in the warmth of their home. So you walk down the sleepy streets with laziness on your shoulders, somewhat at peace when Chan can’t seem to keep his eyes in one place, secretly comparing the imageries of bright, colorful Seoul with this hazy rural area.

“What is that place over there?” He asks when you stride past a sketchy-looking building when in reality, it’s a spa run by this really nice old lady upstairs.

“Did you go to school here?” He ponders when you glance at what looks like a middle school; no kids are running and shouting in the playground since it’s the New Year holiday. 

Your mom notices how much curiosity Chan has for an apparent mid-twenties young adult so she giggles, offering to point out something she thinks he might be interested in, “That’s a small park Y/N used to play at. She wouldn’t leave when I came to pick her up after work.”

You can’t decide if you should scowl at your mom or burst out laughing at her implication that Chan, the leader of a notorious mafia group, should go and sit on one of the swings while she heads inside the bakery. “Come on, Chan,” you quickly make your choice. 

Chan sighs, though the sound is fond because he sees a sort of excitement blooming loud and clear in your pretty eyes. You have observed Chan long enough to know when he has given in so you laugh, turning to your mom and saying, “We’ll be back in a minute.” The familiar promise melts Chan inside out but he doesn’t tell you that. 

You accidentally drop your phone while walking down the stone steps so you turn away for half a second. And when you look back, Chan is seated neatly on the swing which is definitely not fitting for his age—his long legs dragging against the soil as his arms are crossed in front of his chest. As serious as he tries to look, you find the whole imagery so ridiculously unserious. He senses your gaze burning holes on the back of his neck so he stands, reaches upward, and lifts himself to sit on the metal bar that the chains rain down from.

“Chan, what the fuck, that’s not how you use a swing,” you chide, nearly rolling on the ground and barking a laugh. “If I take a photo of you right now, how dead am I?”

Chan doesn’t even need to turn his head. “What do you think?”

He looks down when your footsteps squish against the snow and he tries to imagine how a little you would hang around this place for an entire afternoon, up to no good things while waiting for your mom. “Concise as always, boss,” you purse your lips at him, nostalgia a heavy weight on the curve of your shoulders as you peer over places you used to designate as your hiding spots. 

Chan catches something shifting on your face and he ponders; why would you voluntarily involve yourself in outlaw doings when you could have had a perfectly normal life? “When did you start stealing?” 

“Probably when my parents sent me away for university. I hated it. School was hard and the expenses were awful for their bank accounts but they wouldn’t tell me that,” you mutter and decide to join him, legs dangling over the edges, a confession dragged from your lips unwillingly. 

Chan scoots a little closer, a hand reaching over to your left side to keep you from falling. “And you figured you were pretty good at it?”

“Nothing to be proud of, obviously,” you shake your head and can’t help a small grin. “Okay, maybe just a little. I was making money from racing on the side as well.” 

It takes him a moment to register your words when surprise halts the words in his throat. No wonder you’re better at handling car chases than any of his teammates who have been involved in this business for years. You look over at him, seeing that he’s having trouble reacting so you pinch his nose teasingly, “I know, so sexy, ain’t it?” 

Chan rolls his eyes, neglects the warmth spreading on his cheeks, and simply sits with you. The swing creaks and groans beneath the weight of two adults, rust staining his hand when he lifts it to check. 

“It was enough money for me to graduate and I was fine with that. Mind you I was always the top of my class,” you scoff, thinking of long days when you used to get little to no sleep, of when you had mustered the best smiles for your parents through FaceTime, of how you had begun not caring for how much money the jewels you had stolen were worth. 

None of it matters anymore, you think as you lean into Chan, and he lets you. “I’ll guess this, you were homeschooled?”

Chan doesn’t answer immediately as realization tightens his ribs. You don’t talk about home or how you grew up, and Chan doesn’t talk about his parents. Perhaps you both are similar in that way so neither of you mind when the other person never initiated it. “I was. Everything I ever learned was taught in that forsaken mansion. Most of it, actually.”

“Everything?”

“You can’t run away from what you’re surrounded with,” he says, and there’s a chilling edge to it, an icy kind of shiver that makes your fingers more numb than the winter cold ever can. 

“Chan, you’re not them,” you declare out of the blue, eyes crinkling up in adoration. “You are free, okay? No matter how hard they try to ruin you, you can’t become them.”

When you look up again, his eyes have a glassy shine when he says, “I know that now.”

“Don’t cry,” you huff out a breath.

“I’m not crying,” Chan shakes his head slowly, voice suspiciously shaky. “I guess I just thought you had a lot to live for and I was…you know, it was arrogant of me to keep you by my side.”

You laugh, a sharp, crisp bark of a sound that cuts right through his doubts. “Who do you think you’re talking to? If I wanted to run, I would have and no one could catch me, not now, not ever.”

“Well, I did,” Chan retorts, though there is no bite to it.

“Only because I let you,” you play along sedately. It’s the soft hum of your voice that makes breathing for him feel easier, and his shoulders feel lighter. When Chan exhales, it no longer tastes like the unfathomable, untouchable nightmares that he was so used to choke down, swallow, and not allow himself to throw them up as proof to show anyone else. 

Your mom returns perhaps in about an hour, a box tucked in her arms and groceries hanging from her elbow. “Time to go back,” she yells from the top of the stone steps. “We need to cook dinner, kids!”

You don’t dare budge. Chan notices it and nudges your shoulder gently, sensing your discontent. “You heard your mom, come on now.”

“I don’t want to go back,” you disagree. “Let’s stay here. I want to go to the beach with you when it gets warmer. And diving, kayaking, too!”

“You told me to leave my credit cards back home. You’ll have to feed me and pay all of my expenses,” Chan reminds you.

“Guess what, I left mine at home too,” you reply breezily. Maybe you both need to find new jobs. You don’t think Chan should worry about that because there’s nothing that he can’t do if he puts his mind to it, he’s just that great. Chan is the greatest thing there is, the best thing that has ever happened to you.

You watch rosy lips part, brown eyes widening as his grip on your shoulder falters faintly. “I don’t deserve good things, Y/N. I can’t stay here with you,” Chan says like he means it. “Tell me to leave.” He really is stupid until the very end.

“If you’re worried about that, I’ll kindly decline my spot in heaven and go to hell with you,” you assure him, your voice chirping with mirth but even that doesn’t seem to elevate his gloom at all. A groan. “Fine then, as the most wonderful person alive, I now denounce us of all our wrongdoings. And I announce us to be the best of normal friends as normal people!”

His solemn expression crumbles and now he just looks straight up insulted. “It’s supposed to be ‘husband and wife’,” Chan nags while fighting off a grin of his own.

A light feeling burgeons in your chest. “I thought you didn’t care about that kind of thing? We’re already doing laundry and taxes together, right? It’s not like we have enough money to buy the rings either.”

“I suppose I’ll have no say in that,” Chan sighs in defeat, finally smiling brightly as he reminds himself of what he has, and what he wants to become for you. “But I like to be with you as well. If you’ll have me.”

You look back at him, wanting nothing more than to burn those words into the flesh of your heart. “I already have you right here, don’t I?”

Because Chan’s existence is etched deeply somewhere inside your soul. And you love him everyday for that.

❖ note (yet again) : hello there, if you have reached the end, thank you so much for reading! I wish 2024 will bring you and your loved ones nothing but happiness and great health! (no one asked but I really tried to simplify their speech of affection towards each other here compared to illicit & priceless because all they really want is to be normal people living a normal life)

[apomaro-mellow]

Mafia Part 1

For the occasion, Eddie was given one of his dad's old suits. It didn't quite fit as well but it would have to do for now. He tied his hair up in a bun and put a hat on top of it. Wayne was dressed similarly and it was like this that they entered the Marini home. Eddie couldn't remember the entire reason everyone was gathering. Could've been a birthday party for all he knew. But being in the main house meant good drinks and a chance to rub elbows with the folks up top. Which obviously meant more money.

Wayne finally let the leash off to go and talk with some of the older guys and Eddie got to go off on his own. He sat with Tonio, a man shorter than him despite being ten years older and Swirly, who looked like a breeze could knock him over.

"Why do they call you Swirly?", Eddie asked.

"'Cause when I stab guys I like to flick my blade around. It's my own personal touch."

"'Personal touch'", Tonio laughed. "You're just a classic narcissist."

"It's art."

"It's ghoulish."

"You wanna talk narcissism...", Swirly trailed off as he took a sip of his drink.

Tonio whistled like a rock falling down a well. He must know who Swirly was talking about.

"Who?", Eddie asked, preferring to stay in the loop.

"The little prince", Tonio sneered.

"Steve Harrington. The boss' son", Swirly provided a better answer.

"Harrington, huh?", Eddie said, just meaning to get a feel for the name but the others must have thought he was asking another question.

"The last boss had a daughter, just an absolute peach of a dame", Tonio said. "But she went and fell for this outsider, Harrington."

"He'd done some deals with us, but he wasn't family", Swirly said. "Until he married into it."

Eddie nodded, getting the picture. "So Steve Harrington should've been Steve Marini?"

"He could've been Giuseppe Alessandro Italiano-Magnifico. Won't change him", Toni nearly snarled, starting to spoil the air with a bitter scent before reining himself in. Eddie was eager to find out how someone so high on this world's food chain had earned the disdain of one of his underlings.

Eddie moved around a bit. Tonio and Swirly were basically footmen. Always in the streets, rarely in the room where the big decisions were made. Eventually Eddie came to a circle of young men closer to his age. Young bucks who were also looking to rise up. Some of them were already related by blood, cousins and nephews. Others were like Eddie, boys down on their luck, doing little jobs here and there for the money. But when you gave to the family, there was always the chance that you could be brought into the fold.

You could be sponsored.

Eddie had heard of it. Heard it could be a grueling process depending on who was vouching for you and for what. Wayne had been sponsored a few years ago. It had been an odd time when he didn't see his uncle as much as he'd been used to. But by the end of it, Wayne was able to invoke the Marini name if need be.

It was power. It was respect. It was everything Eddie wanted. They were seated at a table outside in the backyard where they could be louder. As they were wont to do. Sometimes the conversation switched to Italian, which left Eddie in the dark, but before too long it was back to a tongue he knew.

They started talking about what they'd do to be sponsored and then it turned to what they wouldn't do.

"What if they ask you to be celibate?"

"They're not gonna ask that."

"I heard they made a guy cut off his knot."

"Get outta here!"

"Nah, it wasn't just the knot, it was his balls too."

"They don't want eunuchs!"

"An alpha's only good for his knot anyway."

"What's a beta good for then?"

"Fuck if I know."

That caused both raucous laughter and jeers from the betas in the crowed. And just because Eddie had to be a pot stirrer, he spoke up.

"What about omegas?", he smirked.

"They got holes, don't they?", one alpha said.

"Everybody needs a warm body", a beta answered.

"If they're the right omega they can set you on easy street", another alpha, answered. He'd introduced himself as Tommy. Hagan, not to be confused with Tommy Corns who got caught holding up a pharmacy last year.

"The 'right omega' meaning your omega?", another guy piped up.

"He ain't Tommy's yet. He's still gotta woo him", a different one cackled.

"Aww, you sweet on someone Tommy-boy?", Eddie jabbed.

"I'm not sweet on anyone. Just got my target locked."

"On?", Eddie pressed.

"Who else but the best? Pretty soon, you'll all be calling me 'boss'", Tommy looked so sure of himself.

Ah, so he was after the cream of the crop. Eddie wondered how many of these guys were after Steve. Probably not many if Tommy was openly gunning for him.

Wayne found him and put an arm around his shoulders as he brought him back into the house. "There's someone I want you to meet. Mind yourself and don't get any ideas."

“What? Me? Ideas?”, he grinned cheekily.

“I mean it. We’re here to do our jobs and keep our heads down.”

Wayne brought him before a man in his late forties, thick, dark hair, graying around the edges. Next to him was a young man. Both were dressed in perfectly tailored suits. For a second, Eddie thought that he was being brought before a fellow associate. But he quickly realized these two were far above that. Especially with the way Wayne deferred to them.

Eddie was so caught by a scent that he almost missed what was happening. Lavendar and pine, wafting around him in a way that reminded him of freshly laundered linens.

It was during introductions that he realized. This was the omega everyone was talking about. Steve Harrington.

And he was looking at Eddie like he was a stray dog.

Steve looked him up and down. “You’re the Munson boy?”

“Sweetheart, I think I’ve got a few years on you to be called ‘boy’.” Eddie hissed when that remark earned him a pop on the head from Wayne.

“Please forgive my nephew. He’s not around polite company often.”

“If he’s yours Wayne, I’m not worried”, Harrington Sr. said. “I know in time he’ll prove himself to be loyal and a worthy addition to the business.”

While the older men talked, Eddie’s eyes were glued to Steve’s, who in turn hadn’t looked away from him yet. There was something behind those eyes and Eddie wanted to find out what it was. Eddie knew what it was like when people looked down at you. Steve was doing that, sure, but it was more than that.

It was almost like he expected something to happen. If Eddie were more bold, he would have made another comment. But he wouldn't dare do so in front of such a powerful man. Steve's father, James, could have had him killed with just an order. He wasn't about to antagonize his only shot at a not-shit life.

Eddie would have done so if he could've gotten to Steve one-on-one. But after that little meet and greet, Eddie was taken to talk to other men. And every glimpse of Steve he got, he was glued to his father's side.

Little prince indeed.

Part 3

[rotthepoet]

hiii,

as someone who only recently started poking their nose into this, help i am so confused T-T do you have like a slythering boys 101 or something i am so lost on them and their personalities q-q

- 🦆 anon (it/its) (<- if that‘s still free)

O H M Y G O D S

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO ASK ME FOR A FULL RUN DOWN EHEHEHEHHWHEHE THANK YOU

okay so essentially the Slytherin boys consist of about 5-7 boys. Draco Malfoy(canon), Blaise Zabini(Canon), Theodore Nott(canon character, will explain), Mattheo Riddle(Fanmade), Lorenzo Berkshire(Fanmade), Tom Riddle(the third. Fanmade, not the dead one), and Regulus Black(Fanmade, again not the dead one)

You’ll typically see Draco, Blaise, Mattheo, Lorenzo, and Theodore being written about, but its not hard to find Tom Riddle and Regulus Black content either.

So like? Who are these people?? How did they come to be??

We already know Blaise and Draco, they frequent both the books and movies so i’m not going to spend a lot time talking about them.

Draco is just about canon Draco. I can’t think of anything that really changes about him in the fandom.

Blaise has a lot less book/screen time than Draco so a lot of people have taken it upon themselves to characterize him. I see him as a very posh, haughty, quiet person. I think he’s at least half Italian even if he doesnt speak the language, but that differs person to person.

Okay here’s where it gets a bit complicated so stay with me(if you need clarification on anything PLEASE feel free to dm me or send in another ask <3)

Theodore Nott

Mentioned in the books maybe twice, all we know is he’s a slytherin pureblood with some h e a v y ties to Voldemort. Because we have so little information on Theodore, all of it’s basically made up.

Basic information:

He’s fancasted as Lorenzo Zurzolo, and Theodore himself is Italian and completely fluent in the language. You’ll mostly see clips of him from the show Baby(netflix)

Most people agree that his mom is dead, but i’ve seen some fics where shes alive and just ill, and i’ve seen fics where shes alive and just absent. I characterize Theo as a total mamas boy, but again its up to the author.

His dad seems to be abusive or neglectful. Again, death eater dad who is pretty much besties with Voldemort. Daddy issues

I characterize him as best friends with Mattheo Riddle(explain later) because of their family ties, but they truly get along.

He’s an avid smoker with a pension for ciggies, but i’ve also seem him characterized a few times as the Hogwarts plug which i think is SO fun.

He’s this really quiet, observant, yet flirtatious character. He’s a ladies man but still a heart breaker. Everyone wants to sleep with Nott, and thats okay.

Mattheo Ridde

Mattheo comes from a draco x reader fanfic called Possesive by yasmineamaro. I think you can still find it on Wattpad. He’s completely fanmade.

Basic Information:

He’s fancasted by Benjamin Wadsworth, and you’ll mostly see clips of him from the show Deadly Class

He’s the son of Voldemort and Bellatrix Lestrange, and depending on if the author believes in Tom Riddle the Third, Mattheo is the second child.

Again, Avid smoker, also I see him as a heavy drinker. Type of guy to come into class reeking of pot and act like nothing happened.

Fights galore man. Imagine having the dark lord as your dad, no doubt he was fuckin traumatized as a child. Imagine Ominis Gaunt from Hogwarts Legacy, the Guants were FUCKED UP(Gaunts actually became the riddles so this tracks) and often used unforgivables on their own children for discipline. Cant imagine Voldemort wouldnt do the same.

He is angry, he is mean, he is actually really funny and sweet once you talk to him(can we tell i have a favorite?) but getting through that hard outer shell sucks.

Also depicted as a major playboy.

Tom Riddle(the Third)

Oh boy. No idea where he came from, and tbh I see him WAY less often than anyone else. Its really a 50/50 if the author follows him being… real.

Basic information

Okay i don’t really write for Tom so.. bear with me here.

He’s casted as… just Tom Riddle from the Movies. Its just him. I think Tom Riddle second actually got a new fancast but… i dont really care :P

Heir to the Dark Lord, oldest child(again, when he exists, so don’t be surprised to see single child Matty)

Really just copy/paste book tom riddle into a new, young character.

He’s scary asf, academic weapon, also a ladies man but will drop them IMMEDIATELY after he fucks em

Idk what else to say here tbh? Maybe someone else can explain Tom better 😫

Lorenzo Berkshire

No clue how this fucker came to be, I fucking HATE him. Fanmade and BITCHY. JK just got corrected he’s from a draco x oc on wattpad called Filthy by babynaomi

Basic Information:

Fancasted by Louis Partridge, you’ll most likely see clips from Enola Holmes.

Bastard son of Mr. Berkshire and Bellatrix Lestrange which relates him to the Riddles.

I see Lorenzo being this bestie little trio with Theo and Mattheo. But Matt and Theo are way more likely to hang out with eachother than alone with him.

Suppeeeeeeer bitchy. Someone had a DR scenario where he would fuck everygirl he could, write their name down in a little black book, and each girl was worth different points based on blood status.

This guy sucks fr.

Actually some people characterize him as really sweet and fluffy.

I am not one of those people.

Regulus Black

No ideas where this guy came from. He’s literally just dead regulus copy and pasted into an alive, younger regulus. Supposedly the child of Sirius Black and some random woman?

Basic Information

He’s fancasted as Timothee Chalamet, so is dead regulus, its really confusing.

I dont write for him. Really, I dont know what to tell you

I’ve seen him portrayed as an artist?? Erm… again, i really dont know

Sorry pookie 😫

But!! This is fanfiction! And you can make uo all your own information for these guys because theyre not real!! Thats like.. the essential run down i suppose?? If youre confused about anything just let me know 🥰 really, it looks all intimidating but these characters are super easy to understand. Try poking around tiktok for POVS, silly as they are(dont @ me i read them too😫) theyre really helpful for understanding personalities. I remember being super confused when i first found em too.

[thestarstoasun]

Will and Naomi Solace don't normally celebrate Easter considering the whole she slept with a Greek god, had a demigod child but could only tell her small-town religious family that she had a one nightstand and got pregnant thing. She had been told they still loved her but was still publicly shamed and shunned until she got famous for her music.

Will didn't think his grandparents, uncles, or aunts deserved his mom in their lives after what they put her through, but he figured if she could forgive them, he could too. Except they didn't know he was bisexual. They didn't know about Nico. Will had been all too willing to tell his sweet, loving, adoring mother about his boyfriend. He made sure Nico knew when he first brought it up that there was no rush, and just like when it came to everything, he was willing to wait forever. (Nico had actually stared at him in disbelief, and with the oh-so-noticeable red splashing across his pale skin muttered a quiet, "Idiota". Will didn't need to be fluent in Italian to know /that one/, even when he first heard it.)

Introducing Nico to his mother was a mistake, not because of any homophobia or monster attacks, but just how much they both love to embarrass him. His mother shares stories and shows pictures (which Will panics about because technology and demigods don't mix well) of a much younger and embarrassing Will, and by the look in Nico's eyes Will knows he is never living it down. In return, his mother learns of his embarrassing flirting in the middle of a war.

The memory was nice now, a year and a half later, especially since Will was currently on the verge of an entire mental breakdown. Being back in Texas had that effect on him. At camp, he locked away all panic, grief, loss, suffering in order to run the infirmary and be strong for his siblings, but here, he had no infirmary and no siblings. He could honestly care less of what these people thought of him - Lee's opinion had mattered, Michael's opinion had mattered, His mama's opinion matters, Nico's feelings and opinion matters. Hades, he cares more for Apollo's opinion than these people, and he was still struggling with his own complicated feelings towards his father - not that they ever showed outwardly.

Will was more worried that these people that shared blood with him would shame his and Nico's relationship and upset his boyfriend. Nico had suffered so much pain and suffering already, especially when it came to his sexuality and accepting that there wasn't anything wrong with himself for loving boys. Will was so proud of how far Nico had come and felt sick to his stomach at being an indirect cause of a relapse.

"You worry too much," The words sounded so beautiful that they must have been spoken by an angel. (They weren't, they were spoken by none other than Nico Di Angelo, but what can he say, he is Apollo's son. It is in his nature to be dramatic at least sometimes.)

"I don't think I worry enough. I mean, there is jus' so much that could go wrong. Mama-" Will shot Nico, who was failing to hide a wide smile, a curious expression unknowingly tilting his head slightly to the right. "What's so amusin' about this?"

"I think I finally understand what Lou Ellen meant when she called you a dog." Will stared blankly absolutely stunned out of his panic, his lips formed a small pout that was absolutely not adorable. Nico got up from where he sat comfortably on Will's bed and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend's waist, resting his head on Will's shoulder. "Breathe. I'm already prepared to ditch this dinner and shadow-travel us both and your mother out somewhere nice at the slightest sign of trouble. Catholic guilt is a bitch, but I am done letting it, Gods, or anyone control my life."

Will felt both relieved and worried. Nico had learned so much about his boundaries with his powers over the last year, but it didn't mean Will didn't worry. "Is that why-?"

"Yes, that is why I slept so much today, il mio sole. Even before we left camp you were doing that nervous thing where you wrap bandages around your wrist. I figured something was bothering you and it had to do with our vacation. You love your mom, so it was obviously this dinner. I'm from the 30s, not an idiot, William, amore mio."

Will couldn't help but gently remove Nico's arm's from around him and sweep the boy off his feet. This frustrating, self-destructive, annoyingly attractive, smartass paid way too much attention to a simple healer such as himself, but Will couldn't imagine his life without Nico in it anymore. The half-hearted glare he received filled him with so much warmth and made him smile so wide it hurt, which in turn caused Nico to turn away to hide the slight upturn of his own lips.

[steddieas-shegoes]

Request: POLYGLOT STEVE??? WHO SPEAKS FLUENT FRENCH, ITALIAN, KOREAN, POLISH, SPANISH, ENGLISH AND PORTUGUESE??? EDDIE CONSTANTLY BEING FLUSTERED AS HELL HE FINDS IT REALLY HOT THAT STEVE SORAKS SO MANY LANGUAGES AND HE WILL CASUALLY USE THEM IN CONVERSATION????? WITHOUT MEANING TOO???? LIKE HE'LL FORGET A WORD IN ENGLISH & SAY IT ANOTHER LANGUAGE WITHOUT REALIZING????

MY LOVE! OKAY SO LET ME PREFACE BY SAYING I AM A LAZY PIECE OF SHIT WHO DID NOT WANT TO EVEN ATTEMPT GOOGLE TRANSLATE BECAUSE IT IS OFTEN WRONG ANYWAY OKAY. Also, English is my first and only language (damn Americans amirite) and while I did take a year of Spanish and two years of French in high school, my auditory processing is so shit, I can pretty much barely get through an introductory conversation in those languages. But I tried to still make this cute and fun! - Mickala ❤️

-------------------------------------------------------

“Gówno!” Steve exclaimed from the kitchen.

“Everything okay?” Robin yelled from the couch.

Eddie looked at her with wide eyes.

“The fuck did he say?” he asked quietly, not wanting Steve to hear him.

“Shit.”

“No, what did he say?” Eddie asked again.

Robin stared at him, annoyed.

“He said, ‘shit’ in Polish.”

“Steve knows Polish?!”

Robin rolled her eyes and got up to physically check on Steve.

Eddie sat and stewed in this new knowledge.

But this was only the first of many surprises.

—-------------------

“Mama, no.” Steve’s voice came from his bedroom as Eddie made his way up the stairs.

His mom was here?

And then Eddie heard Steve speaking in…Spanish? It was too fast to tell for sure, but it definitely wasn’t English.

He peeked his head through the door, relaxing slightly when he saw Steve was on the phone.

Steve gestured for him to come in while he spoke, so Eddie slipped his shoes off and sat down on the bed, getting comfortable.

But then it sounded like Steve started talking in another different language.

It was close to Spanish, but some of it sounded almost French?

Eddie blinked at him, his free hand gesturing wildly as his voice got louder.

Eventually, he sighed and sat on the edge of the bed. Eddie rubbed his back in a totally friendly, not loving, manner.

“Okay. See you then,” he sounded resigned, tired.

Eddie hated it.

When the phone was back on the hook, Steve sank back against Eddie and sighed again.

“My parents will be here next week for a couple days. They’re organizing the sale of the house, so they are packing what they want to move into a storage unit and having a cleaning company come get the rest to be donated. I have until the end of the month to be gone.”

Eddie looked down at Steve’s hand, how it was playing with the edge of Eddie’s shirt, how tense the rest of his body was even as Eddie played with his hair.

“You speak Spanish?”

That wasn’t really what he meant to say, but the shock hadn’t quite worn off from hearing him speaking in another language. Or two.

“I speak Spanish and Portuguese,” he replied.

“Oh. Well…why?”

Steve sat up and looked down at Eddie with a smirk.

“Because my mom’s family is mostly from Spain and Portugal and if I wanted to talk to my grandparents, that was my only option.”

“Oh. I…had no idea.”

Steve rested his head against his chest again, finally seeming to relax a bit.

“I really only speak it with her now. I took Spanish in high school for the easy A.”

“Makes sense.”

They remained quiet for a few minutes, Steve coming down from the stress of his phone call and impending parental visit.

“So you wanna live with me?” Eddie finally asked, casually.

They weren’t…well. They just weren’t. And that was okay. Eddie told himself that if all he was for Steve was a great friend who could hold him when he needed it, then that was enough.

But they also kind of…were.

It was very confusing and he was constantly balancing between pushing too far and not pushing enough.

“What? Like, in your trailer with you and Wayne?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Wayne wouldn’t mind. Long as you help clean up sometimes and maybe chip in for groceries.”

Wayne also was team Eddie-tell-Steve-you’re-in-love-with-him-before-I-do and would absolutely support this type of thing.

“But you guys only have two bedrooms.”

“You can share with me or like, we can work something out where we section off a part of the living room? I dunno. It’s not perfect, but I know you don’t have quite enough saved up for your own place yet.”

Steve hid his face in Eddie’s shirt for a moment before nodding.

“Yeah. Okay. I’ll share with you for a bit. But probably only for a few months, I swear. I have almost enough to get that house by Robin,” he said.

It was a house for sale in Robin’s neighborhood, and it wasn’t selling because it needed quite a bit of work done to the yard and bathrooms. But Steve knew he could do it, he just needed to make sure he had money for everything first.

He wouldn’t let anyone chip in, either.

“No rush. But, yeah, I’ll talk to Wayne about it tomorrow.”

—-------------------------------------

Steve moved in the next week after a long argument with his parents, who didn’t seem too thrilled about him becoming “trailer trash.”

Eddie thought about the last words Steve said to his parents before leaving: “I’d rather be trailer trash than your son.”

About how he’d spit them at them, poison from his lips.

About how he’d said it in French.

He probably didn’t think Eddie understood, probably didn’t realize that most of the reason Eddie had been so quiet on the ride to the trailer was because he was turning over Steve’s words in his head.

He still hadn’t quite come to a conclusion more than eight hours later, but he was busy helping Steve unpack the last of his things anyway.

“You seem quiet,” Steve said from where he was putting some of his tapes by Eddie’s boombox.

“Hm?” Eddie looked over at him, smiling to himself when he saw Steve putting Eddie’s tapes on top of his. “Oh. Just thinkin’.”

“Thinking about…?” Steve looked over at him.

“Just what you said earlier.”

Stev’s brows furrowed as he thought about what Eddie meant.

“You mean before we left?” Eddie nodded. “I said it in French though? You understood?”

“I’m not fluent, but I took it for three years in high school. One of the only classes I passed with flying colors.”

“Really?” Steve asked in French. “So I could say something in French right now and you would know what I’m saying?” he continued, still in French.

Eddie understood enough to nod.

“So if I told you that you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me and that I wish I could hold your hand right now, you’d say…”

Steve’s blush gave away some of what he was saying, though Eddie had to admit to himself, he hadn’t quite understood some of it.

Steve sounded so natural, was speaking so quickly, Eddie wasn’t sure how to respond.

“Um. I guess I’m not so good at it when someone as natural as you speaks it,” Eddie awkwardly said, turning back to the closet where he was moving some of his things so Steve would have room for his clothes that couldn’t be folded.

He felt Steve’s body heat behind him, knew he would be right there if he turned back around.

Steve said something in Italian (how many languages did he know?) and then something else in a language Eddie didn’t recognize.

He finally turned to see Steve blushing, looking down at the floor of his room.

“What was that one?” he asked, moving in a bit closer, barely leaving any space between them.

“Korean. My dad insisted on all of us learning it when he acquired a business in Korea.”

“So you know…how many languages?”

“Seven counting English, but I’m also learning Russian from Robin. Kind of a way to ‘own the trauma’ or whatever she tells me,” Steve rolled his eyes.

“You know seven languages?” Eddie squeaked.

“Oui,” Steve smirked up at him.

They were so close. He could almost feel Steve’s breath against his lips, closed his eyes and imagined how he would taste.

“Eds,” Steve breathed out.

“Hm?” Eddie felt high, or like there was a severe lack of oxygen in the room, maybe both.

“Can I kiss you? Please?”

Eddie’s eyes popped open, his jaw dropping in shock.

Steve asked again, this time in French.

Eddie groaned and threw his head back.

“You’re killing me.”

“...so that’s a yes?” Steve teased.

“Oui,” Eddie replied.

Steve’s lips were warm against his, surprisingly soft, though demanding.

His whole body was demanding, pushing Eddie backwards until his back hit the wall with a thump. Eddie had never been so glad that Wayne was at work.

His hands found Steve’s waist, squeezed until he was sure he left bruises, only tightening his grip more when Steve moaned against his mouth.

Steve’s body was flush against his now, their shirts rucking up just enough for the skin of their stomachs to rub together, sweat slicking between them.

Eddie couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t really want to, didn’t want to part from the closeness he’d been hoping for for so long.

Steve did pull away though, even if only enough to rest his forehead against Eddie’s.

He whispered something in Spanish, then opened his eyes.

Eddie was hot.

“It’s really fuckin’ hot when you do that,” he admitted.

“Do what?”

“Speak any of the 100 languages that you know.”

“Oh?” Steve kissed the corner of his mouth, then his chin, then his jaw.

He kept whispering things in different languages, right against Eddie’s skin, until he was practically ready to fall to his knees.

“Steeeeeeve. You’re killing me,” Eddie complained.

“I can stop,” Steve said against the curve of his neck and shoulder.

“No, please don’t,” he groaned out.

So, he didn’t.

Steve spent the next hour kissing, and teasing, and whispering things Eddie didn’t understand against his skin.

He didn’t stop until Wayne knocked on the bedroom door to let them know he was home and was cooking burgers on the grill.

Eddie smiled as Steve left the room to help Wayne with dinner as he’d been looking forward to doing.

He thought about how long they weren’t anything but friends who could have been more.

But now they were. Hopefully they always would be.

[dragonpyre]

My family is about as “generic American” as it gets (note: not patriotic American). The last person to immigrate to America in my family history was my parental great grandfather from Italy.

He went out of his way to teach my grandfather as little Italian as possible because it was something you’d get harassed for back then. So, my grandfather knows almost no Italian, my father knows none and neither do I. Because of bigots who may well still be alive today.

My dad still calls himself Italian though. He worked making pizzas all through college (got hired because he was “Italian” funnily enough) and learned to make them from his job not his family.

A lot of his buddies are these old school Bostonian Italians whose parents taught them more of their culture than his did. One of his favorite movies is the first Rocky movie because it’s about a broke Italian American character and my dad, a teenager when it came out, for the first time ever saw a character who was like him.

There are definitely Americans out there who treat their cultural identity/ethnicity like zodiac signs. But most of us are coming from a place of partial inheritance or rediscovery. My grandpa dropped the ball teaching my dad about his culture, and later on my dad picked it up again on his own, in a time when the stigma around Italian immigrants has largely dissipated.

My father will never speak fluent Italian because his grandfather was afraid to share anything “too Italian” with his kids. Still, my dad loves to teach us kids what he does know about “being Italian”. And I know it’s not a lot, and I know a lot is probably not correct compared to actual Italian culture, but it’s all he can give us, so I listen anyways

.

[stawpny]

this is random 😔

I have this little hc that I’ve been thinking abt

NY— because of NYC— has many different families

like he has Chinese, Puerto Rican , Italian (+ his Ma and Grams), German, and Greek families (probably more too)

He has two separate uncles as well: One Scottish, and the other Irish

and a whole truckload of people he calls his nieces and nephews even if they aren’t related to him in any way shape or form

I feel like this idea could be kinda funny but also wholesome too

like I see York trying to learn their language but also him getting forced in their cultural clothing that clearly dont fit him

every other week there’s another wedding he has to attend. what can he say, he’s a busy man.

-

during the reformation or reconstruction era (the era after the civil war, forgot what it was called) York was sent down to a handful of southern states to “help” but he ended up doing nothing and being sent back to DC by the state he was in.

anyway, he had been told by South Carolina to just sit still and he would be there to send him back, as stated in a letter to York, but York hardly could sit still, so he started walking around the streets of some random town.

this kid, I’ve named him Edward (idk if that’s historically acc but wtv), came up to him and stared at him oddly for a hot minute. York just kind of stood awkwardly, as he does, and stared back. York felt kinda self-conscious about his Yankee-ness when he looked him up and down.

Edward then took York by the sleeve and led him back to his house, which was around a half a mile walk, ignoring New York’s questions. It was like a non-hostile kidnapping.

When Edward’s father saw York he stared at his son with utter confusion.

-

Edward’s dad: Who the hell is this?

Edward: He’s my new pet. I’ve named him Yank.

New York:

Edward, shrugging at his fathers blank stare: It’s short fer Yankee Doodle.

-

Edward’s dad laughed at him and left. York just stood there, awkward as ever and somewhat petrified of Edward. He’s dealt with stone-cold Northeast states his whole life (and was one!!) and yet a southern child was his breaking point.

it came to dinner, and he, of course, wasn’t allowed to sit at the table.

-

Edward: Yank! Boy, sit!

New York: I.. what..?

Edward: I SAID SIT, NOT SPEAK! SIT!!

-

York did as told and knelt on the floor by the table, praying for South Carolina to arrive soon.

—

got a bit carried away there, but it felt like something I needed to share

he also never told anyone about this and it was Southie who walked in to him kneeling by a dinner table with a glass bowl infront of him.

York said he would murder him if he said anything, so he didn’t.

the best part was Edward’s family 1) completely ignoring him and 2) using southern slang that made York want to throw himself on the floor and cry because what the actual fuck does it mean?

“happier than a pig in shit” Edward, I beg, explain

[pers-books]

The Observer Peter Capaldi

‘The government has been too terrible to make fun of’: Peter Capaldi on satire, politics and privilege

📷 ‘I’ve had to pretend to be more amenable’: Peter Capaldi wears blazer by oliverspencer.co.uk; shirt by toa.st. Photograph: Simon Emmett/The Observer

Tom Lamont Sun 14 Jan 2024 08.00 GMT

One winter morning, a Doctor Who comes calling. The Glaswegian actor Peter Capaldi lives about an hour’s walk from me and instead of us meeting in some midway café, the 65-year-old wanders over (leather booted, woolly jumpered, cloaked in a dark winter coat that sets off his pale-grey hair) to have coffee at my kitchen table. My son is off school with flu, medicating on Marvel movies and barely able to believe his luck as the actorly embodiment of an alien superhero wanders through our flat. While we’re waiting for the kettle to boil, I ask Capaldi whether he ran into any other Doctor Whos on his walk through the actorland that is suburban north London.

He grins an unguarded grin you don’t often see on screen. Capaldi became famous as the permanently angry spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in the BBC comedy The Thick of It, which ran from 2005 to 2012 and, after that, between 2013 and 2017, he played the sternest, least imp-ish Doctor Who in decades. In his new Apple TV show, a police procedural called Criminal Record, which Capaldi co-produced with his wife, Elaine Collins, he stars as an ageing detective: another scowler. Now, coffee in hand, he smiles affectionately. So, did he bump into any other Doctor Whos this morning? “David [Tennant, 10th Doctor] used to live in Crouch End, near me. Matt [Smith, 11th Doctor] lives around here. Jodie [Whittaker, 13th Doctor] is nearby, Christopher [Eccleston, 9th Doctor] too, I think.” But no, no encounters with his fellow alumni this morning, Capaldi says.

📷 ‘You can’t be the cynical melancholic I naturally am’: Peter Capaldi wears coat by Mr P (mrporter.com); jumper by uniqlo.com; trousers by reiss.com; and shoes by johnlobb.com. Photograph: Simon Emmett/The Observer

“You do run into each other. You have a laugh, a gossip, you share. There aren’t a lot of people who have been in that role in the centre of that storm. Most people think the job is being on the Tardis and running around with Daleks. Which it is. That’s the fun part. But there’s a lot of other stuff you have to do, too. You’re kind of the face of the brand and the brand is very big. You can’t be the cynical melancholic I naturally am. You have to pretend to be a version of yourself that’s far more amenable.”

Is it a bit like being the Queen?

“Kind of,” he says. “You embody for a time this folk hero, this icon. I was able to comfort people in a way that would be beyond the powers of Peter. You could walk into a room and people gasped with delight. It doesn’t happen any more.”

Capaldi grew up in 1960s and 1970s Glasgow. His Italian-Scottish family lived in a tenement block. “We had nothing. We had zilch.” From a young age he exhibited signs of artistic talent, though he characterises himself, then and now, as a seven- or eight-out-of-10 at various crafts. “When I was young, I was good at drawing. My grandmother used to say that came from Italy. She felt that I was an absolute throwback to Leonardo da Vinci – her direct line to Michelangelo! It confused me because I wanted to do these other things, play music, act – which one was I supposed to do?”

📷 Great Scot: Peter Capaldi wears blazer by ralphlauren.co.uk. Photograph: Simon Emmett/The Observer

After graduating school at 18, this confused cross-artistic trajectory continued. “I tried to be an actor, but I didn’t get into drama school, so I went to art school. When I was at art school, I joined a band.” In his early 20s, Capaldi released a single as part of a group called Dreamboys; then he quit music and spent most of his 20s acting, getting small jobs in theatre and TV as well as a walk-on part opposite John Malkovich in 1988’s Dangerous Liaisons. In his 30s, he decided to concentrate on directing.

In 1993, a short film he directed, Franz Kafka’s It’s a Wonderful Life, won him an Oscar, industry recognition that launched Capaldi off on a heady but doomed sojourn in America. Well caffeinated and gripping the edge of my kitchen table to tell the story, he recalls what happened when he was courted as a hot prospect by the Weinstein brothers, Bob and Harvey, then the co-presidents of Miramax and at the height of their power and influence. Capaldi spent a year working on a screenplay for them, at the end of which Bob flew him out to Manhattan to discuss casting and production. As far as Capaldi was concerned it was a formality; bottles of champagne were cooling at home.“I thought I was off and away.”

📷 Feel the heat: in The Thick of it. Photograph: Everett Collection/Alamy

Miramax sent a limo to pick him up from the airport. “I fell into conversation with the driver, lovely man, Ralph. When I got out of the car I gave him a big tip. Because I was a big shot now, you see. Then Ralph said: ‘I’ve been told to wait for you here.’” Uh oh. “Inside, all the people in the office were avoiding my eye. Bob said, ‘I’ll come straight to it, we’re not gonna do the movie, my brother Harvey says he doesn’t know how to sell it.’ He said, ‘But we love you! You’re one of the family! You’ll always have a place here!’ Needless to say, I never heard from him again. Obviously, while I was in the air they’d had a discussion and changed their minds. I was so dumbfounded as I climbed back into the limo I just laughed. I had no money, because we’d bought a little house in Crouch End, and I had no career, because I’d turned my back on acting.”

In a gesture that Capaldi has never forgotten, Ralph the limo driver tried to give him back his big tip.

As we chat, the postman rings the bell, delivering packages. Council tree surgeons are working on the road outside. My son needs water, words of comfort, possibly he just wants another good long look at Capaldi. I’ve never interviewed anyone in my own home before and the limitations of the format are becoming apparent. But Capaldi seems to respond well to the setting and its lack of frills. His adult daughter and her family have been visiting, brand new baby in tow. When I apologise for all the noise and interruptions, Capaldi says it’s nothing compared to a newborn.

📷 Fun fact: in Paddington 2. Photograph: Supplied by LMK

He and Collins were young parents themselves when his directing career fell apart. Arriving back in London from the disastrous Manhattan trip, “The initial feeling was shock. Then a pragmatic survival instinct kicked in.” Capaldi rejoined the auditioning circuit. “I was a psychiatrist in Midsomer Murders. I was a beekeeper in Poirot – AN Other Actor. Someone else would have turned down these parts first.” Collins, until that point an actor, too, decided to pivot into development and production, a career move that has worked well for her.

Artists often do their best work while they’re at their lowest, perhaps because they feel they haven’t much to lose, little to be afraid of. Sloping into a Soho audition room in the mid-2000s to meet Armando Iannucci about a new political comedy, Capaldi remembers being in a foul mood. He’d just come from an unsuccessful audition for another BBC show, “being taped like I was Vivien Leigh reading for Scarlett O’Hara”. He remained grumpy when Iannucci admitted there wasn’t yet a script for The Thick of It, they were going to try improvising instead. “I knew Armando was supposed to be a comedy genius, but at that moment I was, like, ‘Yeah? Let’s see some of your comedy genius then. Fucking show me what you’ve got, you Oxbridge twat.’ My whole attitude that day was essentially Malcolm Tucker’s, and it informed the improvisation we did.”

📷 Folk Hero: in his new series Criminal Record. Photograph: Ben Meadows/Apple

When The Thick of It debuted, Capaldi entered the sitcom pantheon overnight. Revisiting episode one, what’s glaring is how fully formed, how exquisite a character Tucker is. Alan Partridge, Samantha Jones, Frasier Crane, David Brent … these creations had to be discovered over time by their actors and writers. With Tucker it’s all there from word one, the controlled fury, the foul-mouthed eloquence, that constant convenient deployment of hypocrisy. Capaldi played the part for seven years, winning a Bafta mid-run. It led to other memorable gigs, as a news producer in 2012’s The Hour and as Count Richelieu in a 2014 adaptation of the Musketeers story. He was Mister Micawber in Iannucci’s 2019 reimagining of David Copperfield, a fun role that was bookended by two equally fun Paddington movies, released in 2014 and 2017.

Promoting these projects, Capaldi would be asked to give a view on political events of the day, as seen through the eyes of the character who made his career. What would Malcolm Tucker think of Brexit, or the pandemic response, or the premierships of Johnson or Truss? Capaldi long ago stopped answering these questions. “For one thing, I need about 10 writers, Tony Roach and Jesse Armstrong among them, to supply Malcolm’s bon mots. But more than that, I think these [recent Conservative] governments have been too terrible to make fun of. I think they’ve been incompetent and corrupt and I’m not going to make jokes to give them time off.”

📷 ‘You’re the face of the brand and the brand is very big’: playing Doctor Who. Photograph: Everett Collection Inc/Alamy

We talk about how weird it is that political satire should have fallen into abeyance in the 2020s – perhaps because, as Capaldi says, “things have been too bad to make fun of. Making fun normalises situations I don’t think should be normalised. The planet is burning. They’re pumping shit into the rivers. I’m not gonna be part of making jokes about that… All this highfalutin life I’ve had,” he says, of the awards parties, the film roles, the immortal runs as a sweary spin doctor and an inscrutable Doctor Who, “is because I went to art school. My parents couldn’t afford to send me. I went because the government of the day paid for me to go and I didn’t have to pay them back. There was a thrusting society then, a society that tried to improve itself. Yes, of course, it cost money. But so what? It allowed people from any kind of background to learn about Shakespeare, or Vermeer, or whatever they wanted to learn about. Why did we lose this, this belief in ourselves?”

For Capaldi, the world of acting feels narrower now, meaner in a way that seems to mirror British society at large. He thinks of his industry as one in which subtle discriminations hold sway and “gatekeepers and Aztecs still decree who shall be admitted… I think there’s a real problem. There isn’t the funding or support for young people from poorer backgrounds to get into the theatre. And indeed there aren’t the theatres.” He wonders about the teenage Anthony Hopkinses out there, talented, without the obvious means or encouragement to train in the arts. And the inverse, actors who Capaldi, in his frank and acid way, characterises as privileged duds.

📷 Shared vision: with his wife and co-producer Elaine. Photograph: Trinity Mirror/Mirrorpix/Alamy

“This business is full of people who are not the real thing,” he says, “people I perceived to be artists ’cos they had posh accents, but who didn’t have it, they just sounded like they did.” He goes on to tell a tantalising but intentionally vague story about a major star he worked with, someone who revealed themselves through the course of an acting collaboration to be a dud hiding in plain sight. He won’t provide details (“Too easy to figure out. When everyone’s dead I’ll tell you”), but he says the experience changed him professionally, leaving him more aware of his own limitations, but grateful to have a little vinegar and grit in the mix. “There’s a kind of smoothness, a kind of confidence that comes from a good [paid-for] school. That’s what you’re struck by: they seem to know how to move through the world recognising which battle to fight, where to press their attentions. But it can make the acting smooth, which to me is tedious. I like more neurosis. More fear. More trouble, you know?”

I think this part of his skillset expressed itself well during the three-season run on Doctor Who, when Capaldi was prepared to come across as remote, a little unreachable. “I don’t set out to make the audience like me,” he says. “Because my characters don’t know an audience is there.” For me, his high point as the Doctor was an episode called Heaven’s Gate, a chronology-stretching tale written by Steven Moffatt in which the Doctor is set a sisyphean task of endurance that lasts about 50 minutes or so in screen time and several millennia in narrative terms. Capaldi didn’t play it as a hero. He wasn’t charming or boyish. In this episode especially, he was grim and patient and knackered. It was a rare occasion when the character, apparently alive for hundreds of years, seemed old.

📷 Burning bright: with John Malkovich in Dangerous Liaisons. Photograph: Everett Collection/Alamy

In the new TV show, Criminal Record, he explores a more mortal kind of ageing, life’s third act, its inevitable professional humblings. Capaldi plays a London DCI in his 60s, coming to the end of a career, already moonlighting as a private security contractor, intimidated by the thrust and purpose of a younger colleague at the Met played by Cush Jumbo. As Jumbo’s character grows in confidence, Capaldi’s shrinks. It is a paradox of experience he can relate to. “I find the older I get, the closer I am to who I was,” he says.

I ask him to explain.

“Like I’m returning to… ‘roots’ is the wrong word. I feel more and more like my mother and father, more and more keenly aware of the values they had.” He provides an interesting example, how he has become all thumbs around the act of tipping in restaurants: “I can be in a complete sweat about that.” He can imagine his parents, both dead now, in a similar muddle. “From the background we come from, you can have a bit of anxiety about coming across as grand. So you have to allay that by making sure you are communicating with everybody, all the time.”

Capaldi shakes his head, chuckling softly. He has finished his coffee. He’s about to put on his big coat, say goodbye to my son, and walk back through Whoville to his home and his family. Before he leaves we return to the subject of actors from privileged backgrounds. He says he feels mean, like he took unfair advantage of them in their absence. “It’s not their fault,” he says. “It’s just that there’s less and less of my lot in the arts.” And this concerns him, he continues, because “people of all backgrounds are sophisticated, are interesting, are equally prone to tragedy and joy. Any art that articulates that is a comfort. Art is the ultimate expression of you are not alone, wherever you are, whatever situation you are in. Art is about reaching out. So I think it’s wrong to allow one strata of society to have the most access.”

He nods, feeling he’s expressed himself better. I agree.

Criminal Record is streaming now on Apple TV+, with new episodes every Wednesday

Fashion editor Helen Seamons; Grooming by Kenneth Soh at The Wall Group using Eighth Day; fashion assistant Sam Deaman; photography assistants Tom Frimley and Tilly Pearson; shot at Loft Studio.