#ti so roma

[romajuliettesupremacy]

flf 2 is going to be MY spiderman no way home

[jabeur]

youtube recced me the jannik ao championship point and i watched it and i've been crying for 5 minutes

[bijoumikhawal]

stunning watching people in the notes of this post miss the point....

[leidensygdom]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[lady--vixen]

È stato il suo sguardo a convincermi. Diceva qualcosa tipo "perché mi hanno abbandonato?". Mi sono vista allo specchio. Era il 2019. L'ho portata a casa che pesava quanto un chihuahua. In auto piangeva tra gioia e disperazione. La veterinaria: "Dalle da mangiare poco alla volta o muore". Era trasparente. La bastarda che l'aveva adottata portandola qui da Roma, non si sa bene perché, non le dava da mangiare. La teneva col cappottino addosso per non far vedere ai volontari quanto cazzo fosse magra. Il cane fantasma. Stava morendo di fame. Gliel'hanno portata via. L'hanno data a me. I primi giorni stava al passo senza che gliel'avessi insegnato. Sempre a sinistra, sempre con quella faccia da "ti prego, non farmi male". Mi fissava sempre. Cercava di anticipare i miei desideri. Se sentiva un'auto fermarsi, cercava protezione tra i miei piedi. La voce di uomo la faceva tremare. "Amore, tu stai qui, nessuno ti porta via." Le ore passate a giocare con la palla. Le ore passate a tenerla vicina e protetta. Come fai a convincere un cane che non le farai del male? Che può fidarsi di te? Non lo so. So che l'ha fatto e non ci ha nemmeno messo tanto. Il peso è andato a posto. Ha sviluppato dei bei muscoli, un vocione, il passo sicuro. Non sta più sulla sinistra. Ora sta davanti, dietro, sopra. Salta. Corre. Sorride. Scodinzola. 13 kg d'amore. Mi ha visto tornare a casa pelata e non mi ha riconosciuta. Mi ha annusato quando sapevo di chimico. È stata attenta a non toccarmi mai il PICC. Ha avuto pazienza quando non riuscivo più a fare le scale e giocare. Ha avuto fiducia. Lei, un cane, mi ha dimostrato che ci si può ancora fidare.

Piano piano.

[alder-saan]

His sister .2

Larissa Weems x normie! reader

link part 1

NSFW, heavy smut, almost only smut, pwp, masturbation, fingering, cunnilingus, shapeshifting cock, dom! Larissa, sub! reader, mistress kink, reader being tied with Larissa's stockings, blind kink, breeding kink, usage of safe word, fluff towards the end, aftercare.

words count: 3.5k

A/N: I'm sorry it took me soooooo long to write, and also, I know I'm not the best at writing smut but I try, okay? (yes, writing some pwp wasn't the best idea but eh)

You had spent the afternoon thinking about her, without being able to touch her, without being able to look at her too much, since Philip was there. He had taken the afternoon off to show Larissa around the city. Your husband, his sister and you went to the museum, which he never took you to because he always told you to be on your own.

You spent the evening trying to be alone with Larissa.

Philip was faster than Larissa and you, which gave you time to try something. You couldn’t focus on the paintings anyway. While she was looking at one, you sat next to her, on the bench seat, your hand brushing hers. She did not take her eyes off the picture, and she did not move her hand, but a faint smile lit up her face. Butterflies swarmed in your stomach. She was so beautiful, her smile was so beautiful, and it was even more, knowing you were the one who caused it.

“Darling, you should at least pretend to look at the artworks…”

Lord, the pet name. She was driving you crazy. 

“You are an artwork, Larissa,” you replied, fluttering your eyelashes.

She let out a slight chuckle and moved her hand to your thigh. You shivered when you felt her hand slowly finding a way under your skirt. Her fingers ran over your tights, and your skin tensed under the electrical touch.

“You little flirt, do I have to remind you that your husband is in the next room?”

She was still looking at Nero, looking at Roma burning in his golden frame, while playing with you, lingering her fingers closer and closer to your inner thigh, going back, drawing small circles on your knee, and then coming again on your inner thigh. You couldn’t help but hold your breath each time her fingers passed near your panties. Wet. Of course.

“I wish he wasn’t” you whispered, trying to hide the arousal in your voice.

“I do so, Love. I'm staying with you for the week, so please be patient.”

She removed her hand, and you clenched your legs together, trying to keep the feeling of her fingers on you. You watched her standing up, and bending down to your ear.

“Be a good girl and you’ll be rewarded.”

With that, she walked away, as if nothing just happened, leaving you as red as the Roman emperor’s toga on the painting.

That night, you tried to sleep, but every time you’d close your eyes, she was there, demanding you to be a good girl. You could still feel her hand on your thigh, and you wanted so much more. That was probably not what a good girl would do but… She would never know, would she? Your hands reached your breasts, and you massaged them, while an imaginary Larissa was kissing your neck, leaving imaginary red lips stains, and imaginary fingers were lingering on your thighs, drawing small circles closer and closer to your cunt. What if she left red marks on your thighs too? You opened your legs and imagined her in between, kissing them, licking them, slowly going up your shanks and thighs.

“Be a good girl for me, Darling,” she’d say.

“Yes, yes I’m a good girl” you whispered in your bed “Please, please fuck me.”

“So needy…”

Your hand went down your belly, and you circled your clit with your fingers, imagining Larissa's tongue doing this. Your other hand was still massaging your breast. You wanted to moan aloud, but your husband was right next to you, and you couldn’t risk waking him. So you continued, entering two fingers into your pussy. Your fingers moved inside you, almost automatically, as you knew what gave you pleasure. You wondered if she was thinking about you… Maybe she was touching herself like you were doing. Maybe she was moaning your name, in her room, legs spread, a hand between them.

Imagining her masturbating turned you even more on. You yearned to feel her soft pale skin under your hands, to grab her breast, to kiss her red lips, her neck, her belly. You wanted to be between those gorgeous legs, tasting her pussy while she’d bury her fingers into your hair, whining, moaning.

You desired to worship her divine body.

You woke up in the morning, much later than you usually did. The sun was not brushing the skin on your arm. The sunlight was already on the floor. You yawned and got up. A shirt put on, you went out of your room, only to notice Larissa was there, sitting on the couch in the living room. You blushed, remembering what you imagined last night, and realising you were entirely naked under your oversize shirt, while she was perfectly dressed and made up. But she hadn’t fixed her hair in her usual updo, and the silver locks were falling on her shoulders. It was… ethereal.

“Good morning, Larissa.”

“Good morning, Darling. Did you enjoy your night?”

Your face went even redder. Did she know? How?

“Uh…” you cleared your throat “Yes, I did, thank you, what about you? Did you sleep well?”

“Not really I’m afraid,” she said, grabbing the mug on the little table near the sofa.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Why did you have a bad night? Maybe I can help-”

“I never said I had a bad night, Dear. To be honest, it was pretty lovely, thinking about you.”

“Oh uh… ah!” 

Had she… thought about you in THAT way? By the way, you had been thinking about her all night? You were bright red, remembering your night.

“Come on, sit with me.”

She put her hand on the couch, next to her.

“I’m- I get dressed and I-”

“No, you can stay in your shirt… I like the view.”

She wasn’t even trying to hide her look on your legs. You swallowed, seeing her blue eyes running up your legs. You tried to show her a confident smile and came to sit next to her. She put the mug back on the table and her hand came to your knee. It was warm. Your heart skipped a beat under her soft gaze.

“Philip told me he wouldn’t be there for lunch… that means we are alone all day.”

“Oh… uh, that’s cool”

You couldn’t focus on anything, her thumb brushing the skin on your thigh. Your whole body was warming, your heart was racing.

“Do you know what I was thinking about, tonight?”

Her hand travelled slowly to your inner thigh.

“Uh, no? I don’t?” You hated how shy you sounded.

“I was thinking about you, crying my name while I destroyed you.”

She moved her fingers closer and closer to your aching core. You let out a little whine and blushed, hearing it.

“Yes, quite like that, Darling.”

She caught your lips with hers, a hand on your chest to lay you on the couch. Her knee went between your legs, and her hands took your wrists.

Thumb, thumb, thumb, thumb, went your heart against your ribcage.

You couldn’t believe you were under her, while two seconds before you were still standing. Her sapphire eyes stared at you, her smooth knee coming closer and closer to your pussy, moving the shirt up your legs, your cheeks, tickled by Larissa’s silver hair, warmed, and you bet they were bright red. As she deepened the kiss, a moan escaped from your throat. Her tongue brushed yours, and you buried your fingers into her locks. She only broke the kiss because you were breathless.

“Darling, I’m gonna destroy you. If at one point you want me to stop, say ‘red’, and I’ll stop at that very second, okay?”

You nodded, feeling the heat getting to your lower belly. ‘Destroy’ on her lips sounded good to your ears, and the way she said it, so calm, so still the way she’d say ‘I like tea’, made it sound even better. It was a fact. She was going to destroy you. And you were going to enjoy it.

“I want to hear you, dear. Is that okay?”

“O-okay,” you whispered

“I didn’t hear you.”

“Okay!”

“Good girl,” she purred, “now strip.”

You unbuttoned your shirt one by one. She was watching you, her pupil growing larger. It seemed to be too slow to her taste because she pushed your hands away to do it herself, almost ripping the fabric off… Her lips crashed onto yours, her hands massaged your naked breasts. Your cunt was dripping against her knee, and you bucked your hips to make it stimulate your clit. She stopped touching you.

“Pet, here I’m in command. You are not allowed to do anything. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Yes, mistress.”

“Good pet.”

She kissed your breasts, licking one of your nipples, sucking it. Her tongue on your skin was so soft. You whined in half pain, half pleasure when she nibbled your bosom. Your fingers dug into her back. She sucked your skin so hard you knew you would have dark red marks at these spots.

You wanted to touch her, as she touched you. You wanted to feel her soft skin, to taste it. Your hands went down her back and tried to slip under her skirt. Larissa sighed against your breasts.

“Don’t make me tie you, pet.”

“Was that supposed to be a threat?” you whispered while caressing her skin under the fabric.

She laughed, her lips against your skin, and her breath tickled you. She moved up your chest and neck, her lips brushing against you, ending near your ear and parting to murmur.

“Such a little slut who wants to be tied while I fuck her.”

“Yes, Mistress, I want to be tied while you fuck me, please!” you squealed

“A well-mannered slut, then.”

While sucking and licking your neck and your earlobe, she removed her skin tone stockings. Both of your hands were caught in her grasp and tied with one of her long socks. The other, she used it to fasten your wrists to the couch. You knew you could move, you could untie you. The stockings were elastic enough for you to go. But you didn’t want to. You wanted her to use you.

She directly spread your legs and put her head in between to kiss your thighs, making you shudder each time her lips met your skin. She gently nibbled it, and then her tongue drew a path to your cunt. She teased your folds with it, humming at the scent and taste of your arousal.

“You taste so good, pet”

You whined at the sound of her voice, and she chuckled.

“And you’re already so wet…”

She was right, she had barely touched you and you were already at the edge. She lapped your clit, and you whined at the sudden sensation. She smiled against your pussy, and you moaned at the waves of heat that went through your whole body. She grabbed your ass with her hands and teased your little bundle of nerves with her tongue. You let out sinful whines, much louder than you ever could imagine sounding. She hummed against your cunt and sucked your clit. You were squirming to try to feel as much pleasure as possible, to be in the best possible position. She tsked.

“Don’t move, pet.”

You immediately stopped, and she purred against your pussy,. Her tongue and lips tickled your clit again, and soon you knew you were about to come.

“M- Mistress I-”

“Wait, pet. I’ll tell you when you may come.”

She continued licking your clit, and you tried to hold. But it was almost hurting you, at this point.

“P- Please, ah, Mistress, please, let me…”

“Such a good girl, begging me like this… You may come, pet.”

And you came on your couch, Larissa’s head between your thighs. Your heart was hammering in your ears, and you slowly caught your breath. You began to move but she pinned you against the sofa.

“I’m not done with you, pet.”

You were still breathless, but your cunt didn’t care. It wanted Larissa again. You watched her unbutton her shirt.

“What’s that look for, pet?”

You closed your watering mouth.

“What look?”

“You look like you want to eat me up. Your turn will come, pet. But for now, let me take care of you.”

You stared at her chest, hidden by red _matching her lips_ and lace bras. She bent over you and placed her shirt on your face.

“Wha-”

“Relax, pet.”

She tied the sleeves behind your head. The texture of the fabric, the fabric you knew was on her skin just a moment before, was so soft on your cheeks. It now covered your eyes, you could only see a blue light passing through the blue shirt. You tried to guess where she was by watching the shadows passing on it. She was near, she was near your head, at the right of it. You felt her lips on your neck, once again. So she was right there.  The fact you didn’t know exactly where she was scared you a little but also aroused you. Her hands wandering on your chest, her tongue lingering on your neck made you more and more needy for her. But what turned you on the most, was imagining she could do anything with you. You could never know what part of your body she was kissing next. Was it your breasts? No, your stomach. Then maybe your neck again? No, your lips.

She kissed your whole body like this, specifically avoiding the aching part between your legs. Then her fingers brushed against your belly. You gasped as her fingertips awoke in you hundreds of butterflies by simply touching your skin. 

She parted your legs, by simply touching your ankles. She sat between them. One of her hands stayed on your ankle and passed under it. Now it slowly moved towards your calf and reached your popliteal fossa. She lifted it, high enough to place it on her shoulder. She lowered her hands lengthwise to your soft thigh and placed a kiss on your knee.

You sighed in pleasure as you understood she was going to fuck you again. Her fingertips teased your soaked folds, coating them with your arousal. She continued for a few seconds, and you whined. 

"What's wrong, pet?" she innocently said.

"Please…"

"Please what? Pet, I can't guess what you want."

"I need you… inside me… Mistress, please."

She entered two fingers deep inside your drenched cunt and you squealed. She removed them and sank them, again and again, the rhythm clouding your mind. You moaned, covering the wet noises her fingers produced going in and out of your pussy.

"M…More," you whined, "Mistress, please."

Your walls fluttered around her phalanxes, and she crooked them inside you. You were so sensitive, she was already driving you near the edge. Her fingers twirled inside you, knowing exactly where your most sensitive spot was. She most definitely had had dozens and dozens of partners, she knew how to please a woman, and the idea of being one of these women turned you even more on. Your whole body was shaking, and you were sure the neighbour could hear your screams.

"Mistress I-"

She continued tickling you.

"Yes, pet?"

"I'm gonna… Please, let-let me come"

"Alright, pet, come on my fingers."

Something snapped inside you. The heat reached your whole body, and you let it out, moaning her name.

Her fingers left the place to an aching void in your cunt, and you heard a sucking noise, and then she hummed in delight. She was licking your arousal on her hand.

"I-I wish you had a strap-on right now," you panted out.

"Do you?" she asked, "do you want me to take you with my cock?"

"Yes…" you whispered.

She took your hand and led it to the soft skin of her stomach, and she lowered it. You first felt her lace panties _when did she have removed her skirt? You didn't know_ and then a lump between her legs.

"I don't need any strap-on, pet," she growled.

You let out a little cry of surprise.

"Want me to take you?"

"Y-yes, please."

"Mmmh, good pet," she purred.

You heard the sound of fabric slipping on skin, she was removing her panties. Then, you felt something hard and hot on your thigh, making you shudder. But she didn’t touch you more than that. You saw a shadow passing over you. She most likely was leaning over you, but you didn’t know why. Suddenly, your hands could move. They were still tied together, true, but they weren’t attached to the couch anymore. She placed her hands on your back and lifted it until you were sitting. Then her hands reached your waist, and she led you on her laps. You were still blinded by her shirt, you couldn’t see anything, but you felt her _hard_ dick against your inner thighs, and that you were coating it with your arousal. Your teeth sank into your lower lip at the touch of it. Your legs, on either side of her waist, tried to clench together, and you placed your still tied hands behind her head, your arms on either side of her neck. She approached your head, and her nipples brushed against the underside of your breasts. You rut your clit against her tip, stimulating you.

“Stop that, pet, I’m in command here,” She whispered in your ear.

"I'm sorry mistress," you squealed.

She growled and bit your neck licking your skin, sucking it. Her hardness against your inner thigh was unbearable at this point. You could feel the heat against your slit, and you wanted nothing but to feel it inside your slit.

“Please, take me.”

“So needy.”

She firmly grabbed your ass with one of her hands, and with the other, helped her cock enter in you. You hummed in delight, tilting your head back, exposing your neck to her, neck she willingly kissed and sucked as if it was nothing but a candy. You undulated against her, feeling her filling you. Her second hand took your ass, and she helped you engage the movement of rocking your hips against her. 

“You feel so good around me, pet, so good…” she husked.

She buried her head in your breasts, her fingers dug into your hips. The slight pain you felt made you moan. She tightened her grip, and started pounding you on her laps. Your back arched even more _as if it was even possible_ making her hit the right spot each time.

“Fuck,” she moaned.

“Kiss me, aah, p-lease, k-kiss me,” you panted out.

She captured your lips with hers, they were wet. Your tongue brushed against hers, and you swallowed her moans as well as she swallowed your whines, that you released in the rhythm of your thighs clashing against her laps. Your arousal was dripping on her cock, that was filling every inch of you. The heat you felt in your lower belly seemed insatiable. You wanted it to go faster, so you accelerated the pounding, and she bit your lower lip.

“You like that, riding your husband’s sister’s dick, right?”

“Yes,” you almost cried, unashamed.

“I want to come inside you, pet”

Your legs were shaking. You wanted her to fill you with her cum, to make you hers. But it took a few seconds for your clouded mind to process things.

“Do it, please ”

She pressed you against her, your breasts crushed against her chest, her lips eating up your neck, she mumbled something you couldn’t understand, too busy moaning your own insanities and her name. She came inside you, and the feeling of her hot cum inside you brought you over the edge. You came too, a few seconds after her, crying.

You tried to catch your breath, and she kissed your shoulders.

“I-I can’t take it anymore,” you breathed out.

“Red?” she asked.

“Yes, red,” you replied.

She untied her shirt, and it fell before your eyes, revealing her head, her messy hair, her blown pupils. Your lips crashed on hers, and you removed your hands from the stockings that held them, breathing heavily.

“You did so good for me, darling,” she whispered against your lips, “now let’s clean you up.”

She helped you stand up, as your legs were weak.

“Do you want to… take a bath with me?” you asked.

“If you’re offering,” she kissed your nose. 

You took her hand and walked to the bathroom, in which you filled the bathtub with hot water and a bit of this lemon perfume you liked. She entered the water and you laid against her, your head on her shoulder, your body between her legs. Her arms wrapped your waist, and you closed your eyes. She was so soft… She gently kissed your hair.

“Sorry, I couldn’t… continue.” you said.

“You have been perfect,” she replied, “It’s okay, and what you did is already a lot. Moreover, we have all week…”

____________________________________

I KNOW I TOOK SOOOOOOO MUCH TIME!

tag list: @dejavucatcher @yourfavoriteweirdo19 @thoroughly--confused @bobia13 @enchantressb @friedryes @dvrkhcld @weemssapphic @mountain-bikingwitch @philip-15 @tallwomenslaytheday @milfomaniac @larissaweemsgf

I'm sorry if I forgot to mention you <3

[imperiuswrecked]

Hellfire Gala Quicksilver

I commissioned the wonderful @ecairnsart to create this gorgeous Hellfire Gala art for the lovely @esteicy-blog 💙 Pietro deserves to have beautiful fashion!

[ID: Pietro Maximoff stands facing the viewer while looking off to the left side in profile with a solemn expression on his face, he has brown skin, white hair, and wears earrings in his right ear. He wears black pants, futuristic running boots, a blue sash is tied around his waist with corded accessories, tucked into the sash is a white high collared shirt with geometric designs on the chest. Over the white shirt he wears a blue jacket with silver detailing, the fastenings on his chest resemble lightning blots, a sheer blue cape with starry sparkle detailing is draped over his left shoulder, crossing over his back and gathered in his right hand. /End ID]

Artist Comments: Pietro's outfit is influenced by Balkans & Roma Folk clothing to reflect his background. The embroidered jacket has a lightning bolt inspired motif to reference his classic costume. The Boots are a hybrid of traditional/fantasy boots and futuristic/modern running shoes. One other detail is that Pietro does not wear any metal parts in his outfit (buttons, chains, etc.); he's always had a rocky relationship with his dad so I think the idea of him wearing an outfit that doesn't include anything affected by Magneto's powers is a subtle but interesting detail.

[jensenackles-daily]

officialbrianab: Ti amo Roma! Feels so good to be back. Endlessly grateful to Daniela and everyone at @jusinbellocon who always host the most epic, loving, and slightly wobbly weekend 🥴🥃. Love my #jib family, And my beautiful #spnfamily ❤️❤️❤️ (x)

[doudouneverte]

Love your fics and would you do one for Laura feirsinger something fluffy. ( Only if you write for her)

a/n: i wanted to write something for Feiersinger for a while so I'm more than happy with that request

"Say it"

Pairing: Laura Feiersinger x AUSTRIAWNT!Reader

Summary: you just want to hear two words

Type: Fluff

Warning: nothing

word count: 1893

translation: Ich liebe dich/Je t'aime/Ti amo = I love you

-------

You and Laura knew each other from as far as you can remember. First, you played together at Bayern Munich before she left for Sand, and you left to play two seasons for Lyon before coming back to Munich. Your relationship had always been special; you were practically a couple even before she asked you out formally. But it was only a few months before her big move to Frankfurt that she found the courage to do it.

Since then, a lot of things have happened. You joined her in her new club and had to leave your commun best friend, Sarah Zadrazil, behind. And more importantly, you were officially engaged. But unfortunately, your fiancé signed a new contract with AS Roma in Italy, which meant you would spend almost the whole season missing her.

Fortunately for both of you, you were playing for the same national team, and with the new National League came a new national camp. And that was where you were today. The girls just arrived at the hotel when you were already looking for your fiancé. Since her transfer, there was something she never told you, and you needed to hear it now.

As expected by all your teammates, when you and Laura spotted each other, you didn't leave each other. It was not a secret to everyone how close you were, and some of them were used to making fun of it at first, but now it has become something usual.

"Where is Laura?" Barbara asked when she spotted a group of girls talking in Manu's room.

"With Y/n. Like always." The goalie replied.

"Why do I feel stupid to ask that?" The midfielder asked before walking to your room. She was about to knock, but she stopped when she heard something unusual.

"Oh, come on, babe, I know you can say it. It's been like, what? Six weeks since you started to train with them, I'm sure you can tell me now." You said while you were unpacking your stuff.

"We already talked about it, Y/n. I don't know if I'm ready for that." She replied.

"Bullshit." You said before throwing yourself on the bed and dragging the Roma's player with you. "We both know that I'll find it." You said before gently kissing her.

"Yeah, but let me time to prepare myself before." 

"Okay, no pressure." You engulfed your body in her tiny ones, sharing as much warmth as you could. "I missed you." You confessed.

"And I missed you too. Now come on, let's get ready, or the girls will start to worry." She instructed you.

"Okay, but just five more minutes." Even if she knew she had to complain, she couldn't when she saw you so vulnerable.

On the other side of the door, your Frankfurt teammate was already not here. The midfielder rushed to her previous destination a few seconds earlier.

"Girls, I think we have a problem." She said bursting the door open.

"Don't you know how to know on a door?" Sarah Puntigam said after everyone was thrilled by the midfielder's antics.

"Sorry, not sorry, but we have a bigger problem than a fucking door." Barbara said.

"Don't swear in front of the kids." Sarah Z said covering Katharina's ears what made everyone laugh.

"Sorry, but yeah, I was saying that I think Laura and Y/n are breaking up." The new froze everyone and everything in the room for a few seconds.

"WHAT?" All the players yelled.

"Shh, keep it low." Barbara instructed them.

"How do you want us to keep it low when you announce something like that?" Sarah P said, gaining a nod from all her teammates. "And how did you get that information?"

"I may have or haven't heard their conversation when I was going to 

see Laura." She explained.

"WHAT?" Everyone yelled again.

"You know how much Y/n hate when someone tries to invade her privacy, and it's even worse when it involves her and Laura." Manu reminded her.

"I know, but it's not like I wanted to listen on purpose. I will apologize later. Now can we talk about the main subject?" 

"Oh, what are you talking about? I want to be in." You said, appearing behind your teammate. The room froze for a moment. You felt all eyes on you and started to feel a little confused. "Uh, are we interrupting something?" You asked.

"Nothing; we were just wondering where you were, right, girls?" Sarah P said trying to convince you and your fiancé. When you heard all the girls agreeing, you found it suspicious, but you were not going to question it, at least not now.

"Anyway, coach wants us in the meeting room in five minutes." Laura said, and after that, you both left to the room mentioned.

"I don't know about you, but they didn't seem to be near to break up for me." Kat said.

"I totally agree with you, but maybe they don't want to make us worry." Barbara proposed.

"Maybe, but right now the coach wants to see us, so let's go." Sarah Z said before leaving the room, quickly followed by the rest of the team.

In the room, the girls were a little shocked to see an empty seat between yours and Laura's. Even if they didn't question it, some glances were not discreet, and some whispers could be heard. The Bayern midfielder took her seat between the two of you while Barbara could finally talk with your fiancé.

At the end of the meeting, you were one of the first to leave the room. But you were quickly stopped by your ex-teammate.

"Hey, are you okay?" Sarah asked you.

"Uhh...yeah." You replied.

"Where are you going?" 

You paused a little. "Restroom."

"Oh, okay, sorry. I'll not restrain you more." She said a little nervous, making you chuckle.

"Yep, I'll be back soon; don't worry." With that, you just walked away.

What should have been a little weird thing for your teammates became something more when the next day Laura decided to train with her best friend letting you with Kathy. You both didn't notice, but a lot of confused looks were exchanged between the entire team.

At the end of the training the Roma's player was leaving with her best friend when she heard you calling her name. She quickly glanced at you before quickly running away from you, forcing you to chase her.

"Okay, that's weird." Sarah P started.

"The most weird thing was that they were both smiling." Manu continued.

"Maybe Barbara was right." Viktoria finished.

"No, that's impossible. We all know how much they love each other; they can't just break up and keep the facade in front of us. We need to start an investigation." Sarah Z proposed, and everybody agreed.

A few hours later, you were watching a movie with all the team in your room. There was a good atmosphere, and everybody was enjoying the moment until your phone buzzed. You excused yourself and left the room to answer. In less than five minutes, you were back in the room and found your spot next to the tiny midfielder.

"Who was that?" Laura asked you quietly to not bother everyone.

"Oh, it was just Laura who wanted my advice for something." You replied, and your fiancé just nodded before she placed her head against your shoulder.

The next morning, the girls were planning a real plan to do everything they could to not let their favorite couple break apart when they heard someone run to them.

"Girls, please help me." Laura begged with an amused expression. The team didn't have time to process everything until you reached them.

"Okay, you know what? Let's do that in another way." You took a moment to think before you started again. "Okay, in English." 

The entire team was looking at both of you very confusedly.

"Okay. 3...2...1... I love you!" You both said at the same time. The girls were more confused, but you didn't give them time to question anything before you started again. "Now, in Deutsch. 3...2...1... Ich liebe dich." You said again at the same time.

"What's happening here?" Barbara asked.

"Just a minute. Let me finish that." You return your focus to the tiny midfielder. "Now... Je t'aime." You saw her blush, which made you grin. "And?" There was a little silence; all the attention was now on Laura.

"Ti amo." She mumbled, but your face showed her that you didn't understand. She took a breath and focused her gaze on yours: "Ti. Amo. Is this okay now?" 

Instead of replying, you hugged her and crashed your lips against hers. "More than okay." You said with the biggest smile you could ever put on your face right now.

"Okay, what's happening now? I thought you were about to break up. Why are you so lovey-dovey right now?" Manu asked.

"What are you talking about?" You asked, very surprised by her sentence.

"I heard you two talk the first day of the camp, and I thought that you were about to break up because she didn't want to do something or something like that." Barbara confessed.

"First, Barbara, you know that Y/n doesn't when you spy on her. Second, we never thought about breaking up; why could you ever think about it?" Laura explained.

"Wow, now we look stupid." Viktoria said.

"For your information, you always look stupid, like all of you." You said, making your fiancé laugh. "Except for Laura and Sarah Z, of course." You added.

"Okay, that's rude." Your captain said, "But can you explain what just happened?" Laura hid her face in your torso out of shame after remembering why you were both here.

"Oh, it's actually a funny story." You started. "You know that we have known each other since as far as I can remember. But we didn't always play together, so since I came back to Germany after my little trip to France, we decided to establish a rule in our relationship. Every time one of us has to play in another country, they have to learn the local language to say, I love you in this language." You explained.

"Why does that sound cute and dumb at the same time?" Viktoria whispered to your captain.

"Because it is, but she was the one who proposed that, and I can't refuse her anything, so here we are now." Laura defended you.

"But what does this have to do with your behavior from the start of the camp?" The Bayern Sarah asked.

"That's because she didn't want to say it. So I had to chase her everywhere to convince her to say it." You explained.

"I can't wait for the wedding. I would be personally offended if Y/n don't do something dumb like this on  D-day. Manu said. 

When the girls started to ask more questions, the coach called you for training. On your way to the pitch, you had your fingers intertwined with Laura's when she suddenly stopped making you look at her.

Fortunately for you, you didn't have to say anything because she didn't give you time to react before she kissed you. "Ti amo." She said before letting your hand go and running on the pitch.

"Wait, can we get married like today?" You asked while you ran after her.

[palmiz]

La più completa ed esaustiva risposta che ho letto in questo valzer di sapienze da tastiera:

Vanni Frajese, medico endocrinologo e professore presso l'Università "Forop Italico" di Roma:

"Intanto, l'"intersessuale" NON esiste:

è un termine giornalistico/culturale, ma a livello biologico è un termine che non viene accettato, perché non rappresenta niente.

Nella scienza c'è bisogno delle definizioni per definire le cose esattamente come sono.

Per poter dire se una persona sia un maschio o una femmina, c'è bisogno di oggettività. In tempo passato, bastava il fenotipo, cioè io ti guardo e so direttamente se sei un maschio o una femmina. Dopodiché, abbiamo scoperto che l'uomo ha i cromosomi XY, mentre la femmina XX, che poi mi dà le caratteristiche sessuali secondarie. Però, il sesso genetico/biologico, in alcuni rari casi non si trasforma nel sesso appropriato.

In particolare, questo riguarda fondamentalmente i maschi. Il testosterone normalmente viene prodotto e agisce quando hai il cariotipo XY, dando un fenotipo maschile (testicoli, peli, massa muscolare...). L'unica condizione, in cui si può avere una persona fenotipicamente femminile ma con i cromosomi XY, è quando si ha la resistenza completa agli androgeni: questo è l'unico caso (rarissimo), in cui c'è qualcuno a cui alla nascita gli viene attribuito il sesso femminile (perché l'aspetto fenotipico è della donna), ma in realtà cromosomicamente è un maschio. Quindi, una persona con questa problematica non andrebbe mai a fare boxe, perché l'androgeno "non gli funziona" e quindi ti stai confrontando con chi ha un vantaggio biologico rispetto a te.

Visto che ormai, all'interno dello sport e della medicina, è entrata l'ideologia che dice che non esiste il maschio o la femmina, ma facciamo tutti parte di un ampio spettro, bisognerà che il CIO, piuttosto che prendere quello che c'è scritto sul passaporto, in casi "sospetti" faccia un protocollo che permetta di certificare 3 cose:

1) Il componente cromosomico;

2) Il componente endocrino (quanto testosterone hai);

3) Il componente fisico.

Ad esempio, se una persona ha i livelli di testosterone alti ma non tantissimo (perché si abbassano anche farmacologicamente), ma XY e ha (o ha avuto) gli organi sessuali maschili, comunque BIOLOGICAMENTE è un maschio. Se poi la società (in genere quella occidentale) lo vuole qualificare come qualcosa di differente (perché lui ci si sente), non è un problema (sono liberi di farlo!), ma BIOLOGICAMENTE rimane un maschio: un maschio biologico può fare quello che vuole nella vita, ma NON DEVE COMPETERE con una femmina biologica, perché ha un vantaggio.

Se queste prove che certificano il sesso biologico degli atleti non vengono effettuate, un domani qualunque persona può decidere di registrarsi come donna, fare o non fare l'operazione (perché tanto sono fatti suoi e non lo verremo a sapere) e andare a competere con le donne, ma questo NON deve accadere, perché altrimenti l'idea stessa dello sport verrà distrutta.

Lasciate perdere gli attuali protagonisti, perché è inutile puntare il dito sulla singola persona, é l'idea che è molto più interessante. Nel caso di Imane Khelif, entriamo nel campo delle opinioni (non delle certezze): da quello che ho capito io, la genetica XY, i livelli di testosterone alti e quella struttura fisica, per me è un MASCHIO".

[scarlet--wiccan]

Obviously it’s not wrong to think MCU Wanda is worse than the cartoons, but it reminded me how grateful I was that the MCU made her an Avenger who falls for Vision & finds out she was a real witch, after years of cartoons reducing her to Magneto’s daughter (and leaving her out of Avengers: EMH). It’s the most comic accurate version (which doesn’t mean much; her Romani heritage was a minor aspect of past comics but that can’t “prove” the MCU was right to ignore it, though Elizabeth Olsen was right to turn down the Romani Halloween costume in WandaVision and wear the classic outfit which predates that retcon l).

Please know that I am so, so serious when I say this, but you would have to be either illiterate or lying to think that the M C U adaptation of Wanda, Pietro, or Vision are in any way faithful to the source material.

Nothing about their origins, their trajectories, or their roles as Avengers resemble the comics they're allegedly based on, at least not the Earth-616 continuity. Wanda, in my mind, is the most egregious example! The movies are wildly off-base with how they depict her powers, the Darkhold, her relationship with Agatha and her identity as a witch-- even the nature and history of witchcraft itself-- and I think that, in many ways, Wanda//Vision and MoM are actually more cruel to Wanda and broach some of the most sensitive topics surrounding her character in incredibly poor faith.

Also, if you think that Wanda's Romani identity and background are a "minor" part of her character, I'm sorry, you are being ignorant and lowkey racist. No, it doesn't get brought up every time she's on page, but her entire origin story is predicated on the fact that she grew up in an extremely vulnerable, marginalized community where she experienced racial violence and discrimination. Her birth parents being Jewish and Roma Holocaust survivors is vital representation of a part of history that is often distorted or erased. And the thing that a lot of people seem to miss about Wanda is that, whether the writers intended it or not, her Romani identity is reflected in everything she embodies and experiences, and it is intellectually irresponsible to not recognize that. Her ties to witchcraft, experiences with immigration and assimilation, traumatic experiences with motherhood, and proximity to metaphorical minorities (mutants) and her role in stories about metaphorical genocide have to be interpreted and criticized within the racial context that this character occupies.

Don't message me again.

[stargirlrchive]

valentine’s day ✩ jake sully

masterlist ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

summary: jake sully x reader but no use of y/n, fluffy cute, jake being the cutest most best bf, smut, oral male!receiving, sub!jake? but not really he's just being sexy fr

word count: 1,520

tìyawn (n) - love ; yawne (n) - beloved ; sevin (n) - pretty

comments:  i loved writing this, like i finished it in 30 mins, she was soooo fun to write, minors dni, hope you enjoy bbys mwaaaah bye!⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚

Jake had been picking flowers all morning long, his fingers were sore as he had gathered hundreds at this point. Sweat gently trickled down his forehead at the humidity of the forest but it didn’t matter. It would all be worth it when he was rewarded with your smile. It was still dark when he left your shared tent and now the sun was high in the sky. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed but he knew you’d be wondering where he was.

With the flowers sprawled out before him he began picking out the most lively and colorful ones, arranging them as nice as possible.

He spent an embarrassingly long time arranging and rearranging the bouquet until it was to his liking. Full of flowers and plants, some that glowed, some that didn’t. He tied it together with a thick scrap of fabric and then at the roots wrapped around a necklace he had made just for you. It was made of beads, stones, even some crystals he had found. He sighed happily, proud of his hard work.

He made his way back to High Camp, refraining from picking at the flowers again. He wanted it to be perfect for you. But before he knew it he was back, sending his greetings to the Na’vi’s he passed. They all appeared curious at what he held in his hands but all he did was send them a small smile. Nerves bubbled in his chest the closer he got to your tent.

He knew the Omitikaya did not celebrate Valentine’s day, and back on earth he dreaded the holiday. He never thought he’d have happy memories associated with this day, but here he was. Tail swishing in excitement, cheeks burning profusely, heart beating so loudly he heard it in his ears. And it was all because of you.

He hid the bouquet behind his back as he walked into the tent, “Yawne.”

You instantly turned to him, smiling happily at him, “Ma’Jake!” You were in front of him the next instant, hands wrapping around his back to pull him in, “I missed you this morning.”

There was a small pout on your lips and Jake’s tail swished happily, pressing a quick kiss to your lips. He almost purred at the feeling. “I missed you too, baby.”

You pressed another kiss to his jaw and pulled away from him lightly, “Are you okay? It is not like you to leave me without saying goodbye.”

“Everything alright, sevin. I was just busy getting something ready for you.”

Your tail swished in excitement, “For me?”

“Mhm.”

He pulled away from you and brought his hands forward, the prettiest flowers you had ever seen all wrapped together. A small gasp left your lips as you reached for them, your cheeks burned a dark hue as you smiled up at him. “They are so beautiful, yawntu.”

After you admired them for a few seconds you looked up at him once more, “What are they for?”

Jake’s ears twitched slightly, he felt slightly embarrassed under your stare. “It is Valentine's day.”

Your brows furrowed gently, your accent thick with confusion, “Valentines day?”

“Yes, it is a sky people holiday. It was a day to celebrate friendship and love. A lot of the time we give gifts as a sign of our appreciation.”

Your tail thumped harshly behind you, and you whined quietly “You should have told me, Ma’Jake. I would have given you a gift too.”

Jake shook his head no, “You do so much for me already, nothing else is needed.”

Your tail wrapped around your own leg, it was a habit of yours that Jake adored. Anytime you’d grow shy around him it happened. He hummed happily as his hands fell to your hips, pulling you in gently.

“You going shy on me again?”

Your cheeks burned profusely, leaning up to press a kiss against his check. “You are so romantic, how can I not?”

He laughed quietly, chest rumbling against your own as he held you tightly, “There’s something else.”

Your fingers trailed against his chest, rubbing shapes against his skin, “Jake, the flowers are more than enough.”

He ignored you and pulled the bouquet from your hand, gently slipping off what appeared to be a necklace. “I made it for you. It’s kind of wonky, I don’t really know how to make jewelry.”

You beamed up at him, “I love it! I am never taking it off.”

You turned around, moving your hair to the side to let him place it on you. His fingers were gentle, barely grazing your skin and it caused a slight shiver to run down your back. Once Jake had securely clasped the necklace around your neck he placed a kiss to the back of your shoulder, loving how the necklace sat on your form. “So pretty.”

You hummed at the compliment, your fangs digging into the bottom of your lip as an idea swirled in your mind. You placed the flowers down and turned back to Jake, and he instantly noticed the hazy look in your eyes. Your cheeks were flushed as you ran your hands down his back.

His tail began to swish behind him, a warm sensation pooling at the bottom of his stomach, “Sit.”

Your demand caused his eyes to dilate a bit, “Baby, I’m not expecting anything from you. Just wanted to treat you special.”

“And now I want to treat you special.”

You were practically purring your words, it caused him to twitch beneath his loincloth. And really, who was he to deny you of what you wished?

He felt your tail gently wrap around his leg and he nearly groaned out, ears pinning back slightly at the sensation. You were guiding him back gently, legs hitting against one of the benches the two of you had in your home. Your hands fell to his loincloth, gently toying with the fabric, “ Take it off, Ma’Jake.”

He nodded dumbly, making haste to slip the garment off, he was already so hard as he sat down. You kneeled before him, gripping lately around his thigh as you began to feather kisses around his lower stomach. You lowered yourself slightly and gripped the base of his cock, tongue swirling around the tip before you sucked lightly. A quiet hiss left his throat as you continued the motion, from small swipes of your tongue to gentle suckling motions. His fingers balled into fist as you quickly took him into your mouth, swallowing around him roughly. His head fell back, moans leaving his open mouth as you swirled your tongue around. When you pulled back your eyes were watery, desire pooling between your legs as you watched Jake slowly lose his composure.

Your hand barely wrapped around the base of his cock, using your spit to tug on the skin up and down, twisting your hand at the tip just like he liked. A tiny smile littered your features as his hip bucked lightly. “Baby, need your mouth.”

Another moan ripped from his mouth as you tightened your grip on the length of his dick. Your lips wrapped around the mushroomy tip, moaning quietly as the small beads of pre-come hit your tongue. Jake’s hands threaded themselves through your hair and pulled you down deeper, the unexpected thrust caused you to gag lightly against him and he felt the vibrations everywhere. His balls tensed as he tried not to come down your throat that very instant. “Fuck!”

Your throat relaxed, jaw going slack as you let him use you for his release. Jake set a brutal pace, keeping your head in place as he thrusted his hips, trying to chase his own orgasm. “You look so pretty, baby.”

You hummed lightly, swallowing around him as he whimpered out. You pulled away from him to take a deep breath, hands tugging up and down on his cock and you tried not to laugh. He looked so desperate and flushed, all by your doing. It caused a surge of confidence to run through you to see him so needy. “So needy.”

He laughed deeply, a moan ripping from his throat as you gently sucked on the tip. “Your mouth is too good, baby. Fuck-like it was made just for me.”

“Mhm, just for you Ma’Jake.”

Your lips wrapped around the head and sucked softly, swirling your tongue around once more and Jake hips stuttered roughly, moaning loudly. He felt his orgasm coming, hips trying to pull away from your mouth. “Gonna come, Yawne. Let me pull out.”

It’s as if he told you the opposite, sucking harder and with more dedication. Your head shook, “Want it in my mouth.”

Jake’s eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head, that was new. With a final swipe of your tongue Jake came, hard. Painting your mouth with his release as he tugged on your hair gently. Whining your name over and over.

You pulled away and swallowed, enjoying the taste. His breathing was labored, deep and rough as you stood up. “Was that a good Valentine’s day gift?”

[danlous]

Armand and the Romani

I’ve mentioned many times now that I think it would be really interesting and fitting if Armand in the show was Romani and that’s my personal interpretation of his character until proven otherwise. I don’t think it’s necessarily very likely going to be canon, especially when writers rarely remember Romani people exist, but like I’ve said this is like the only show in the world I think could be smart enough to understand how deeply the history of race and racism in Europe (which we know they’re going to address) is intertwined with the history of the Roma people, so you never know. I’ve seen an interesting theory that Armand could be a Tatar and I think that’s the most likely route they’re going to go, but I think him being Roma or some other ethnicity is still a possibility. Furthermore, because of the Roma people’s unique history he could actually be both Tatar and Roma at the same time, especially if he’s from Ukraine like in the books (more on this later). I wanted to elaborate on why Armand’s character and IWTV in general resonate with me so strongly, why I think Armand being Roma could bring a lot to the show and fit thematically, and how if Armand had a Roma background it would influence the way he acts.

Just as a foreword this post is long as HELL as I’ll be talking about Roma people with an assumption that most readers don’t know much about them, and it involves heavy generalization by necessity. I want to emphasize that Roma people are a very heterogeneous group that have very diverse experiences and practices depending on where they live, my experiences don’t apply to all Roma, and I’m not speaking for all Roma. I don’t know much about the Roma in France or Ukraine (which would be relevant for this conversation) other than what google can tell me and I don’t really trust it because much of the information you find on the internet is written by non-Roma people. So when I say something is a part of Roma culture, I mean really that it’s in my subjective experience a part of the traditional Roma culture in my country. The customs may vary a lot even between families in a same region, and the modern Roma and those with mixed ancestry (like me) don’t always follow traditions. I feel I need to stress this because there are a lot of (often negative) misconceptions of the Romani and I don’t want to further contribute to them or just replace them with different misconceptions. Content warning for discussion on sexual and racial violence and the Holocaust.

*

The history of the Roma people

The Romani (also called Roma, Rom and other variations) are a traditionally nomadic ethnic group originating from the northern India. The Roma are often confused with other itinerant people like Irish Travellers and the Yenish but are a separate group. Note also that the word ‘gypsy’ is considered pejorative and most Roma people dislike being called that, and the Roma have nothing to do with the country of Romania, the names are etymologically unrelated. The Roma people are divided in many different subgroups, and many facets of the Roma culture are easier to understand if you know that it was originally a clan culture like many nomadic cultures.

The Romani diaspora has spread to everywhere in the world (the biggest Roma populations are in U.S and Brazil) but is the most concentrated in Europe where they came through Persia in the Middle Ages, with most European countries today having a Roma minority of 0,5%-8%. The Roma population is estimated to be 10-15 million, but nobody knows for sure because many Roma aren’t included in censuses, many Roma people choose not to disclose their ethnicity due to discrimination, and some people who have Roma parentage don’t identify as Roma. The Roma identity is strongly tied to the community. A person who’s adopted or marries into a Roma family may in some cases be considered Roma regardless of their ethnic background, and an ethnically Roma person who doesn’t have connection to the Roma community and doesn't follow traditions might not be considered a real Roma (in practice the latter situation is much more common than the first one). This is relevant when talking about someone like Armand who if we follow the books was taken from his family when he was young and adopted by a white man. Regardless, the Roma are Europe’s largest ethnic minority. I don’t think statistics really matter in a fantasy horror show but it would be the most likely scenario for someone with Armand’s appearance who was born in the 1500s Europe to be Romani.

I assume the show Armand’s character and story may be largely similar to the books based on what we’ve seen, him just having been older when he was turned into a vampire, though it's unclear is he still from Ukraine. In the episode 2 we see him refer to his prayer in a language that Daniel thinks is ‘Kazakh, or 'somewhere in the Crimea’. Wikipedia suggest that it’s actually Uzbek, though we don't know does it mean Armand is definitely from Uzbekistan. Regardless, him using this language without even thinking when talking about his praying makes me think it may be his mother tongue, and we’re probably meant to think that he’s from the Eastern Europe/Central Asia region. I’m personally suspecting he could still be from the Ukraine region like in the books considering they had Daniel think of Crimea. Him using the name Armand Marius in France which is essentially a patronym also makes me think that he could be from a Slavic country. If he was Roma or from other nomadic tribe he could’ve also easily spent time in several countries. Although there is Romani language that is related to Sanskrit, most Roma speak as their native language whatever is the majority language where they live. Many Roma speak multiple languages, especially if they’re nomadic. From what we’ve seen of Armand speaking, Assad does a great job at making his accent vaguely sound like many different accents but not quite like any of them.

One of the ways the Roma are a unique group is that they’re one of the very few ethnicities in the whole world that don’t associate themselves with any country or place. Typically, even other nomadic peoples have some distant homeland or place they see themselves as connected to. The Roma don’t feel connection to any specific country or place; they have no homeland and they don’t want one either. Although in people’s perceptions the Roma are practically synonymous with free-spirited wanderers, most Roma in the modern time are sedentary, and historically when the Roma people have wandered it has often been because of persecution or trying to make a living, not by choice. Freedom and independence are important values for the Roma people, but more in the sense of being allowed to be themselves and live how they want, not necessarily physical roaming. It’s much more common for Roma people to dream of stability and having a home and secure job than of being able to wander.

Many of the perceived modern problems among the Roma can be traced to the change of work and industry from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. The industrialization and urbanization made most traditional Roma professions such as blacksmiths, craftsmen, horse traders, animal trainers and travelling salesmen and entertainers obsolete. Even though there was always prejudice against the Roma they also used to be respected for their expertise on those areas and there was positive interaction with the majority population too. Then suddenly they lost the chance to practice their old professions but lacked societal and monetary capital to learn new ones, which led to mass unemployment and poverty that still exists today. This not fitting in the modern society is a common Roma experience. In the books I feel this is reflected when the vampire characters seek ways to connect with the modern world and humanity. Armand sees Louis as such possibility, but as he in the end tells him ‘You are as cold and distant from me as those strange modern paintings of lines and hard forms that I cannot love or comprehend.’

The Roma people are defined by the dichotomy of being perpetual outsiders who never fully integrate anywhere, and on the other hand being chameleons who adapt anywhere. They often adopt the customs, language and religion of the majority population, while maintaining their own. The Roma have likely been in Europe for at least thousand years, and the earliest records of them are even older. Despite this the Roma have arguably never been fully a part of any wider society or fully accepted. It can be talked about the Roma society rather than just the Roma culture, because the Roma people often form almost a separate parallel society wherever they live. It’s common that the people from the main population don’t have any Roma friends while the Roma people don’t have any friends in the majority population, and the Roma may have little interaction and connection with the wider society. The Roma have been ostracized, but because of this long ostracization the Roma also don’t trust in the society around them and may try to limit their interactions with the majority population. As a Roma you can feel like you live behind a veil that separates you from the rest of the world and you can’t really touch and see each other. Many Roma experience the sense of profound loneliness and of rootlessness, a feeling like you don’t have the past or the future and nothing really matters. Everything above makes Rice’s melancholic, drifting, existential vampires very relatable to me.

The Roma people have been and still are associated with crime, dishonesty, uncleanness and supernatural. The Roma have often been accused of witchcraft, satanism and stealing children. Depending on the time and place people have tried to either banish or forcibly assimilate the Roma. In many countries it was legal to kill a Roma person without impunity. Historically The Roma have often been slaves or otherwise forced into labor or prevented from moving freely. For example, in Romania the Roma were kept in chattel slavery for centuries over 500 years until 1860. The first Roma in America arrived there as slaves too. Interesting in the context of the show, Spain sent Roma slaves to their Louisiana colony and at least according to Wikipedia there is an Afro-Romani community in St. Martin Parish due to intermarriage of African American and Romani slaves (I would’ve been interested to read more about this but couldn’t find much online sources). In the books Armand was abducted by the Tatars to be sold as a slave. Nowadays the term Tatar is used for different Turkic ethnic groups, but historically it was used to refer to anyone who came from the Northern or Central Asia (Tartary). The Roma people were also commonly known as Tartare/Tattare, as they came from the East too. Coincidentally some Roma are thought to have arrived in Europe as slaves of the Tatars or the Mongols. At the same time the Crimean Roma and the Crimean Tatars have a very close and unique history to the point that the Crimean Roma are commonly considered a subgroup of the Crimean Tatars. So it would actually be possible that Armand is both Tatar and Roma, especially if he comes from that region!

2. The Romani culture and relations with other people

The Roma people are often highly fetishized and oversexualized, and viewed as promiscuous and manipulatively seductive, which can also be seen in how Roma characters are depicted in popular culture. Roma people continue to be victims of sexual assault and trafficking at very high rates. Roma women are often assumed to be prostitutes or sexually available. When you see news about human trafficking in the Eastern Europe, both labor and prostitution, the victims are often Roma even though it's rarely mentioned. Many consensual sex workers are also Roma, but most of them likely wouldn’t be sex workers without poverty and if they had other opportunities. Roma children experience sexual abuse much more frequently than children of the majority population, and they're often viewed as more mature and manipulative than they are. This all reminds me of how in the books Armand was sexualized by nearly every person he comes across even when he was a child or teen. Taking Roma children from their families to exploit them or to assimilate and ‘take the gypsy out of them’ in one way or another has always been common, nowadays this often happens in the guise of child protection. Here in Finland even 50% of the Romani children in 1950-1980 were placed in state care institutions, and this continues to happen in many countries. The less fantastical version of what Armand went through with being abducted and sold and exploited by everyone including his ‘savior’ who tried to sanctimoniously civilize him is what has happened to countless Roma children over the centuries.

The traditional Roma cultural practices can be considered (when heavily oversimplifying) to be built on three pillars that are connected to each other: respecting elders, concepts of purity and impurity, and honor and shame. Most cultures probably consider respecting old people important but in the Roma culture this is deeper and more extensive than usual. Older people are treated and spoken to with very high respect, people often address even their own parents with the formal ‘you’. Being older is on itself seen as a sign of authority and younger people must always listen to their elders. This respect shows up in everywhere in daily life in both practical and symbolic ways, older people take the food first, if the house has more than one floor the younger people don’t live in the rooms above older people, shaking hands with or sitting next to an older person may be considered inappropriate because they imply an equalitarian relationship etc. It’s very difficult for a young Roma person to say no to an older person or express anger or anything that could be seen as disrespectful. The Roma culture has anarchistic qualities because the Roma don’t necessarily acknowledge the state’s authority, and intracommunity hierarchies are quite fluid and decentralized, but the older people’s higher status over the young ones is seen as obvious and natural.

Cleanness is another aspect that is very central to the Roma culture, in both literal and symbolic sense (ironically, since the Roma are often seen as dirty). The Roma don’t expect non-Roma to follow or even be aware of their complex system around it (mentioning this because I know some people fear that they accidentally offend Roma if they do something wrong lol). The Roma consider the body above the waist ‘pure’ and below it ‘impure’, and things that touch them are kept separate, and all objects are categorized according to their perceived cleanness. For example, when you come from the grocery store the shopping bag can’t be put on the floor or chair, you can’t sit or lean on the table, hats and shirts are not put on chairs, if a kitchen utensil falls on the floor it may be thrown away instead of washed because it’s now considered unclean etc. Kitchen is the purest place and is kept as clean as humanly possible. The clothes of men and women and people of different age groups are washed separately. When a Roma person grows old they become ‘pure’, and people are particularly considerate not to tarnish them, for example a younger person can’t sit on an older person’s bed and if they sleep in the same room their feet can’t pointed at the older person’s direction. In some circumstances an impure person may be temporarily or permanently banished from the community. The importance of cleanness in the Roma culture goes back to preventing illness in the traditional nomadic lifestyle, and it’s speculated possibly to even further in history in India where the Roma people’s ancestors’, the lowest caste Dalits, responsibility may have been to handle corpses and other unsanitary jobs.

Contrary to the stereotype the Roma are usually highly modest and anything ‘below the navel’ stuff (sex, pregnancy, periods, bodily functions) is rarely discussed. The Roma men and women don’t talk about them at all with each other if they aren’t a couple, and parents don’t usually talk about sex or dating with their children. Casual sex is disapproved. Oral and anal sex are considered unclean. Although Roma people often marry very young (sometimes underage) it’s usually with people of the same age group, people of distinctly different generations having romantic or sexual relations or even talking about sex with each other is a taboo. For example, if there’s something sexual on television the younger people may leave out of respect if there are older people in the room. A pregnant woman may hide it even from her own parents. Much of the Roma customs focus on ‘keeping face’ and maintaining respectful relations with the other Roma and their surroundings and avoiding anything that would bring shame, and this shame can touch the whole family.

Now if we come back to Armand, if he’s a Roma that adds a new aspect to his trauma, especially pertaining to sexual abuse and his relationship with Marius. Sexual abuse and grooming like that are hard to for any child to process, and especially difficult and confusing it would be for a Roma child, when in the Roma culture older and younger people even talking about sex is seen as offensive and older people’s wisdom and authority are seen as absolute. When in the Roma culture sex itself is taboo and wrong kind of sexual activity can make you ritually unclean it would further worsen the trauma that started from his kidnapping and cause immense shame. Since the old people are considered purer than young people a Roma child might also feel like they’re soiling the sexual abuser and blame themself. Death and touching dead bodies is considered unclean as well; a vampire would always be ritually impure. The way Armand is exposed to sex in Venice is pretty much the polar opposite of how sex is treated in the Roma culture. In the books we see Armand struggle with his complicated feelings about Marius and how he resents him but can’t still stop loving him and seeking his approval, or often can’t even express his negative feelings openly. I think it sounds familiar how many Roma people want independence but still feel obligated to respect their elders even if doesn’t always feel right.

I think this respect for elders also shows in how Armand treats Daniel in the show. He’s quite polite towards him and very considerate in trying to make sure he’s comfortable. Although Armand is in his servant disguise for most of the season 1, he notably keeps talking to Daniel in a pretty similar way after he drops his disguise. This maintaining the appearance of respect even when you’re angry at the older person is typical for Roma people. Armand is chronologically much older than Daniel, but Daniel is still physically an elderly person which is seen as automatically deserving high respect in the Roma culture. Armand and Daniel possibly having some sort of romantic relationship in the past complicates their dynamic.

3. The Romani from the WWII to now

It's hard to convey how extreme the prejudice and hate towards the Roma people is still in the 2020s Europe. Majority of people have highly negative views on the Roma. In the polls most respondents say they don’t want to work with or employ Roma people and wouldn’t want their child to date anyone who’s Roma. Majority of the Roma live below the poverty line, often in segregated slums around cities or villages in countryside, many of them without electricity or running water or access to other basic services like healthcare. Depending on a country the life expectancy for Roma people is 7-20 years smaller than for the majority population. Housing for Roma people has been a big problem for a long time, with many Roma being homeless or living in subpar settlements that the officials often destroy and force Roma to move. Nobody wants to rent or sell to Roma people or be their neighbor, so the Roma population often segregated from the majority population. Illiteracy is still common. Many Roma children don’t go to school; if they do, they’re often put in special classes or special schools where they’re separated from other children and receive substandard education. If they receive proper education they can’t get a job because nobody will hire Roma people. Many companies and places refuse to let Roma people enter. Hate crimes and police violence are common. As a Roma you can feel like you’re leprous, nobody will talk to you or come close to you.

Typical for anti-Romani racism is that people don’t see it as real racism and consider it justified and something that Roma people deserve. There also isn’t much difference how left-wing and right-wing people view Roma. Racism against Roma people is widely accepted and normalized regardless of political affiliation. In Europe the Roma are singled out and many people who aren’t (at least on conscious level) racist towards other ethnicities still despise Roma people. A case that has stuck with me and I feel embodies how the Roma are dehumanized is from Naples, Italy in 2008 where the beachgoers continued their day sunbathing and picnicking near the bodies of two drowned Roma girls. Though anti-Roma racism exists everywhere, it’s where the European hypocrisy is its most obvious. The Europeans often talk about the history of racial segregation, slavery and ethnic cleansing in other places like it’s something distant and absurd to us, when systematic segregation continues to be everyday to Roma people here in the present day.

The position of the Roma people is unique because much of the discourse around racism in Europe is focused on immigration and assumptions that people of color always come from 'somewhere else', but the Roma’s ancestors have often been here as long as the white Europeans’ ancestors. Racism against the Roma people predates the modern concepts of race, scientific racism and the modern imperialism and colonialism. The Roma are a large group that certainly hasn’t been living in an isolated bubble separate from the rest of the world and they’ve had a significant influence on the Europe’s culture, but they and their suffering are often invisible and many people are completely ignorant of it. The Roma have oral tradition and there are few Roma politicians, journalists or scholars so they lack platform to make their issues known. The Roma have become a sort of permanent underclass in Europe.

We know that the s2 takes place in the 40s in the immediate aftermath of the WWII and deals with it in some capacity. The hatred towards the Roma people can be seen as having culminated during the WWII when anywhere from 250,000 to 2 million, or 25% to 80% of the European Roma were killed during the Holocaust. The figures vary so much because the Romani genocide is severely understudied, we don’t know how large the Roma population was, and there weren’t as meticulous records of the Roma victims as there was of the Jewish victims. The Romani genocide (sometimes called Porajmos) has often been treated as an afterthought but for the Roma people it was absolutely devastating. The Roma were classified as racially inferior and were killed in concentration camps and in shootings by mobile killing squads. Roma people were often sterilized and used for medical experiments. In some countries like Croatia and the Netherlands practically the entire Roma population was destroyed.

After the war there was little sympathy for the Roma. Many Roma became stateless refugees, and Germany didn’t acknowledge what happened to the Roma as genocide until decades later, which prevented the survivors from seeking restitution. The post-war trials didn’t cover the crimes against the Roma people. Attempts to assimilate the Roma and wipe out their culture continued in many countries. There still isn’t widespread acknowledgement and understanding of the Romani genocide and how it’s a direct cause for the Romani people’s current situation, even within the community. Deep poverty, illiteracy and lack of education and social institutions has led to there not being full consciousness and collective memory around the Holocaust among the Roma like the Jewish people have.

What happened to Roma varied a lot from country to country. France has always been rather hostile to the Roma, and it was also a ‘forerunner’ in the modern racial discrimination against them because it started to register Roma in the early 1900s and giving them ID cards that categorized them differently from other travelling workers. During the World War II some French Roma were deported to nazi-run concentration camps like Auschwitz, but most were detained in internment camps in France that were created under the nazi authorities but run by the French authorities. Although not technically extermination camps, their living conditions were similar to concentration camps and thousands of prisoners died from disease and hunger. After the German occupation ended the internment camps stayed in operation until 1946, two years after the liberation. The special Roma ID cards were used until the late 60s. Some people have noted how in the show Santiago seems to work as the ‘front’ for Theatre des Vampires while Armand stays in the background. I think it’s likely related to their races in any case, but this arrangement makes sense especially if Armand is Roma because it would be very diffcult for any company or organization to be openly led by a Roma person in France during the WWII, and the years preceding and following it. Even in the 2020s many people and companies refuse to do business with Roma people, and back then it would’ve been dangerous. Also, whether Armand is Roma or not, many people are probably going to assume he is when seeing a South Asian looking French man, so that’s going to be in subtext regardless.

I think all this would make Louis strongly sympathize with and relate to Armand – and also to see him as more vulnerable and less dangerous than he really is. However, Armand might not see the things in the same way. After Louis is turned he still feels on personal level engaged with what is happening in the society and feels anger over injustice and continues to see black people as his people even when he becomes increasingly distanced from the community. But when a Roma person is taken away from the Roma community they’re not necessarily perceived as Roma by other Roma or even themselves. You might never become a part of the wider society either, you just become ‘no one’. Armand might not think of Roma as ‘his people’. Because the Roma already see themselves as outcasts and separate from the rest of the world and people, for someone who becomes a vampire that could mean complete emotional disconnect.

Perhaps because the Roma perceive themselves as separate from the wider society, it’s not typical for Roma people to be interested in politics or activism or influencing the wider society at all. This is a big generalization because of course there are Roma activists and Roma organizations, especially since the 70s, but by and large Roma people tend to be more or less apathetic towards politics and analyzing the forces behind it. Many Roma don’t vote (and needless to say many countries make it difficult for them) or participate in politics in any way. Political movements, rebellions and revolutions mean nothing to the Roma people. Every so-called revolution or change either has had no influence on the Roma people’s life or made it worse. The Roma people don’t trust non-Roma people, and the organizations and movements have usually been uninterested in involving Roma people anyway. As someone who is interested in politics and activism when I try to talk about stuff with any other Roma person I often get a ‘why does this matter’ or ‘what does this have to do with us’ reaction. The Roma are very used to their situation because they can’t remember or imagine it ever being different, and they often have an attitude that could be described as ‘it is what it is’. Armand might not feel similar anger Louis feels. Armand’s indifference and distaste towards societal institutions is reflected in the books too:

Armand would also perceive his own and Louis’ race differently than Louis does. For the Roma the world consists of people who are Roma or non-Roma (Gadjo). The Roma don’t really make differences between different races, they’re all Gadjo. When Armand meets Louis he would see him as a Gadjo man before black man, which I imagine could start to feel invalidating in the long term. The Roma tend to be sympathetic towards any outcasts and accepting of different people, but I think many Roma are also rather ignorant of different cultures and struggles, and they don’t necessarily feel automatic connection with different racialized people. The Roma perceive their experience as unique and something non-Roma people can’t understand. In the end all this means the way Armand views the world could actually be closer to how Lestat views it, and Louis might not find the solidarity and understanding he's hoping for.

4. The Romani family, kinship and spiritual practices

Religion and spirituality are very important to many Roma people. Here in Finland most Romani are deeply religious, much more so than the majority population that is pretty secular. Most Roma are Christians or Muslims, mostly different Christian sections in the Western Europe and Islam in the Balkans. The Roma in Ukraine are mostly Orthodox Christians or Muslims, so that would fit too if Armand was raised as a Muslim and didn’t convert later. Relationship with God, seeking forgiveness and sense of purpose, and someone who accepts you as you are, are something that Roma people commonly long for. The Hunchback of Notre Dame should never be used as an example of good representation and I swear this is the last time I’ll ever mention it anywhere, but I always thought this song captures surprisingly well something of how many Roma people feel. Armand’s intense and desperate relationship with religion and the spiritual struggle he and other characters go through is something that is very relatable to me.

With the lack of social structures, stability and purpose, for many Roma people the family and faith are the two most important things in the world. Without them the Roma have nothing. I think this is painfully clear with Armand who was separated from his family and culture, raised by a man who abused and then abandoned him, and literally lost his humanity and connection with God. Both other characters and Armand himself often describe him as this endless empty, hungry void that he is always trying to fill himself with something. Armand is prone to cult mentality and being manipulated in his intense yearning for emotional and spiritual connection.

I think Assad described Armand well when said he isn’t well-versed in the language of love and romance, but he does want it desperately. The Roma’s approach to romantic relationships is complicated because the strict rules of modesty around sexuality mean that they’re not usually explicitly discussed and even married couples avoid showing any affection in public. Historically Roma people have often been prevented from getting officially married so they have developed their own marriage rituals that vary by a country. Although the Roma take their relationship commitments very seriously legal marriage isn’t usually seen as important in the Roma culture and Roma couples may not get married at all legally.

The Roma are also one the very few cultures where in some countries like Finland the institution of marriage doesn’t really exist. The Romani here may get married sometimes but it’s seen as entirely unimportant and doesn’t have any bearing for the relationship, there usually isn’t a wedding or any rituals associated with marriage. A couple who’s committed to each other is seen as having the same status as a married couple. My paternal grandparents have been together for over 50 years and have never been married. Louis’ relationships with both Lestat and Armand would be considered marriage in the Roma culture. Because there aren’t well-established rules of dating and courtship in the Roma culture, forming romantic relationships can be difficult for Roma people. I’m thinking of Armand deeply wanting love but the way he approaches it often being awkward or offputting.

Family is the most important thing and the center of life in the Roma culture. The Romani culture is traditionally patriarchal and considering the importance of age, in practice the ‘leader’ is usually the oldest man of the family. The women’s position is complicated. Men and women are considered to be equals in the Roma culture and older women and their opinions are respected like with older men. Divorce is usually acceptable and isn’t seen as shameful, many older Roma women I know also have children with more than one man and it isn’t seen as a big deal. The ideal Roma woman is intelligent and emotionally and physically strong. At same time there have been and often still are distinctly divided roles for men and women in the Roma culture. Women are responsible for taking care of everything in the household and men for everything outside the household. The man of the house listens to their wife and children’s opinions but he has the final word. Men are expected to be the providers and protectors of their family and it’s something they base a lot of their identity and self-worth around – the most important thing really. I feel we can see a dynamic like this with Armand and Louis - Louis obviously isn’t a woman but he’s much weaker and younger (again, age being very important in the Roma culture). When watching s1 you think Armand is a servant, but if you look any closer, even without knowing it’s a performance, you notice what’s actually happening is that Armand is organizing and taking care of everything in their life. Later he tells Daniel how he’s protecting Louis like always with such a pride.

Another thing I think is worth mentioning that from my experience in the Roma culture physically disciplining children or women is and has been less acceptable and normalized than in the Western and many other cultures. It just isn’t done much, even my grandparents have said they don’t remember their own parents ever hitting them. This doesn’t mean that there isn’t domestic abuse in the Roma families, sadly it’s common in some regions, but it isn’t usually seen as normal and acceptable by the community. The Roma don’t like to involve police but there are many cases where an abusive man has been banished from the community. Also compared to many other cultures it can be less difficult for a woman to leave the man if she’s mistreated, since divorce is accepted and independence valued. I would say that when in most European countries there has often been an attitude that as a man you have a right and even responsibility to hit your wife and children, in the Roma culture it has been more like ‘a real man doesn’t do that’ and if they do they try to hide it. Roma men often perceive themselves as being more respectful towards women than Gadjo men are. When you combine all this - patriarchal society, older men having power over their family being seen as a normal and good thing, but disapproving overt violence within family – I think it would be very easy for Armand to convince himself he isn’t abusing or hurting Louis and is treating him right and being better than Lestat.

Art is very central to the Roma culture, especially music, dance and artisanship, but also other forms like painting and theatre. The first known records of the Roma people already refer to them being musicians.  Travelling theatre companies like the one Lestat run away with when he was young were often formed by Roma people. Armand was a talented painter and his love and search for beauty is something that always remains in his story. I found it interesting that this s2 Claudia poster was seemingly inspired by Carmen, one of the most famous Roma characters, and maybe flamenco dancers in general (flamenco being developed in the Roma culture). It tells me that they seem to at least be aware that the Roma people exist if nothing else.

The Roma appreciate beauty and the finer things in life, sometimes in a way that can appear materialistic to the non-Roma people, but the Roma themselves don’t perceive it so. It’s not uncommon that the Roma who’re poor or even homeless still own some jewelry or a nice car. If the Roma people are actually rich they like to show it and are generous in sharing it. Wealth has often been unattainable to the Roma people, so if they have it they don’t see a reason to hide it. Historically the Roma also haven’t trusted banks so they prefer to keep their wealth in physical form. With Armand who grew up in poverty you can see how he appreciates luxury and likes to shower his loved ones like Daniel and Sybelle and Benjamin with it too (again, being a good provider is very important for the Roma men). Sidenote this is another reason why I think the Dubai house’s sterile minimalist interiors were not Armand’s idea because no Roma person in the world would ever decorate their house like that lol.

The way the Roma people traditionally dress differs from the majority population, and their appreciation for beauty and wealth is visible in it too. The clothing has been a way for Roma to show their identity to both other Roma and other people. The rules of modesty influence the Roma people’s traditional clothing and they often avoid showing knees and elbows and the shape of the body. Younger people often wear lighter and older people darker colors. Especially Roma women have dressed in very distinct ways depending on their tribe, for men it’s usually more subtle. The typical Roma men’s every day clothing includes suits, black or white dress shirts, loosely fitting black trousers, vests, hats, ruffles and golden jewelry. Armand’s styling in the show both in the flashbacks and Dubai caught my attention. While there’s nothing exclusively ‘Roma’ in his outfits almost all of them could easily be worn by a Roma man. Most likely it means nothing but knowing how good costume designer Carol Cutshall she would probably try to be accurate.

In the Roma culture referring to dead people by their name and showing their pictures is avoided. Traditionally the remaining family moves out from the house where they lived with the dead person, and the person’s belongings and images are burned or otherwise destroyed after their death (at least in Finland this is still sometimes done). It’s out of respect but I think it’s also a response to generations of trauma where there has been so much death and suffering that Roma people need to forget and move on so they can continue living. In the books Armand treats death in the same way; when he loses someone he stops talking about them, sometimes even thinking about them. When he’s abducted he doesn’t mention his father (who he assumes is dead) again and forgets even his own name, because the child he was before he was taken doesn’t exist anymore. Despite being so needy he often just leaves things behind and keeps on moving, like when he simply walked away from Louis. The Roma aren’t prone to nostalgia and they don’t like wallowing in the past or worrying about things that might or might not happen either, it’s all seen as a luxury they can't afford. It still doesn’t make it just disappear. The deep hidden sorrow that Armand and many other characters of the series always carry with them resonates with me as a Roma.

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Lastly, I want to emphasize this is all just random theorizing and I’m happy regardless of whatever Armand’s background ends up being! I also know some Roma don’t want Roma portrayed in fiction made by non-Roma people at all because they don’t trust it to be done well. There’s also a problem with Roma characters usually being played by non-Roma. IWTV is an exception to me personally because I have an unusually high level of trust in this show’s writing, I love and relate to Armand’s character, and I think Assad Zaman looks like he could believably play a Roma man instead of the usual casting of a white person who looks ‘exotic’. However, like I said in the beginning there isn’t any proof Armand is actually going to be Roma and for now this is just headcanoning and speculation for fun. I also want to say that I hope I didn’t give an impression that Roma people’s life is like constant misery because that definitely isn’t true! There’s a tendency to see the Roma only through their problems when there are plenty of happy and successful Roma people and there has been improvement in the Roma people’s situation even though it’s slow. I also think one of the Roma people’s strengths has always been that they can find joy and humor even in hard circumstances.

If you got to this point I salute you thank you for reading!

[solidwaterworld]

Cara Connie,

volevo fare l’uomo forte e non scriverti subito, ma a che servirebbe? Sarebbe soltanto una posa. Ti ho mai detto che da ragazzo ho avuta la superstizione delle “buone azioni”? Quando dovevo correre un pericolo, sostenere un esame, per esempio, stavo attento in quei giorni a non essere cattivo, a non offendere nessuno, a non alzare la voce, a non fare brutti pensieri. Tutto questo per non alienarmi il destino. Ebbene, mi succede che in questi giorni ridivento ragazzo e corro davvero un gran pericolo, sostengo un esame terribile, perché mi accorgo che non oso esser cattivo, offendere gli altri pensare pensieri vili. Il pensiero di te e un ricordo o un’idea indegni, brutti, non s’accordano.

Ti amo.

Cara Connie, di questa parola so tutto il peso – l’orrore e la meraviglia – eppure te la dico, quasi con tranquillità. L’ho usata così poco nella mia vita, e così male, che è come nuova per me. Amore, il pensiero che quando leggerai questa lettera sarai già a Roma – finito tutto il disagio e la confusione del viaggio -, che vedrai nello specchio il tuo sorriso e riprenderai le tue abitudini, e dormirai da brava, mi commuove come tu fossi mia sorella. Ma tu non sei mia sorella, sei una cosa più dolce e più terribile, e a pensarci mi tremano i polsi.

Cesare Pavese, 17 Marzo 1950

[guywrestlingaddiction]

What Turned me Gay (not really): Pro Wrestling in the 90's

Pro Wrestling truly hit it's golden age in the 90's.  It was a time when sexy guys tied strings around their biceps and men intimidated each other by oiling up their pecs.  There was something magical about this time. The combination of colossal egos and a fresh crop of young jobbers each week created a spectacle that will never be replicated.

Ravishing Rick Rude and Stunning Steve Austin v Flyin' Brian and Sting

What turned me gay (not really) ...  This post, inspired by the sidelineland.com blog, takes a tongue and cheek look into "what made me gay (not really)" and my journey of discovery would not be complete without examining Pro Wrestling in the 90's, an era that definitely turned me gay. 

The Background It all began with an image.  I can't recall who or even which network it was on but there he was.  A jobber, trapped on the ring post getting hammered away by a vicious heel.  Now while I can't recall his face, I do recall the feeling it left with me.  The taught and fit jobber, the sweaty bodies, the satisfied smile on the heel. My young emotions screamed one thing; I needed to watch more of this.  

Not the Jobber in the corner I remember but sexy Lee Scott will do.

It helped that my older brother was also into wrestling.  Together we'd watch and celebrate or rag on each other depending on if our heroes won or lost.  But there was always one wrestler I fixated on, one man I obsessed over for reasons my young mind simply couldn't comprehend. That man was Ravishing Rick Rude.

Grabbing that chest won't save you!

Ravishing Rick Rude and Stunning Steve Austin v Flyin' Brian and Sting (WCW)

Ravishing Rick Rude v Hawk (WCW)

Ravishing Rick Rude v Ricky Steamboat (WCW)

That long, muscular body, that alpha energy the man gave off, but above all it was those abs of steel.  You could not tear me away from a Rick Rude match when he was flashing those abs into my television.  Rick Rude awakened something in me before I even knew I liked guys.  That persona and masculine energy was something I simply wanted more of.  With that incredible body, those sculpted arms, that tough guy mustache all worked to scramble my young brain; Rick Rude definitely turned me gay.  

Rick showing us the goods

Ravishing Rick Rude resting his head on a jobber

Then came another bombshell, one that a lot gay men out there could not get enough of, that is the one and only, Alex Wright.  

The one and only, Alex Wright

Tall and smooth, while also deceptively scaling the ropes between jobber and heel, Alex Wright was Pro wrestling's first Twunk.  The man was a stealth wrestler.  A man you'd expect to be riding around in a convertible listening to techno music, but then something would flip and that man would bring the heat.

Alex Wright v Brian Pillman 

Alex with Paul Roma

My favorite Alex matches were the few when he got to dominate.  It was almost like waking up from a spell, all those pretty muscles in that huge imposing frame weren't for show - the man was simply so drool worthy you'd forget how imposing the guy could be.  

Alex Wright fights back (sometimes)

Alex Wright was my first male lust and was all my youthful urges personified as a pro wrestler. The man absolutely turned me gay.  

The one and only Alex Wright!

What made this time so great to me was that it was a moment when pro studios excelled at fostering young talent.  Guys like Mark Jindrak brutalizing a young jobber, a kiss of the knuckles punch to take down Lee Scott, or in the case of Evan Karagias, being on the receiving end of the beatdown.  It was the perfect collision of over-the-top silliness with raw manly emotion.  This era simply had something going for it that I can't quite explain and haven't seen since.

Mark Jindrak vs. Elix Skipper (WCW)

Mean Mark (The Undertaker) v Lee Scott (WCW)

Paul Orndorff v Lee Scott (WCW)

Evan Karagias v Chris Jericho (WCW)

In spite of the beautiful smooth bodies shoved through my television, a stand out moment from my youth was witnessing the great Arn Anderson tearing down some poor jobber.  It was like hearing music for the first time and realizing that beauty does not always equal pretty. For me anyway, the sight of a no-nonsense, tougher-than-your-dad heel like Arn Anderson in his prime was undeniably beautiful and wrestling once again revealed something about myself that I didn't understand at the time but would later come to relish.

Arn Anderson v Alex Wright (WCW)

Arn for the Win! Arn Anderson v Eddie Jackson (WCW)

They say, often when you think you're at the end of something, you're actually at the beginning of something else. This certainly held true as the decade drew to a close and something seemed to shift in pro wrestling. While the same sexy, hard bodies still clashed in the ring, it felt like a part of what I once loved had moved on.

Or maybe I moved on. You see, Pro Wrestling in the '90s may have been the spark that turned me gay, but before I knew it, I was fully embracing myself as a gay man. Your formative years are funny like that. No matter how much time passes or where I am on this journey, I still can't shake that image of a faceless jobber trapped in the corner, somewhere back in the '90s.

[aliveandfullofjoy]

95th Academy Awards: Oscars Trivia!

Another torturously long awards season is over! A24's highest-grossing film ever, Everything Everywhere All at Once, defied almost every piece of popular wisdom about the Academy Awards and easily cleared every hurdle in its path to a blowout, historic Best Picture win.

As you probably know, I'm a sucker for Oscar trivia, and this year has plenty of juicy nuggets to dig into. Let's get to it, starting with our newest Best Picture winner.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third film in Oscar history to win three of the four acting categories, after A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and Network (1976). All three films won Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress. Everything Everywhere All at Once is the only film of the three that managed to win Best Picture.

Michelle Yeoh is the first Malaysian actress, first Asian actress, and second woman of color to win Best Actress. This is only the thirteenth time that Best Actress and Best Picture have overlapped in the 95-year history of the Oscars. Yeoh's nomination made her the first Asian actress nominated for the award since 1935. The only other is Merle Oberon, who hid her Asian identity in life and passed as white.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first science-fiction film to win Best Picture.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first Best Picture winner with a woman of color (Michelle Yeoh) in the lead role.

Having opened in theaters in late March 2022 (the same weekend of the 94th Academy Awards), Everything Everywhere All at Once is the Best Picture winner with the earliest calendar release since The Silence of the Lambs, which opened Valentine's Day 1991.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the third Best Picture winner with a majority non-white cast (after 2016's Moonlight and 2019's Parasite) and the first American film with a majority Asian cast.

Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once) are the third directing team to win Best Director, joining Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise (West Side Story, 1961) and Joel Coen and Ethan Coen (No Country for Old Men, 2007). Kwan is also the fourth Asian director (and first Asian-American) to win Best Director.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first movie in 95 years of Oscars history to win six(!) so-called "above the line" awards -- referring to Best Picture, Director, the four acting categories, and the two writing categories.

Everything Everywhere All at Once is the first film to sweep the four primary guild awards (Producers Guild, Directors Guild, Writers Guild, and Screen Actors Guild) since Argo (2012), and only the fifth overall.

Some crazy coincidences between Michelle Yeoh and her Best Actress presenter Halle Berry: in addition to currently being the only two women of color to win Best Actress, they are also both former Bond girls (Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies [1997], Berry in Die Another Day [2002], both with Pierce Brosnan). Additionally, both women are former contestants of the Miss World pageant: Berry represented the United States in 1986, while Yeoh represented Malaysia in 1983. Also, in a weird case of history rhyming, both Berry and Yeoh won over a previous Oscar-winner in a film directed by Todd Field (Sissy Spacek in In the Bedroom in 2001, Cate Blanchett in TÁR in 2022).

With four wins, All Quiet on the Western Front tied with Parasite (2019), Roma (2018), Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), and Fanny and Alexander (1982) as the most-rewarded non-English language films in Oscars history.

This is also the second time that Cate Blanchett has won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and a Critics Choice Award for a performance, only to lose the Oscar to the lead of the Best Picture winner. The other time this happened was the year another comedy won seven Oscars: Shakespeare in Love. Blanchett, who was nominated for Elizabeth that year, lost to Gwyneth Paltrow.

TÁR brought Blanchett her eighth Oscar nomination, tying her as the fourth most-nominated actress in Oscar history. Only Bette Davis (10), Katharine Hepburn (12), and Meryl Streep (21) are ahead of her.

TÁR is only director Todd Field's third feature (after 2001's In the Bedroom and 2006's Little Children), but all three of his films have gotten Best Actress nominations for their leads.

Blanchett has also extended her record as the Oscar-nominated actress with the most appearances in films nominated for Best Picture. With TÁR, she has now appeared in 10 Best Picture nominees.

Tom Hanks (who turned in one of the weirdest performances ever caught on film in Elvis) also crossed the 10 Best Picture appearance threshold with this year's nominations. The only nominated actor with more Best Picture appearances is Jack Nicholson, who's been in 11.

This year's nominations saw a record-breaking number of Asian actors nominated: Yeoh in Best Actress, Ke Huy Quan (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actor, and Hong Chau (The Whale) and Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) in Best Supporting Actress. Yeoh and Quan won, marking the first time multiple Asian actors have won in a single ceremony.

Hong Chau (The Whale) is the first Oscar-nominated actor to be born in a refugee camp.

This year also saw a record number of Irish actors nominated in a single year, with five: Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin) and Paul Mescal (Aftersun) in Best Actor, Brendan Gleeson and Barry Keoghan (both from The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actor, and Kerry Condon (again, The Banshees of Inisherin) in Best Supporting Actress.

It was a banner year for Ireland in other categories, too, with nominations in Best Live Action Short (An Irish Goodbye, which won the award) and in Best International Feature (The Quiet Girl, the first Irish-language film ever nominated for an Oscar).

With his win in the Supporting Actor category, Quan became only the second Asian actor to win that award, joining the late Haing S. Ngor, who won for his debut performance in The Killing Fields (1984).

All five of the nominees for Best Actor -- Austin Butler (Elvis), Colin Farrell (The Banshees of Inisherin), Brendan Fraser (The Whale), Paul Mescal (Aftersun), and Bill Nighy (Living) -- were first-time nominees. This is the first time this has happened in this category since 1934(!!!).

It was a huge year for first-time nominees across all four acting categories: 16(!) of the 20 actors nominated were first-timers. This is the most ever in a single year. The only actors with previous nominations were Cate Blanchett, Angela Bassett, Judd Hirsch, and Michelle Williams.

Jamie Lee Curtis (Everything Everywhere All at Once) is the third person to be nominated for an Oscar after both of her parents were nominated as well: her father Tony Curtis was nominated for The Defiant Ones (1958), while her mother Janet Leigh was nominated for Psycho (1960). The other sets of nominated parents and children are Liza Minnelli (with parents Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli) and Laura Dern (with parents Diane Ladd and Bruce Dern). Minnelli, Dern, and Curtis all won acting Oscars.

With his performance in The Whale, Brendan Fraser became the first person to win Best Actor for a film not nominated for Best Picture since Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (2009).

This is also the first time since 2005 that all four acting winners were first-time nominees. Additionally, none of the four acting winners won in their category at the BAFTAs, which has never happened before.

With his Best Supporting Actor nomination, Judd Hirsch (The Fabelmans) broke the record for the longest gap between acting nominations: he was last nominated 42 years ago for Ordinary People (1980). The record previously belonged to Henry Fonda, who had a 41-year gap between nods.

In addition to being the first actor ever nominated for a performance in a Marvel movie, Angela Bassett (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) also became the fourth Black actress to be nominated more than once. She joined Viola Davis, Whoopi Goldberg, and Octavia Spencer.

The Fabelmans is the first movie to win the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama to go home emptyhanded at the Oscars since The Turning Point (1977[!]). In fact, this is the first time ever that both Golden Globe Best Picture winners (The Fabelmans in Drama, The Banshees of Inisherin in Comedy) went home with zero Oscars.

2022 had some other similarities with 1977, too: this was the first year since 1977 that two films (Everything Everywhere All at Once and The Banshees of Inisherin in 2022, Julia and The Turning Point in 1977) got four individual acting nominations. Both years saw comedies win Best Picture and Best Actress (Annie Hall in 1977), and both years had a sci-fi blockbuster nominated in Best Picture (Star Wars and Avatar: The Way of Water).

Ana de Armas (Blonde) became the second actor nominated for playing Marilyn Monroe, which is more Oscars than Monroe herself was ever nominated for. She was nominated in Best Actress alongside Michelle Williams (The Fabelmans), the other actress nominated for playing the star (in 2011's My Week with Marilyn).

De Armas also became the fifth Latina nominated for Best Actress, joining Fernanda Montenegro, Salma Hayek, Catalina Sandino Moreno, and Yalitza Aparicio. She is also the second Cuban actor ever nominated, after Andy Garcia.

With her win for Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, legendary costume designer Ruth Carter became the first Black woman to win two Oscars — ever.

Only Austin Butler and Ana de Armas were nominated for playing historical figures this year. Weirdly, both Elvis and Blonde feature actor Xavier Samuel in small roles. What does it mean?

At 34 minutes long, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse is the longest Best Animated Short winner ever.

In addition to being the first song from an Indian film to be nominated for and win the Oscar for Best Song, "Naatu Naatu" (RRR) is the fourth non-English language winner of that award, after "Never on Sunday" (1960, originally performed in Greek), "Al otro lado del río" (2004, in Spanish), and "Jai Ho" (2008, in Hindi, Urdu, and Punjabi). "Naatu Naatu" is in Telugu.

It was the year of the sequel: between Avatar: The Way of Water and Top Gun: Maverick, this marked the first time multiple sequels were nominated in Best Picture in the same year. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery also received major nominations.

Avatar and Top Gun also marked the first time since 1982 that the two highest-grossing films of the year were both nominated for Best Picture.