sad-girl-autumn-version

Latest Posts by sad-girl-autumn-version

Everyone say “thank you, Ed!”

I miss David Lieberman (ignore the faggot next to him)

whatever MY special interest is my wife #mywife

im about 5 fucking seconds from putting the peeps in the chili pot and adding the m'n'ms.

holding their face 𝜗𝜚 daredevil & punisher hcs

characters used ᝰ .ᐟ matt murdock / frank castle / foggy nelson / karen page / elektra / ben poindexter / billy russo / dinah madani / micro

⏜︵ MATT MURDOCK. 𐂯

your hands are gentle, like he’s made of something fragile — not bone and blood, but myth and ruin. his skin is warm beneath your palms, scraped and bruised in places he won’t talk about.

he flinches when you first touch him — not from pain, but from surprise. from the quiet ache of being held like this. you whisper his name and he doesn't pull away.

the city hums outside — always too loud, too much — but here, in this moment, it's quiet. the kind of quiet matt never gets. your thumb brushes under his eye, and his lashes flutter shut. he doesn’t open them.

your fingers slide into his curls, damp with sweat and rain. you hold him like you’re anchoring him, like you’re keeping him tethered to something good. his breathing slows. he leans into your touch like he’s starved for it.

“i’m right here.” you remind him. and for once — for just a second — matt believes you.

⏜︵ FRANK CASTLE. 𐂯

tonight, he’s tired. his eyes are downcast, jaw tight, like he’s bracing for a blow that doesn’t come.

your hands are slow, steady. one at his cheek, the other at his jaw — rough stubble under your fingers, skin too warm for how cold he always pretends to be.

he blinks once. like he doesn’t know what to do with it. “you don’t have to…” he starts. but you already are. your thumb brushes across the scar on his cheek — the one he never talks about.

he doesn't pull away, but he doesn’t lean in, either. just lets it happen. like he’s trying to figure out how this feels. he’s quiet. so quiet you can hear the weight in his breathing. the way he exhales like he’s holding a war behind his ribs.

“frank.” you whisper, and that’s the part that undoes him. not the touch — the way you say his name like it’s something worth holding. his eyes close. not because he’s calm, but because he’s overwhelmed.

your hands are shaking slightly. he notices. of course he notices. “you okay?” he murmurs. you press your forehead to his. “always.” he leans into you. it’s not surrender. it’s trust. for a man like frank castle, trust is the rarest kind of softness.

your fingers slip into his hair, and he doesn’t move. he just breathes. and in that moment — bruised, broken, holding more pain than most people can comprehend — he feels safe. with you.

only with you.

⏜︵ FOGGY NELSON. 𐂯

foggy talks a lot when he’s nervous — jokes, rambles, deflects. but when your hands find his face, everything goes quiet.

he looks at you like you just hit pause on the chaos in his head. his brows lift, his eyes soften, and he gives you that crooked little smile — the one that always means thank you, I needed this.

“hey,” he says, voice low, gentle. “what’s that look for?” but he knows. your thumbs brush the apples of his cheeks, warm under your hands, a little flushed because he still gets flustered when you touch him like this.

he leans in instantly. instinctively. like he’s meant to be there. you’re not just cradling his face — you’re grounding him. reminding him he doesn’t have to carry everything alone. “you’re doing too much again.” you whisper.

he sighs — busted. “someone’s gotta keep things together.” he murmurs.

you shake your head and rest your forehead against his. “someone’s gotta take care of you, too.” he melts. full-on puddles into your hands. his shoulders drop, and the tension he didn’t even realize he was holding slips away.

he reaches up, hands on your wrists, holding you like you’re the only real thing in the world.“you always know what to say.” he tells you. you don’t. not always. but you see him. and that’s enough.

sometimes he makes a joke — something like, “you’re not gonna smoosh my face, right?” but it’s a deflection. because the truth is, when you hold his face like that, foggy feels safe. loved.

and no matter how loud the world gets, your hands always bring him back to himself.

⏜︵ KAREN PAGE. 𐂯

karen carries herself like she’s fine — chin up, shoulders set, voice even. but your hands find her face, and the cracks she’s hidden so carefully start to show.

her breath catches. just a little. not because she’s scared — because she’s not used to being held like she’s something worth protecting.

you don’t say anything at first. just look at her. just see her. her eyes search yours like she’s trying to believe it’s real — that someone would choose her, softness and scars alike. your palms are warm against her cheeks, and you feel the way her jaw clenches. a reflex. a habit.

she blinks fast, like she’s trying to keep from unraveling. “hey,” you murmur. “you’re okay.” her lips press together, but they tremble at the corners. she nods — barely.

you brush your thumbs along her cheekbones, and she leans in, hesitant at first, then all at once. she closes her eyes. lets herself sink into the quiet. with you, she doesn’t have to be strong every second. she doesn’t have to fight. not right now.

you kiss her forehead, soft and slow. and when she whispers, “thank you.” it’s not just for this moment — it’s for every time you remind her that softness doesn’t make her weak.

sometimes she makes a dry little joke — “you’re not checking for bruises, right?” but it’s just her way of hiding how much it means.

for the first time in a long time, she lets herself feel safe.

⏜︵ ELEKTRA. 𐂯

she doesn’t stumble through the door — she never stumbles — but you can see the tension in the set of her shoulders, the way her jaw is locked like she’s biting back the whole night.

blood on her knuckles, maybe. maybe not hers. she doesn’t say. she doesn’t need to.

you reach for her face without a word — slowly, like you’re approaching something wild. your hands are warm. hers stay at her sides at first. she doesn’t pull away, but her body goes still — not tense. just… waiting.

no one touches her like this. not without motive. not without want. but you don’t ask anything of her in this moment — you just see her, and she doesn’t know what to do with that.

her eyes flick up to yours, unreadable — but there’s something breaking at the edges. not fear. never that. just disbelief that someone could hold her like she’s not a weapon.

like she’s allowed to be held.

she exhales, barely — a breath you wouldn’t catch if you weren’t paying attention. her jaw tightens, her lashes flutter, like she’s trying to hold herself together. your thumbs brush across her cheekbones, and for a second, her eyes close.

“hey.” you greet. her lips part like she wants to argue, to make a joke, to keep the distance safe. but she doesn’t. not this time. she leans into your touch, just slightly — then all at once.

you kiss her temple, slow and careful — not because she needs saving, but because she deserves softness. she doesn’t say thank you — not out loud. instead: “you’re not checking for battle scars, are you?” — voice low, almost amused.

but her hands find yours, fingers wrapping around your wrists like she’s anchoring herself. with you, she doesn’t have to perform strength. doesn’t have to be on guard. doesn’t have to be anything but herself.

and when she finally lets herself breathe, when she allows the silence to settle between you — it’s the closest she’s come to peace in a long, long time.

⏜︵ BEN POINDEXTER. 𐂯

he’s always in control, always trying to maintain a perfect façade. but you can see it — the cracks in the mask, the hollow look in his eyes after another brutal day, another moment where he failed to hold it together.

he doesn’t say anything — he never does when he’s breaking. just... stiff, distant, like he’s suffocating but doesn’t know how to ask for air.

you reach for him slowly, your hands finding his face — his skin cold to the touch, almost unnervingly so. he doesn’t pull away, but his whole body goes rigid — like he’s forgotten what it feels like to be touched without fear of it turning into something dark.

his eyes flick to yours, almost cold, but there’s something deeper hidden under that guard. a hint of confusion. of vulnerability. he doesn’t understand why you’d touch him like this, why you’d want to.

you don’t say anything — you just hold him. your thumbs run across the sharp lines of his cheekbones, grounding him in a way he’s not used to.

“you’re okay,” you murmur, your voice just loud enough for him to hear. his mouth twitches — the corners of it pulling up just enough to make it clear he’s trying to force a smirk, but it never quite reaches his eyes.

“i don’t need comforting,” he mutters, but it’s a weak defense, a habit he’s clinging to more than an actual belief. you don’t respond to his words. instead, you press your forehead against his, slow and deliberate.

he doesn’t push you away, but his breath catches — a shallow thing, like he’s been holding it in too long. in that moment he doesn’t know whether to be ashamed or relieved that someone could want him like this — raw, unmasked, vulnerable in a way that feels dangerous to him.

he tenses, like the idea itself is a threat — but his fingers twitch just barely, as if fighting the urge to touch you back. “you... don’t know who i am,” he argues,, but there’s something in his voice — something close to needy.

“i know you,” you reply, brushing your thumb across his bottom lip, letting the silence stretch for a beat. he doesn’t say thank you. but when he looks at you this time, when he lets you hold him like this, he believes he could be more than the mess he’s convinced himself to be.

⏜︵ BILLY RUSSO. 𐂯

it's quiet, the kind of day where words don't feel necessary — just the hum of the room, the weight of his body next to yours. he’s leaning into you, but there's still that tension in his posture, like he’s holding back a part of himself.

you don’t say anything — you reach up slowly, hand finding the line of his jaw. his skin is warm, you can feel the way his muscles tighten at your touch, but he doesn’t pull away. he doesn’t need to be told anything — you’re not trying to fix anything.

your thumb brushes across the curve of his cheekbone. he looks at you, eyes dark but not distant — something in him softens when you touch him like this, for a second, he doesn’t have to be the guy who’s been through too much. he just lets you hold him

“you’re pretty.” you praise. he exhales, like he’s been holding his breath for too long, and his head tilts slightly into your touch.

he doesn’t pull away. doesn’t need to. not right now, at least.

⏜︵ DINAH MADANI. 𐂯

she doesn’t fall apart. not ever.

she comes home late, tension still riding her shoulders, eyes sharp but tired. kicks off her boots, shrugs off the day like it’s something she can peel away — but it still lingers in the set of her mouth, the way her fingers twitch like they’re still reaching for a gun.

you’re both on the couch, legs tangled. it’s quiet. a movie’s playing, something you’ve both stopped pretending to pay attention to. her head is resting near your shoulder, and you feel the weight of her — present but somewhere else, too.

you don’t say anything. just shift, turn toward her, and gently cradle her face in your hands.

she blinks, once — like she wasn’t expecting it. but she doesn’t move. your fingers trace along the edge of her jaw, slow and careful, like you’re handling something you don’t want to break.

she holds your gaze — guarded at first, like she’s trying to read what this means. then it softens. just a little. enough. her lips press together, for a second, you can tell she’s thinking too hard — about control, about vulnerability, about being seen.

she closes her eyes. leans in, just slightly, and you let her, no pressure, no words. you keep holding her like that, fingertips brushing behind her ear, thumb tracing the edge of her cheek; like she’s allowed to rest. like she’s allowed to be soft.

just for a while.

⏜︵ MICRO / DAVID. 𐂯

it’s late. he’s hunched over his desk, screen glow painting shadows under his eyes. there’s a half-empty mug by his hand, something playing softly on the speakers — white noise he probably hasn’t noticed in hours.

he doesn’t hear you come in. his mind’s still spinning, still running loops — old memories, what-ifs, the kind of guilt that lingers even when you tell him it doesn’t have to.

you walk up behind him, say his name softly, he finally looks up; gives you a tired smile — the kind that doesn’t quite reach his eyes, like he’s trying to convince you he’s fine so you won’t worry.

you don’t say anything. you just kneel down beside his chair and gently take his face in your hands his breath catches. tenderness always seems to catch him off guard, like he still doesn’t believe he’s allowed to have it.

your thumbs brush along the edges of his jaw, where the scruff’s gone a little longer than usual. he leans into it without meaning to, eyes fluttering shut like the weight of the day finally gets permission to settle.

he murmurs something — maybe your name, maybe just a sigh — and lets you hold him there, like that’s all he needs right now.

he whispers, “i’m okay,” like he’s trying to believe it, and maybe, with you there, he can. he opens his eyes after a second, looks at you like you’re something steady in a world that won’t stop shifting. he doesn’t say thank you — he just reaches up and covers your hand with his, fingers curling over yours like he doesn’t want you to let go

and you don’t.

★ a / n : mid tier effort tbh might take this down at some point

started 4.23.2025. finished 4.24.2025.

( masterlist. )

©️ monicfever 2025

her little smile <3 for @darcyofmine

absolutely obsessed with the dynamic between Matt and Frank it's gotta be one of my favorite character dynamics of all time. Frank kills people as a hobby and Matt has never killed in his life. they can't have a conversation without cursing each other out. they trust each other enough to hold one another as they jump off a building. they physically fight more often than not. Frank has seen Matt's bare ass. they're both in love with the same woman who respects herself too much to hook up with either one of them. Matt is a Catholic who believes every soul can be saved except for his own and Frank doesn't think either of theirs needs to be. can anybody hear me is this thing on

I appreciate everyone involved in making Pedro Pascal look like this in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent.

How Sebastian Stan Survived Communism and Became Hollywood’s Most Daring Shape-Shifter

So you need somebody who can play the Winter Soldier, Trump, and Tommy Lee? We’ve got the guy.

Sebastian Stan, who can currently be seen in Marvel’s Thunderbolts*, photographed in February in Palmdale, California. Jacket by Prada; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

The sun is going down fast, and Sebastian Stan is trying to get inside a locked Romanian church. This windblown Monday in late February would have been his late father’s 70th birthday, and before the day is gone, he is determined to light a candle and say a prayer in the old man’s memory at a place that had meaning for them both. Stan was born and raised in Romania, where faith and superstition became rooted together for him. “Whenever I’m in a church, I have to go like this three times,” he says, making the sign of the cross with his right hand. “I have to do it. And I have to do it three times before I get on a plane.”

Just before we arrived at this Southern California church in pursuit of the sacred, Stan was indulging the profane. Is there another way to describe an encounter with a remote-controlled talking penis? The actor is based in New York, so when he visits LA, as he’s doing now to attend the Academy Awards, he has a full to-do list. Today, that includes a visit to the makeup studio Autonomous FX, which won an Emmy for transforming Stan and Lily James into Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson for the Hulu series Pam & Tommy. The whole day is a microcosm of what has established Stan as one of the more daring and endearing actors working today. He thinks deeply but has a wild side too.

We’ll get back to the robo-penis later.

Jacket by Dior Men; belt by Artemas Quibble; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants from Front General Store.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

It’s getting late, and Stan has to hurry through rush-hour traffic to get right with God for his father’s birthday. The Biserica Ortodoxă Română Sfânta Treime (or Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church) that he wants to visit to light the tribute to his father is meaningful to the Romanian immigrants who founded it, but it’s no soaring cathedral. It’s tiny, a single-story white stucco structure with a squat steeple that’s hidden behind much taller trees. Across the street is the headquarters of the Bilt-Well Roofing company, which is a comparatively much bigger operation.

Stan left Romania more than three decades ago, but it’s still a core part of him. So is the uncertainty of growing up in a place where the government dominated and demoralized its own citizens—which makes him especially attuned to authoritarianism in his adopted country of the United States. His old accent is gone, of course. Few who have seen him onscreen as the Winter Soldier in a decade and a half of Marvel movies—including the upcoming outcast team-up adventure Thunderbolts*—could find a trace of it. Stan’s character of Bucky Barnes is as all-American as his closest friend, Captain America. The character was a Brooklyn native, but Stan took on a neighboring Queens inflection for another famous (or infamous) performance, playing young Donald Trump in the scathing true-life drama The Apprentice. The role earned him both a best-actor Oscar nomination this year and the enduring rage of a vengeful, unchecked president.

Suit by Emporio Armani; shirt by Giorgio Armani; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

New faces and new voices were exactly what drew Stan to acting in high school. He moved to the US in the 1990s, and—as an immigrant kid still struggling to adapt to the language and culture—it was a lot more fun to be Bum Number Two in a production of Little Shop of Horrors than it was to be himself. “I just remember how fun it was to try to change everything,” he says. Being onstage turned a shy kid into a scene-stealing extrovert—and he was good at it. His mother sent him to summer theater camp not far from their new home just outside New York City, and by the end of high school, he was being cast as the lead in Cyrano de Bergerac. He was a good-looking kid, but he still loved hiding his face beneath Cyrano’s oversized nose. “You’re dressing up, you’re putting on fake beards, you’re walking differently, you’re changing,” he tells me. “You take big swings. You take bigger swings than you do when you’re a young actor coming to LA to go on pilot season auditions and they try to cast you as yourself—and you’re only allowed to play yourself.”

“SEBASTIAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN REALLY FEARLESS,” SAYS CHRIS EVANS. “YOU CAN SEE THAT IN HIS CHOICES. HE TAKES BIG SWINGS.”

Stan prefers to push himself to the background. He is not an oversharer. He’ll talk about characters or stunts or the meaning he sees in a particular movie or TV show, but while fans know every detail about the lives of other performers they adore, Stan has built a following while keeping the specifics of his own life somewhat obscure. The pilgrimage to light a candle for his dad is something he would ordinarily have done by himself. But Stan agreed to share something of himself for this story, in defiance of the actorly part of his personality that wishes when you looked at him, you’d see someone else.

He pulls on the handle of Holy Trinity’s main doorway. It doesn’t budge. “Doesn’t look very open,” he says. He’s not ready to give up. He walks around the church’s property and finds an older man sweeping up outside the congregation’s neighboring all-purpose hall.

Stan opens his arms and addresses him with a traditional Romanian greeting of respect: “Sărut mâna…”

I kiss your hand.

Coat by Miu Miu; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage pants by Carhartt from Front General Store.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

A week later, Stan is wearing a Prada tuxedo. It’s the night of the Academy Awards at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party, and instead of trying to win over a skeptical church janitor, he’s trying to reassure his fellow actors and filmmakers that he is just fine, despite losing best actor to Adrien Brody earlier in the evening. (The VF Oscar Party is off-the-record, but Stan gave us permission to set the scene.) Most well-wishers now come to him with condolences, but he didn’t expect to win, and in some ways he may have avoided a bigger headache.

Trump has made political retribution a hallmark of his new term in the White House, and he was enraged by the sheer fact of The Apprentice’s existence. The movie, written by veteran journalist and Vanity Fair special correspondent Gabriel Sherman, depicts Trump in the 1970s as a needy wannabe mogul, eager to escape the shadow of his powerful father and being taught by Roy Cohn (Jeremy Strong) that underhanded tactics are a shortcut to success. When the movie was released last October, a month before the election, the once and future president unloaded on it via Truth Social, calling it “a cheap, defamatory, and politically disgusting hatchet job,” and adding: “So sad that HUMAN SCUM, like the people involved in this hopefully unsuccessful enterprise, are allowed to say and do whatever they want.”

It’s unlikely that Trump had actually seen the movie at that point, but Stan has little doubt that he’s watched it since. “I would put money down he’s seen it 100 fucking times, of course, because he’s a narcissist,” Stan told me the previous week. “And I bet you there’s certain things he likes about it.” Such as? “How he looked,” Stan replies with a smile.

Pants by Brunello Cucinelli; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

He is too modest to say it directly, but he’s more handsome than Trump ever was, even with the prosthetic makeup that thickened the actor’s neck and dental devices called plumpers that pooched out his lips and jowls. Autonomous FX did those makeup effects too, allowing him to look more like the disco-era version of Trump. Capturing him physically, while also surfacing the scared and desperate young man beneath that exterior, is what earned Stan his Oscar nomination. “He loses his humanity. I guess that’s essentially what happens,” Stan said of the movie. “As an actor, all you’re trying to do is just look at these very human things and identify with them.”

That doesn’t mean he wants Trump to put him at the top of his enemies list. Before the Academy Awards, Stan said he was trying not to worry about potential retribution and didn’t think it would happen, unless…“I don’t know, maybe if I win the Oscar, which is like 0.0000 percent.”

“HE’S WILLING TO PLAY UNLIKABLE CHARACTERS,” SAYS JESSICA CHASTAIN. “HE’S NOT HAPPY TO JUST BE A CONVENTIONAL MOVIE STAR.”

So yes, he’s feeling fine at the party. He took with him other honors from the backslapping season, like when Jane Fonda name-dropped him while accepting a lifetime achievement award at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. “While you may hate the behavior of your character, you have to understand and empathize with the traumatized person you’re playing. Thinking of Sebastian Stan in The Apprentice,” she said.

Stan said her shout-out was “maybe better than winning an Oscar.” “I wasn’t at the SAG Awards,” he continued. “I wasn’t nominated. I didn’t go. But somebody told me to turn on the TV because Jane Fonda mentioned my name. I would never have thought in my life that she would know who I am.”

Jacket by Prada; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage; pants by Prada; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Then there was the actual trophy he won, a Golden Globe for best actor in a musical or comedy, bestowed on him not for The Apprentice but for A Different Man, in which he plays a man with a disfiguring genetic condition who undergoes a radical medical procedure to look more “normal.” The back-to-back recognition caught the attention of Hollywood’s power brokers, including Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige, who has been working with him for nearly 15 years now. “To see him winning a Golden Globe for one movie and then being nominated for an Academy Award for another movie in the same year is pretty darn impressive,” Feige says.

The Golden Globe win stirred unexpected emotions in Stan. “You never really think that you’re going to be up there,” he’s told me. “I realized from that Golden Globe moment that when it happens, it’s massive. You can’t help but reflect on everything and everyone that contributed to you getting there.”

One of them is Annabelle Wallis, Stan’s partner of several years. The couple had kept their relationship private before the Globes, when she accompanied him and got an “I love you” callout from him on the stage. Wallis joined Stan at the Oscars as well, wearing a forget-me-not blue Grecian-style gown, and he introduces her happily to me at the Oscar party. (She has heard all about our adventure trying to get into the Romanian church.) Wallis is an actor herself, best known for The Tudors and Peaky Blinders, but their relationship is not something either of them discusses. “I feel like it’s really difficult nowadays to be able to have any privacy whatsoever,” he said. “It’s the one part of my life that I try to keep somewhat for myself, even though it sort of ends up being out there.”

Stan gets that protective streak from another person who helped him get where he is—his mother, Georgeta Orlovschi, who also accompanied him to the Oscars. She raised him for many years as a single mom after she split from his father when Stan was young. “They were both very strong individuals with very strong personalities,” he says. “Neither wanted to be justified by the other. I think they both had a rebellious spirit.”

Hat by Nick Fouquet; necklace by Cartier.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

His father later disappeared completely, going into exile in the States. Constantin Stan was a cargo-ship worker who helped fellow countrymen evade government persecution that pervaded Romania in the decades after World War II. “He was a bit of a hero in my town,” Stan says. “My parents were part of the youth that were standing up to Communism. My father was helping people escape the country illegally, to the point where he was a wanted man. And he himself had to flee.”

Stan grew up not really knowing the man everyone else knew by the nickname “Tino,” apart from occasional telephone calls. But if his dad could vanish, it seemed plausible that his mother might too. Then one day she did.

Stan was about eight years old when his mother fled Romania to set up a new life for them abroad. Throughout his childhood, government mismanagement and corruption had led to food scarcity, fuel shortages, and electricity blackouts. The eventual revolution culminated in the downfall and execution of dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu in 1989. “I watched him get shot on television,” Stan says. “I remember that.”

The aftermath wasn’t necessarily better. “It was chaos,” Stan says, noting “how many orphaned kids were in Bucharest after the revolution because everybody didn’t have money. Nobody knew how to live. They’d been so suppressed.” He spent a year with his grandparents before joining his mother in Austria. “She came and got me when she finally had a job and established herself enough there in Vienna,” he says.

Sweater by Loro Piana; pants by Schott NYC; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage tank top from Stock Vintage.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

The anxiety he felt about losing her continued even after they were reunited. “She was working. She was playing piano at night when she could, and then she was teaching piano all day long. So at 9 or 10 years old, I was taking the trolley to school myself. I was taking the subway back myself,” Stan recalls. “Then I was coming home and I was alone, and I would have to make myself food and I’d do my homework and I’d wait for her to come home. That was a lot of alone time for a kid in a foreign country.”

He learned independence, but it scarred him too. “I remember waiting for her to get home and worrying: What if she doesn’t come home? I can see how that’s worked against me in certain ways and how it’s totally benefited me in other ways. You have a lot of time with your imagination when you’re a kid like that alone. So I feel I’m very good at using my imagination to believe certain things, which helps me in a way. But then there are times where I’m feeling a degree of uncertainty and lack of control over my life that can be paralyzing.”

“MY PARENTS WERE PART OF THE YOUTH STANDING UP TO COMMUNISM,” HE SAYS OF HIS ROMANIAN CHILDHOOD. “MY FATHER WAS HELPING PEOPLE ESCAPE THE COUNTRY ILLEGALLY—TO THE POINT HE HIMSELF HAD TO FLEE.”

Stan was around 12 when his mother began dating a man named Anthony Fruhauf, who was the headmaster of a small private high school in central New York. When they got married, Stan’s mother made plans to move with her son once again, this time to the United States. “He was really kind. My stepdad was a real influence in a good way,” Stan says. “In those early years in America, speaking English with him at home I think probably led to how I lost my accent.” He was all right seeing it go. He wanted to belong.

All this surfaced when Stan was onstage accepting his Golden Globe. “This is for my mom who left Romania in search of a better life, and for my stepfather, Tony, who took on a single mom and a grown-up kid,” he said, hoisting his award as his voice broke. Pointing heavenward, he added: “Thank you for being a real man.”

Coat by Bottega Veneta; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants from Front General Store. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Despite craving stability, Stan learned the value of taking chances, which has earned him a daredevil reputation among his actor friends. “Sebastian has always been really fearless,” says Chris Evans, who first appeared opposite Stan in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger and costarred with him repeatedly as the Marvel Cinematic Universe expanded. “You can see that in his choices. He takes big swings. When that Trump movie was kicking around, I remember thinking, I wonder who is going to take this job? It’s just got so many strings attached to it. And I was so unsurprised when I heard it was Sebastian.”

The devil on Stan’s shoulder urging him forward was Jessica Chastain, who became a close friend after they worked together on 2015’s The Martian and later the 2022 spy thriller The 355. “When we were on set for The 355, that’s when he first told me he had had the offer to play Donald Trump. A thing about Sebastian that people might not realize is he’s very, very thoughtful, almost to a point where he overthinks things. It could cause a little bit of stress. He was like, ‘Well, what do you think? What would you do?’ I said, ‘Do it.’ I was like, ‘What do you have to lose? Take a risk.’ As long as it doesn’t cause you physical danger, if something scares you—do it.”

Chastain saw Stan do that very thing in 2017’s I, Tonya, in which he played Tonya Harding’s then husband, who hatched the scheme to sabotage her rival, Nancy Kerrigan. “When so many people are trying to make you this conventional movie star, it’s a risk to do something that isn’t that,” Chastain says. “He’s willing to play unlikable characters. I find that executives have trouble with characters that may be complex and have dark sides to them. He really embraces that. He’s not happy to just be a conventional movie star.”

Coat by Loewe. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

Marvel Studios was looking for a dark side when they were casting the role of Bucky Barnes in the first Captain America movie in 2010. Stan was a relative unknown, though he’d had a recurring role on Gossip Girl as a pathological liar of a rich kid. “You could see that he has so much inside him and so much behind his eyes. I’ll never forget that,” Feige says. “I said to Stephen Broussard, who was one of the producers on Captain America, ‘He’s going to be a good Bucky, but he’s going to be a great Winter Soldier.’ ”

Bucky evolves into that villainous alter ego in subsequent MCU stories, going from fearless soldier to shell-shocked prisoner of war and, eventually, mind-controlled assassin who struggles to break his programming and redeem himself. Getting the part was beyond game-changing for the actor. “I was actually struggling with work,” Stan says. “I had just gotten off the phone with my business manager, who told me I was saved by $65,000 that came in residuals from Hot Tub Time Machine.” He’d played the smarmy bully in that comedy a year before. Now it was his salvation.

Since then, the Winter Soldier has become one of the most beloved and relatable characters in the MCU, even though his story is far from the traditional everyman narrative. Bucky resonates because he’s damaged goods—the patron saint of fuckups struggling to do right. The arc culminates in his new lead role in Thunderbolts*, with Bucky leading a team of former troublemakers and outcasts. Feige says that, without Stan, the character’s strange journey wouldn’t have been the emotional gut punch it is.

After lunch, Stan goes to his appointment at Autonomous FX. The headquarters is tucked near an ice warehouse and a scrapyard in an industrial neighborhood of Van Nuys. Stan is trying on a pair of fake teeth that slip over his perfect pearly whites. The goal is to give him a more regular-guy look for Fjord, the movie he’s shooting in Norway with filmmaker Cristian Mungiu, a fellow native of Romania.

There’s a story behind these teeth—dating back to before Stan got braces as an adult. “When I got Invisalign, I was so obsessed with them,” he says. “The more you wear them, the faster they work. So I actually wore them at the fucking Captain America: The Winter Soldier premiere. I have them in and I’m smiling with them and people can tell. I was self-conscious because my teeth were always a little….” He splays his fingers into crooked angles.

The prosthetic teeth are modeled on Stan’s own before he fixed them. Stan has another blast from his past waiting for him too. After the fitting, Jason Collins, the founder and lead creative force behind Autonomous FX, takes Stan through the workshops, where sculptors are making limbs, bodies, and demonic babies. On the shelves, busts of other actors like Christian Bale and Annette Bening, used for previous projects, stare down with vacant eyes.

Collins and his company essentially provide the level-up version of the fake beards and noses that Stan first loved about acting in high school—except occasionally X-rated. As part of this nostalgia trip, Collins brings out a plastic tub with the remains of the robotic erection from Pam & Tommy. The latex has dried out and decayed away. This penis “character” was voiced by Jason Mantzoukas and had strong opinions about the Mötley Crüe drummer’s romance with the Baywatch star. It was a risky creative choice by the showrunners but added levity to the series and was inspired by Lee’s own autobiography, in which he banters philosophically with his sex organ.

The makeup team and the actor forged a bond along the way. “It really becomes a partnership,” Collins says. “We stare at him for weeks and months at a time. So we know the physical structure. We know what the span of his legs is and all that other stuff.”

“You get to know the actor very well,” says Stan. Their earliest meeting involved figuring out how to fit a prosthetic over his actual privates and snake cables for the controls down his backside. “When I first came here, they made a replica to work on. So they had to cast this,” Stan says, gesturing to his crotch. “I remember you’re like, ’All right buddy, well, I guess it’s good to meet you.’”

Jacket by Bottega Veneta; vintage T-shirt and boots from Stock Vintage; belt by Artemas Quibble; necklace and watch by Cartier. PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

After the makeup shop, Stan heads for the last stop of the day, the Orthodox church. After a persuasive conversation in Romanian, the custodian agrees to unlock the chapel for him. “Vezi ca pana,” Stan says. You’ll see it’s only for a moment.

As the doors swing open, the faces of saints stare down at us from rows of miniature shrines, not unlike the busts of the famous actors in the prosthetics lab. Both places represent things Stan believes in—the ability to transform into something new and a yearning to connect with something beyond yourself.

Stan doesn’t claim to be especially religious, but the Holy Trinity chapel takes him back to that fearful time living under Communist dictatorship, when he put his faith in higher powers and prayed for the best. “We would go to church a lot when I was little,” he says. “It’s still tied into certain things for me, because I felt such a degree of powerlessness over decisions being made early on.”

STAN IS NOT AN OVERSHARER. BUT HE AGREED TO SHARE SOMETHING OF HIMSELF HERE, IN DEFIANCE OF THE ACTORLY PART OF HIM THAT WISHES WHEN YOU LOOKED AT HIM, YOU’D SEE SOMEONE ELSE.

Stan and the man he wants to commemorate with a candle were estranged for years. He and his father finally reconnected when Stan was around 18 and began visiting Los Angeles for auditions. The New York kid would save money by staying with his father, who had settled in the San Fernando Valley (not far from the makeup shop, actually) and worked, once again, in shipping. The periodic visits brought them closer, and the relationship stayed tight until his dad died unexpectedly from COVID on a trip back to Romania in 2021.

Stan sometimes thinks his father’s story might make a good movie. In Romania, Tino was legendary for sneaking contraband Western goods like blue jeans and bananas into the country while smuggling dissidents out aboard the same vessels. “He worked hard and he loved America and he believed in being free,” Stan says. “I have always made the argument that immigrants to some extent are more patriotic than even the people that are born here because they don’t take things for granted. At least that’s what I saw in my father.”

The janitor guides us to the back of the church, where there’s a small side room with a votive stand arrayed with unlit candles.

“Can you give me one second? I’ll be right back,” Stan says.

He disappears into the shadowy alcove and strikes a light.

Later, driving away from the chapel, Stan tries to explain why he felt so compelled to go there. “I think it’s just the acknowledgment of how fragile we all are. Sometimes you go somewhere where it’s really not about you. It’s a moment to let go. Turn off for a while,” he says. “You don’t have to be anything in there. You don’t have to think any which way.”

Jacket by Balenciaga; belt by Artemas Quibble; vintage T-shirt from Stock Vintage; vintage pants by Carhartt from Front General Store. Throughout: hair products by Rōz; grooming products by Tom Ford Beauty.PHOTOGRAPH BY NORMAN JEAN ROY, STYLED BY EDWARD BOWLEG III.

He says something similar via text two weeks later, when he’s in Norway, starting work on his new role in Fjord—with his new teeth that resemble his old teeth.

“The feeling is always the same. Like it’s the first time,” Stan writes. “It’s always a mix of fear and hope. It’s losing yourself. It’s a free fall. Every time.”

WHAT THE FFUCK IS GOING ON

bro you’ve got to stop stretching your arms over your head and exposing your midriff im going to lose it

requested by zolofts

Sydney Adamu + Richie Jerimovich in THE BEAR

"you smell good" take off your clothes rn

Men I think it’s important that you know that more than just your dick is sexy. Your HANDS. Your ARMS. Your BELLIES. Your THIGHS. Your SHOULDERS.

just came across this picture... somebody sedate me i'm so serious

Guy who is touch starved but emotionally repressed goading you into punching him for completely normal reasons

i love richie

Winner Takes All

(Richie Jerimovich x F!Reader)

CW:  Slight angst; idiots falling in love; drunken near-encounters but nothing explicit; vulgar language because let us be honest - it's Richie.

Word Count:  2730

AN:  This was requested by the lovely @winchestershiresauce for the April Showers event!

Maybe Richie wouldn’t have said anything if you had just shut your mouth.

Maybe he would have gritted his teeth, manned the register, and dealt with the customers while you chattered away with Tina and Marcus in the back of the house.  Out front, in the bustle of the lunch hour, he could have ignored you, let your voice fade into the background.

But you don’t shut the fuck up.

You’re talking a mile a minute because you’ve met a new guy.  Some fancy asshole who works at the Merc, and Richie starts to get a headache as you talk this guy up.

“He sells weather derivatives!” he hears you say.  There’s a clatter of pots, a whosh of flames lighting on the stove.   

“What’s that mean?”  Marcus’s voice, now.

“It has something to do with insurance and risk,” you explain, and Richie can’t help but half-listen, judging how fucking stupid it sounds.  This new guy of yours deals in weather, and he makes a shit-ton of money doing it:  a condo with a lakeside view, a fancy car in the garage…

“He sounds like an asshole,” Richie scoffs from the pass-through window.

“You’d know.”  The retort is paired with you narrowing your eyes at him.

“He sounds…nice,” Tina tells you, but she pauses enough on the nice, glances at Richie long enough for him to know that she’s thinking the exact same thing he is, deep down.

This guy is going to break your heart.  Just like the last one, the tenure-track professor at Loyola.  And the one before, the electrician.  And all the others before—the bartender, the dermatologist, the trust fund laze, the NGO founder.  At some point, Mr. Weather Asshole is going to hurt you terribly, and you’ll come into the Beef in pieces that they’ll have to put back together.

Maybe Richie wouldn’t have said anything, but he fucking hates that he can see your future and you cannot.

“It’s never gonna work out,” he says.  “Guy’s gonna break up with you.”

You glare at him again.  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

“Bet you he will.  It always happens, and you’re too stupid to see it.”

“Bet you he won’t.”  You pause, stir the sauce you have simmering on the stove.  “He’s different than the others.”

Richie sighs because he also knows that Mr. Weather Asshole isn’t different.  He’s probably exactly the same as the others, a user who will cut loose the moment he’s done having fun with you.  It happens every time, and you have some goddamned amnesia about your own terrible love life—

“I wanna take that bet,” he tells you.  He leans back against the counter and crosses his arms, stares at you.  “Easy win for me.”

You turn and face him, mirror his body language by crossing your arms too.  “Alright.  What are we betting?  Fifty?  A hundred?”

Richie could take your money.  He knows it’s a sure thing.  Some mean part of him, though, wants to make it hurt.  He wants some awareness to finally sink into your thick skull.  He wants you to be more careful, to guard your heart closer, to stop leaving yourself open to such hurt from such awful men.

“Make it interesting.  Mr. Weather Asshole dumps you within the month, I get your Def Leppard shirt.”

Your eyes narrow to slits.  “Which one?”

“You know which one.”

The angry set of your frown tells him you know exactly which one he means.  He has no idea how it came into your possession, but you have a cherry vintage concert t-shirt from Def Leppard’s 1983 Pyromania tour.  Richie isn’t that big a guy, not much bigger than you, really, and the one time he saw you wear it, it was just a shade too big.

It will fit him perfectly.

He watches the little twitch in your jaw—you’re clenching it, your teeth grinding.  “Fine.  What do I get?”

“What do you want?”

Your face opens up, softens.  You smile and say, “okay, I want your Bruce album.”

“Which one?”

“You know which one,” you reply, mimicking his voice, which makes Tina snort and shake her head.

Richie has a rare vinyl of the Japanese pressing of Bruce Springsteen’s “Tunnel of Love.”  He can’t even remember how you found out about it, but you’ve pestered him in the past about how much it would cost you for him to part with it—

It’s a sure thing.  There’s no way Richie is going to lose this bet, so he nods.  He uncrosses his arms and holds his hand out to shake. 

It’s your hand in his, your eyes crinkled as you smile at him…it makes him feel sad all of a sudden.  You’re going to be hurt; he can see it as clearly as anything, and you can’t see it at all.

-----

Two weeks, nearly.  Twelve days, to be exact:  you march into the Beef, and Richie barely has enough time to realize it’s your day off before you toss a plastic grocery bag down on the counter in front of him.

“Here,” you spit out.  You’re already turning on your heel and leaving, and you add over your shoulder as you wrench open the door, “I don’t want to hear a word about it, asshole.”

He doesn’t need to, but he opens the bag anyway.  Inside is the concert t-shirt, neatly folded.  The spoils from him winning the bet that hinged on your broken heart.

“Ah, fuck,” he mutters.

-----

Richie knows where to find you that evening.  He helps Carmy close up, and then he makes his way to Kelly’s.

The dive bar is below street level, dark and musty.  The beer is cheap, and the jukebox is stocked with a very specific slice of alternative rock beloved by Kelly’s owner.  The vibe is grimy but safe, the perfect place for someone like you to drink away her sorrows and stumble out without too much risk.

Still…Richie likes to keep an eye on you.  Just to be safe.

Kelly’s is too small for him to hide from you, and he doesn’t bother to try.  He finds you belly up at the bar, slouched, and he takes the empty stool beside yours.

You glance at him out of the corner of your eye before you turn back to your drink.

“Come to gloat? You ask.

“Nah.”

“Say ‘I told you so’?”

Richie shakes his head.  “I’m not a complete asshole.”

You sigh.  “What, then?”

He holds up a hand to flag down the bartender, and he orders another for you and one for himself.  Then he turns in his stool at looks at you.

“Wanted to make sure you’re okay,” he replies, and he hopes it rings earnest to your ears because it’s the truth.  He’s not a complete asshole but he is at least partially so, and he struggles with his delivery almost every time he tries to be nice to you…but he cares, and he wants to make sure you know it.

Whether you believe him or not, you don’t say.  You only tip him a nod in thanks for the drink, and the two of you fall into an evening together of mostly silent companionship and more than a little drinking.

-----

He wakes up fast and rough because he thinks he’s about to puke.

He sits up quick, manages to calm his roiling, sour stomach with deep breaths through his nose.  Once the danger of vomiting has passed, he looks around at the strange room.

It’s not his room:  not the one in his apartment, and not the one he shared with Tiff when they were still married.  It’s a softer space; the sheets underneath him are silkier, nicer than his own.  The room smells different too, warm and spicy like something baked with cinnamon, and it takes his hungover brain a beat to realize where he knows that smell…

…it’s your smell.  It bothers him every time he has to work with you at the Beef; it seems to seep into his clothes under the smell of the sandwiches and fry grease.  He glances down at the figure stretched out in the bed beside him and sees you.  You’re fast asleep, your face smushed into your pillow, lips parted as you breathe deep and even.

It takes his hungover brain two beats to realize that he’s naked.  No, scratch that—he’s in his boxers only, he’s shirtless, and when he studies you closer, he sees part of the reason why:  you’re in his t-shirt, the one with the typo that reads “The Berf.”

Richie scrubs a shaky hand over his stubbled face.  The evening comes back to him a little at a time.  The drinks that flowed too easily, the realization that you live only a few blocks from him.  The stumbling out together at last call, his arm around your waist as much to steady himself as to steady you.  Him walking you home, the booze hitting you hard and making you turn pathetic. 

Him turning to give you hell and seeing the pitiful way your lower lip trembled as your eyes filled with tears over Mr. Weather Asshole.  Richie getting pissed at that, wanting to say something meaningful that would lance through your alcohol-fog to make you understand that Mr. Weather Asshole wasn’t someone worth crying over—

Him failing to find the words and kissing you instead.  You kissing him back.  You kissing him back with an eagerness that surprised him, and he remembers going upstairs to your apartment with you. 

He remembers each of you stripping down to nearly nothing before it occurred to him that you weren’t in any shape to make any decisions, and he wasn’t much better off.  He remembers stopping you, taking your hands in his, slurring his words as he told you it was a bad idea.  He remembers you tearing up at that, misunderstanding him, feeling the rejection too personally. 

Maybe in some respects the alcohol was a boon, because Richie Bad News always fucks it up.  Richie Bad News always says all the wrong things.  Richie Bad News always manages to mistranslate the feelings in his heart with his stupid fucking mouth.

But Drunk Richie?  Drunk-but-Noble Richie who was able to gently turn down the opportunity to fuck you because you were too wasted to make good decisions?  That guy seemed to get it right.

He remembers telling you that you shouldn’t cry over him or Mr. Weather Asshole or any other loser who manages to disappoint and hurt you.  He remembers telling you what a catch you are, how lucky a guy would be to snag you.  He remembers telling you to be choosier, to be more wary of men, to trust them a little less and yourself a little more.

Mostly, he remembers telling you that you have the biggest heart of anyone he knows, and then he remembers saying he wishes you’d guard it closer.

He remembers how you looked at him then, how you seemed to see him through the alcohol haze.  You seemed to figure him out in that moment, seemed to piece together all your time together at the Beef, all the frustration he had with his own terrible love life that he vented over Family meals as you listened.  You seemed to understand his own hurt, how he came in each day after his own awful dates the night before, how he looked at you on the sly as if he were measuring you against those women while he also measured himself against all those terrible men you dated.

Most of all, he remembers how you reached up and laid a gentle palm against the side of his face, and how he nuzzled into your touch.  You had looked him dead in the eyes, murmured his full name like you wanted him to know you really saw him.

“Richard Jerimovich,” you had said.  “You might be an asshole, but you’re a good man.”

He remembers how you turned shy then, how you dropped your hand and your gaze, like you were suddenly aware that you were basically naked in front of him.  At your words—that he maybe he wasn’t Richie Bad News but just an asshole and a good man both—he felt surer of himself.  More certain.  He had bent down and snagged his discarded t-shirt, and he had helped you pull it over your head.

“C’mon,” he told you.  “Let’s go to sleep.”

And that was all the two of you did.  Drunk as you each were, he had kept it as above-board as he could, and you had fallen asleep snuggled against him. 

-----

Now he’s awake and nauseous.  It’s still dark outside.  A quick glance at his phone says that it’s only three in the morning, hours from dawn.  He hears what he thinks is a delivery truck rumbling past your building, but the sound is paired with a flash of blue-white lightning, and he realizes that there’s a storm rolling in.

He climbs out of your bed carefully, and he makes his way to your kitchen.  He pours a glass of water from the pitcher in your refrigerator, and he drains it in one go.  He feels his stomach calm.

Richie stands at your kitchen sink for long moments:  it’s dark outside the window there, but each bolt of lightning illuminates the view—the brick wall of the building next door, the street below.  It looks lonely outside; the sky spits rain in fits and starts.

He could leave.  Maybe he should leave now, while you’re still asleep.  He has no idea how you’ll wake up:  what if you’re angry at him, or embarrassed?  What if you wake up and remember him gently rejecting you and misunderstand it?  Because he’d happily, gratefully take you to bed under any other circumstances, but not as your rebound and not with you as drunk as you’d been…but you may not realize that.

He probably should leave, but it looks miserable outside.  The storm makes him want to return to your warm bed, so that’s what he does.

You’re still asleep.  He stands over you and looks his fill for a moment.  The flashes of lightning gild your face in its stark white light, but he thinks you look adorable.  Even with your makeup from last night smeared under your eyes and lines from your pillow etched across your cheek, Richie thinks you might be the cutest fucking thing he’s ever seen.

He crawls back under the covers and rejoins you.  He tries to be careful about it, but the shifting of the mattress makes you stir.  You grumble beside him, and a moment later you open your eyes and fix him with a bleary look.

“Richie?  What—”

“It’s fine.”  He whispers in reply.  “Still too early to get up.”

“Mmm.” 

“Go back to sleep.”

You hum again, and maybe you aren’t completely sober yet or completely awake—but he’s glad he decided to stay, because you bridge the slight distance between you and snuggle up against him again.  You press your head against his shoulder, gently headbutting him until he huffs out a laugh and lifts his arm for you to cuddle in close.  He wraps his arm around your shoulders, and you nuzzle against his bare chest before you settle.

It doesn’t take long for you to fall back asleep despite the storm picking up in intensity outside.  Richie doesn’t fall back asleep at all, but he’s comfortable, relaxed.  The rain lashes at the window of your bedroom, and thunder rumbles in the distance, but he feels cozy.

More than that, he feels hopeful.  He’s had such a shitty run of it.  The loss of Mikey, the loss of his marriage.  His ex-wife may consider him Richie Bad News, but he’s been the on the receiving end of plenty of shit too.  He’s at the lowest he’s ever been in his life, but for the first time since everything went to hell, he finally feels a bit of hope.

It started with a bet that he won, and now he’s in your bed with you snoring lightly in his arms while you wear his stupid fucking “Berf” t-shirt.

What comes next?  He has no idea, but he finally has hope that it might be something good.

Jon Bernthal on working with Tom Holland and exploring The Punisher.

it's more of a reader thing to do but frank gets overwhelmed with his love for his girl and just presses kisses all over her face?? and she's just a giggling blushing mess because he's never like that with his affection but the rare times he lets go like this, she cherishes it with her whole heart<3

Ok Frank's favorite way to do this is from behind. He's suave even when he's not trying so I don't think his version is quite so giddy. But he just snakes those beefy arms around your waist and dips his head to land in the crook of your neck and he takes a HUGE sniff through his crooked nose and acts like he's in heaven, saying "Smell so fuckin' good doll." Then he does just a slight sway back and forth, just one foot to the other so that your body gets smooshed just a fraction closer to his and then he starts his measured onslaught of kisses to the side of your face and down your neck, stopping occasionally to murmur, "mmm, can't fuckin' stop" as he continues again, his arms compressing you as you laugh at the way his stubble tickles your skin.

You manage a strained "Frank" as you laugh, but he only growls at the intrusion, saying "Ain't finished yet sweetheart," nipping at your ear and letting his hands inch up your torso and squeezing a fraction tighter, locking you in place for as long as he pleases.

i'm on the ace spectrum but still enjoy sex sometimes depending on the partner. i won't delve too deep into explaining it because it might take up the whole word limit haha but i was wondering what frank would think about that? like i still do it and i enjoy the closeness and the making out and cuddling afterwards so in a sense, i do like it. just wondering what your take on frank's reaction would be🙈

Ok I've actually got these headcanony thoughts on this situation!

So if you felt comfortable with sex occasionally, he'd be his usual king of consent. He's never gonna assume it's a yes. Even if it was a yes yesterday or a yes an hour ago, he's not making any assumptions. He's asking a lot of questions like "S'ok when I touch you like this?" or "This spot ok sweetheart?" or "Tell me to stop if it's feelin' like too much."

I think he'd even get a teensy but teasing with it. Maybe you were being cuddly or guiding his hand to spots you wanted touched, he'd say "Nah I can't touch there til you give me permission doll" and he'd make you grant him permission before any touch until you were no longer giving permission but instead begging him for it.

And then he'd go so so so heavy on the aftercare and cuddling. He's already good about that but when he knew it was necessary for your comfort, he'd be so vigilant in making sure you felt secure and connected. Phones away, TV off, skin to skin-- just lots and lots of intimacy.

As an autistic person, The Accountant was my Black Panther.