#what a fucking disaster i love him i hate him he's perfect he's despicable and i hope he gets run over by a train

[tiredassmage]

Len’s not the logical choice for Alliance Commander, but fuck is he making my sub SO DAMN WORTH IT FOR THE FUNNIEST SHIT

man, I needed that this week x,D

#swtor #swtor screenshots #i give bh the funniest damn lines in kotxx i've seen so far i am LOVING this #stars he's such a trash tire fire and so unfit for alliance leadership you'd have so many reasons to fire this man from the job #but HONESTLY that's the whole point of this playthrough by now omg #i love you bitch TWANG ain't ever gonna stop lovin you BITCH [TWANG] #ch: lensan #what a fucking disaster i love him i hate him he's perfect he's despicable and i hope he gets run over by a train #actually it'd be funnier if he went out on something like vette's prank tbh that's more his style #len your angry grandpa who's still mad from the last war but they're all blending together tbh he's just mad #fuck that's almost a little too accurate omg abort abort i repeat abort the thought

[happymetalgirl]

Cattle Decapitation - Death Atlas

No vocalist this decade has been more innovative for extreme metal as Travis Ryan has with his diversity of snarls, growls, and screams stretching into uncharted melodic territory on the past few Cattle Decapitation albums, and no other band has been more vital and consistently creative for deathgrind as Cattle Decapitation has been for a long time now. The band have always taken a particularly uncomfortably gnarly and confrontational approach to the dicey topics of human mistreatment of animals in the food industry and the many despicable facets of species exceptionalism that humankind has operated under since the advent of mass industrialization, and their gratuitously grotesque and brutal musical and lyrical approach to such disgusting topics honestly couldn’t be more fitting for each other. I just recently picked up a physical copy of the band’s third LP, Humanure, and, looking at the lyrics, holy shit do they fit all too disgustingly well with the now-iconic cover art.

As the band’s sound has become grander since then, more stylistically unique, more polished, yet no less brutal than the goregrind on which they built their foundations, Cattle Decapitation have shifted their lyrical focus to the grander scope of self-driven environmental catastrophe and the worst case scenario of human extinction as a result of humankind’s own ecological carelessness. The band took a tremendous leap forward from the already tight and deathly goregrind of The Harvest Floor on 2012’s Monolith of Inhumanity, with Travis Ryan’s expansion of his harsh melodic range being a huge factor in that growth. But the rest of the band grew tighter and more capable of dishing out extremely intricate and technical agression at frightening speeds, and both Monolith of Inhumanity and the band’s 2015 follow-up, The Anthropocene Extinction, showed just how unbelievably versatile Cattle Decapitation could be with this style of music. I don’t want to get too hung up on reminiscing on the quality of old work with more of that quality packed into the band’s longest album to date to discuss at hand, but I don’t want to simply brush over and understate how immense the band’s past two albums have been for them and for extreme metal in general.

With Monolith of Inhumanity, Cattle Decapitation put on an absolutely baffling exhibition of a wide array of compositional protocols and instrumental and vocal techniques that broadened not only their horizons, but the horizons of deathgrind as a genre, of melody without compromising on brutality, especially on the vocal front. The band took their sickening brand of goregrind to its classically brutal extreme on the increasingly slow churn of “Forced Gender Reassignment” and the nasty grinding of “Projectile Ovulation”, but the band really pushed the boundaries of melodic terror on the vocal front on songs like “A Living, Breathing Piece of Defecating Meat”, “Your Disposal”, and “Kingdom of Tyrants”. The song with which the band really shattered the genre’s ceiling on melody was the strangely, astonishingly beautiful “Lifestalker”, on which Travis Ryan harnesses his filthy blackened snarl into a melody so emotive it’s hard to believe a band so focused on powerfully merciless brutality penned it. The album was a huge progression for Cattle Decapitation and for deathgrind, undoubtedly my favorite of the genre.

The band sought to refine their frenzied and newly dynamic grind on The Anthropocene Extinction with generally longer and more grandiose compositions like the monumental “Manufactured Extinct” and the gloriously grinding “Plagueborne” and “Pacific Grim”, while staying true to their gory roots all throughout and making sure to deliver more directly deadly blackened grinders like “The Prophets of Loss” and “Mutual Assured Destruction”. And the band did indeed give their already impressive and elevated sound an even more magnificent and grandious edge that generally isn’t associated with Cattle Decapitation or grindcore. As its title suggests, The Anthropocene Extinction marked an increase in the band’s urgency about the consequences of humanity’s careless abuse of resources and destruction of crucial ecosystems through industrial overconsumption. The band on their most recent past album sounded at least panicked and eager to call for whatever possible to mitigate the disastrous effects of humankind’s mistakes. Four years later, however, Cattle Decapitation are far less optimistic about the outcome of mankind’s abuse of its planetary home and certainly not any more sympathetic towards our species’ continued heedlessness in the face of scientific consensus on the forthcoming destruction and collapse of civilization as we know it.

As grim and forthrightly convicting as Cattle Decapitation have been in the past about how much needs to change to avoid disaster, the band sound more pessimistic than ever on Death Atlas, forecasting more than forewarning of the impending deathly consequences of our species’ prolonged malignant negligence. They play with a distinguishable air of numbness to sorrow as though the long foreseen end has already begun and that humanity is too late. Travis Ryan dips into melodic harshness more on this album than he did on even Monolith of Inhumanity, offering up eulogy after merciless eulogy for a dying species and a slowly (but not so slowly) burning world.

Indeed, Travis Ryan meditates harshly on the inevitability of the universe’s snuffing out of life grown out of control on the blackened melodic doomsday prophetics of  “The Geocide” on which he ominously sings “The universe it always find a way to purge / the sustainably inappropriate numbers that once surged”, and he is even more hopeless on the following track, “Be Still Our Bleeding Hearts”, which he opens with the line, “Every new life is a tragedy in waiting” and on which he breaks out another nastily sung/snarled melodic chorus of apocalyptic embrace over blackened deathgrind that reaches for the upper echelons of the band’s widely encompassing sound. Ryan had stated before the album’s release in a promotional interview that he wasn’t going to focus so much on overpopulation as much on this album being that he has said his piece thoroughly on albums past and that the valid ecological problem is being misdirected by modern eugenicists, yet here he calls (probably in defeated exaggeration) for mass human death, stating “Every new death is a step toward preservation”. He once again concludes in dismal defeat that “Human life is simply not sustainable”.

Ryan continues on his frustrated raging over humanity’s exponentiating population on the following song, “Vulturous”, on which it becomes clearer that he is not taking the warped, racist approach to this topic and is rather eulogizing the willful and self-inflicted destruction of so-called advanced cultures by their short-sighted capitalist urges, as evidenced by the lines “A horrible ghastly proclamation / That profits dominate what’s right” and the painfully and intentionally ironic “Living for ourselves / Anything at any time / as of tomorrow we will die”. Clearly these lines are not pinning the blame for catastrophic climate change on the usual, lower-consuming scapegoats of fascist eugenics, but rather the capitalism that exploits them and those doing the scapegoating and those who keep it in place because they have something to gain from it. Musically, the track is one of the more demonically sinister cuts on the album, with Ryan giving a particularly eerie, menacing, death-summoning vocal performance.

Indeed, while I am talking a lot about Travis Ryan’s lyrical contributions and one-of-a-kind vocal performances, I would hate to overlook the solid and vibrant instrumental foundation the rest of the band continue to provide him and Cattle Decapitation. Longtime drummer David McGraw’s jaw-droppingly lightning-injected performances continue to shine as one of the band’s major instrumental attractions as he absolutely punishes his kit at ungodly speeds with awe-inspiring technicality. Similarly fast-paced and technical strong-work continues to flow like a gushing torrent of hail from storied lead guitarist Josh Elmore and newly arrived rhythm guitar supporter Belisario Dimuzio, who together drive the album’s (and the band’s) likely under-appreciated emotional dynamic through their interplay between colossal eruptions of infernal guitar distortion and ashen atmospheric dissonance with cleaner tones when the time is right. And new bassist Olivier Pinard provides the essential foundational accents to meticulously track and support the maddeningly technical rhythms above him in the mix, and even surging up to the forefront of the mix when the rest of the band is at a lower instance of acceleration to provide his own moments of spotlighted technical brilliance as well. Together the band have continued to hone the already highly perfected form of epic deathgrind that they and no one else can channel.

Backed by particularly vicious grinding instrumentation, Travis Ryan continues to count down to calamity on “One Day Closer to the End of the World”, at first seemingly welcoming with open arms “the end of all life of this fucking planet” in a storm of hardcore-influenced guitar work, but clearly lamenting, as the song progresses, mankind’s seeming “Lust for dying” and the terrible, suffering-filled end it has set up for itself, as he closes the thundering instrumental chaos by characterizing humanity as “Out of breath, out of time - a species out of its mind”. This bend toward self-destruction is further examined throughout the more direct, technical blackened death metal of “Absolute Destitute”, which is mostly spare of the previous tracks’ melodic niceties and summed up nicely and poetically by the lines “A life in love with despair / in a world beyond repair / A global consensus that the powers that be are against us”, and Ryan essentially calls time on humanity’s soured reign over planet Earth on the fittingly apocalyptic-sounding melodic vocal and guitar dissonance and rhythmic crashing of “Time’s Cruel Curtain”, whose tragically cathartic and enigmatically beautiful sonic hideousness as a result of is truly a tough thing to describe, probably best likened to a fire-scarred martyr desperately sacrificing themselves one last time to no avail.

Travis Ryan shifts his mournful tone to a more critical one on the ruthlessly rapid-fire “Finish Them” as he concludes that “Now we see that the true evil has a face / Now we know the devil is the human race” as David McGraw’s dynamic playing shines at the track’s particularly fast pace, and Ryan subsequently imparts, furthermore, a stern warning to the opulent elites that those whose world they’ve ruined will be coming for their hides on the similarly high-octane percussive hurricane and roller coaster riff-fest of “With All Disrespect”.

Ryan does return to his more usual classically colorful beckoning of death on the surprisingly infectiously hook-laced, old-school (for the band), and darkly comedic “Bring Back the Plague”, which is an exaggerated call at wits end for exactly what the title implies, but musically one of the band’s most unique songs and a certain standout on an album filled with impressive tracks.

The band also includes a few shorter interludes to break up the relentless deathgrind, “The Great Dying”, “The Great Dying II”, and “The Unerasable Past”, which are strung with excerpts detailing the sequences of events that have led to humanity’s current predicament, including “55 Languages of Planet Earth” from NASA’s Voyager Space Probe on the intro track, “Anthropogenic: End Transmission”.

On the titular closing track, Travis Ryan offers his last sorrowless dirge for humanity as he screams “We deserve everything that’s coming” across the epic nine-minute firestorm of crunchy guitar riffage, furiously firing double-bass, and biblically monolithic death howls that wrap the album up in cinematically grand fashion without sacrificing any of the brutality of the band’s grind. And while the song’s second half isn’t quite the dizzying crush the first half is, the gradual fade out into an operatic lamentation for a biosphere’s graceless end is a fitting one for the image of the Earth humanity’s last days careening away into the void of space in abject meaninglessness to the rest of the universe and whatever may fill humankind’s empty place at square one of rebuilding a new civilization.

Given how greatly I still admire Monolith of Inhumanity and the Anthropocene Extinction obviously my expectations for death Atlas were pretty high. Yet Cattle decapitation still managed to surprise and around me with melodicism greater than even that which characterized Monolith of Inhumanity, incredibly surprisingly infectious hooks, and gripping, terrifyingly bleak prophetic lyricism amid consistently thrilling instrumental performances that continue to prove what a tremendous force to be reckoned with and what an important band Cattle Decapitation is and has been. While Cattle Decapitation are far from the only band addressing the huge, overbearing impending doom of environmental Armageddon, and while the novelty of the melodicism of the band’s terrifying assault and nauseating goring has worn off since Monolith of Inhumanity, Cattle Decapitation has expanded it to further elevate the grandiosity they cultivated on The Anthropocene Extinction to produce a swan song for the planet unlike any other. Truly, there are few bands more important today for metal than Cattle Decapitation is, and there is no situation more dire than humanity’s arrogant and self-assured loitering on the brink of civilizational downfall. And while a deathgrind album probably isn’t the kind of art piece that will pull humankind back from the edge, the uncompromisingly ugly and truly hellish portrayal of the world’s collapse on it makes Death Atlas the album the world needs and humanity deserves for its compounded failures. And I also suppose it’s quite fitting that the band releases this album on America’s frustratingly ironically times national holiday of celebrating capitalist consumerism after a day of supposed giving thanks whose tradition is warped to hide its ugly genocidal historical origin. Undoubtedly one of the most crucial albums of its time, one of the year’s, one of the decade’s, and Cattle Decapitation’s best.

And I count the days ‘til we expire for always/10

#Cattle Decapitation #Death Atlas #deathgrind #death metal #technical death metal #grindcore #metal #heavy metal #new album #new music #album review #great music #great album #Monilith of Inhumanity #The Anthropocene Extinction #climate change #global warming #capitalism

[asherlockstudy]

Braime S8E4

I am gonna tell myself to fuck off with my obsession with this particular part of the plot right after this but you know

maybe we just saw the heartbreaking fulfillment of Azor Ahai’s prophecy

this is the first caption from their love scene

Oathkeeper and its lion in front of the fire. Oathkeeper is the symbol of Jaime’s love for Brienne and of the man he aspires to be

The last criterion for the fulfillment of the prophecy is that AA sacrifices his loving wife Nissa Nissa, asking her to bare her breasts which Nissa Nissa does eagerly

Nissa Nissa's cry of anguish and ecstasy left a crack across the face of the moon.

So there’s both anguish and ecstasy. No death would ever be more torturous for Brienne than the ultimate betrayal from the only man she truly loved and eventually trusted in. Jaime took everything from her (anguish) right after he gave her everything (ecstasy). 

I wholeheartedly say that I would prefer Brienne to die 10 honourable deaths than what she goes through here because this is what Brienne always feared.  This is worse than death for her. 

"Killing” Nissa Nissa though was the ultimate sacrifice for Azor Ahai himself, which leaves me with the hope that Jaime intends to kill Cersei. Jaime has said almost the exact same words about what he can do for Cersei to Edmure Tully. He managed to fill him with fright for his baby son’s life and consequently took the castle without even a soldier’s nosebleed. Hopefully, he thinks Brienne must hate him in order to ensure she stays safe at Winterfell but he completely misjudges that what he did was as bad for her as if he just had driven his sword in her heart instead. 

The only problem is that the Oathkeeper is still with Brienne and I doubt the stupid Widow’s Wail is Lightbringer. But [spoiler] I saw some info that Brienne as well as Sansa, Arya and Bran will head south soon because the actors filmed in Croatia. Brienne might intend to take revenge or maybe clever Sansa will advice her to calm down and rethink if Jaime’s words and actions make sense. Revenge could be possible as it might be a twist in GRRM’s plot where Lady Stoneheart commands Brienne to kill Jaime and that’s the last we know about her. 

I’m still worried about how Jaime will acquire Oathkeeper when Brienne arrives at King’s Landing. Jaime doesn’t need Oathkeeper for Cersei because we assume he will strangle her, according to the Valonqar prophecy. Maybe Jaime’s role is bigger than just taking Cersei out of the way (Bran?) and this is where he will need the sword.  However, it would be too much if Brienne ALSO dies after her faith in Jaime is restored just for him to take the sword because she’s done her part, she’s tortured enough. Hopefully he will just lose his own and ask for it or she will give it back to him when she meets him again, meaning everything between them is over. Another problem is that if Jaime kills Cersei and then becomes AA viewers might have problem realizing that his actual sacrifice was breaking Brienne’s heart and not killing Cersei. Another problem is that for any of this to make sense Brienne and the Starks will have to take a fucking airplane in order to arrive at King’s Landing and find Jaime in time. 

There are many ways things can go wrong and the reason is, well, the terrible writing. Even if the major things that happen are interesting, honestly Missandei’s and Rhaegal’s death, Daenerys’ increasing paranoia (I start understanding her), the change of most characters’ allegiances, everything that happens between Brienne and Jaime, Bronn etc etc would all be great stuff if only they were properly shown in a 10 episode long season or even more. Right now characters just jump to new places with completely changed behaviours and beliefs and it’s just maddening. I don’t get why they tried to squeeze everything in 6 episodes like someone is chasing them with a gun. Especially if we have more to see from Bran, then, I bid my farewells to the show’s ambitions.

This is irrelevant but as a Braime shipper... was I the only one who was somewhat put off by their scene? The directing in this episode was really atrocious and the actors felt like they didn’t have the right guidance. The writing was just as bad. Jaime and Brienne’s first time didn’t happen under good and in character circumstances. Jaime wouldn’t drown her to alcohol and grasp the opportunity after his brother shouted in the room she’s a virgin. He wouldn’t be that much of a disaster either and Brienne wouldn’t be like “oh the heck with it”. Or maybe he would be a disaster but in a charming way not a comedic one. I was also surprised at a certain lack of chemistry there before the kiss between them since they have proven their insane chemistry many times before. Maybe this was a challenge for Gwen as a relatively new actress (although she nails it previously despite the horrendous writing) (but Nik was off too) or them being friends IRL was making this too awkard for them (like Rupert Grint and Emma Watson in Harry Potter) or maybe the director really left them hanging because the scene was cut abruptly, the angles were freaking weird (did anyone feel Nik was closer to the cam than Gwen? and probably on a box or something? he looked shorter but huge). I think the directing and writing of the scene made the actors uncomfortable and we lost a scene that could have easily been one of the very best of the show. In their defense, there are many as awkward or just plain dumb scenes in this episode including teleporting from one place to the next only to be attacked by a freaking navy in seconds, a navy everyone missed in the perfect daylight. 

There was only one true to herself character with a nice development: Arya. I am sure Gendrya shippers are heartbroken but I honestly feel it was something positive because it shows Arya remained who she was, no man or one night stand could change her. She was never one for romance. Been there, done that but her priorities were always different. She finally chooses to become again the companion of the person she secretly bonded the most with and it is not sexual or romantic. It’s mentor and student, father and daughter-like or something more unconventional than that but as strong and meaningful. Hats off to that. 

No wonder Gwen and Emilia were dropping hints there were many shitty decisions taken by the writers. I will fucking have to read the books. In the meantime, I hope Jaime proves he never meant to leave Brienne for Cersei otherwise we are talking about the most despicable and idiotic character I’ve ever had the misfortune to feel and root for. Until he proves that, this is the last piece I write for GOT, I’m not wasting more time to a potential dumbass and those who thought he was a good idea.  

#braime #jaime lannister #brienne of tarth #jaime x brienne #got spoilers #got season 8 #game of thrones #azor ahai #arya stark #sandor clegane

[bellringermal]

What sort of man is Gerhman for you? (Same question as with Maria)

He is a handsome piece of trash and I love him. THE END.

Oh, if only things were that simple! :P I will try not to turn this post into the ramblings of a shameless fangirl but I promise you nothing.

What I want to clarify right here at the start is that Gehrman is, overall, a good man. Yes, he is flawed, yes he is a closet pervert and yes he never really felt guilty for the slaughter of Fishing Hamlet. But all of this is what makes him the more human and relatable character in the Soulsborne series in my opinion and what intrigued me in the first place.

So, lemme give you some juicy and 100% fanmade backstory for this bad boi :P

Gehrman’s character and personality are definitely the results of his upbringing. Born frail and sensitive, he was forced into martial training since a young age and denied to pursue what was probably his true calling in life, that of the artisan. He had to ‘grow up fast’ to help to sustain his family (Gehrman’s childhood/teenage years follow the disastrous conclusion of a war between Carim and a foreign nation) and because of that he never got the chance to assiduously attend school. When he got hired at Byrgenwerth as a handyman at the age of 16, he could barely read and write. This poorly paid job was for Gehrman a pivotal turning point, because it allowed him to escape the clutches of his overly strict father and gain access to a world of higher-cultured people such as the students and personnel of the college.

And as time went on and Gehrman proved himself a skilled and hard-working lad, he forged a long-lasting friendship with the college’s gatekeeper/janitor Edmund and the sinister but caring scholar Dores. These two, are easily the most influential people in his life beside Master Willem. Dores and Edmund encouraged him to get back to study, lending him books and laboratory equipment so that he could put his -rusty, but brilliant-  skills at use in his free time and asked Master Willem to grant him the permission to attend lessons alongside the students. Finally able to express himself without neglecting the martial training he got from his father, Gehrman quickly became essential to Byrgenwerth as a whole, serving both as a groundskeeper (and trust me, you need someone like that when your college is located in the middle of a damn forest!) and custodian. Everything that ever mattered to him, everything good that ever happened to him and that gave Gehrman some sense of pride or accomplishment was tied to Byrgenwerth and to the benevolence of Master Willem who provided him a place where to stay in exchange for his services. No wonder the soon-to-be First Hunter would become fiercely loyal to the Byrgenwerth’s cause to the point of self-detriment.

When the scholars unlocked the entrance to the Tomb of the Gods and faced the horrors of the Labyrinths for the very first time, Gehrman was right in the front line, clueless an unprepared. That first ‘hunt’, that resulted in dozens of students getting killed and our ‘hero’ crippled and scarred for life, was an experience so horrifying and traumatizing that most people would’ve just called it quits “Fuck the college, I’m outta here, I don’t get paid enough for getting my face eat by giant undead werewolves”-style. But Gehrman, somehow, probably out of fear of losing everything he ever cared about now that Willem considered him useless because of his injury, endured. He swore to himself he would find a way to fight the beasts and vanquish them and as his leg healed after the amputation he spent months researching and tinkering with weapons at his (at the time, quite small and disorganized) worktable. During that time, Willem hired several groups of mercenaries hoping that they would be able to clear at least the first floor of the Chalice but obtained no concrete results. Still bound to his wheelchair, Gehrman observed their equipment and strategies, trying to grasp what those experienced warriors were doing wrong and what he himself would do wrong in following his father’s teachings. Once able to stand on his two legs once again, Gehrman asked the captain of the mercenaries to listen to him, offering some advice and explaining what he had learned from the Pthumerian texts Dores was able to translate. The mercenary scoffed him at first, but then decided to listen to what the young man had to say and asked him for a demonstration. Impressed by the rudimental but quite efficient trick weapon (Gehrman’s first creation was the Saif, in my headcanons. Not the Burial Blade) the captain allowed Gehrman to train with his men and share his knowledge and tricks with them. The next expedition in the Chalices would be their biggest success so far and that very night Gehrman would come back to the college with a wide smile on his blood-smeared face and the severed head of a Scourge Beast as a trophy. He was 24 years old :3

But the real story begins almost 20 years later. 20 years that Gehrman spent devoting himself to the Hunt completely, perfecting his techniques, forging new weapons and taking the place of the captain of the mercenaries becoming, in fact, the Hunter Chief of the group, now composed of more than thirty members, all students of his. He came from nothing and crawled his way up to the top, taking pride in his accomplishments despite the fact that he had to put aside everything else, including his private life (which had been quite depressing and lonely since his childhood friend, Therese, married someone else) and with the constant awareness that everything he has is still just a kind concession of Master Willem and that he could lose everything in the blink of an eye. His workshop, his money, even his comfy studio filled with mechanical creations, everything belongs to Byrgenwerth.

Even now, as a grown-ass man with a reputation and devoted students of his own, Gehrman is still very much the same insecure boy he was when he joined Byrgenwerth. He still holds a grudge towards his father (it’s a mutual thing) is a walking disaster around women, is very dependable on Dores and Edmund and never questions Master Willem’s orders, not even the more despicable ones. And trust me, Willem often asked him, Dores and Edmund to do things that are, to put it simply, quite fucked up. For science, of course.

Overall, Gehrman means well. He does his best, tries to be impartial when it comes to his students and genuinely cares about their safety and well-being. He has seen many of them die in the course of his career and always blamed himself for their demise. Even if they signed up a contract knowing what they were getting into, that doesn’t make the departure of a colleague or friend any less painful for him, reason why he takes upon himself the responsibility of finishing off his students on the battlefield if there’s nothing that can be done for them. He is a really demanding teacher (which reminds him of how his father used to treat him and Gehrman kinda hates himself because of that. Yep, he definitely has daddy issues) and someone who wouldn’t hesitate to kick you out if you don’t behave, but he would do this only because he doesn’t want to see you dead.

Surprisingly, all the above also applies to Maria. No matter how much into her he is, during training, he never treated her differently than his other students. Never went easy on her because of her higher social status or the simple fact that she is a woman. (I mean, Gratia, Izzy and Henriett are women as well and they know that Gehrman doesn’t give a damn and they are glad he doesn’t.)

Speaking of which, it’s time to make this post even longer and spend a few words on Gehrman’s mania. He immediately found Maria extremely attractive since their very first encounter, and in a genuinely perverted way at that. He immediately had his mind filled with all sort of naughty thoughts while his reasonable side was there to remind him to “keep dreaming bro, that ain’t going to happen”. And at first, he was kinda okay with that. No matter how beautiful she was, Maria was a real pain in the ass at first and not someone Gehrman would’ve wanted to form any sort of relationship with. So his thoughts were, for quite some time, just thoughts. And not even particularly intrusive ones. But as time went by, the more he got to know Maria the more he realized that she was literally everything he ever looked for in a woman. That was the moment the whole drama began because at that point he became afraid of what Maria would’ve thought of him if she ever found out about his infatuation with her.

That is the point in the story when he began to hide, lie and avoid her while still dying to see her. This part is my favorite because Gehrman is very conflicted and does a bunch of dumb shit in pure cheesy Period Drama style. The worst thing he does is probably idealizing Maria beyond belief, putting her on a pedestal where no one (not even himself) can touch her while gloating about the idea that he is the one responsible for her talent. Which is relatively true, but doesn’t excuse the ‘ownership’ he claims over her skills. On a good note, he is very aware of how twisted his feelings have become and feels guilty about it, reason why he acts cold and distant towards Maria. A behavior that doesn’t fit with that of the other hunters who are now friendly and well-disposed towards her at this point in the story.

His internal turmoil is the reason why I do find Maria’s reaction to his extorted confession absolutely brilliant (props to Daisy who wrote it

Now, I could keep on rambling about these two for hours and about how the Old Blood and its effects on them (and the setting) affected the story but this post is already TOO long XD

#ask #gehrman the first hunter #headcanons #gehrmaria

[smartgirlsaremean]

The Question Falls - Chapter 12

Fandom: OUAT

Pairing: Rumbelle

Rating: E (fic and chapter)

Summary: Divorce attorney Gold knows better than to fall in love with a client. Really he does.

AO3

Chapter 12 - Belle and Gold narrowly avert disaster.

Gold hadn’t heard from Belle in four days.

Well, that wasn’t quite accurate. He’d heard from her, of course. They’d called and texted, but she’d suggested no plans, and been too busy or tired when he ventured to make suggestions of his own. She’d asked him once not to worry, but as Thursday drew to an end he felt as if he were teetering on the edge of a panic attack. After racking his brains for two days trying to determine what he’d done to make her go off him, he was rapidly drawing the conclusion that she had realized his mother was right, and that she could do better.

He’d always known that, of course, but he’d begun to believe that she disagreed.

He was scraping leftovers of his dinner into a container - after a few months of cooking for two the habit was hard to break - when the bell rang, and he frowned, wondering who on earth would be calling at this hour.

“Yes?” he barked into the speaker.

“Hey, it’s me. Can I come up?”

He didn’t think he’d ever pushed that damn button so quickly in his life. Within moments he heard her knock, and he swung the door open.

“Hey,” Belle said, her hands clutched nervously in front of her.

“Hey.”

“Sorry, I probably should have called, but I was in the neighborhood and I really wanted to see you.” She shrugged sheepishly. “It’s been a while.”

He nodded mutely, torn between absolving her of showing up unannounced and demanding to know when she was going to put him out of his misery.

“So, can I...can I come in?”

Starting, he realized that she was still standing in the hallway and he hadn’t actually invited her in. He took a step back and she walked past him, her hands still clinging to each other.

“Were you eating? I didn’t mean to interrupt…”

“No, I’d just finished. I have some left over if you…”

“No, I ate earlier, I’m fine.”

God, this was the most stilted conversation they’d ever had. Gold cast about in his mind for something to ask her - anything, really - and came up blank. They stared at each other a few minutes more, and Belle began to blush.

“Maybe I should…”

“Would you like a drink?”

“Yeah...white wine, if you have it.”

He kept a bottle of her favorite Chardonnay chilled at all times, but for some reason this didn’t seem the best time to mention it. Instead he fetched glasses and the bottle and gestured for her to sit at the island in the kitchen, and she took a long sip of the generous glass he poured for her.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last on a sigh. “I know I’ve been kind of...stand-offish lately.”

“You said you needed a night to think.”

“Yeah...I guess maybe I thought too much, because then I couldn’t stop, and then I was afraid to stop, and then...I just got caught up in my own head.”

“What did I do wrong?” Gold hated the sound of his voice as he asked, hated that he sounded so weak and sad, but dammit, he’d been doing so well. They’d been doing well.

“Nothing!” She reached out and grasped his hand, her eyes wide and urgent. “I swear, you haven’t done anything wrong. You’re...wonderful.”

Gently he turned his hand over and interlaced his fingers with hers. “But something is wrong.”

“I...well, it’s...it’s your mother,” Belle said hesitantly.

“My mother?” he frowned. “Has she contacted you?”

“No, it’s just...Rum, I just got rid of a disapproving mother, y’know? I mean, I don’t blame you for not mentioning her, but a little warning would have been nice.”

In an instant, her discomfort and silence made perfect sense. “Oh, sweetheart, no,” he said, squeezing her hand. “No, it’s nothing like that.”

“I saw her face,” Belle insisted. “She loathes me, and I don’t even know why.”

“No, that’s not quite it,” Gold said slowly. He wondered how he could possibly explain his mother to someone unused to her.

“I’ve been here before, I recognize the signs.” Belle’s voice was flat, and she took another drink of her wine. “I want to be with you, but I don’t know if I can deal with all that again.”

Well, now he had to explain, because the thought of losing Belle because of his fucking mother made his heart do terrifying and impossible things. “She doesn’t hate you, Belle. She’s impressed with you - you’re strong and intelligent and ambitious - all qualities she admires.”

“Then why did she look at me like I was something disgusting you’d tracked in on your shoe?”

“Because,” he refilled her wine glass, carefully avoiding her eyes, “she finds your taste in men...questionable.”

He could feel Belle’s confusion. “She doesn’t like Gaston? How does she know him?”

“She’s never met Gaston, as far as I’m aware.”

The weight of her gaze was nearly suffocating, and he focused on a drop of condensation that was slowly creeping down the bottle’s neck. Belle’s thumb tapped against the side of his hand softly, and he knew she was thinking about his words.

“You don’t mean...you?”

He sighed, lifting his eyes to hers. “I do.”

“But...that doesn’t make any sense. She wants you to be with Zelena - why…”

“She hates Zelena.”

“I don’t understand any of this,” Belle said, shaking her head. “She’s your mother. Shouldn’t she be convinced that no woman is good enough for you?”

“Apparently I have too much of my father in me,” he said sourly, and then winced when Belle’s grip on his hand grew unbearably tight. He tried to pull away, and she loosened her grip.

“That is the most despicable thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, her eyes blazing.

“At least you know that the problem isn’t you,” he said, smiling weakly. “It’s me.”

“What? No!” Belle stood and moved to stand in front of him. “She’s the one with the bloody problem, Rum. You are smart and sweet and funny and...I mean, I’d think she’d at least be proud of how successful you are!”

Gold shrugged. “I’ve never quite measured up to her expectations.”

Belle let out what could only be described as a roar of outrage. “I...I can’t even...of all the ridiculous…” Shaking her head, she paced the length of the kitchen and then came back, her mouth set in a determined line. “You more than measure up to my expectations, okay? You exceed them.”

He really had no idea what to say to that.

“Shit.” Belle sighed and crossed her arms. “This isn’t...God, this really isn’t the way I wanted to do this, but…I can’t not.”

“Can’t not what?

She shook her head and took his hand, pulling him off the stool he’d sat on and leading him into his living room.

“Okay, so look,” she said when they were both seated on the couch. She was kneeling next to him so that she faced him fully, her beautiful face serious and a bit nervous. “The last few days - they’ve sucked, and not just because I didn’t get to see you. That was part of it, but...I was pretty sure I couldn’t deal with another Beryl, which meant I couldn’t be with you anymore, and thinking about that was...it was awful. Sometimes I couldn’t breathe thinking about it.”

“Belle, I…”

“And that’s why I stayed away longer, because I couldn’t...I knew if I saw you, I’d either have to break up with you or decide that I was okay with your mother hating me. So if I just didn’t see you, neither had to happen, y’know? Like Schrodinger’s cat. We could be together and not together at the same time.” She huffed a small laugh and plucked at a stray thread hanging from her sleeve. “Of course, that could only go on for so long. And tonight I decided I was done with being a coward, and that I would do the brave thing, and just hope bravery would follow.”

For one fleeting second he was terrified that breaking up with him was the brave thing, and she must have seen that in his face because she leaned forward and kissed him, long and slow and lingering, and when she pulled back he felt a little more grounded, a little less like the bottom was about to fall out of his world.

“So here goes,” she said, shifting a little closer and reaching out to cup his cheek with her hand. Her fingers slid back and into his hair and she took a deep breath. “Roderick...I love you.”

Belle had about half a second to be afraid that Roderick’s flabbergasted expression was about to morph into embarrassment and pity, and then she found herself clutched to his chest as if he thought he could meld them into one being, his mouth hot and insistent on hers. Relief flooded her and she melted into him, moving so that she was seated across his knees, both hands buried in his hair.

“Love you too,” he murmured when he pulled back. “So much, Belle, you have no idea…”

She smiled and touched her forehead to his, marveling at how much better she felt having heard him say it. She’d had an inkling - he had a way of looking at her as if she were the sun, bright enough to blot out everything else around them - but it was a relief to say the words aloud, and to hear them in return. She kissed him again, teasing her way into his mouth and trying to pull him closer, her hands clutching at his hair.

When he nipped at her bottom lip she whimpered, and he growled in response, pushing her down until she lay beneath him on the couch. This was one of the advantages of neither of them being particularly tall, Belle thought as she welcomed the warm weight of him between her legs; the couch was more than large enough for their purposes. As he kissed and nibbled his way down her throat she tried to loosen his tie but found that he was too close and didn’t seem at all interested in giving her an opening.

“Rum, your clothes,” she whined, tugging lightly on his tie.

He grunted and pulled back a little, his eyes dark and a little wild. “Bedroom?” he asked, and Belle bit her lip, slowly shaking her head. “Good. Couldn’t make it anyway.” He dipped his head to kiss her again, but Belle pushed against him until he was sitting upright. She straddled his thighs, gasping a little when she felt him beneath her, already hard. His hands slid up her thighs and under her skirt and she shifted restlessly as his thumbs pressed against the gusset of her underwear.

“Please,” she said against his lips, tugging lightly on his hair.

One of his fingers slipped inside her panties, his touch much too gentle to satisfy her, and she pressed her hips down, chasing the friction she needed so desperately, but he pulled back, teasing her until she was almost growling with frustration.

Well, two could play this game. She released her hold on his hair and attacked his belt and flies, reluctantly impressed that he was able to help her slide everything out of the way while still driving her insane. His rhythm faltered when she wrapped her hand around him and she grinned, slowly stroking him from root to tip.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Brilliant,” he said, his teeth clenched, and then his hands were on her waist, tugging her closer. Belle reached down and pulled her panties aside so that she could sink down on him, and...well, she hadn’t exactly come here for this, but when she thought about it she should have known it was inevitable. They hadn’t seen each other in days, and she’d known they were headed either for heartache or reunion, so there was at least a fifty-fifty chance they’d end up here.

She’d missed him too much, wanted him for too long, been too eager to have him - and even under normal circumstances he was so incredibly good at making her come undone. She wasn’t in the least surprised when she unraveled after only a few minutes, and she smiled against his neck when he followed her almost immediately, gasping her name and holding her so tightly it nearly hurt.

When they’d both caught their breath, they relocated to his bedroom, and as she slipped under the covers and into the circle of his arms, Belle felt tears prick at her eyes as the enormity of what had almost happened caught up to her. They were in love, and they’d almost lost each other. She pressed a little closer to him, smiling when she felt his arms tighten around her, and she suspected that if she could look up she’d see the same realization dawning on him.

“I love you,” he said, his voice raspy, and the words thrilled through her now in a way they hadn’t before. In the heat of the moment, when they were clutching each other and soaring to dizzying heights, anyone could say anything. But here, in the dark and silence with no impetus driving the words other than his own feelings, they felt more real, more meaningful.

“I love you, too,” she said.

She felt his lips brush her hair and she sighed, closing her eyes and letting the first waves of sleep wash over her.

They were going to be okay.

#rumbelle fic #rumbelle au #the question falls