#his past and entire relationship with the doctor has entirely changed

[blushweddinggowns]

Steve was probably Dustin’s favorite person in the entire world, not that he would ever admit it out loud. It wasn’t exactly a secret, but it was a little embarrassing for his role model to be a dorky babysitter who worked for minimum wage with his chick-repeller best friend. And when he wasn’t with her, then he was with his brand new favorite metalhead. Neither were particularly helpful in the dating department.  

Now if he was just allowed to add the bit where Steve was a fearless monster fighter with a heart of gold, then things would be a bit better, but certain government NDAs made that impossible. Dustin admired Steve just as much as he judged him, more so really. But all that admiration didn’t stop him from worrying. 

There was something obviously wrong with Steve lately, and for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out what it was. At first, Dustin thought it was just Steve worrying over Eddie’s recovery, because he was a massive worrywart who still looked like he’d faint when Eddie did anything even slightly strenous. Though in his defense, Steve had been the one to drag Eddie out of the Upside Down and got to witness firsthand just how close to death he was. He barely left his side for those first few horrible days in the hospital, always touch and go, doctors constantly warning them to not expect him to wake up. 

But Eddie recovered, has been recovered, for months now. He was back to his theatrical self, slipping into their friend group with ease. Especially when it came to Steve. Apparently having your life saved by someone fast tracked relationships by years. The two acted like they’d known each other since childhood, constantly together.

Steve went to pick him up? Eddie was already in the front seat. He went into the Family Video to bother him? Eddie was already chatting him up at the front counter. Showing up to bother Steve at his house after school? Half the time it was Eddie who answered the door, and the other half he was sprawled on the couch when Steve let him in. 

Now Dustin wasn’t necessarily jealous of Eddie, but their relationship just confused him. At first, he was actually pretty happy about Steve having a new side kick, especially when Robin decided to drop the bomb that she was gay as hell and dating Vicky, effectively cutting the time she spent with Steve in half. Dustin knew that Steve got lonely easily, so he half expected that to restart his attempts at getting a girlfriend, but instead he just spent more and more time with Eddie. Which was fine. Weird, but fine. Or at least, it was. 

But for the past week or so whatever was going on with Steve, shifted. Sure he was acting different before, he was striking out with almost any girl who talked to him and hadn’t been out on a date since forever , but Dustin wasn’t too worried about it, not when he knew he was happy.

Like, weirdly happy for someone who had the life Steve had. But now, Dustin could just tell something was bothering him, something that he refused to acknowledge. Steve had never been a good actor, ever since whatever happened, he’s just had this air of loneliness around him, just an aura of sadness that he was hiding behind the world’s fakest smile. 

But Dustin couldn't figure out what it was. Nothing had changed! No fights with Robin that he knew of, and definitely none with Eddie. Steve’s face still lit up whenever he saw him, and Eddie wasn’t shy about draping himself all over Steve whenever he could. No one was that touchy feely if they were fighting with someone, so that was out. 

Whatever it was, Dustin needed to get to the bottom of it, and he wasn’t the only one. 

Besides El and Lucas, Steve was also Max’s favorite person. Somehow, a random twenty-year old with a beehive for hair became the closest thing she had to a functioning parent in her life. He was always looking out for her, whether it be taking her to and from physical therapy, dropping off groceries at the trailer on his way to Eddie’s, or even taking her freaking mom to AA, Steve was there. 

So of course she noticed immediately when he was upset. At first she thought he got into it with Eddie or something. The two were basically attached at the hip nowadays, so if someone was going to piss him off, then it would probably be him. But they were acting the same as always, sickeningly sweet and bizarrely close for only being friends for half a year. Though on second thought, Max didn’t have much room to judge, considering how she considered Steve like a dad in under two.

Steve just drew people to him, with his stupid handsome face and good nature. He was always too busy worrying about other people, he never acknowledged when he needed support, so of course he just denied anything was wrong when Max asked. 

“I’m fine, scout’s honor,” he had said the last time she tried, with the saddest puppy dog eyes ever. His face only ever brightened fully when Eddie was around, though Max had a feeling that was also an act, just a more curated one for Eddie’s watchful eyes. The guy was obsessed with Steve, but since he was always so nice, Max didn’t think to worry about it. Steve deserved someone who cared too much around. 

Robin, obviously, knew what was wrong, but she was a steel trap when it came to Steve secrets. That was something Max actually loved about Robin, just not when it was used against her. 

She had thought about asking Eddie, but decided against it. If her initial theory was right, then he was hiding something from him too, and hiding it harder. Or if she was wrong, she doubted he’d betray Steve’s trust for her. Not unless she caught him alone and really, really high.

That could stay as a back-up plan. 

But for now, Dustin was going to be her best bet. Steve could pretty easily say no to them separately, but when they formed a unified front he always caved.

They were working with a hundred percent success rate when they got him alone, a power they didn’t take lightly. The two had agreed to save that tactic for only dire circumstances, they weren’t monsters afterall, but Max was going to count this as dire. 

Dustin was pretty easy to convince, he was just as tired of Steve avoiding talking about it as she was.  The two of them set up a plan in no time, Operation: What the fuck was wrong with Steve?

The immediate hurdle was separating Steve from his cronies, which left them with the single option of Friday night. Eddie had a drug deal, courtesy of Max’s admittingly, inappropriate eavesdropping, from the last time they took her to the doctor, pretending to listen to Kate Bush as Eddie promised him to be careful. 

Robin was a different story, and there was a fifty percent chance she’d be there. And Robin was always on Steve’s side, even when he was obviously lying. But they had a plan for that too, one would distract her at the front door and the other would sneak in and coax Steve outside, feigning some kind of emotional emergency that required privacy, where they would then corner him in the woods. 

Max had to admit that plans like this made her think Steve may have had a point to his “personal boundaries lectures”, but if he wasn’t so damn stubborn, then they wouldn't have to be so weird. They pulled up to his house on their bikes, no cars but Steve’s in the driveway. 

“I’ll sneak through the back door, he usually doesn’t lock it.” Max said, hopping off her bike, “You deal with Robin, and if she’s not there just yell.”

“And if she is?”

“If she is, distract her for as long as possible, I’ll walkie you when I get him alone.” 

Dustin nodded. Robin was easy enough to distract, and who knows, maybe they would get lucky and she wouldn't be there. He rang the front door bell, watching Max sneak off to the back in the corner of his eye.

Of course Robin was the one to answer the door, frowning immediately at the sight of Dustin, “Jeez kid, every hear of calling?”

Rude. But whatever. “Where’s Ste-”

“If you’re looking for Steve he isn’t here right now, okay?” she lied immeadlilty, obviously going with the first dumb thing that popped into her head. She looked angry and tired, which was mildly alarming. And super rude. 

“If he isn’t here then why is his car? I know he wouldn’t let you drive it.” Dustin said, crossing his arms, “You gotta get better at lying Robin.”

She rolled her eyes, “He would so let me drive. I have a license now, remember? What do you even want, Henderson?”

“Well now I want to know why you’re lying.”

She sighed, pinching her nose in frustration, “Dustin, now just isn’t a good time okay? Come back tomorrow, he’s off in the afternoon anyway.”

“If something’s wrong with Steve then I should know about it! You realize I was his best friend before you, right?”

“Oh, as if!”

Getting into an argument over who was Steve’s true best friend was as good of a distraction as Max could ask for. Robin didn’t even notice her slink into the house, making her way into the living room with none the wiser. 

She peered over the couch, heart immediately sinking at the sight of Steve laying down, red-eyed and sniffling. Her well curated plans flew out the window at the sight, and the question was out before she could even remember she was trying to be sneaky here, “Why are you crying?”

Steve nearly jumped ten feet in the air at the question, flailing off the couch at the sight of Max suddenly standing over him.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Steve gasped, pulling himself up from the floor.

She shrugged, casually moving to sit next to him, too concerned to be embarrassed over being caught, “You left the back door unlocked. Why are you crying?”

“I wasn’t crying!” 

She rolled her eyes, “Then why were you crying? Was it Nancy again?” Max asked, lowering her voice, “Because I wouldn’t mind putting her in her place if she’s messing with you-”

Steve gave a shaky laugh at the barely veiled threat, oddly endeared despite the fact that she broke into his house, “It’s not Nancy. Jesus calm down.” 

Steve turned to the entryway, calling after Robin, “Just let him in, Robs, the other one already snuck past you anyway.”

That was all the invitation Dustin needed to push past her, immediately frowning when he saw Steve. He turned to Robin, “Did you make him cry?”

“No, she didn’t-”

“Maybe a little.” Robin mumbled, interrupting him. She plopped next to Steve, dropping a comforting hand to his shoulder, “But my harshness is for his own good.”

Max sat on his other side, leaving Dustin to sit on the floor in front of him, “Can you just tell us what’s been going on with you already?” he sighed,  playing with the carpet fibers, “You might be able to trick everyone else but not us. Right Max?”

“Right.” she agreed, “And if you tell us maybe we can help. Without making you cry.” she emphasized, giving Robin a mean look. 

Steve groaned, rubbing at his face, “I’m fine, I swear! It’s just some dumb shit on my end.”

“Not really dumb…” Robin mumbled next to him, huffing when he elbowed her in the ribs to shut her up, “Babe, they’ve already resorted to breaking and entering, they’re gonna find out eventually anyway.”

Steve groaned, throwing his head back to stare at the ceiling. This is not where he expected this night to go, but now his two favorite children were staring at him, all wide-eyed and concerned, he didn’t know how to say no to that. The little shits.

“Fine. I’ll tell you,” Steve sighed, completely giving in, again. He was really going to need a better boundaries speech soon, “But I'm telling you with the full expectation that you'll keep it to yourselves okay? And you won't freak out."

“We won’t freak out.” Both kids said in unison, despite the fact that they were very much internally freaking out over what he was about to say. 

"Like seriously, I mean it.” he emphasized, “Remember how many times I've gotten the shit beat out of me for you before you pass judgment."

“And remember that I’m not afraid to hurt children if you cross him either,” Robin added, looking surprisingly threatening, enough to make them double down on the promise to be cool. 

Satisfied, Steve went on, "Well…I'm like Robin, understand? Like…preference wise."

Dustin cocked his head at him, confused, “You mean you like girls? But we knew that?”

"He's gay dingus." Max answered for him, immediately catching on. 

"Bi!" Robin piped up beside him, “He’s playing for both teams.”

Now that was unexpected, at least for Dustin. He stared at him, the shock evident on his face. He was only able to shake it off when he realized Steve was shrinking in on himself, anxiously waiting for him to say something. 

“We love you anyway," Dustin blurted out, just knowing that Max felt the same way, "That’s like nothing. I was worried you were dying or something!"

Max nodded with him, “He’s right, like we won’t tell anyone but I know Lucas wouldn't care either. Or Eddie for that matter.”

Steve only flinched a tiny bit at that, which he was proud of. And honestly, the relief he was feeling was bigger than how bummed out he was about his other problem.

“Thank you,” he mumbled, a grin slowly growing on his face, “Like seriously, that’s a massive load off.”

"And what else?" Max pressed. 

Steve ran a hand over his face, he should have known it wouldn’t be that easy to get them off his back, "What do you mean, what else?"

“There’s obviously something else, because you liking guys wouldn’t warrant a harsh lecture.”

Robin huffed, crossing her arms, "He just has bad taste in guys-”

“Dude!” Steve hissed. His face was going red from how hard he was rubbing at it, or maybe he was just that embarrassed. 

“We won’t stop until we find out,” Dustin warned, “We’ll break in again if need be.”

Steve loved these kids, loved them enough to die for them, but god were they annoyingly persistent.

“Fine! Yes, there’s something else. Just don't be weird about it,” he insisted,  “Like this is a me problem, a Steve only problem, so I don't need you two rugrats trying to go full vigilante for me or some shit, got it?"

They nodded, both knowing that they didn’t mean it. 

“I…I kinda have a thing for Eddie. A very, very uninterested Eddie. Who did nothing wrong by the way,” he said, glaring at Robin hard enough to shut her mouth, swallowing whatever comment she was going to add, “It’s a really stupid crush that I need to get over, and that’s all. I swear.”

Max turned to Robin, “Is that true?”

She shrugged, “In essence, technically it’s true.” 

That…that kinda made sense. Max was suddenly reminded of just how often the two of them were together, let alone how touchy feely. Now that it was pointed out to her, she felt kinda dumb for not realizing before. Those two were all over each other. 

Dustin was even more surprised. At least now it made sense why Steve suddenly had an interest in DnD, but he was having a hard time seeing Steve the “Hair” Harrington, be thirsting after his nerdy Dungeon Master. 

Or worse yet, why was his nerdy Dungeon Master not thirsting after Steve?

“Is he straight?” Dustin blurted out. He hadn’t ever thought about it before, but in hindsight Eddie almost never talked about dating, and when he did it was vague with no actual women being mentioned.

Robin cough-laughed next to Steve, “Oh ya, he’s real heterosexual. Straight boys are just known for calling their friends sweetheart-ow!”

Steve threw a pillow at her face, shutting her up before she could get going, “What he is or isn’t into is no one’s business but his own. I just know I’m not in the ‘is into’ category.”

“How do you know?” Max asked. Eddie could surely do a lot worse than Steve. And if Robin is right and he isn’t straight, who is he to think he could do better? Better than the man who literally saved his life. If anything Steve was out of Eddie’s league, not the other way around. 

“I just do. And I really, really don’t want to talk about it anymore. So now you know. Now promise you won't be weird, alright? I’ll get over it. Like soon , I promise.”

He wrapped an arm around Max, and reached down to ruffle Dustin’s hair, a real smile on his face, the kind they both had really missed, “And besides, you two not giving a shit that I’m a fruit matters way more than any crush.”

“That’s such a lame way to put it.” Dustin whined, even though they were both preening internally. Of course, Steve could trust them. They’d love him no matter what, and at least now he knew that. 

“Okay! Well now that you know, you can go now,” Robin stood, gesturing towards the door, “We have a conversation to finish over here.”

Steve groaned behind her, “Do we have to?”

“Yes we have to!”

“Well can I have a break at least?” Steve leaned over, grabbing his keys off the side table, “Drive them home for me and then I’ll suffer through your lecture in the morning.” 

“But-”

He tossed her the keys, consequences be damned. If she crashed, she crashed, at least it will be legal now, “But if you have my car I won’t be able to avoid you that well will I?”

That appeased Robin enough to get her walking towards the door, “Then I’ll be back in the morning, Nine a.m. Sharp. ”

She turned to them, sticking her tongue out at Dustin, “Told you he’d let me drive it. Now let’s go.”

Dustin and Max exchanged looks, reluctant to leave when they were obviously missing a massive part of this story, but Steve was already shooing them out the door. 

He waved at them from the stoop, a tired but sincere smile on his face as he watched them pile into the car. Even if his friends were beyond overbearing, it did feel better to talk about it. He just wished he didn’t have to put his petty problems on literal children.  

He laid back on the couch, staring up at the ceiling. 

He wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable, and honestly deserved, speech Robin was going to finish tomorrow, but at least he got her out in time before she had even more material to work with. He had never seen her turn so fast and so vindiciatavly against another person before. It made him feel like shit honestly, that Eddie was losing Robin as a friend for his own stupid ego. If she just knew him a little better, then she’d get it. Probably. 

Maybe.

Eddie didn’t have a mean bone in his body, he would never fuck with Steve’s feelings on purpose. All of his jokes, all of the touching and nicknames were just how he showed affection. It isn’t his fault Steve read way too much into it, like a moron. 

And okay, maybe two male best friends don’t call each other baby or sweetheart, but Robin called him babe, so it wasn’t that weird. And so what if they slept in the same bed together almost everyday? It was just helping each other out with nightmares, even if Eddie kissed the top of his head every night, it didn’t mean anything.

Or at least, now it didn’t. 

“Seriously Nance? I’d rather die.”

He groaned, burying his face into the couch cushions at the thought. He was not going to cry again, he refused, but it was still so harsh. From someone who actually almost died, it was quite the fucking statement to make, and maybe Steve should just take it as the obvious no it was. He should be grateful he found out, and didn’t humiliate himself by declaring his everlasting love or some shit. 

If he could go back in time and just not ask , then he wouldn't be here right now. He’d still be in ignorant bliss. But no, he just had to get Nancy Wheeler involved, the queen of reality. Though technically she had wanted to get involved, if nothing but to stop Steve from lamenting about it over the phone. Weirdly enough, distance had been great for their relationship, and now they were closer than ever, talking for hours whenever either needed to vent, Nancy about school or her failed relationship with Johnathan that she still wasn't over, and Steve, consistently, about his almost boyfriend, Eddie. 

It had taken months for it to finally happen, but she was so sick of his pining, she had cracked, “I’m just going to ask him when I’m home next Steve, I swear to God.”

“No you will not. Nancy, that is so freaking highschool it isn’t even funny.”

“He was just in highschool, so it’s fitting. And then you can stop wasting your time whining about him and just make-out with him. Next weekend, I’m doing it, like it or not.”

He should have insisted on the no, but instead he went full highschool girl and went along with it. They met at her place, under the pretense of a small get-together while her parents were out of town. He left Eddie with her in the basement, pretending to go to the bathroom when he really stopped at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping  as Nancy casually asked the questions he was too chicken-shit to do himself, “So, are you seeing anyone?”

Eddie had almost choked on his drink at that, “No? Why Wheeler, you interested? Because I doubt Johnathan or Steve would be too keen on that.”

Nancy rolled her eyes, “No offense Eddie, but you’re definitely not my type. And I don’t think I’m yours either . I don’t think any girl in Hawkins is.”

Eddie stared at her, gnawing on his lower lip, “Good guess. And if you happened to be right, then you can probably understand why I keep that part of my life on the down low.”

She nodded, “I’m not going to tell anyone, believe me. I was just curious if anyone had caught your eye.”

“In this town? No one. There are literally zero options.”

“Oh come on, Steve’s cute, there’s an option.”

He had laughed at that, loud and mean as he shook his head, “Me and Steve? Seriously Nance? I’d rather die .”

Steve wasn’t sure what he had expected to hear, but it definitely wasn’t that. It hurt, it hurt bad, which was stupid considering they were never together, or even close to it, outside of the wild leaps Steve had made in his head. The logic hadn’t stopped the tears from gathering in his eyes though. 

Robin, in all of her ill-timed glory, decided that was the best moment for her to bust through the front door, calling loudly into the house. Steve scrambled to meet her, just in time to avoid Eddie seeing him spying like a creep. It had been a terrible fucking night, but at least Nancy was kind enough to lie about her parents coming home early so Steve could sulk at home in peace. She had apologized to him at least ten times since then, and had jumped straight onto the Eddie hate-train with Robin pretty soon after. They had both been so sure that he felt the same way, they channeled all their disappointment into rage, at someone who really didn’t deserve it. 

Steve shouldn’t have told Robin what happened, wouldn’t have if he’d known she’d be so insane about the whole thing. Even if she had some good points. Was it healthy to pretend like nothing was wrong and let Eddie hang all over him with no future of an actual relationship? No. Was it stopping Steve from doing it? Also no. 

Steve jumped when he heard the doorbell ring, too lost in his own thoughts to realize it was past midnight. There was only one person it could be. He scrambled to get the door, always stupidly excited to see him, already grinning when he came face to face with the source of all of his shitty feelings, and the only person who even slightly made him feel better about it.

“Y’know, I gave you a key so you could use it,” he teased as Eddie stepped past him, right at home, “I don’t know why you always make me answer the door.”

“Maybe I just want to see your pretty face, is that such a crime?” Eddie was doing that thing again, that sweet way of talking that made Steve feel like he was about to melt. That thing that Robin insisted Steve put a stop to if he had any sense of self-worth.

Lucky for him, he didn’t. 

Steve rolled his eyes, grabbing for Eddie’s hand to lead him upstairs, “No, but making me lose sleep is. My pretty face is exhausted from waiting for your ass. We’re going to bed.”

Eddie was laughing behind him, with his stupidly pretty voice. The voice that haunted Steve’s dreams at night, “Whatever you say princess.” 

Steve should have been thinking about what Robin said as he curled up against Eddie’s chest in his bed. This was bad for him, no matter how good it felt in the moment. The nights of Eddie wrapping his arms around him, kissing his head, whispering sweet dreams, in his ear, had an expiration date, he knew that now. 

But that wouldn’t stop him from hanging onto it for as long as he could. 

Part 2!

#steddie #steddie ficlet #eddie munson #steve harrington #there's a part 2 to this! #you'll pry my insanely long posts out of my cold dead hands #eddie's a big dumbass #and robin's thirty seconds from killing him for it #stranger things #max mayfield #steve and dustin #dustin henderson #robin buckley #nancy wheeler #she's trying to be a good friend damn it

[mightyflamethrower]

In the last 20 years, the Left has boasted that it has gained control of most of America institutions of power and influence—the corporate boardroom, media, Silicon Valley, Wall Street, the administrative state, academia, foundations, social media, entertainment, professional sports, and Hollywood.

With such support, between 2009-17, Barack Obama was empowered to transform the Democratic Party from its middle-class roots and class concerns into the party of the bicoastal rich and subsidized poor—obsessions with big money, race, a new intolerant green religion, and dividing the country into a binary of oppressors and oppressed.

The Obamas entered the presidency spouting the usual leftwing boilerplate (“spread the wealth,” “just downright mean country,” “get in their face,” “first time I’ve been proud of my country”) as upper-middle-class, former community activists, hurt that their genius and talents had not yet been sufficiently monetized.

After getting elected through temporarily pivoting to racial ecumenicalism and pseudo-calls for unity, they reverted to form and governed by dividing the country. And then the two left the White House as soon-to-be mansion living, mega-rich elites, cashing in on the fears they had inculcated over the prior eight years.

To push through the accompanying unpopular agendas of an open border, mandatory wind and solar energy, racial essentialism, and the weaponization of the state, Obama had begun demonizing his opponents and the country in general: America was an unexceptional place. Cops were racist. “Clingers” of the Midwest were hopelessly ignorant and prejudiced. Only fundamental socialist transformation could salvage a historically oppressive, immoral, and racist nation.

The people finally rebelled at such preposterousness. Obama lost his party some 1,400 local and state offices during his tenure, along with both houses of Congress. His presidency was characterized by his own polarizing mediocrity. His one legacy was Obamacare, the veritable destruction of the entire system of a once workable health insurance, of the hallowed doctor-patient relationship, and of former easy access to competent specialists.

Yet Obama’s unfufilled ambitions set the stage for the Biden administration—staffed heavily with Obama veterans—to complete the revolutionary transformation of the Democratic Party and country.

It was ironic that while Obama was acknowledged as young and charismatic, nonetheless a cognitively challenged, past plagiarist, fabulist, and utterly corrupt Joe Biden was far more effective in ramming through a socialist woke agenda and altering the very way Americans vote and conduct their legal system.

Stranger still, Biden accomplished this subversion of traditional America while debilitated and often mentally inert—along with being mired in a bribery and influence-peddling scandal that may ultimately confirm that he easily was the most corrupt president to hold office in U.S. history.

How was all this possible?

Covid had allowed the unwell Biden to run a surrogate campaign from his basement as he outsourced his politicking to a corrupt media.

Senility proved a godsend for Biden. His cognitive disabilities masked his newfound radicalism and long-accustomed incompetence. Unlike his past failed campaigns, the lockdowns allowed Biden to be rarely seen or heard—and thus as much liked in the abstract as he had previously been disliked in the concrete.

His handlers, the Obamas, and the Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren radical Democrats, saw Biden’s half-century pretense as a gladhander—good ole Joe Biden from Scranton—as the perfect delivery system to funnel their own otherwise-unpopular leftwing agendas. In sum, via the listless Biden, they sought to change the very way America used to work.

And what a revolution Biden’s puppeteers have unleashed in less than three years.

They launched a base attack on the American legal system. Supreme Court judges are libeled, their houses swarmed, and their lives threatened with impunity. The Left promised to pack the court or to ignore any decision it resents. The media runs hit pieces on any conservative justice deemed too influential. The prior Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer whipped up a mob outside the court’s doors, and threatened two justices by name. As Schumer presciently put it, they would soon “reap the whirlwind” of what they supposedly had sowed and thus would have no idea what was about to “hit” them.

Under the pretense of Covid fears, balloting went from 70 percent participation on election day in most states to a mere 30 percent. Yet the rates of properly rejected illegal or improper ballots often dived by a magnitude of ten.

Assaults now followed on hallowed processes, laws, customs, and institutions—the Senate filibuster, the 50-state union, the Electoral College, the nine-justice Supreme Court, Election Day, and voter IDs.

Under Biden, the revolution had institutionalized first-term impeachment, the trial of an ex-president while a private citizen, and the indictment of a chief political rival and ex-president on trumped up charges by local and federal prosecutors—all to destroy a political rival and alter the 2024 election cycle.

Biden destroyed the southern border—literally. Eight million entered illegally—no background checks, no green cards, no proof of vaccinations. America will be dealing with the consequences for decades. Mexico was delighted, receiving some $60 million in annual remittances, while the cartels were empowered to ship enough fentanyl to kill 100,000 Americans a year.

“Modern monetary theory,” the Leftist absurdity that printing money ensures prosperity, followed. It has nearly bankrupted the country, unleashed wild inflation, and resulted in the highest interest rates in a quarter-century. Middle-class wages fell further behind as a doddering Biden praised his disastrous “Bidenomics.”

Biden warred on fossil fuels, cancelling federal leases and pipelines, jawboning lending agencies to defund fracking, demonizing state-of-the-art, clean-burning cars, and putting vast areas of oil- and gas-rich federals lands off-limits to drilling.

When gas prices predictably doubled under Biden and the 2022 midterms approached, he tried temporarily to lease out a few new fields, to drain the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and to beg the Saudis, and our enemies, the Iranians, the Venezuelans, and the Russians, to pump more oil and gas that Biden himself would not. All this was a pathetic ruse to temporarily lower gas prices before the mid-term elections.

Biden abandoned Afghanistan, leaving the largest trove of military equipment behind in U.S. military history, along with thousands of loyal Afghans and pro-American contractors.

Biden insulted the parents of the 13 Marines blown up in this worst U.S. military debacle since Pearl Harbor. He lied to the parents of the dead that he too lost a son in the Iraq war, and when among them later impatiently checked his watch as he seemed bored with the commemoration of the fallen—and made no effort to hide his sense that the ceremony was tedious to him.

Vladimir Putin summed up the Afghan debacle—and Biden’s nonchalant remark that he wouldn’t react strongly to a “minor” invasion of Ukraine if it were minor—as a green light to invade Ukraine.

When Biden did awaken, his first reaction was an offer to fly the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy out of the country as soon as possible. What has followed proved the greatest European killing ground since the 1944-45 Battle of the Bulge, albeit one that has now fossilized into a Verdun-like quagmire that is draining American military supply stocks and killing a half-million Ukrainians and Russians.

Suddenly, there are three genders, not two. Women’s sports have been wrecked by biological men competing as women, destroying a half-century of female athletic achievement. Young girls in locker rooms, co-eds in sororities, and women in prison must dress and shower with biological men transitioning to women by assertion.

There is no longer a commitment to free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union is a woke, intolerant group trying to ban free expression under the pretense of fighting “hate” speech and “disinformation.”

The Left has revived McCarthyite loyal oaths straight out of the 1950s, forcing professors, job applicants, and students applying for college to pledge their commitment to “diversity” as a requisite for hiring, admittance, or promotion. Diversity is our era’s version of the Jacobins’ “Cult of Reason.”

Race relations hit a 50-year nadir. Joe Biden has a long history of racist insults and putdowns. And now as apparent penance, he has reinvented himself as a reverse racial provocateur, spouting nonsense about white supremacy, exploiting shootings or hyping racial tensions to ensure that an increasingly disgusted black electorate does not leave the new Democratic Party.

The military has adopted wokeism, oblivious that it has eroded meritocracy in the ranks and slashed military recruitment. It is underfunded, wracked by internal suspicion, loss of morale and ginned up racial and gender animosity. Its supply stocks are drained. Arms productions is snail-like, and generalship is seen as a revolving door to corporate defense contractor board riches.

Big-city Democratic district attorneys subverted the criminal justice system, destroyed law enforcement deterrence, and unleashed a record crime wave. Did they wish to create anarchy as protest against the normal, or were they Jokerist nihilists who delighted in sowing ruin for ruin’s sake?

Radical racial activists, with Democrat endorsement, demand polarizing racial reparations. The louder the demands, the quieter they remain about smash-and-grab looting, carjacking, and the swarming of malls by disproportionally black teens—even as black-on-black urban murders reach record proportions.

In response, Biden tried to exploit the growing tensions by spouting lies that “white supremacy” and “white privilege” fuel such racial unrest—even as his ill-gotten gains, past record of racist demagoguery and resulting lucre and mansions appear the epitome of his own so-called white privilege.

This litany of disasters could be vastly expanded, but more interesting is the why of it all?

What we are witnessing seems to be utter nihilism. The border is not porous but nonexistent. Mass looting and carjackings are not poorly punished, but simply exempt from all and any consequences. Our downtowns are reduced to a Hobbesian “war of all against all,” where the strong dictate to the weak and the latter adjust as they must. The streets of our major cities in just a few years have become precivilizational—there are more human feces on the sidewalks of San Francisco than were in the gutters of Medieval London.

The FBI and DOJ are not simply wayward and weaponized, but corrupt and renegade. Apparently the perquisite now for an FBI director is the ability either to lie while under oath or better to mask such lying by claiming amnesia or ignorance.

Immigration is akin to the vast unchecked influxes of the late Roman Empire across the Danube and Rhine that helped to finish off a millennium-old civilization that had lost all confidence in its culture and thus had no need for borders.

In other words, the revolution is not so much political as anarchist. Nothing escapes it—not ceiling fans, not natural gas cooktops, not parents at school board meetings, not Christian bakeries, not champion female swimmers, not dutiful policemen, not hard-working oil drillers, not privates and corporals in the armed forces, not teens applying on their merits to college, not anyone, anywhere, anytime.

The operating principle is either to allow or to engineer things to become so atrocious in everyday American life—the inability to afford food and fuel, the inability to walk safely in daylight in our major cities, the inability to afford to drive as one pleases, the inability to obtain or pay back a high interest loan—that the government can absorb the private sector and begin regimenting the masses along elite dictates. The more the people tire of the leftist agenda, the more its architects furiously seek to implement it, hoping that their institutional and cultural control can do what  ballots cannot.

We could variously characterize their efforts as destroying the nation to save it, or burning it down to start over, or fundamentally transforming America into something never envisioned by the Founders.

Will their upheaval  succeed? All the levers of the power and money are on the side of the revolutionaries. The people are not. And they are starting to wake to the notion if they do not stop the madness in their midst they very soon won’t have a country.

A perfect metaphor for what the progressives have done to America.

[greythemed]

𓂃 ♥︎ⴰ bloodhounds . kim gun-woo

˚ TITLE 𓂃 ♥︎ⴰ how is like to date gun-woo part two ˚ WORD COUNT 𓂃 ♥︎ⴰ 1770

dating gun-woo consists of you being a lightweight while he has the best alcohol tolerance in the group, consequently making him your babysitter for the rest of the night no matter how much he drinks (this man's tolerance is no joke, we saw it on episode seven).

he IS the type of boyfriend who spoils you like there is no tomorrow. gun-woo is so detached when it comes to money that soon after winning a pay-per-view match (it was his first one after being officially sponsored by your father!) he was ready to deposit the whole freaking 3 billion wones on your account like that was NORMAL.

"but babe, you don't want it?🥺" he says once he is out of the ring, innocent eyes rising accordingly to your patience. "you can buy whatever makes you happy 'cause i want to see you happy". and you're like "NO GUN-WOO YOU CAN'T SPEND YOUR ENTIRE MONEY ON ME". and he be like. "yes i can????".

honestly we should navigate more of that. gun-woo knows the value of money in this world, he knows that it can change some people's lives. but he never once did something to get money for himself. he was always running and fighting for his mother, her café, her safety and her dreams. so when everything was over and he caught himself with a pile of gold in his hands (he helped his mom and there was still much money left!), he didn't know what to do and how to spend it.

that's when you came through and saved gun-woo's life. because again he has something to spend money with, and someone to spoil.

it doesn't matter if you're rich already (your dad is a ceo and you just became a doctor by yourself!), gun-woo's love language is buying you food whenever he goes out. it is your birthday? expect numerous gifts throughout the entirety of the day. he caught you eyeing something in a store for a little more than 4 seconds? boom! new package arriving at your door the following day.

and that goes even before he became a well-known pro-fighter in korea. when he still was only your cousin's friend that min-beom suspiciously kept by his side during difficult times. he wasn't that big on money, you could tell that, but he still was trying to get your attention by buying different snacks on his way to your home.

HE LOVES HIS PILLOW PRINCESS.

each type of gun-woo's hugs has a different meaning and he is so happy that you caught that in the early stages of your relationship. this six feet tall man is hugging you from behind while you're innocently staring at his penthouse's living room's view? that means he's feeling vulnerable and in need of some of your love.

when you feel his arms enveloping your waist and his lips leaving a kiss on your ear? you already know he is feeling excited enough to express his love for you in many different ways.

gun-woo is a loveable person at the end of the day. he needs some validation from time to time and will get clingy if you don't express your feelings for a while. that causes some agitation in your relationship, including arguments about the different love languages both of you have.

sometimes, you think gun-woo is too honest about certain things. the fact that he wears his heart on his sleeve while being a war trunk makes him incredibly dangerous. how do you expect to act around your gorgeous boyfriend while he is a softie on the inside and you know it? you have no option left but to act like a slut.

he points that out someday when you are both alone. "baby, are you okay? you are staring weirdly at me for the past 30 minutes and i'm getting worried".

and you cannot react, otherwise, you'd be ruining your family dinner and jumping that man's bones in the middle of the fancy restaurant while everyone's watching.

even when he is in desperate need of some affection, he doesn't want to disturb you. he doesn't know how this works in the long run, after all. he doesn't feel confident enough to say that out loud. that he needs you at that moment. so you'll have to get pretty good at reading his signs, especially his eyes.

woo-jin's knowledge comes in handy in times like these.

like the first time you met his mother (you were his first ever girlfriend, so he wanted her to like you too!) and he was staring at her the entire afternoon at the café with so much anxiety coming out of him that you had to drag him to the bathroom so he could calm down.

he had the habit of clenching his jaw when he was anxious. "it's okay, baby, i'm gonna be fine, i'm sure she is lovely". you tried to reason with the boxer, constantly having to cup his jaw so he could relax. "i'm sorry, i'm just apprehensive". he replied with those puppy eyes that you'd immediately pout for.

everything went smoothly with his mother and she even made a special dish for you that day! but the second you're alone in your room that night you call woo-jin and ask for some advice on how to deal with your boyfriend's anxieties because who else would know about that other than his marine best friend?!

i'm not done talking about this man's alcohol tolerance because is SO FUCKING SEXY AND FOR WHAT?! i swear on that scene in episode seven, my eyes were glued on the screen every time he took a sip like sir please be my boyfriend????

and even woo-jin was surprised it was so funny to me.

so expect your first club night outs (honestly, gun-woo just came because you asked him nicely) to be completely HORROR for the boxers. the second you started drinking, woo-jin and gun-woo didn't take their eyes off you because they KNOW how YOUR alcohol tolerance is almost non-existent but still you want to have a good time.

like "NO Y/N YOU SHOULDN'T PISS ON A BURNING TO TAKE THE FIRE DOWN BC ITS EASIER". and woo-jin would be SO done with you all the time, glaring at gun-woo every time you said something stupid. he'd be like "this is your phd doctor girlfriend???". and send a dirty look to his best friend.

and on the rare occasions where you don't feel like drinking you can't help but stare intensively at gun-woo's adam's apple bobbing every time he takes a sip from the soju bottle woo-jin challenged him to take (it was indeed a rare occasion) because WHY WAS HE SO HOT?!

and then finishing with the most polite smile and the glossiest eyes you've ever seen like IT WAS NOTHING?!?!?

he looked at you asking what was wrong and you would turn nonverbal for the next 30 seconds before kissing him in front of the bar AND WOO-JIN

nsfw under 😳😳😳

hear. me. out.

at first, gun-woo wasn't the most speaker in bed because - let's be honest - the boy is timid. but the second he sees your reaction when he accidentally lets a whimper slip from his mouth one day, a whole key is turned inside the boxer's brain.

when you're riding him, he entwines your fingers with his, placing kisses on your wrist, your palm or wherever possible and just breathing "you're going to make me lose my goddamn mind, fuck".

you get high from watching him orgasm and vice-versa.

when he comes back up from between your thighs for a breather, for example, his eyes notice your clutched hands at your sides, nails digging into your palm - because he pays attention to every little detail you let it slide, you already know that - and he wasn't having it. leaning down to continue from where he left off, he takes your hands in his and places them on his head, a gesture telling you to just pull his hair already.

this man is timid but he's also a romantic. when i tell you gun-woo needs confirmation from you whenever you are together, i mean at sexy times as well. the moment you start to feel too level-headed and too euphoric and close your eyes, he is fast to turn your attention to his voice so he could guide you.

"no, no look at me baby—keep 'em open. need you to see me, ye?". he grunts and your eyes flicker open once again, obediently following his rules, giving him the eye contact he so desperately craves.

there is a thing we need to talk about gun-woo sizing you up for the first time.

when the realization dawns on you, your eyes almost roll to the back of your head. gun-woo was sliding his length past your clit and up your stomach so far that his balls press against your core. he said it was for 'safety purposes' when you caught him doing it, embarrassment evident on his flaming cheeks and stuttering mouth.

but the second time he does it? you were feral, almost coming right then and there. essentially, he was trying to see just how far in he was going to be, just how deep he was going to fuck you and you clenched so hard around nothing that you had to slap him to stop.

"you can't just do this, gun-woo!". you wanted to curse. "s-sorry", he was caught again, but now not a single drop of shame adorning his features. by the looks of it, he was smirking.

cursing? let's talk about that.

you knew you dated an angel so to speak. but the whole angelic persona gun-woo carried on his daily basis was left at the door when he was alone with you. cursing? he did on rare occasions, maybe when woo-jin went too far with a joke about his mother or when he pressed his little finger on the car door while rushing to the gym.

but never with you.

so imagine your surprise when the first string of 'fucks' slipped past this man's lips when he entered you for the very first time. and then the constant self-control he needs to collect when you are too far in orgasmland and whisper dirty things in his ears.

"feel too full woo", you moan absentmindedly and gun-woo lets out a heavy breath, dropping his head down so your foreheads can touch.

"god—fuck—you can't say shit like that, princess". he warns.

i began to pass out and my head hit the wall boom!

i am not proud of this one (sorry for any misspellings, this is not proofread!) and i'm sorry for ending this here hahahahahah leaving y'all dry and wanting because that's what life is about!!! (suffering) THANK YOU ALL FOR THE KIND WORDS YOU GUYS ARE THE LOVELIEST <33

#honestly i dont deserve such kind readers! thx #kim geun woo x reader #kim gun woo #bloodhounds fanfic #bloodhounds #bloodhounds kdrama #bloodhounds x reader #bloodhounds netflix #woo do hwan

[dapandapod]

Particular with nicknames

Why hello there! This was written last september (2023) and has since been sitting in my draft, making me rewatch streams because no pathetic reasons at all i swear. Anyway, here is Jaskier having a Moment TM when Geralt uses a very specific nickname. Thank you @ahh-fxck for helping me beta read <3 much appreciated! Please enjoy streamer!Geralt and Pathetic!Jaskier! <3 On Ao3 here

For all the love Jaskier has of words and language, he is strangely picky with nicknames.

It’s not that he dislikes them, he is just strangely neutral. Alright, that’s not true.

His famously ill-advised and stormy relationship with Valdo came to mind. Jaskier had fallen promptly out of love with him when he was called ‘Snugglebutt’ in front of all of their friends. They were together for another month or so past that, because Jaskier thought himself cruel and wanted it to work.

Well, it did not.

Nowadays he shares a flat with his long time best friend Geralt, one of the few constants in his life and the one who just might own about two thirds of his heart.

It’s not a big flat, but they have a room each, a small kitchen, and a shared living room. That is also where Geralt has his small streaming corner set up, back against the wall and facing the room.

Easier that way to keep it clean if he streams with the camera on, no accidental flashing unsuspecting viewers that way. Something learned by trial and error, as Jaskier tends to run warm and just forgo pants. And shirts. And socks.

They also share their flat with a terrible little cat named Roach, who has never quite warmed up to Jaskier. Took to Geralt the instant she saw him, however, and the two are inseparable whenever Geralt is home.

All of this in itself is not an issue. Oh no, all of this is more than fine.

Watching Geralt be sweet with the terrible little furball makes Jaskier’s heart ache pleasantly, listen to him coo about her fur being so shiny and smooth, what a good girl she is, wow look at that yawn!

No, the problem came up the first time as Geralt was lazily watching TV on the couch, back to their little kitchen where Jaskier had just served her royal highness some very expensive cat food.

Roach does as she always does when Jaskier is involved, and simply walks out. It’s routine by now, and the food is usually gone by morning. It’s more about Jaskier knowing his place at the bottom of the list than not liking the food.

But as she returns to the living room with Jaskier trailing after, considering plopping down on the couch too instead of working on his doctoral thesis, Jaskier finds himself fundamentally changed.

“Hi baby.” Geralt says, voice all sweet and dark and gravelly, and fuck.

It is very much aimed at Roach, who is being a cutie, begging pets from under the table. But Jaskier’s insides do a kickflip, his brain short circuits.

Flushing deeply, Jaskier can’t control the little HRK sound escaping his throat.

He is frozen in his tracks, tongue tied and feeling absolutely pathetic. Geralt turns around to look at him with a questioning frown.

“You ok there?” he asks, Roach climbing the couch and up to the backrest, demanding attention.

“Just peachy,” Jaskier squeaks out, and then flees to his room.

Holy fucking shit and mother of turds.

Baby?? Of all the nicknames in the entire world, that is the one Jaskier is going to have a meltdown about?

Just, the lazy way Geralt said it, Jaskier feels like an old maid, clutching his pearls.

It’s fine. He will be fine.

It was meant for Roach, of course, it’s fine.

It is not fine.

Geralt is streaming, talking with some other players. He is not a big name, but he does have a following, and sometimes gets invited to other streams if it's a multiplayer game.

Jaskier is moving around the living room, untangling the nest that their couch has become recently, blankets and hoodies and socks thrown everywhere. He is also holding a banana, somewhat forgotten in his new mission to make the couch sittable.

Part of his distraction comes from listening to Geralt talking, there is a lilt to his voice when he is on stream. It is unclear if Geralt is aware of doing it, but Jaskier can listen to it forever.

While in the process of moving one blanket over to the footrest, Geralt laughs at something said in his headphones.

“Oh baby, I didn’t know you cared!”

Jaskier drops the banana.

Feeling like a deer caught in headlight, Jaskier is unable to do anything but staring, feeling heat climbing his neck, up to his cheek.

Then Geralt’s eyes meet his over his screen, his face is neutral but his eyes are knowing.

Fuck fuck fuck he is in so much trouble.

Maybe it’s fine to have that many blankets. Perfect for hiding, perfect for pretending the way Geralt says ‘Baby’ doesn’t go on loop in his head, and will be for days.

Jaskier is in a constant state of fear.

Ever since the Stream Incident, as he has come to call it, there is this new tension whenever they are in a room together. Where Geralt will look at him consideringly, where Jaskier will pretend everything is as per usual.

He has gotten better at not freezing, but a thrill runs through him every time Geralt uses That Word, making very unsubtle eye contact as he does.

How is his poor heart to cope?

Sometimes, late at night, when Jaskier is unable to sleep and he knows Geralt is still streaming, Jaskier joins in to watch. It is uncertain if Geralt has figured out it’s him or not yet, he has sneakily named his account to Bardelicious, and doesn’t usually join the chat.

Tonight, Geralt is playing a fantasy game. A monster hunter and his bard, fittingly enough, and he makes light commentary about things in the game.

Until there is a scene where the bard does something noble, stupid and somewhat foolish.

“Oh, baby.” Geralt says sadly, shaking his head.

The chat goes absolutely wild, more than one asking him to say it again, to call them baby, which is a little weird and also absolutely fucking valid.

“Why are people so weird about that?” Geralt says, chuckling. The replies roll in, and his eyebrows climb up his forehead. Jaskier’s heart is beating hard, because this could either be really good or really bad.

“Sexy? Doubt that.”

Jaskier regrets it as soon as he presses send, and by then it’s too late.

‘It is when you say it.’ was all he wrote, but it was the first thing he had written in there. Geralt doesn’t know it’s him.

It should be fine. He is fine.

Some more responses follow, but Geralt is strangely quiet. The game scene plays out, the monster hunter and his bard having a nice bonding moment.

It’s soothing to watch, to hear Geralt’s commentary every now and then. He falls asleep with his phone in his hand, earbuds still in.

The next morning, Jaskier is woken up by the scent of coffee and a hungry Roach yowling in the kitchen. She only does that when Geralt is around, so it is safe to assume he is up.

Which is a little odd, because Jaskier fell asleep before the stream was over, and he feels like death warmed over.

His jaw cracks when he yawns. Lured by the scent of coffee, he manages to get out of bed.

Geralt is indeed up and about, Roach winding affectionately around his legs as he prepares her breakfast.

“Morn,” Jaskier rasps, scratching his stomach and giving another yawn.

Roach doesn’t even look at him, fully focused on her man and her meal. The bowl is placed on the floor for the queen herself, and like the gremlin she is, she eats it without a fuss. Little bastard.

Jaskier joins Geralt at the bench, seeking coffee like a flower seeks the sun. He can stop when he wants, coffee is not an addiction, it is a way of life.

“Were you up all night? Hand me a cup, will you?” he says, reaching for the fruit bowl that Geralt for some reason keeps religiously stocked.

In reply, he gets one of the typical hums, which could mean absolutely anything, and two cups. Jaskier pours for them both and Geralt adds the usual unholy amount of sugar to Jaskier’s, which makes him smile.

“Any plans for today? I really should be working on my thesis, but I can’t be arsed.”Jaskier leans back against the counter and sips at his coffee, which is still a little too hot.

Geralt is watching him over the rim of his mug, sipping on the steaming coffee.

“I have a thing I thought to try,” he says, voice gravelly, eyes locked on him.

It makes Jaskier’s stomach flip, and he takes a too big sip, the drink burning his tongue and all the way down his throat unpleasantly.

“Yeah? Anything you want help with?” Jaskier asks nervously, realizing he is still holding his chosen fruit without eating it, so he puts it down on the counter.

The corner of Geralt’s mouth ticks up into a crooked smile, and yeah, Jaskier is in danger. It is way too early in the morning for Geralt to be such an absolute heart throb.

“If you are willing.” Geralt says, and Jaskier finds himself nodding despite himself. If Geralt asks him if he is willing, the answer will probably always be yes.

“Sure! Uh… What is it?”

Geralt takes a step towards him and puts his cup on the side of the counter. Then he grabs Jaskier’s cup out of his hand and puts that down too.

His heart is beating so hard he can feel it in his throat, his hands now clammy and gripping the counter behind him.

Geralt inches forward, the space between them shrinking fast. He stops just shy of touching him, and tilts his head, white hair falling over his shoulder.

“So I was streaming last night,” Geralt begins, and oh dear, oh no. “And there were some interesting comments that I couldn’t get out of my head.”

“Uh… Oh?” Jaskier says dumbly, and Geralt huffs a soft laugh, breath hitting Jaskier’s face.

“You're particular with nicknames, right? I mean, you are still mad at Valdo.”

With growing worry, Jaskier is starting to realize where this is going.

“He called me snugglebutt. In front of people. That’s embarrassing!” Jaskier defends himself faintly. Geralt leans in an inch more, leaning against the countertop and crowding Jaskier against it. Fuck.

“But that’s not what you think when I say ‘Baby’, is it?” Geralt’s eyes are trained on him, and smiles when he notices Jaskier’s flustered little sound, the way heat climbs up his cheeks.

In a weak attempt to save face, Jaskier looks down, anywhere but meeting the intensity of Geralt’s gaze.

It has the unfortunate effect of noticing how close they are, how Geralt’s t-shirt rides down just enough to reveal collarbones, how his hands flex against the counter.

“Tell me if I’m reading this wrong, Jaskier,” Geralt mumbles, leaning close enough for his nose to drag against Jaskier’s cheekbone.

Jaskier pulls in a breath, tilting his head in a way he hopes is invitingly.

“You’re not.” Jaskier whispers, and is rewarded with Geralt putting a hand on his hip, letting his nose drag along Jaskier’s neck. “You really, really not.”

“Is it the nickname? You look so startled whenever you hear me say it.” Geralt asks, one finger finding skin under the hem of Jaskier’s t-shirt.

“Just you. Pretty sure you could call me snugglebutt and I’d thank you.” Jaskier confesses, blurts really, when the rest of Geralt’s hand sneaks under his shirt to find his lower back, playing with the soft hairs there.

“Good to know,” Geralt smiles against his skin and Jaskier braves turning his head, their cheeks brushing together.

“Are you going to kiss me anytime soon, or are you gonna let me keep suffering?” Jaskier breathes, his hands finding Geralt’s and tracing them up his arms slowly.

“Hmm,” Geralt says, considering with a cheeky grin, the absolute bastard, so Jaskier takes matters into his own hands. Quite literally.

Geralt’s face is warm, rough stubble and barely visible scars and imperfections brush against his fingers. Geralt must have turned into it, because their lips slide together, coffee and morning breath mingling as Jaskier finds himself now properly pressed against the bench and Geralt’s body.

Then he is being kissed harder, deeper, and Geralt hoists Jaskier up on the counter, using Jaskier’s thighs to pull him closer, closer still, and presses open mouthed kisses against his neck. With a gasp, Jaskier scrambles to find a grip, to get some control of himself, but it is very, very hard to focus.

“Do you have any idea what you’re doing to me, baby?” Geralt murmurs against his skin, and Jaskier full body shivers. “I can feel you watching me, you are even in my streams.”

“You knew about that?” Jaskier asks breathlessly, stealing a kiss when Geralt shifts to look at him.

“If you wanted to be discreet, maybe you should have chosen something else than ‘Bardelicious’.” Geralt smiles, and Jaskier pouts and pinches his side in revenge.

“Why didn’t you say anything then?”

“Why didn’t you?” Geralt counters, and well, this won’t go anywhere.

“I like listening to you. I like listening to your voice as I go to sleep,” Jaskier says quietly, and Geralt hides his face in the crook of Jaskier's neck.

“Did you get any sleep at all last night?” Jaskier asks when Geralt stays there, melting into his body.

He doesn’t get anything but a muttering grumble in reply, and Jaskier smiles and strokes his hair.

“I need to find a nickname for you too. I refuse to be the only one being absolutely useless as soon as you open your mouth.” Jaskier murmurs into Geralt’s hair.

“Gmmrmgmg.”

“What’s that?”

“I said, ‘like it when you say my name.” Geralt says, and Jaskier is melting all over again.

“Well then, Geralt,” Jaskier purrs. “Let me finish my coffee, and then we’ll take a nap.”

Reaching for coffee without really letting go turns out to be hard, and when Jaskier with some struggle finally gets a hold of his cup, the coffee is still unreasonably hot.

They nap in Jaskier’s bed, both of them crawling in under the blankets and curling up together. Jaskier’s chin resting on top of Geralt’s head, Geralt’s arm slung over Jaskier’s chest.

When Geralt wakes up and press Jaskier into the mattress, it doesn’t take long for Geralt to discover exactly how to fluster Jaskier enough to splutter broken syllables.

It’s alright.

When Jaskier has recovered from being melted goo, he will return the favor.

#the witcher #geraskier #geralt of rivia #geralt x jaskier #jaskier the bard #modern au #gamer!geralt #dapanda writes #getting together #napping #pining #well something anyway #the draft name of this fic 'baby HRK' because yes that is the sound both author and bard made

[ryanthedoctor11]

So, I've been thinking a lot about the Timeless Child, and I think the idea is actually salvageable. Not it being the Doctor, that's terrible. But the idea of Gallifrey in the past having found a child, experimented on it, made what they got from that child a fundamental part of their existence from that point forth, and then covering it up is all very in character for them. But it would be so much better if that child were the Master (I know I am far from the first person to say this, but I'm gonna add stuff), but for his character it makes so much more sense. Like the 2 things the Master has always wanted more than anything else in existence are to be immortal and to be important. The discovery that he was both of those things in a past life and the Time Lords stripped that away from him really would break him. Then imagine that it was still Rassilon who did all of this, it was always stated that Rassilon was the Time Lord who created regeneration, it would add so much more context to their relationship (in fact, whether it was the Doctor or the Master who was the Timeless Child I still wish it was Rassilon who had done it since Tekteun was such a wasted character, any potential for interesting plot involving her was destroyed when she acted like a typical Time Lord and then died after one episode, but anyway). Imagine the Master found out that Rassilon has actually been sort of a father to him in the past, and had still placed those drums in his head because of that selfish need for him to survive. I also want to take this idea even further, imagine the Doctor knew. Imagine that at some point in their travels (perhaps even season 6b and that's where the Ruth Doctor was located) the Doctor had found out about the Timeless Child, and that it was the Master. It's known the Doctor has lots of secrets, imagine this is one of them. Then imagine the Master didn't actually know that she knew. So when he left her that message in Gallifrey's ruins he expected it to still be a reveal, and the Doctor's reaction is just "oh shit, he found out" then during their confrontation in the Matrix the Doctor is trying to play it cool and pretend she doesn't know while the Master explains about it, he expects it to change her lives forever, to take the ground from beneath her. Then he does what he always does, he offers for her to join him, they could rule the universe together, find Rassilon, kill him, then take everything because all he has ever really wanted is to rule the universe with the Doctor at his side, he's offered it enough times, and she has to tell him. Tell him that this doesn't change anything because she already knew about it, and he gets angry (rightfully so in this case) and the rest of the episode plays out basically how it happens in the show. But this explains Power of the Doctor a lot better. The Master has never wanted the Doctor dead, not really. Sure they put the Doctor in death traps or shoot them but they always know the Doctor will escape. In Power of the Doctor all he wanted to do was kill her, not just kill her, destroy her entirely as well as her legacy. That hatred coming from her having lied to him for centuries about something this important is a much better excuse than 'I hate you for something you didn't even know happened and has a much larger effect on you then it ever would have on me when you really think about it'. These are just my thoughts though.

#doctor who #the doctor #the master #dw #new who #thirteenth doctor #13th doctor #dhawan!master #timeless child #dr who

[where-dreams-dwell]

It’s almost like the Usher children *knew* they weren’t going to live long and so they intentially left no marks upon the world.

Camille’s speech about how none of the kids actually makes or does anything is so startling: here is a group of people given all the opportunities and access money can buy, all of whom have had this their entire adult life, and they haven’t used it to create or build anything.

You can almost sense Roderiks disappointment in them, in his speech to Perry. He has this hyper focus on what his ‘investment’ money will fund, and says that ‘Ushers change the world’. But outside of himself and Madeline, not one of them has.

Frederick took the money, if he ever got any, and probably funnelled it back into his house or the company. By the looks of it he doesn’t have anything other than his family and his job, so there’s nothing for Roderick to invest in.

Tammy funnelled the money into a lifestyle brand, but one that wouldn’t have her at the front and centre. She scathingly reveals to Bill that she selected him to be her husband based upon his brand and marketability, showing she was ready to create this new empire but with her pulling strings in the shadows. From the outside it probably looks like she hasn’t created anything at all and that it’s all Bill, using his wife’s money. On top of this, the running gag of her storyline is that her brand and ideas aren’t even original, but are ripped off of Goop. So she hasn’t made anything new, and if Goldbug has any impact at all it will be no different to another more successful, more well know product. Hardly ‘changing the world’.

Victorine has some medial training but she looks to be a supporting role to her partner within their clinic, in which Al is the talented surgeon who people come to see and Victorine is a kind of silent partner. So she decided to go into medical devices or smart medical tech, but she relies upon the ideas and skills of others. As Camille said ‘the mesh is the surgeons, that’s why she’s fucking the surgeon’. And her medical knowledge seems to be limited if she thinks just her word and some money will move their experiments into human trials. So she also hasn’t ‘changed the world’ she’s just found someone else who was trying to and co-op-ed their ideas. You could even argue she poisoned those ideas, as Al mentions that the pain medication Victorine has been supplying looks like street drugs and wouldn’t stand up in any medical paper or research study.

Camille is, like she said, spinning furiously and going nowhere. She looks skilled in her field (from the analysis scenes we get, and Madeleine’s signing off on her PR analysis post Perry’s death) but she works from the shadows and hasn’t ‘created’ anything that wasn’t there before. There have been PR spin doctors before and there will be more to come; Camille offers nothing new ans hasn’t ‘changed the world’ in any measurable way. From what little we see of her work she hasn’t recreated a PR agency, hasn’t trained up other spin doctors under her, hasn’t created a brand or company which will outlast her. She leaves nothing behind to show what her skills or talents were.

Leo is shot down quickly when he claims he makes games: he doesn’t, he gives money to people who do. So he too will leave little to nothing behind when he’s gone. His references to past boyfriends show no long lasting relationships in his life and he has no other hobbies or pursuits we know of. Like Camille he hasn’t created a company to help with game design, hasn’t trained up others within this field he claims as his own. Even with the gaming ‘world’ it sounds like he changed very little. Fredrick’s throw away comments about Leo’s flat reveal that Leo hadn’t even had input in the decoration or style of his own home: he just latches onto the styles, ideas, aesthetic of his current boyfriend and goes with their ideas and plans. It’s such a small tiny thing but he truly has no original ideas in any aspect of his life.

And finally Perry, who’s desperate for that start up money but clearly has no plans or ideas on how to use it. He’s had a year and his main idea is an exclusive whisky bar. Even this idea, for all its crude intentions, shows his lack of vision: he doesn’t understand that to get the reputation he claims his bars would have will take time. You don’t just ‘create’ a consequent free bar celebrating decadence and privilege overnight. Reputations take time and as Madeline asks ‘what will be different about this one’ to draw people in to begin with? Studio 54 (which he compares his club to). only operated for 3 years before closing: not the smartest inclusion in an investment pitch.

To be fair to Perry though, looking at what the other siblings did or didn’t do with their loan money it seems a bit unfair that his ‘Blow job whiskey bar’ was shot down so decisively and cruelty. Assuredly Leo’s ‘video game studio for just myself’, Camille’s ‘PR agency just for me with my two assistants’, Victorines ‘medical training and clinic where I help out other surgeons’, Tammys ‘subscription lifestyle brand ripped off from a celebrity’ and Fredrick’s ‘I’d just like to work with you Dad’ were all clearly given the green light. But Perry apparently wasn’t good enough. Maybe this was a reaction to Roderick getting the news he was dying as so he wanted Perrys investment at least to actually change something, but still. He might as well give him the money either way at that point.

And I think it’s probably intended as a commentary on the ultra wealthy. Like of course people with more money than most counties have no plans to leave anything for the next generation. They have achieved their high levels of success by being solely focused upon themselves and so are honestly incapable of considering others. They are solely interested in enjoying the life they are currently living and why strain themselves to fight and build something when they don’t have to?

But it also works so well as a supernatural legacy and ironic conclusion to Roderick’s deal: he agreed that none of his bloodline would outlive him, and so none of them built anything that would.

#the fall of the house of usher #spoilers #mike flanagan #tfothou #legacy #ultra wealthy

[franklespine]

How am I just supposed to carry on with my life after 6.08 of House md. HOWWWWW?????!!!!! Kill myself that was gut wrenching. Never had I had such a punch to the gut like that ending was. Cameron telling House that she loved him. Telling him about how all he cares about is sweeping and manipulating people into his puzzles and games. "You'll poison [Taub and Thirteen] just like you poisoned Chase ... you ruined him."

Oh my god. I cannot believe they just made me watch that.

The building tension between Chase and Cameron in this episode in the fact that the only way Cameron could continue to be with him was to believe that killing Dibala wasn't his fault but House's - that Chase was his "personal sock puppet", and that to move beyond this they had to leave.

Comparatively, Chase struggles to wrap his head around the fact that Cameron forgives him for an act that he perceives was not only the "worst thing [he's] ever done", but entirely his fault. He's spent the past few episodes overwhelmed with emotions he doesn't know how to deal with. House told him to get some help and Chase interprets this as going to confession where he just begs the priest to give him a way to achieve atonement and lift the burden off of him. And then when the priest tells him there's no way to do that without taking responsibility for his actions he just goes to the bar so long Cameron almost reports him missing and drinks himself half to death. So I think the reason he struggles so much to understand why Cameron forgives him is because he doesn't forgive himself - he doesn't regret what he did and still thinks it was the right thing to do but that doesn't mean he isn't wrought with shame and guilt because of it. And then he slowly realises throughout this episode that Cameron hasn't really forgiven him - she just doesn't believe he was at fault. But he can't run away from what he did and, probably more importantly, he doesn't want to leave House. He tells Cameron that killing Dibala was his fault and despite everything, he'd do it again.

And then - you ruined him - Cameron says to House. Jesus Christ just kill me. 'You broke him beyond repair'. Because despite Cameron's penchant for broken people, she doesn't want them to be beyond repair, emotionally.

"I'm sorry for you both. For what you've become. Because... there's no way back for either of you."

UGGHHHJFNEWJONORGOW

Honestly, as much as House fucked with Taub, Thirteen and Kutner, it wasn't like with his original fellows. He didn't change them, fundamentally, like he did with Foreman, Chase and Cameron. Each of them has a slightly different breed of a complicated, messed up relationship with House that no one else (not even each other) will ever understand - and now none of them can truly leave. They're stuck there in that hospital, in some way, with House forever, seeing reflections of House in each other and in themselves like a disease. Like Cameron says in 5.13 "I'll always say yes to House. I studied under him. He's in my head." And Foreman too is 'ruined' - he got away from House, begins acting just like him and now he is entirely un-hirable - here is the only place he has to go. And I think the fact that Chase was the only fellow in s3 who was fired by House (rather than leaving himself), and then came back to the same hospital (with Cameron) to work as a surgeon is rather telling. He referred to House as God, he maybe received the worst treatment from House and still sucked up to him the most for his approval and validation, he's a capable and intelligent doctor but yet in the diagnostics team he bases his diagnosing suggestions off of House like he's his entire frame of reference right from s1 (making diagnoses not based on actual medical knowledge but how House reacts to each of them, how he phrases his questions, how he starts the conversation).

Jesus christ. Just the way that he fundamentally altered something deep inside each of them, irrevocably, is just sooooooo... RAHHHHDJBFJBFHFEOFHEW.

This show man what in the world.

Erm. On to episode 9 I guess.

#house md #house md 6x08 #robert chase #allison cameron #eric foreman #greg house #the messiest team of doctors you've even seen #also is it just me or do I feel like s6 is more heart wrenching than the past seasons #like it always had its moments but i just feel like this is another level of angst LMAO

[rewatching-sam-and-dean]

My Commentary on Rob and Rich Reviewing (4x14) Sex and Violence

I was listening to the latest Supernatural Then and Now Podcast (The Siren Episode) and I had to stop it after the Rob and Rich review to write down my thoughts because it annoyed me so much.

The guys both thought the episode was okay, but a bunch of things “bumped” for them. This is fine, and everyone is entitled to their own opinion about an episode, but some of the things that “bumped” for them “bump” for me.

My thoughts under the cut …

Bump # 1 - The Siren turning out to be a man

So, both Rs had an issue with the siren being a man since the lore showed them as women, and I think, because in real mythology they are women. Though they conceded that the a male siren could be a thing too, it seemed to really bother them that the siren ended up not being about a sexual connection with the brothers (though Rich saw the flask sharing scene as flirtatious … because no guys have ever shared a flask, including, Dean and Bobby).

I’m sorry, but the siren targeting the brothers, and using a version of an ideal brother to get to Dean isn’t a plot hole or a “stretch” or something, it’s an interesting choice and it’s exactly the point of the episode. While many men are vulnerable to a pretty woman who is into them, Dean just wants Sam. He wants his relationship with Sam to be better. In particular, he’s so worried about Sam and insecure in their bond that he wants a Sam who likes what he likes but, more importantly, one who listens to him and doesn’t hide things from him. And I know I’ve written about this before on a previous post, but Dean doesn’t NEED the siren to be a hot girl; he can find one of those easily. He needs a Sam he can trust. That’s the whole point. The show is drawing the comparison between sexual intimacy/romantic companionship (usually one of the most desired things in literature/media) to the brothers relationship to show how much brotherhood matters to Dean in particular (in this case).

The way the male siren actor portrays its interest in the brothers, to me, is very much like it’s intrigued and excited that it found a high even better than the sexual desire that it usually feeds off of. When the siren feels how desperate Dean is for the bond with Sam to be fixed, it finds him more interesting than it’s usual target. Dean’s longing for Sam (not sexual) is even stronger than the sexual desire or romantic companionship that the siren usually feeds off of, so much so that the siren changes its entire MO to go after the brothers.

Bump # 2 - The Doctor sleeping with Sam (when she isn’t the siren) is weird

So, the Rs disagreed on the “bumpiness” of this one. Rob thought it was weird that the doctor would just decide to sleep with Sam (at work), while it didn’t bother Rich because … Jared Padalecki. Sound argument (in this case), Rich.

Still, the doctor is a little unusual, and her behaviour is clearly intended to be a misdirect, but the show does a good enough job of suggesting she had a bad breakup (or worse) and is now just sort of living in the moment, so her behaviour doesn’t bother me. Also, Sam is hot.

What is stranger than the doctor’s behaviour, for the audience who knows him, is Sam having sex with her I that moment. Not only that, but Sam is very chill when she’s hitting on him, where in the past, Sam has often been a little shy or awkward with women that he’s been attracted to or interested in. So no, this is not Sam’s usual MO to sleep with the doctor, especially when we know he and Ruby are or were also sleeping together. Sam is not acting entirely like his usual self. And he hasn’t been acting entirely like himself for a while now.

Bump # 3 - The Siren telling the boys to fight each other and saying the winner can “be with” him

I don’t know why they had an issue with this. The siren literally explains that it loves the rush of having people willing to do anything for it, even kill people they love. What the siren tells the brothers doesn’t matter because it’s not like it’s really planning to have a relationship with the brother who wins the fight. And the boys are already infected at this point, so it’s just giving them incentive to fight. It’s not sticky about the sexual-ness of people’s need for the siren, it’s about the desperation they have to be with it (in whatever way).

Bump #4 - Sam dismissing the Doctor after sleeping with her.

The guys were both bothered by Sam not bothering to say goodbye to the doctor, and they mentioned that it seemed sort of old-school (womanizing?). Rob said that Sam dismissing her was more like something Dean would do than Sam. I know that I already said this, but this is the whole point. Sam hasn’t been acting like his old self. This isn’t an accidental writing mistake, where the writer accidentally wrote Sam more like Dean. Sam is different now.

It also isn’t like Sam to call Dean weak, or ridicule him for being messed up from his experience in hell. Season 2 Sam would never, and Season 3 Sam wouldn’t either. Season 4 Sam has changed from the trauma of losing Dean, drinking demon blood, and having Ruby in his ear.

Also, to play devils advocate on myself, Sam has actually left towns before without saying goodbye to the girl he had a connection with, maybe not after sleeping with her, but it’s not wholly out of character for him to leave without saying goodbye (I’m not criticizing him for this). Also, I really don’t think that doctor was looking for anything more from Sam beyond hooking up in her office, so this doesn’t bother me much.

Final thoughts

Anyway, I’m not arguing that everyone has to love every episode, or even like all the ones that I do. I’m not even arguing that people need to like Sex and Violence because it really can be a little uncomfortable, and there is a bit of a sexual undercurrent to it all, even though that’s not the sirens intention with the brother. That’s also not exactly new on Supernatural. However, it’s weird to me that so many of the things that “bumped” for Rob and Rich seem to me like very deliberate choices by the writers, not careless mistakes or pointlessly out of character. This episode reveals a lot about where Sam and Dean are at this point in the season, both individually and in their relationship.

Granted, I have the benefit of watching the episode and knowing where it’s all leading, but this is what sort of bothers me about hearing people discuss the show who are doing it for a purpose and are probably only half-invested in the story. They miss things that seem like they should be really clear. Also, it’s funny when they find things uncomfortably sexual in relation to Sam and Dean (they didn’t outright say that, but I think it was implied in what they said) and act like it’s a surprise or out of place. Again, this isn’t new. They obviously listened to too many hellers if they didn’t realize that Sam and Dean are weirdly close at times or that the show makes some pretty blatant parallels between them and couples or makes quasi-incestuous connections between Sam and Dean.

I have nothing else to add here. This was mostly just a rant, but feel free to add your two cents if you made it this far.

#supernatural #my thoughts #Rob and Rich critical #mildly #Sex and Violence #SPN Then and Now

[8um8le]

Back with some asks about Cyberpunk au!

-Can the boys detect vitals?

-Can they defend a human from being harmed by another human?

-Does Bot hang out with the others daily?

-You’ve mentioned that Bot has taken the other boys to a lot of cool places for sightseeing and entertainment. When the boys go to clubs do they dance? Do they often break into places to sightsee? I’d imagine they’d be kicked out soon after entering cubs or get enforcement called on them fairly often.

Ooo nice questions, answers under the cut <3

Can the boys detect vitals? 

They can only detect their own vitals, and understand why another robot would be close to shutting off forever. It can be pretty confusing for them to understand the human body when it comes to helping them out, but at the same time they know how to kill a human, and where their weak spots could be, so they could use that info to know whether they are about to die or not. 

(Gore mention tw)Their lack of comprehension of how the human functions is a reason why 8ot likes to dissect and play around with how he ends a human’s life when it comes to targets, especially with the guilt that he couldn’t save a loved one because of having no knowledge how a human body falls apart. He’s almost like a doctor or mad scientist when it comes to bots, he can repair and build robots, so he wanted to expand towards organic life. 

Sun and Moon don’t know as much as 8ot when it comes to saving a human’s life, as they don’t have a reason to why they would need to save a human, when their job is to end them. They stayed distant from humans for a long while since they only tried to scrap them in their first vessel. Their experience with humans trying to smash them to bits is another reason they learned to fight for their survival. 

Of course this would change if they happened to meet a human that they end up caring about, they’d want to learn more about organic bodies. (Possibly a y/n/oc interaction dynamic ehhehe)

Can they defend a human from being harmed by another human?

Okay so the city’s justice system is complete ass, people can get away from murder as long as it’s not the wrong person; being the super rich that has a network of others who will hunt down your entire bloodline, OR a super strong opponent that turns the table and ends up killing you instead. The only time police get serious is when someone makes a huge mess or destroy a large chuck of property (example would be using explosives to make a building completely crumble to the ground) 

Does 8ot hang out with the boys on the daily?

Yeah they are very close to each other, although I left their relationship with one another to be ambiguous, the viewer can chose whether they are involved in a romantic or platonic way. 8ot often drops them off to their day job on his hovering vehicle.(aka flying car lmao) They are very comfortable with each other that they show up to each other’s place uninvited. The two are also comfortable with telling 8ot just about anything. Thing is it’s usually one sided when it comes to pouring their heart out about their past, since 8ot is self conscious of what he was, often trying to copy the mannerism of people around him to cope. 

Koi is also another guy who is close with everyone in fact, even Eclipse. Funnily a lot of people like to rely on him, and turn to him for comfort. Eclipse loves to hang out with him when he gets the time, and Eclipse shares his knowledge on robots while Koi shares his knowledge of organics (since he is a organic himself)

Eclipse is seen as a higher up/ apprentice to Sun, Moon and 8ot. He also happens to have a soft spot for the three, actually caring about their well-being, normally he wouldn‘ t even bat an eye towards his lowers in the criminal underground. He still acts coldly, strict and harsh when it comes to the boys, but that’s his weird way of showing he cares. For this reason I like to joke about Eclipse being their dad since he’s constantly and voluntarily on babysitting duty.

When they go to clubs do they dance? Do they break into places to sight-see? 

Yes they go to clubs to dance and overall vibe and wind down, their dynamic making all their trips interesting. Sun being a responsible person and tagging along to keep an eye on the two trouble-makers, but genuinely having a good time in the process, Moon thriving in the chaos and even starting fights, 8ot knowing where to go, and laughing at the other two. 

AHHHhahah getting kicked out or police gettin called on them, the first part is definitely true, but police don’t get called often since the city doesn’t trust or rely on police, but if they have body-guards or a posse, they’d call them to scrap. As goofy as it is to see two shiny eight foot robots with a sun and moon mask as their heads, and a feminine looking humanoid with a masculine voice and mannerism, they have the upper hand when it comes to combat, never losing a fight yet. I mean it’s not like hey can afford to lose a fight, since that would cost them their lives when it comes to this city

#cyberpunk au

[fan-kingdoms]

god i wish we had gotten more of twelve with river song. he just meshes so well with her and since their time streams are finally (almost) synced up you don’t feel the imbalance of maturity/knowledge that you get in a lot of eleven’s time with her, and less general timeline “where are they right now what the fuck is happening” fuckery to sort through. just a husband and wife who have lived so much together and know it’s coming to an end very soon so they have to relish it (even if river doesn’t have the knowledge of her own death the way the doctor does, she knows it’s almost over because her diary is running out of pages). and i love watching this older, less theatrical, more rough-around-the-edges doctor with her because it develops their dynamic and the passage of time for the doctor so well. he's not eleven, trying to hide the pain and damage anymore. he doesn't spin off lies and deflections. he wears the hurt and is comfortable in it, and river is there to bring the joy and wonder out. they just have a more mature, beautiful relationship to me.

more thoughts and elaboration under the cut bc i care for your dash <3

twelve and river were such a delight to watch because (this is getting into hot take territory here sorry) once capaldi took over from matt smith, the show basically gave up on the whole “the doctor is very attractive and all the women want him” narrative that it pushed for eleven. of course it was there with ten but i think it got Egregious with eleven. moffat really wanted us to believe matt smith was the hottest man in the universe (and he’s not unattractive! i admit i thought he was attractive when i first watched doctor who years and years ago! the writing was just over the top with it!) twelve is not some young whimsical prettyboy anymore— he’s abrasive, blunt, and old. the show doesn’t treat him like he’s supposed to be attractive, which makes him and river’s relationship feel so real.

first off i want to point out that river is still very much attracted to the doctor in his new body which was so exciting for me because how often to we get to see romance and desire and (sexually) intimate relationships in people past the age of 35??? hardly ever! how often do we see a beautiful woman expressing desire for a man that’s not young or conventionally handsome NOT because she has ulterior motives or we’re supposed to believe he’s actually the sexiest man alive but because she simply loves him? how often do we see relationships where no matter how much change they go through, even when one of them has turned into an entirely different person (figuratively or literally), the love stays steady and unchanged? especially when these changes involve aging? there isn’t nearly enough. and seeing it is kind of healing for me, just a reminder that you can have love and intimacy and passion even when you’re not “young and beautiful” anymore

twelve and river’s relationship is just charged with so much shared experience and trust and i wish we had gotten to see more of it. in conclusion i want a special that recaps the 24 years on darillium thank you and goodbye

#they had twenty four years… #all that time to just live and be husband and wife #all that time for her to learn all the ins and outs of the new him #and all the ways for him to work through how he can express love in the new body #as twelve rather than eleven #and getting to see that she loves him just the same in every form #idk i’ve been thinking a lot about aging lately #i know im young but i have a bit of a fear of it because of how society pushes the whole ‘past your prime’ narrative #especially for women who are taught that they lose value once their ‘youth and beauty’ fades #like i said seeing relationships like these is healing #doctor who #twelfth doctor #river song #the husbands of river song

[otdiaftg]

The Raven King - Chapter Eleven

Day: Sunday, November 12th Time: 3:10 PM EST

Anytime the Foxes mentioned Andrew's upcoming sobriety or Andrew's name popped up in write-ups on the team's performance at games, the focus was on what a danger he was. People talked about his trial and how it saved them from Andrew. No one said what they were doing to save Andrew from himself. "You told me Cass would never hurt you and would have given you a good education, but you sabotaged your adoption. Officer Higgins came all the way here from the west coast to fix something from your past but you won't help him. You left juvie and killed Aaron's mother to protect him, but instead of fixing your relationship with him you keep him on a leash. You don't want Nicky's parents to hurt him, but you won't let him into your family either. Kevin promised to invest in you but you won't even try. So what is it? Are you afraid of your own happiness or do you honestly like being miserable all the time?" "Neil, look," Andrew said, and pointed up at his own face. "Do I look miserable?" Neil wanted to tear that smile off Andrew's face, but Andrew's obnoxious response wasn't entirely his fault. Neil was dealing with the smokescreen of Andrew's medication. Neither of them could change that, but knowing why Andrew was being difficult didn't make him less frustrating to deal with. All Neil could do was keep his temper in check. If Andrew got a rise from him the conversation was over. That was what Andrew wanted, so Neil wouldn't give it to him. "You look drugged within an inch of your life," Neil said, "and when you're not medicated you're drinking and dusting. When they finally take your medicine away, who are you going to hurt, really?" Andrew laughed. "I'm remembering why I don't like you." "I'm surprised you forgot." "I didn't," Andrew said. "I just got distracted for a moment there. I told her it was a mistake to let you stay, but she didn't believe me. Now look. Oh, for once I don't even want to bother with the 'I told you so'. You ruin all my fun." "Renee?" Neil guessed. "Bee." Neil's blood went cold. "What did you tell her about me?" Andrew grinned at the look on Neil's face. "Doctor-patient confidentiality, Neil! But don't make such a scary face. I didn't tell her your sad little story. We just talked about you. Critical difference, yes? I told her you're more trouble than you're worth. She was looking forward to meeting you, but she won't tell me what she thinks of you. She can't, you see. But I know she likes you. Bee has a thing for lost causes." "I am not a lost cause." Denial was automatic and a waste of time. Andrew put his hand over Neil's mouth to shut him up and said, "Liar. But that's what makes you interesting. It's also what makes you dangerous. I should know better by now. Maybe I'm not as smart as I thought I was. Should I be disappointed or amused?" The perfect retort burned Neil's tongue, but he kept quiet in case Andrew wasn't done rambling. The answer was there, right out of reach, close enough Neil could feel it, but too far for him to make sense of. Maybe Andrew felt it too, because even in his drugged haze he knew to shut up. The smile he flashed Neil mocked them both at that near-miss. He withdrew completely, leaving just the memory of his heartbeat against Neil's mouth, and spun away. "I'll find Kevin. He's too slow." Neil watched him go, then huffed in frustration and turned back toward the racquet.

Art used with permission by Aymmidumps. Thank you @aymmidumps!

#aftg #all for the game #neil josten #trk #the raven king #the foxhole court #andrew minyard #palmetto state university #psu foxes #andreil #on this day in aftg #otdiaftg #palmetto state foxes #otdi all for the game #nora sakavic #the foxes #on this day in all for the game #kevin day #nicky hemmick #aaron minyard #coach wymack #betsy dobson #abby winfield #matt boyd #dan wilds #renee walker #allison reynolds #artists #aymmidumps

[twelverriver]

the thing that gets me about elevenriver is that they're SO sweet and they're so exciting and soo into the adventures they have together but they both hide soo much from each other and are like do you like this version of Mr I m presenting you without any flaws or anything you can't know yet, do you like this me? and the other's like great masking! same here! I love this for us :) but eleven is still so eager to spend time with her while also running away at all times because he doesn't want to face that things and people and relationships have endings :)) but the thing that gets me about twelveriver is that they're past all that and river just came from one of the worst times of her life!!! and then she meets twelve who has lived without her for SO long and changed so much since that point of time she's coming from and is just SO glad to see her again and truly SEES her for first time and doesn't look away and wants to see the "damage" she's hiding !!

"what are you reading?"

"my diary"

"Is it sad?"

"why would a diary be sad?"

"I don't know, it's just... you look sad"

also. the way they immediately start to flirt once river knows he's the doctor and they're so touchy and twelve is picking up on what she said earlier, how she doesn't believe he loves her, and CHANGES SOMETHING !!!!! He then finally tells her his love through words, not just adventures together like his previous body did, but says "river, not one living thing, not one person on this ship is worth you." not one living thing!!!!! also. twelve built a whole restaurant with the best view of the towers which darillium is famous for !! for her !!!! and then he gave her her own sonic screwdriver, something special only he possesses in the entire universe (which will be used by his tenth regeneration to save her) and twenty four years on a planet she loves !!! twenty four years of linear time together !!!!!!!!!!!!

"All anyone will ever tell you is that when the wind stands fair and the night is perfect, when you least expect it but always when you need it the most... there is a song."

#jana.txt #doctor who #river song #twelve x river #like. can u see why they make me insane. can u see that #they're soo romantic <3 #otp: twenty four years

[thirteenslily]

something something the doctor having this incurable ability to see the beauty in everything, no matter their intentions.

am completely aware that it’s Not That Deep, and that this has nothing whatsoever to do with thoschei but i’d like to use it as an example of the many times the doctor’s seen the master commit atrocities yet still, found the beauty in them (by them i mean the master)

the doctor is literally strapped to a chair here. he’s been kidnapped, rolled about and slapped yet; he still will not give up on the master and their childhood dream to wander the stars together. he can’t help but think his old friend could be more, could be beautiful again. he’s the only person who can see the master’s potential for good, although he is known to be evil. he admires the master’s intelligence, when anyone else would think nothing of it because of what he uses it for.

with that admiration also comes a deep yearning for them to be equals again, not just in their cleverness but in their ideals. they are inherently the same but they don’t stand on the same side and that causes a wall in their relationship, a wall which the doctor would like to tear down by guiding the master towards goodness.

and i’d like to add that the situation’s a bit different here, obviously, since the doctor and missy were already trying to make their friendship work again. so the doctor reminisces and feels nostalgic about their past, he is hopeful about their future and wants his friend (bill) to understand why. their history’s not just history, it’s an endless cycle of meetings and goodbyes. they’re never truly gone from each other.

bill even goes so far as admitting being scared of missy. however the doctor can’t give any response to that, can’t make any promises to his friend because his oldest friend needs his help and he’s already made up his mind. he’s aware he finds a monster beautiful but he does nothing to change it.

and last but not least, this little thing. i can’t even begin to get into the atrocities spymaster committed towards the universe at large and the doctor specifically. the entire episode is filled with mentions of his past crimes, and there’s no forgiveness to be found this time, however the doctor is still noticeably unable of ignoring his brilliance, quite ironically, in the same manner he tried to be her and have a companion to “bask” in it.

all this to say— the doctor clearly associates ingenuity with beauty on top of just admiring the two, especially when they come together. and the master, being the doctor’s first friend, and a brilliant one at that, fits every criteria. the doctor’s also not just alien to humans, but alien to their own species and anyone else in the universe when it comes to how they perceive the master. therefore, the master may be beautiful to the doctor, but to everyone else, they’re evil.

#doctor who #thoschei #tensimm #twissy #spydoc #death to the daleks #classic who #the end of time #world enough and time #power of the doctor #the doctor #3rd doctor #10th doctor #12th doctor #13th doctor #the master #missy #missy!master #missy doctor who #simm master #spymaster #doctor who analysis #thoschei analysis #dhawan master #dropped out of school for this #spilled words #missing the 130 characters or whatever the fuck twitter had #my mental breakdowns are about to get worse than ever #my silly thoughts

[gayhenrycreel]

what the fuck is wrong with this community?

why is there a requirement of trans men being subs? combined with the demonization of surgery, this cuntboy fetish thing kinda hurts. i never see any appreciation for, like... any dicks on men. unless said man is skinny, but also muscular to the point that im concerned for his mental health.

there are two (2) types of gay men allowed in the queer community: hairy muscular masculine cis man, and objectified "trans man" who is always white, fem, has no body hair at all, and is treated as a woman in every way. also he has to have a misgendering kink. its a requirement.

this would be fine if there was ANYTHING ELSE ALLOWED.

even irl i don't know any masc queer people at all. i feel very alone. does the queer community hate masculinity? i dont want to go into a relationship if its expected that im fine with being a submissive woman. i dont want to have sex before phalloplasty.

i go into a queer space (any space, irl or online) and everyone is talking about makeup and offering me some and calling me "girl" and theres this idea that men are evil. theres nothing wrong with femininity but radical feminism is never okay. the last queer space i was in irl had this one person who made jokes about how men suck and EVERYONE AGREED WITH HER.

everytime they have an event people offer me makeup and I GET CALLED A GIRL AGAIN.

even worse, the fucking coordinator tried to convince me to preserve my fucking egg cells after i said i want my entire reproductive system removed and stomped on. then she called me "girl".

and i said i didnt like makeup but people just said "are you sure?" like i dont know what makes me suicidally dysphoric.

i cant go into a space for people like me without my gender expression being questioned.

its bizarre that a cishet doctor would listen to me more about my sexual autonomy than a fellow trans person who says i might change my mind about HAVING A WHOLE FUCKING PERSON GROWING INSIDE ME. i have panic attacks about that. i have nightmares. and then she said i should still consider having sex, and when i said i don't want to she told me ill "meet the right person one day". i have a medical condition that makes penetration EXTREMELY painful, and when i try other holes i cant fucking feel anything, and no i dont like being pressured into sex because, shockingly, im not interested in getting raped.

i wont even consider sex until i get every surgery i can get. i just want a relationship that never goes past cuddles. i wish people would consider that i want to be a cis man, especially after ive already said thats what i want.

the cis people in my life always respect my gender. a lot of trans people in my life call me "girl" and tell me shit like "youll get to a point mentally where you dont need surgery to be happy".

i actually had someone say that to me. i said that not having t and surgery makes me suicidal, and they just told me i dont need it. then they said surgery is not necessary, even though ive wanted it for longer than i knew it was an option.

(dont worry gaylord and twobruhsinahottub im not talking about you)

#tw rape #tw pregnancy #tw suicide #trans #transandrophobia

[aihoshiino]

can i interest you in a penny for your thoughts about aqua and ruby's relationship in the current stages of the manga? ruby's clearly projecting and im pretty sure aqua is kind of blocking that entire conversation? hes acknowledged it but i think hes avoiding thinking too much about it (in part due to *waves hand at entire movie arc* all that)

gosh since you've twisted my arm i have NO CHOICE...

But yeah, I think Ruby is pretty clearly doing a lot of projecting here — the consistency with which she's started calling Aqua 'Sensei' really jumps out to me and it makes me pretty certain she's basically completely overwritten Aqua with Gorou in her brain, completely discarding the 18ish years he's lived as her brother in favour of just viewing him as the doctor who supported her.

This is a two-part process of denial, imo. The first and most obvious is Ruby trying to convince herself that her supposed romance with Gorou can still happen and it's not the first time her sort of naive stubbornness on that topic has come up — we saw this before during the Private arc when it came to their age gap.

Like girl, I respect the cope but he would be nearly fifty old by now. That man would be old enough to be your dad LMFAO.

If Ruby can delulu herself about an age gap of that size, she can easily also come up with an excuse for herself as to why she would be able to date him now he's her brother. I mean, if you think about it, they're not really actually twins, right? They're just strangers who happened to be born together! Since he's really Gorou and NOT!!!!! her brother, there's nothing wrong with it!

It should go without saying that this is a pretty absurd justification and imo, not one I think the manga is wanting the reader to uncritically buy into. Ruby's feelings here are, I think, intentionally being portrayed as naive and pretty childish. The framing around Ruby when she talks about Aqua in this regard is consistently exaggerated and comedic in a way that is a pretty clear signal, at least to me, that she should not be taken seriously.

This could only read more plainly as shoujo brainrot exaggeration if Aqua's chin was seven inches long and sharp enough to cut glass...

Beyond the denial of convincing herself that this romance still has any chance to happen, I also think this is denial in the sense of grief, too. In a very real sense, by entirely superimposing Gorou over Aqua, Ruby is denying that his death has happened at all. She doesn't want to acknowledge the possibility that he could be different now, especially not in any way that is emotionally inconvenient for her. Because acknowledging that this change occurred and that Gorou is no longer the Gorou she needs him to be would force Ruby to accept that her beloved sensei really is gone forever.

It should go without saying but this erasure of Aqua's identity is, of course, cruel. It's a dehumanizing rejection of his personhood. That's not to say that Ruby is A Bad Person for doing this— she's a fucked up kid dealing with a INSANELY fucked up situation and I think it would be unreasonable to expect her to handle all this entirely gracefully. But I also don't know that Ruby is even aware that she's doing what she's doing, because she doesn't quite get that her relationship with her identities and her reincarnation is different to his.

The continuity of identity between Sarina and Ruby is more or less entirely unbroken— she sees herself equally as both girls. More specifically, as Ruby herself puts it in 115, Sarina and Ruby are both 'roles' played by the 'real her'; both equal in weight and authenticity. I think she expects this to be the same for Aqua as well but this simply is not the case, or at least it's not anymore.

My read on Aqua's identity is that while he used to have a similarly unbroken continuity of identity, the trauma of witnessing Ai's death created a split and separated the two. It's not that Aqua is entirely separate from Gorou or entirely unaffected by his past life but Aqua himself & the supporting framing of the manga draws a pretty clear line of distinction between the two of them that does not seem to exist for Ruby and Sarina. In fact, Gorou is explicitly portrayed as a negative, invading force, an unnatural encroacher whose presence in Aqua's life is actively preventing him from finding happiness and stability.

To Ruby, it seems natural for these two identities to comingle, or for one's priorities to cancel the other's out. For Aqua, this same overriding of priorities is the thing that causes him anguish. In fact, I don't think it's too much of a leap for me to say that Aqua does not want to be Gorou full stop.

With all that laid out, I think you can pretty easily see how that conflict starts writing itself. Ruby ignoring and erasing the 18 years that Aqua has lived as her brother to assign him the identity of a man he doesn't want to be... the discomfort of someone he has only ever had familial feelings towards projecting romance onto him... the Squick of it all... no wonder Aqua is doing his best to just not deal with it. I can't really blame him.

Something I also think is informing Aqua's behavior right now is guilt. As he puts it to Memcho in 130, he's using everything he can to ensure the movie's success and I think this also includes manipulating Ruby.

We get some hints at this idea from Crow Girl both in 123 and 127. She sardonically notes "aren't you glad?" that Ruby seems to have reacted so positively to this reveal and explicitly ties Ruby's wellbeing to Aqua being able to make the movie. Later, after Aqua's just witnessed the final script be delivered to the B-Komachi girls, she notes that Aqua has the expression of a person who has made the choice to "hurt people and to get hurt".

Ruby's shoujo brain reads of Aqua's intentions also are important in establishing this, I think -- these clearly read as intended comedy beats to me, both in their exaggeration and the fact that she is so obviously misreading Aqua's character and his intentions because of her rose tinted glasses. As that Netflix show about the cartoon show once said, the thing about seeing someone through rose tinted glasses is that all the red flags just look like flags. In keeping Ruby happy, Aqua is making sure she herself doesn't become inconvenient to the movie's creation.

I think you can see that idea of like, guilt and discomfort manifesting as avoidance in the twins' first proper on-page exchange since this reveal, in 132:

I didn't catch this initially (so sorry to the person on the OnK subreddit who did -- I completely forgot your UN!) but not only do we never get a proper unobscured look at Aqua's face during this exchange but he also never once looks directly at Ruby as they talk. His body language & expression at the end (literally averting his gaze!) just screams discomfort to me.

That's not to say that Aqua revealing himself to her was entirely cynically motivated -- I think he completely genuinely loves her both as her brother, Aqua, and as Gorou, the man who cared for a deathly sick child when she had no one else in the world by her side. But that's just the problem— Aqua's love for her is the thing that makes his manipulation of her so painful. He's taking advantage of his sister's emotional vulnerability and their unique connection to use her in a way that completely betrays and desecrates the bond of trust they should otherwise share. And he's aware that if (or, as I'm beginning to worry, when) this comes out, Ruby is going to crash even harder as a result.

#oshi no posting #oshi no ko #aqua hoshino #ruby hoshino #hoshino family

[fruitsoxs]

I just had a cute idea that I'd like you to write some headcanons for (if you want to of course). For context, I'm pretty sure newspapers have these little sections where people can write messages or post ad-like requests for themselves. I cant remember what its called though.

Pre-canon, Vash and his crush have to separate for a while, but they end up surprising him by sending him little messages through the paper under a pseudonym. And for the sake of convenience let's assume the whole planet has the same news providers lol. Hope I explained this well!

i found out they're called classifieds !

pairings; vash x (GN) reader warnings; none! just fluff notes; ajsk as h this request has been at the back of my mind since i got it. its very cute. it was really hard coming up with a coded message though?? so i only did one. it's also heavily 98 Vash coded

Life on the run with Vash isn’t always fun, and sometimes you can get pretty hurt out there

You happen to get a little injury on your leg, meaning you have to stay still for a while

The problem? Vash has to keep moving. He promises he’ll come back and grab you in a month when you’re supposed to be fully healed

You’re lucky the town doctor owes you two a favor, and the kind old man offers to let you stay with him while Vash is gone

Sadly, this means you have to separated from Vash which …sucks

Over the past little bit the two of you have gotten pretty close, and the idea of being separated really bums you both out. It’s hard for you to get Vash to even leave. He gives you these sad puppy-dog eyes and asks over and over again if you’ll be okay

The doctor ends up kicking him out so he can “get some work done.”

The first day is the hardest day you’ve had in years. You’re down and depressed, won’t eat all of your food.

The doctor, trying to help cheer you up, gives you this idea. He tells you about a section in the newspaper where you can write little requests/ads. Since the newspaper spreads across the entire planet,  it could definitely reach him. 

You know Vash reads the paper, usually with breakfast. It’s a perfect plan

You write out the coded message; “Searching for the elusive mayfly known as love. Been missing my mayfly for about two days now. I hope I can see them again soon. They are the brightest part of my day ” You sign it off with the nickname that Vash calls you

When Vash sees the ad he about passes out.

He’s been miserable ever since he had to leave you. He’s insecure about letting you get hurt , depressed because he’s traveling alone again, and he misses your touch so much. It’s during this little space that he starts realizing how much you really mean to him. 

So he’s all mope as he grabs the morning paper, not expecting to see his own little mantra on the pages. 

He knows it's you immediately. 

He almost cries a bit as the sweet message, his heart beating fast as he thinks about the cute little smile you always wear. You’re the brightest part of his day too. 

He buys the paper everyday that month, looking for any new messages that may appear. 

You send him as many as you can afford, the doctor helping you pay for them. 

Vash cuts out every ad he sees, piling them up and putting them in his pocket where they’re safe. He likes to take them out and read them when he starts missing you

Finally the month starts to come to an end, and you’re able to walk around again

You have so much energy you don’t know what to do with yourself. The doctor starts making you do little chores around his house so you don’t explode. 

You’re actually out in town picking up something for the doctor when you spot that familiar red jacket

You rush towards the man and jump into his arms 

He hugs you back and presses his face into your hair with a grin

The two of you hug for a moment before he takes your hands and thanks you for all the messages you sent

There is no confession, but the relationship has changed. You know this because he holds your hand as you walk back to the doctors place

and in the future if the two of you are ever separated again, you know how to talk to him.

#vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #vash headcanons #trigun x reader #trigun #requests