#holy shit this got long

[just-late-roman-republic-things]

Determinism, Dice Rolls, and Dickheads

So, @sextuscansextus posed a great question the other day: "If you were going to pin the BEGINNING of the downfall of the Roman Republic on the actions of one Roman, who are you blaming?" The pedant that lives in my brain immediately started asking more questions. Not to argue, but to explore. To enjoy. To attempt a political autopsy well outside my competence.

This post is my answer: who I blame most, and why.

Had the Die Already Been Cast?

Many folks (including sextuscansextus herself) have pointed out that the end of the republic was a complex process, and blaming it on one "key figure" doesn't really work. Historians don't just talk about the individuals who shaped history, but a web of other factors: geography, economics, religion, overvalued sparkly rocks, etc.

So, how much should we blame people like Sulla or Caesar? And how much should we blame systemic forces that pushed them and other Romans to act as they did?

A pure "systems" approach looks like Jared Diamond's book, Guns, Germs and Steel. It tries to explain why some societies colonized others, using physical geography and agriculture. Individuals could still make choices, but on a large scale, the societies followed the different paths permitted by their material situations.

Or, to more bluntly, Europe was destined to colonize the Americas because cows rule and llamas drool, wheat is better than potatoes, and Europe's coastline looks like it was drawn by a spider on cocaine.

This book is, shall we say, controversial.

Apart from issues with methodology, accuracy, and possible racism, the book invokes historical determinism. Determinism is the idea that events are inevitable: your behavior is determined by the state of your brain, your brain's state is determined by your genetics and environment, and every person is equally ruled by those factors. Free will is as nonexistent as Mark Antony's underwear.

Determinism Lite™️ might allow for individual free will, but still frames big shifts like the fall of the Roman republic as inevitable. Or, you might say it became inevitable after a certain event set it on the course to destruction. I think this is what sextuscansextus' question is really getting at. The point in Roman history when you say, "This is where it went wrong," influences who you think doomed the republic, and how you judge the leaders who followed.

But was it doomed? Did a civil war have to happen sooner or later? If an eagle had dropped a turtle on Julius Caesar's bald spot, would somebody else march on Rome instead?

Erich Gruen and Robert Morstein-Marx have other ideas.

Lucky Bastards and the Doomsday Clock

In The Last Generation of the Roman Republic, Erich Gruen asks: What was happening in Roman politics between 80 and 49 BCE? What changed, and what stayed the same? He catalogues every election, trial, law passed or blocked, military mutiny, incestuous clusterfuck - the detail is both impressive and mind-numbing. Then he compares it all to previous decades, and concludes...that in 50 BCE, the republic was not falling apart.

"But how can that be?" you may ask. "Look at everything that went wrong! Even the Senate house burned down!"

Gruen isn't saying there weren't crises during this time. What he's saying is that they don't reflect a fundamental decay in republican institutions, or mean the republic couldn't put itself back together. For instance, the burning of the Senate was followed by troops being called in to restore order and hold a trial for Clodius' murder, and Rome was then at peace for three years until Caesar invaded - for completely unrelated reasons. The two conflicts are not actually linked. And positive developments occurred in between them, but are usually overlooked by historians trying to explain why things went wrong.

Gruen's argument is multi-layered, and I can't summarize it all here. But he concludes that the Roman republic could have potentially survived much longer, if not for the personal, not systemic, conflict between Caesar and Pompey in 50 BCE. If he's right, then we can't say any of Caesar or Pompey's predecessors "doomed" the republic.

Robert Morstein-Marx takes Gruen's argument further. In Julius Caesar and the Roman People, he explores the lead-up to Caesar's civil war, and finds miscommunication, politicians waffling back and forth, and several times war was almost averted. Even after Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he and Pompey nearly reached a peace deal. And several times Caesar was almost killed in battle, only escaping through pure luck.

Neither the civil war nor Caesar's dictatorship were inevitable. So besides "important people" and "systemic factors," Morstein-Marx names another force of history: sheer, bloody chance.

Not all historians agree with Gruen and Morstein-Marx. But let's suppose that at some point, the republic was in danger, yet there was a chance of restoring it to its prior health and stability. Whether you think there was a 90% or 5% chance of saving the republic in 52 BCE, try thinking in terms of probabilities, not a path of cause and effect.

Let's call this the "probability model." There are people and events who raise or lower the republic's stability, going all the way back to its founding, when Lucius Brutus' sons tried to overthrow it. It's like the Doomsday Clock, which doesn't measure how long humans have before destruction, but our risk of things blowing up in our face. The Doomsday Clock can go forward (riskier) or backward (safer), just like the Roman republic could start stabilizing in 52-50 BCE before a civil war destabilized it again.

In this model, we can't really say there is a "beginning of the end," or one person who started it. There was a series of events during which the republic collapsed, but they didn't necessarily cause each other, or all stem from a single source. You might as well ask which raindrop flooded your house.

But don't worry. We can still throw rocks at a guy who's been dead for 2000 years. We just have to rephrase the question a little.

What Was the Biggest Hit?

We can't say one man caused the republic to irreversibly decay, but we can say some men struck bigger blows than others, or struck it at a worse time.

Personally, I really like Gruen and Morstein-Marx's analyses. I agree with Gruen that the republic had reasonable prospects to survive in 51 BCE, and with Morstein-Marx's argument that Caesar and Pompey could have resolved their differences peacefully. But I think the republic's chances dropped dramatically after Caesar invaded Italy and Pompey fled to Greece - perhaps from 80% to 30%, if you'll forgive me for pulling numbers out of my ass. And the odds got worse as the conflict went on.

For the next 20 years, Rome was in a nearly constant state of civil war, autocracy, or both. It's hard to overstate how damaging both of those were to every level of society. Men like Augustus grew up without having ever seen a healthy republic, and many of the men that knew how to run one were killed. Public offices went unfilled, infrastructure decayed, mouths went unfed. Even if preserving the republic wasn't impossible yet, it became far, far more difficult. So if we're gonna point fingers, I think we should be looking at 50-49 BCE.

A lot of politicians fucked up at that point. You can argue that Curio drove a wedge between Caesar and Pompey, that Cato shut down the peace negotiations, that Marcellus declared war first, that Caesar started the war for real, and that Pompey tried to play both sides and it blew up in his face. It's possible that if any of these men had acted differently, no war would have happened. But if I had to pick one man to blame the most...

The Motive Matters, Too

Let's go back to that point about systems versus individual agency. How far were these politicians' choices constrained by their culture and environment? It doesn't change how badly they fucked up, but when it comes to blame, I'm harsher on people who choose evil of their own free will, rather than because they feel pressured into it.

In De Bello Civili, Caesar tells us why he defied the Senate for a year and invaded his own country. He tells us he wanted to protect the tribunes' rights, but the tribunes only came to him days before he crossed the Rubicon, so it doesn't explain why he let the situation get so dire in the first place. For that, we must look at his other stated reason: dignitas.

He wasn't afraid of a trial, assassination, or the anger of his soldiers. He did it for his pride, public image, honor, whatever you want to call it. And he put that pride before the lives of his countrymen and the safety of his country.

Now, the ancient Romans might have thought dignitas was a better reason than we do, but we can't blame Caesar's actions on Roman culture, either. 140 years earlier, Rome had had another great general. His name was Scipio Africanus. His career shares many similarities with Caesar's, and he was likely one of Caesar's heroes. But Scipio never turned his power against his country. He actually turned down being dictator and perpetual consul, and when his enemies politically cornered him, he accepted exile rather than forcing an ugly, drawn-out fight. Despite that embarrassment, he remained a legend through Caesar's time and to this day.

Or perhaps you want an example closer to Caesar's era and situation. We have one: Lucullus, whom Caesar actually served under at Mytilene. 16 years before Caesar crossed the Rubicon, Lucullus was spurned for a triumph for his campaigns. He waited three years, living outside Rome all that time, before he finally got one. But during that time he demobilized his army and respected the Senate's laws, no matter how petty and personally motivated they were against him. He did not use the military as a threat.

When push came to shove, Scipio and Lucullus put the good of the republic before their own careers. Caesar did not. He chose to defy the Senate and take up arms against his countrymen, knowing full well he had other options available.

I blame Caesar not only for the size of the blow he inflicted on the republic, but also because the blow was so preventable, if only he had been a better man.

#holy shit this got long #it was super fun to write though! #gods i love talking about this stuff #jlrrt essays #historiography #roman politics #julius caesar #caesar's civil war #scipio africanus #robert morstein-marx #erich gruen #guns germs and steel #jared diamond #julius caesar and the roman people #the last generation of the roman republic #lucius licinius lucullus

[saintchaser]

can you do a character analysis for peter? i really loved reading your james analysis and how you described mary as a character too :))

peter has always been a follower. despite the light that shines within him, he has always preferred to keep himself quiet and say nothing, because that way, he knew he would do nothing wrong and the people around him him would like him. he’s a people pleaser and someone who doesn’t stand up for what he believes in, afraid of what others people might think about him.

outside of the marauders, he does have a handful of friends, quiet people like him, who find shelter in each other and who allow themselves to be loud when they’re together, because in any other instance, someone would listen to them. he’s a friendly person, and despite the fact that he isn’t friends with as many people as others are, his friendships are always deep and meaningful, because he knows how to talk and how to listen.

it’s not that j&s&r don’t care about him but, comparing himself to james and sirius, peter has always felt quite insignificant. james had been his friend ever since he was little, and he knew james before his name and before he was something, he knew him ever since he was a boy with gapped teeth and, for some reason, he finds something comforting in that. with sirius, though, it’s different; it’s a boiled down jealousy that peter tries to hide, that sirius got that version of james, that he had been so easily replaced. (he finds comfort in marlene for that, because she shares the sentiment.)

due to quieting himself down, he often doesn’t really know who he is. he ties himself to his relationship and at the slightest change in behaviour, he doubts himself. he overanalyses people’s attitudes towards him and whenever something shifts, he wonders if he did something wrong, despite the fact it wasn’t the case.

peter’s a loving and caring person, but some of his traits are often shadowed by his perception of himself due to other people. he always cared about what other people thought of him, ever since he was little. he can’t stand being alone, because that’s when his heart aches for something that he can’t quite put his finger on.

#holy shit this got long #i have a lot of thought on peter too #also he is slightly based off of me but how about we ignore that!!! we definitely should #i also think that by quieting himself down in order to appeal to people he resembles remus in a way #but they do it due to different reasons #anyways! peter my poor little meow meow #peter pettigrew #character analysis #(i think that he also quite resembles narcissa)

[p0ssywhippedcream]

Hey ophe! Hope ur day has gone well so far! could I request a fluffy hurt/comfort short-story/blurb for L where Reader is like really stressed because of something and starts like self-deprecating I guess and L is basically like “You dare say that about the love of my life?” Type of thing and like reassures the, or something? Idk if u really do that type of writing so no pressure! 😊

~🐹

I absolutely write this stuff, hurt/comfort is my life rn! This is completely inspired by the fact I couldn’t get my shoe off and today was a ruffff day.

The slam of the door shocked L out of his trance. The gentle re-open and close of it told him it was you disturbing his peace.

He heard a small sigh and a puff of the mattress as you flung yourself on it. Turning his head over his shoulder like an owl, L noted your distressed expression as you sat up and struggled with the straps of your shoes.

“My love, are you alright?” He got a weary grunt as a response.

Powering down his laptop, he stood and made his way over to your body.

“Y/n?” Suddenly you made a noise of rage and struggled with the straps harder, fingers shaking as you desperately tried to rip the shoes off your feet.

L’s hands found yours on top of the black wedges and you stopped, dropping your head and staring at your lap. He kneeled in front of you and searched for your expression under your hair but found none.

Gently, as if scared to hurt you, L began to undo the straps. Slowly, he pulled your foot out of the shoe and set it aside then moved onto the next. Once both your shoes were off, L’s hands moved lovingly on your feet, easing some of the ache of the day.

“Would you mind telling me what happened?” His voice was small but not because he was intimidated, he wanted to be careful with you.

Your eyes met his as his hands worked to massage your pain away.

“I… Why don’t people like me? Or talk to me? Or want me?” You looked so hopeless and pitiful L felt his heart lurch in his chest.

“People like you.” He assured you with as much conviction he could muster, “I like you. Watari likes you. I want you.” He added the last part as if it wasn’t obvious by the way he was looking at you.

You huffed miserably. “You’re my boyfriend, he’s basically your dad. That doesn’t really count, I’d be worried if you didn’t like me.”

L paused for a second then moved his hands up to your calves. “Who doesn’t like you?”

“Everyone.”

L shook his head lightly. “You can do better than that, my love. Be specific.”

“I don’t know! People, everywhere. My parents, my family, my friends. It feels like no matter what I do, nobody really likes me or cares about me.” You dropped your head and glared at the roses on your skirt with so much anger, he wouldn’t have been surprised if they had killed your firstborn.

“I don’t have much expertise with parents or family,” L admitted, “But I do know that your friends wouldn’t be friends with you if they didn’t like you. People can be cruel and it hurts, but most of the time it’s not personal. When it is personal, it’s misdirected or exaggerated and even if you made a mistake, but you deserve to know how to fix it without harsh treatment.”

You looked at your boyfriend. His hands tucked underneath your knees and he gave you a feeble smile.

“You’re really wise, you know that?”

“I would hope so, otherwise I would need a new occupation.”

You giggled softly but it faded to a dull grimace. “It’s hard, L. I seem to always be doing something wrong. People seem to hate me upon meeting me and even when they do warm up to me, one wrong thing and i’m back at square one. I wish I could be one of those easy, pretty girls everybody liked.”

L fingers tightened and you made a curious face. For a second, pain flashed across his face, as if the thought of you insulting yourself physically ailed him.

“You are pretty. You are beautiful. And you are easy for the people who matter. Why do you want everybody to like you? You don’t even like everybody.”

You laughed. It was full and real and it filled the room as yours always does. L hadn’t realized how grim the room felt without your joy until the color returned to the wallpaper as your chuckles bounced off it.

“You’re right. I guess I just feel wrong around people who aren’t you or close friends, like the odd man out.”

L nodded, he understood better than anyone.

“Well, I like you odd. Anyone who doesn’t like you doesn’t deserve to know all the things about you that are worth loving.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Like the way your hair looks in the morning. Or the way you giggle when you’re caught doing something mischievous. Or how kind you can be when someone is hurting. You are worth all the oddness and the wrongness to me because you never felt wrong, you simply felt unknown.”

L paused, his words sunk in and made your cheeks turn a light shade of pink. He continued, “If people judge you as soon as they meet you, they don’t deserve to have those good things from you. The good people, the ones who matter will let you be unknown and will be grateful to love you soon after. And you,” He poked you in the belly and you laughed,” You are goodness. If you feel wrong around certain people, it’s not you that is wrong, it’s a sign these people aren’t right for your happiness.”

Your eyes were over pouring with appreciation and gratitude. For a moment, they looked golden in the dim light of the reflected sunset and L saw your usual brightness in them. The butterflies in his stomach were doing flips.

“Okay… okay.” You agreed and tugged him up to you by his arms, “You’re right. And you’re good for my happiness. I’m so glad you met me.”

L’s lips curled and his cheeks pushed his eye-bags up as he grinned like a goof. “I’m so glad you didn’t judge me upon meeting me at first either. Who would’ve thought a giant bear costume would gain me a girlfriend one day?”

You laughed and kissed him until his lips were red. “It was a cute look on you, though really a panda fits you a little better.”

“A panda is a bear.” He murmured into your laughing lips.

#holy shit this got long #oph.thoughts #oph.anons #🐹 anon #l lawliet x reader #l x reader #death note #oph.posts #l x reader fluff #l x reader hurt comfort #l x reader comfort #l lawliet fluff #l lawliet x reader fluff #l lawliet comfort #deathnote l lawliet fluff #deathnote x reader #deathnote fluff #deathnote x reader fluff #deathnote l x reader #deathnote l lawliet x reader #deathnote l lawliet #deathnote l lawliet x reader fluff #deathnote l x reader fluff

[some-greatreward]

it's sunday evening here so i get to go on a deranged little marrissey rant as a treat.

anyway i was just thinking like i genuinely don't know what the most devastating "last smiths song" is.

like y'all well aware that IWSY is my top played song of all time, and the last track of the last smiths studio album ending with "i'll see you somewhere, i'll see you sometime, darling..." is a REAL gutpinch, like it fucking hurts. moreso in hindsight when we know that the smiths never did end up reforming, so this mythical "somewhere, sometime" is just that - an abstract, mythical idea to hold onto. and not to mention this is a track that even in the studio raised a few eyebrows around johnny's then-recent collaborations with other artists.

the other two, i keep mine hidden/work is a four-letter word, are pretty goofy when you first listen to them ngl. they don't really sound like smiths tunes (obviously one of them is a cover), they feel brighter, more upbeat than you'd expect, but BOY oh boy is that deceptive.

i've found I Keep Mine Hidden absolutely devastating ever since it suddenly clicked for me a couple months ago. And I think, if I actually tried to pull it apart, it's because it's a song about someone who KNOWS they're a lot to deal with, but can't really do anything about it because that's who they are. it's a very defeated, resigned song set to a cheerful beat. it's moz saying "i know im not easy to be around, but it's hard for me too, bc that's who i am." Knowing what we do about their relationship at that stage, you can pretty much see where this is going, especially paired with the other song:

"work is a four-letter word" featuring the very on-the-nose lyrics of "if you stay / i'll stay right beside you / and my love might help to remind you / to forget that work is a four-letter word". Like let's not kid ourselves. Being in a band is a job. It certainly started to feel like an unpleasant job for johnny at that point, and moz would've been the most sensitive to that. so you can kind of see through these 3 songs that there's an overall message here. he's saying, essentially, "i get that im not easy to deal with. I get that you don't enjoy being in the band anymore. But i want you to stay, for me, and i'll make it good for you again."

so we have to assume that johnny either didn't get the message (hah), or that he understood but wasn't able to follow through with what moz wanted. either way, it does hurt a little when you think that they attribute the cilla black cover as what broke the smiths up, when it is so obviously a sentiment wrapped in a little musical box.

#holy shit this got LONG #WOW this was REALLY deranged #um. please don't perceive me sometimes my brain goes in really weird directions #im not laying fault to anyone by the way this is just for fun #hex.txt #smiths

[im-a-luxury]

sometimes i like to contrast jedediah and octavius in terms of like,, their familial background. like

jedediah: grew up in the west, definitely on like a ranch or a farm. probably had a tight knit family with like. 10 fuckin siblings.

octavius: probably grew up in a nice clean mansion. only child. adopted father was julius caesar.

this absolutely is not to say that octavius was weak or had it easier, i just think it’s funny.

like imagine one day, jed’s like riding a horse, then flipping around and like jumping off a tree into a lake, and octavius is just standing to the side, very confused.

obviously jed’s like “c’mon, tavi! what have ya nev’r climbed a tree before?”

octavius shakes his head, cue jed hollering, “YOUVE NEVER CLIMBED A TREE BEFORE???” and they spend the rest of the night playing “outside” :)

or like the first time jed brings oct into his “home” and cooks him a meal, complete with pot pies, corn, cornbread, whole shabang. and poor oct, who’s only ever gotten fruit and low calorie foods in childhood and military food in adulthood, sitting across from jed, nearly on the verge of tears.

or when they’re exchanging family stories, and jed’s talking about the mischief he used to get into with his siblings (i hc he had 4 older and 5-6 younger) then turns to oct, and asks him if he had any siblings. oct obviously says no, and jed sighs, full western drama as he says “real shame…” then he asks if his parents ever did anything with him.

oct shakes his head, quietly explaining how busy they were and how early he was trained to become the perfect soldier. cue jed being absolutely horrified and resolving to recreate as many adventures as he could with him.

idk it’s just fun to think abt :)

#holy shit this got long #did not mean to ramble #natm #jedtavius

[tal-yadin]

Ok let's jump into it, i did promise to write an actuall post.

it got LONG so check it out under the cut: (how did it end up like this??)

First thing first, this episode was vegas' episode. No doubt about it, no debate, and bible just ate the whole thing for breakfast. I mean it okay? i was having so much fun watching him on screen, just, every scene he's in is golden.

Now that i've said it let's go into more detail. 

i’ve said before in my ep 5 post that the vegas is tailoring his persona to porsche and we see that full forsce in this episode (it helps of course that they have much more screentime together). 

In fact, the entire way the minor family operates is much, Much more suited to porsche’s nature - and i might just write out a whole saparate post about the minor family vs the main family, because the power dynamics are fucking facinating - but the point is that the informal and street thug-ish vibe the minor family has got going is much more suited to porsche than the high brow splendor of the main family

So vegas is back on his bullshit, aided by the fact that kinn is stuck in the hospital and the fact that he’s been given premission to have porsche on call until his task is done. and the dude is sure leaning into it. heavily. it’s not working as well as it did in ep 5 because porsche’s situation has changed - he’s not as isolated, he and kinn have resolved (some, maybe) of their issues and he’s in much less need of someone to lean on.

it’s an ineteresting contrast between kinn and vegas actually. kinn has authority on his side. his word is law, the only person that outranks him his his dad. when faced with someone like porsche who won’t yield to that authority, kinn first resorted to force and is slowly learning to lean into personal connection. porsche is much likelier to do what kinn wants him to do if kinn asks.

vegas has no authority, at least when it comes to the main family (and the whole point is comptetion so it’s Always a comparison) so he probabely learned that lesson much earlier. if he wants someone to do something, he has to make them want to do it.  being liked is a powerfull tool for someone like vegas, who has virtually no authority because of who he is. being straightforward isn’t an option so he manipulates instead.

so yeah vegas really shone in this episode, although i’m pretty sure nothing will ever top this hoe’s fucking smirk after he told porsche that kinn shot his ex. i honestly thought he was bullshitting completely, but according to next ep’s preview kinn’s ex IS assumed dead so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ who the fuck know. i’ve seen a bunch of theories but at this point this show is gonna make clowns out of us all.

next thing i wanna talk about is pete. petey. my best sunshine boy. you are officially on the freak scale. like we thought you were normal but the way you looked at vegas when all the other BGs were looking away and clutching their pearls? my boy was sporting a boner, i’m calling it now.

jokes aside, i’m really excited for this development. i’ll be straight (ha) with you here, i was not particulary invested in the vegaspete storyline from the get go. like i knew it was a thing in the novel, i knew it was supposed to be problematic, i was kinda dreading having to watch it go down. 

then the show did such a good job with smoothing over the more fucked up aspects of kinn and porsche’s relationship in the first half and i figured they’d find a way to handle it that wouldn’t make me want to put my head through a window. (my guess was originally that they would scrap the romantic element of it entirely and just leave it as vegas the villain and pete the victim)

but this new aspect of pete’s character opens the door to some much more interesting options (my favorite amongst those is these two ending up in some real kinky s/m relationship), like actual relationship stuff. the main concern in this case is the whole consent problem and they’ve been doing such a good job handling it so far that i’m holding out real hope.

next i’d like to talk about korn’s scene. again papa korn is feeding kinn the compan line and again he’s doing it in a really ambigiuous way. like he keeps introducing kinn to important aspects of ruling the family (and essentially the crime world in general), but he never, ever actually tells kinn what he should do.i find it a super interesting detail to their dynamic because korn is still holding absolute power, but he’s deliberately Not wielding it against kinn. 

korn Will turn kinn’s attetion to important details but he Won’t tell him how to act next and subsequently kinn get to make his own choices (even if they’re not the ones korn would have made). in ep 5, it was kinn who decided porsche’s punishment - he makes a mistake, that korn had to step in to help him fix by giving porsche the week off. 

in this episode, kinn isn’t jumping through the hoops korn is presenting him with. korn tell’s him that his feeling are affecing his judgment, but kinn still goes to porsche in the minor family house, twice. it’s an important distinction and i think it’s also part of korn’s agenda. korn’s not going to live forever, kinn’s going to have to make his own choices one day without korn at his back.

Now onto the main event.

the scene of kinn and porsche on the balcony took me through the whole fucking range of human emotion, like what the fuck XD like first it’s romantic gift giving (”the gun and yourself” lukjfhgidjfksg) then it’s the lame ass dick jokes and then tenderness and touching foreheads and forehead kiss can you please let me live???

the scene where porsche checks on kinn in the hospital and kinn gets pissy about porsche being cosy with vegas was Gold ok? like the way porsche sprawls back against the couch with this huge ass grin on his face as soon as kinn gets pissed and immediately comences being a little shit about kinn’s jealousy? like kinn my man, your boy has never backed down from a challenge in his life, he is constantly and at a moments notice ready to throw hands XD nxndbdk

and now to that final scene, hang on to your butts folk this is gonna be paragraphes and  paragraphes of me ranting and raving about apo and his fucking acting ok? ok

the beginning of That scene porsche is being damn near carried into the bathroom by vegas. please allow me to point out just how casual vegas is about the whole thing, like this bitch is selling the drunken shananegens angle even while he’s taking porsche’s shirt off, like that’s what i call commitment to the role.

then he goes in for the kill and porsche is Not Into It. like it’s instant discomfort and he gets a hand between them to push vegas off immediately, but vegas is smart, vegas is smooth, he’s got porsches practically sitting on the counter and he puts himself between his legs as soon as he leans in, which means porsche has got zero leverage to push back against him (his legs are off the floor and there’s no wall at his back to push against).

He is also, note, not very agressive about pushing when porsche resists him, like he’s definitely leaning in but he’s not pushing hard enough that porsche resorts to actual violence. he’s not restraining his hands and he’s not grabbing him, it’s all very subtle. which leaves porsche to try and curl away from the unwanted advances instead of reacting with violence.

[Gif by @parkjiminmochi ]

i’m dying, i’m dying this is where it starts beacause, the way porsche curls in, trying to turn away even while vegas has him boxed in? uhg it’s killing me. and then kinn comes in and at first porsche is smiling, he’s relieved and then kinn turns to yell at him and his face falls, there confution and upset and also geunine alarm because he can’t understand why kinn is mad at him. 

and then kinn slaps him, it’s not hard, it’s more of a pat, but there’s enough sting to it that it’s insulting and porsche flinches.

[Gif by @roqueruiz ]

and this is the first time we see fear from porsche in this scene. and apo did such a fucking marvelous job because there’s a definite difference between the expression on his face before that slap and after it, sort of a sinking realization of what kinn is thinking at this moment - what he’s accusing him of - and his mind immediately leaps to what vegas told him about kinn’s ex, to the consequences of kinn believing he’s been betrayed, even and maybe especially by someone he loves.

in ep 6, kinn said he didn’t know porsche could be afraid of something, but the truth is, porsche gets afraid - On Screen - a few time that we’ve seen. it’s just that porsche does not react to fear the way most people do. i’ve said it earlier didn’t i? no matter what kind, porsche Does Not back down from a fight. Ever. 

after that little slap? porsche pushes kinn away - kinn is agressive so porsche is agressive back. it’s what’s been giving kinn so much trouble with porsche from the get go, kinn is used to people backing down from him, porsche has never done it. not once.

he pushes back. he gets angry that kinn is accusing him, isn’t trusting him,he throw’s kinn’s ex in his face and when kinn retaliates by calling him a whore he slaps him, hard. it doesn’t matter how much it hurts and how scared he is and who’s on the other side - porsche does not back down from a fight. 

(when kinn said THAT? I was HOLLERING. I paused and i screamed and my god was that slap the least that he deserves, i can’t even with that fucking man - skfduhfa’lij)

when porsche tries to storm off and kinn grabs him he struggles. he’s angry and hurt, he’s feeling vulnerable emotionally and physically - he does not want kinn to touch him. even while kinn herds him against the mirror he turns sideways, creating space for himself, leaving himself room to move and gain leverage against the mirror if he needs it (he’s gearing up for a fight, it’s what he expects).

[GIF by @liyazaki ]

and then he tries to turn the other way, he tries to push kinn’s arm off and head towards the exit and kinn closes the distance and pins him up agains the mirror. 

and that’s like a fucking switch has been flicked right there.

[GIF by @liyazaki ]

look how he fucking curls in ok? look. (apo why are you doing this to me?) he tuck his arms close, like he’s covering himself. his shoulders go up and his head goes down and he’s trying to make himself as small as he can and I bet he holds his breath too right at that moment. FUCK ME OK?

you just know that his mind went to the night he got drugged - pinned against a glass surface with kinn at his back ? - fuck it you KNOW that that’s what he’s thinking about.

it’s definitely where my mind went, the lighting? the position? I damn near flashbacked to that scene, you can bet your ass that porsche definitely did. and that’s that fear i was talking about, because porsche is afraid. (has got a damn good reason to be afraid because this has happened before) 

and you know what? kinn thinks about it too. he does. he sees porsche curled up like this and he knows. he apologizes. he takes a step back. and even though he’s still boxing porsche in, he’s Not touching him anymore. he’s giving him space. he’s giving him choice.

in the end it’s porsche that turns around to face kinn, he let’s kinn touch him, let’s him kiss him and when porsche pushes kinn away he barely has to put any pressure behind it at all and i think it’s a lovely, lovely contrast to vegas earlier who wasn’t using force exactly, but definitely didn’t back away when porsche was trying to get him to.

you guys know what happens next and i won’t talk about it because i could barely stay sane watching it so i’ll just say this: HOT DAMN

p.s. porchay was the absolute cutest this episode and kim going snooping and finding his wik shrine was actual comedy gold.

also where was my boy tankhun? where was he? GIVE HIM TO ME

#kinnporsche #kp ep 7 #holy shit this got long #this motherfucking show ok?

[blackjackkent]

Melissan's body hits the platform with a dull thud and Caden stands above her, his sword at her throat. He wants her dead - for the safety of Faerun, primarily, but there is also a painful throb of Bhaal's lingering power at the back of his mind, demanding vengeance...destruction...murder...

He squeezes the sword, closes his eyes tightly, gasps for breath in the stifling heat...

And a voice breaks through the chaos, driving the place to utter stillness in an instant.

Melissan, writhing on the floor in utter rage and desperation, reaches up and grabs the blade of Caden's sword, trying to twist it out of his hands. Blood wells between her fingers and smears on the metal and she screams like a wounded animal.

The solar looks on, unimpressed, at this show of panic.

Light flashes from the angel's fingertips, striking into Melissan at the eyes and then surging over her whole body. The woman goes abruptly rigid, then topples to one side, silent and still on the platform.

As if nothing at all had happened. the solar turns to look at Caden with that unruffled, detached smile.

At Caden's side, Imoen shifts, then steps forward to stand next to him, her head high in spite of the fear he can see in every line of her face.

Caden almost laughs - certainly it can't be so easy - but the sound dies on his lips as another wave of blue-white light washes over them. He hears Imoen gasp, and then she sags slightly, one hand going to her chest, feeling the emptiness there where Bhaal's power lay. Then she relaxes, looks to Caden and smiles cautiously.

Caden feels tension spread through his whole body at once as the solar's eyes turn back upon him again. He swallows, tries to stand as straight as possible, even though all he wants to do is lie down forever. The blood is still dripping off his blade onto the floor.

Caden listens, staring at her in wonder. What she describes...it sounds like unmitigated bliss. To live as a man with no touch of a god in his veins? To live among his friends, with no need to fight or to shoulder the burden of the world? To be free?

He is so tired. He wants to lay his head in Aerie's lap and sleep for a year. He wants freedom and life and home so badly that it aches in his chest.

How can there be another choice than this? What else could the solar possibly think he would want?

Oh. Of course.

Caden feels slightly dizzy, a wave of nausea rising in his throat. With a word, he could turn the course of the gods. He could claim his murderous father's power - perhaps for good, or perhaps until his mind cracked with the overwhelming evil.

The solar speaks as if this is some tempting choice, as if something about this would call to him more than the idea of life and freedom. And, more astonishing than that...his friends think he might be tempted, too.

Rasaad is the first to speak, and it's evident he is trying very carefully to be controlled, impartial.

Caden once again feels his throat tighten with unshed tears, unable to speak. The affirmation means more than he can say, the confidence from this man whose opinion he values above almost all others that he would make a good use of this terrible power...

But he does not want it.

The others circle around him, and he can see the muted grief in their eyes - all of them ready to bid farewell to someone who has meant so much to them. There is the attitude of a funeral in every expression. Their words tumble out over each other, each of them feeling some pressure of time slipping away and desperate to make sure he hears them before he disappears.

But in the midst of them all is Aerie, who has gone very still while the solar spoke, and her eyes are locked on Caden's as if even to blink would be to lose a moment with him.

He reaches out, grabs her hand tightly and presses it to his lips, shaking his head. His throat feels stuck, and all the words he wants to say won't come out - I'm not going, I won't do it, I want to go home, I want to live, I want to be yours, always...

What emerges instead is ragged and hoarse, a few stammering words that do not do his heart justice.

Tears well in her eyes and she throws herself against him, wrapping her arms tightly around him, face pressed into his shoulder where he feels his shirt dampen from her tears.

He holds her against him, presses his face into her hair. Even as he struggles to articulate his feelings, he can sense the solar watching them, those burning eyes digging into the back of his head.

Is he making the wrong choice? To deny an angel when it offers him such power? Is Rasaad right? Could he use it for good?

She hiccups, trying to control the overwhelming fear that has her clinging to him, and nods slightly against his shoulder. He can see her struggling to square her shoulders, to be brave as she has learned to be in their adventures together. And even as his heart aches for that fear and love that he feels from her in equal measure, he is proud too - so proud of who she has become.

And in that moment, as she gathers herself to stand alone, he knows that his first instinct was right. He cannot leave these people, this world, this life. This is where he belongs.

She starts to draw back, but he holds her to him, catches her cheek in his palm and turns her eyes to his. "Don't fear, my love," he whispers, and tips his head to press his lips against her mouth. "Don't fear," he whispers against her skin. "You will never be alone. Not today, or ever."

He lifts his head, glances to the others, meeting each gaze intently. Some steadiness has returned to his bearing, and he says, with a sudden calm certainty, "I am not going anywhere."

The solar has been watching this play out, expression unmoved but suddenly intensely interested.

The solar tilts her head slowly to one side - and then smiles, the first true smile Caden has yet seen from her.

A ripple of uncertainty and then relief passes through all of his companions in a moment. Imoen grins widely and throws an arm around his shoulders, hugging him tight to her side.

The others gather around him, grins bursting on to each face in turn - but Aerie's reaction is the only one that he truly has eyes for. If her grief tore at his heart, her joy is similarly all-consuming; he thinks he could simply drink in the light in her eyes for all of the life now remaining to him.

Her arms are around him and her face back in his chest, and his friends are on all sides like a protective wall against everything that he has endured. And they are free, all of them.

It is over... The idea is bewildering, overwhelming. None of them seem quite able to process it.

The solar waves a hand, and the teleportation spell wraps around them.

The last thing they see as they disappear from the platform is the harsh green light lancing out to envelop Melissan's body, and the last thing they hear is her scream of rage and agony.

#bjk plays baldur's gate 2 #caden of candlekeep #holy SHIT this got long #and took a long time not least because there was no opportunity to get a text recap of this conversation #so i had to replay the fight AGAIN and then cap it line by line #ugh #but eeeeeeeeeee! #this is a better ending than i was afraid caden would get :D #he is FREE!

[tottwritesfanfic]

Hope’s Fire - Dramatis Personae

As promised, for anyone interested, here is a list of all the side-characters so far in Hope’s Fire, as it’s been a while since some of them were first introduced!

They are listed in order of story arc and first appearance. Characters whose presence/names here would be Spoilery are left out even if they have technically already appeared in the story itself, and there are probably one or two listed below who won’t have any major role overall, but they were already named in-text so I felt bad leaving them out. These are the challenges of such a massive AU, where a lot of the fine detail gets added as I go.

Also, I make no apology for how irreverent these descriptions get. This is pretty much the tone of all my worldbuilding/planning documents. I have to stay lighthearted somewhere, right?

At some point I do want to make a full cast list of OCs just for fun, but that’s probably going to have to wait until I know what the final tally will look like, and it’ll include a lot of names that just pop up once or twice and are never mentioned again. Like, for now I’ve left out all the named guards, healers, etc. This is just a list of characters who are either important to the plot, or are notable figures in the world who will be referred to here and there.

Note: MW is my working shorthand for “Mirror World”, which is how I usually refer to the world the Chosen Children have been thrown into, thanks to its mirrored night/day cycle. The name also sort of ties into how the world was formed, but that’s not meant to be specific to THIS world. By the rules of this AU, the Digital World is every bit as much a Mirror World as the MW, it’s just that each is like, reflecting something different back. I feel as though it’s somewhat obvious what the MW’s deal is at this point, but also it might not be (it’s hard to be impartial when I know all these details already), so I’ll hold off on any more specifics for now.

As a final—and important!—point: While I’ve tried to keep this list as spoiler-free as possible, the fact remains that for a couple of characters, particularly in “The City” it can’t be helped. Their actions in the plot are just too tied to who they are as characters, given that this list is acting as a refresher. So, this counts as your spoiler warning up to Chapter 37 of Hope’s Fire!

The Forest City

Alwyn - A Fairy of the Forest City. Alwyn is a senior member of the Forest Watch, an organisation of scouting groups who keep the Forest City safe from harm. He is also the sole guardian of his niece, Nonie. He reports to the Elders of the forest; the senior fairies, pixies, sprites, and other woodland folk who inhabit the now subterranean forest kingdom, all of whom venture above ground only rarely. Due to the corruption in and around the forest, they experience regular incursions of Digimon and other hostile creatures - as such he initially has an aversion to Digimon.

Nonie - A Fairy of the Forest City. Considered an adolescent, Nonie is in the care of Alwyn. She tends towards both curiosity and chattiness, and often gets carried away by both of these traits, forgetting rules/protocol in the process. This is not helped by the fact her sole guardian is often called away, giving her considerably more freedom than is probably good for her. It’s even odds as to whether she will be a bad influence on the Chosen Children, or if they will be a bad influence on her. Time will tell.

Ithel - An Elder of the Forest City. One of the oldest fairies in the Forest City, he is the more-or-less official spokesperson of the Elders due to his seniority in their council. He’s surprisingly humble for a Fairy - which most people put down to the lack of Fae blood in his lineage. His family has intermarried far less with the Fae than many others (one reason his wings are so nice). He never married, and has no children of his own, but many consider Maela to be his consort in all but name.

Maela - An Elder of the Forest City. She is an old sprite - even older than Ithel, and her hair is streaked with grey. She is far more practical than Ithel, which makes her an excellent counterpoint to him. They are, in effect, Lord and Lady of the Forest City, although their relationship is as much a familial one as that of a married couple. No one is entirely sure how close they are, but they seem to complement each other very well.

Sjarel - An Elder of the Forest City. The only human among the Elders, Sjarel is often overwhelmed by his work. Humans are quite numerous across the MW, although much less so in the Forest. As such, any disputes or envoys concerning matters relating to the various human enclaves fall to him. He has humanity’s best interests at heart - after all, they’re just one among many different species, each with their own agenda, and he’s the humans’ sole voice among the Elders. Still, he’s really overworked, and getting kinda old, and as a result he tends to be pretty damn cranky, and suspicious of anything which could result in bad shit happening. Also. Humans are not magical, unlike most of the other species in the MW, so he tends towards scepticism of the Fates’ Prophecy, especially as no one has seen or heard from the Fates themselves in his lifetime.

Aldith - A Forest Scout. Half Fae, Half nymph, all business. Specialises in casting camouflaging glamours to protect her squad. Aldith is a pretty old Fae, and her speech mannerisms tend towards the archaic, but she’s a pretty good sport, generally.

Euthalia - A Forest Scout. A dryad in the same squad as Aldith and Alwyn, who is generally responsible for opening gates and helping Aldith with camouflage thanks to her ability to manipulate living wood.  

Dáire - A Forest Scout in the same squad as Aldith and Euthalia. Dáire’s just this guy, you know?

The City

Shichiro - The seventh son of a seventh son, who therefore has limited healing powers. Makes a poor first impression when he discovers Yamato in the City and ultimately causes his capture and imprisonment…but also immediately realises his mistake when he learns what’s actually going on, so… He’s trying? Shichiro meets Mimi when he is summoned as essentially the paramedic on call, and immediately gets caught up as her herald, of sorts. This is probably fine.

Lord Cahir - Fae Colonel (or rough equivalent) in the City. Mostly a desk officer, who compiles reports for their Graces. Cahir is stubborn and unyielding and, being Fae, his strong sense of honour and justice is unfortunately compromised by the inherent biases of his people. His first concern is the welfare of the City and its inhabitants, but he has a tendency to trample over those he perceives as an obstacle—a list which consists of pretty much anyone who crosses him. Whilst it is true that he has an incredibly high-stakes job which puts him under a lot of stress, he is also entirely blind to his own faults, and convinced of the rightness of his actions. It’s…it’s not a great mix, being honest.

Chausiku - Human Captain in the City. Oversees the troop who escort/capture Mimi. As a human in a position of authority over Fairies, Chausiku is sharp and harsh at times. She has to assert her superiority lest it be challenged - and she has very much proven it over the years, too. Her troop are fiercely loyal to her, and would defend her to the death. Not that she especially needs defending, because she has a lifetime’s combat experience as well. She has a sound grasp of tactics and knows when to push and when to give. It’s this flexibility which leads her to give Mimi a chance.

Their Graces - The three Fae rulers of The City. A group consisting of Feidlimid, the eldest; Treasa, his sister; and Wieland, Treasa’s husband. Although the official hierarchy has Feidlimid in charge, in practice it is usually Treasa who acts as spokesperson for the three, due to her possessing a flair for diplomacy and a regal countenance that’s hard to ignore. As with all Fae, it’s pretty much impossible to ever be sure what they’re really thinking, which can make them both imposing and intimidating, both as foes and allies.

The Mountain Fastness

Yngvi - Spokesperson for the Lord of the Mountain Fastness. He of the wispy beard and gold chain. Yngvi is a pretty old dwarf. He’s been around, he’s seen it almost all, and frankly, most of it isn’t half so good as a wholesome meal and a hot bath. Okay, so maybe the thrummm of a hammer on an anvil, or that moment where you crack open a geode and it’s a pure treasure trove of perfect crystals, but apart from that, what you’re really going to want, when all’s said and done, is the meal and the bath. Maybe a beer as well.

Nameless Dude In Ugly Robe - A scholar and adviser to the Lord of the Mountain Fastness. He’s sooooort of chief doctor, although this is more of a symbolic position and he leaves the actual doctoring to other people because it’s been like, a hundred years since he had to treat any actual patients.

Ox-Like Man - Okay, so he is actually a human (mostly) but his family lineage is one with, eh, a little bit of non-human in it too. Basically, his people have lived in and around the Fastness for generations, and go waaaay back with the dwarfs. He’s a metalsmith, and a pretty good one (by human standards). He represents humanity’s interests to the Lord of the Mountain Fastness and he’s a pretty chill dude.

Órlaith - A Fae envoy from the City, turned adviser to the Lord of the Mountain Fastness when the corruptions in the MW stranded her far from home. She’s one of very few Fae to dwell among the dwarfs and other more naturally subterranean peoples, and as such is a bit of an oddity, both among her own kind and within the Fastness itself. Far more practical and down to earth than the majority of her people, it’s still best not to forget that she is Fae, because she possesses that same mile-wide streak of arrogance and pride, and woe betide anyone who crosses her. She’s not so much of a mind-meddler as the likes of Cahir, but would still make a pretty formidable foe.

Amund Geirrson - A human (well, mostly human with a smidgen of dwarf in his lineage), assigned as a bodyguard to Ken in the Mountain Fastness, and who has never ventured outside its boundaries. Very practical, and brave after his own fashion, he is decidedly uncomfortable outside his comfort zone—which extends as far as the edge of the Mountain Fastness itself. After a lifetime accustomed to tunnels and artificial lights, the world above ground is an alien land to him.

#Hope's Fire #my fanfiction #holy shit this got long

[sweetscenes]

Once Upon a Gotham’s December

 aka i write the du.ke thom.as anastasia au by my damn well self. 

  “Close your eyes!”

 Came the peppy voice of someone he had come to know very well within the past few months. He still struggled with trust, he still struggled with the sense of identity. He could feel something peeking out from the further reaches of is brain, and he desperately wanted to pull them forward. Yet, he felt himself pulling away from it. As much as the young man wanted to remember his past, and feel its warm embrace and security, Dylan was afraid of the memories it invoked. The identity that Harley and Pam wanted him to slip into came so easily, like a well worn glove, and that scared him. 

 He knew the lies they told, the lies they expected him to tell, but it was starting to become more clear that it may be more than their illusion. He just knew he needed to get to Gotham, where a loving embrace, someone important would be waiting for him. At a bridge named for a man he couldn’t recall. Perhaps it was easy to slip into the role of Duke Thomas, the only surviving member of the Wayne family and its wards, because it was a part of his obscured identity. 

 He knew the truth lay with the two who wanted to use his spitting image to the missing boy to trick Alfred Pennyworth into giving them their money, and he himself was conflicted with that. It didn’t seem right to trick someone, especially someone in mourning, but Dylan needed to get to Gotham to uncover the truth. 

 He was startled from his reprieve when Harley repeated the command, and he turned to her. 

 “Why?” He asked, not knowing whether he would be pranked or some other trick. He would put nothing past Harley, especially since Pam wasn’t there at the moment to rein her in. 

 “You’ve been working hard lately, Dylan, and you deserve a reward! So close your eyes!” Came the prompt reply, and Dylan knew that it was fruitless to try and resist the woman once she had her mind set on something. It would be easier to accept the gift, whatever it was. And while Dylan was grateful, he couldn’t help but also feel the tiniest bit guilty. He hadn’t really been working hard, more like trying on a pair of old shoes. The thought made his head hurt. 

 It was easier to just go with it. 

 “Okay,” Came his final reply, closing his brown eyes. “But if you put something nasty in my hand I’m going to-” 

 He was cut off by something solid and durable, yet oddly fragile being delicately placed in his hand. He brought it closer to him before opening his eyes, widening softly as he saw a music box. 

 It was old, but in remarkably good condition. He traced the detailing, which was far to delicate and well made for it to be something made on the line of a factory. This was custom, expensive. He was instantly suspicious, not wanting to have his prints on something that was potentially stolen. He tore his eyes away from the beautiful artifact and looked at the pale skinned blonde. 

 “Did you steal this? I get stealing bread and blankets, but this too much.” Dylan said, his tone laced with reproach. 

 Harley blew a raspberry and got a funny look on her face. “No I didn’t steal this! I bought it, fair and square. Someone was auctioning off some scavenged Wayne shit, so I got it.” 

 She rambled on a bit more, and with his soul clean, he returned to his examination of the music box. It was gold and white, with hints of black. He may be imagining things, but it seemed to glow. Maybe as it reflected the light? But the light seemed to be coming from the music box. Maybe he was losing his marbles due to all the lessons. 

 All the while, Harley had been rambling. 

 “It’s broken anyways, I can’t get it open. It sure looks nice though!” Harley said cheerfully, and Dylan had only just tuned back in. 

 He nodded absentmindedly, fingers ghosting over the music box. He noticed that almost without his thoughts, muscle memory began taking over. As if he had done this a dozen times before. He turned the crank four times, before pressing on the box on two different points. 

 Surprisingly, it opened. Harley stopped to stare, and he heard her distantly demanding how he opened it, but he instead looked at the scene inside it. There were a few bats flying on a slender wire, twirling to a classical song.

 It felt like the wind was knocked out of him when he examined the music box closely. There was a small mirror inside, and he could see all his features through the small reflective glass. However, within the reflection, he saw not his current state, but a much younger boy. It might have been him, there was no eye bags or the hardness of a street life set in, but the same nose and eyes were there. His head ached, and he wanted to shut the box and forget about it. 

 Tried as he might, he couldn’t, he just stared at the box as ghosts of memories lingered just beyond the surface. 

 “Flying bats, pitch black black wings. Things I almost remember,” Dylan said softly, and he heard Pam calling him now, asking Harley what was happening, but that name no longer felt right. At least, not right now. In this moment, he was who they wanted him to be. Who he was? Dylan didn’t remember, but he was close to. He could feel it. He might be Duke, he might not be. It made him walk away to stand by the window so he could get some more quiet. 

 “And a song, someone sings, once upon a december. Someone holds me, safe and warm.” He remembered a strong arm wrapped around his shoulders, giving shielding him until he was ready to face the crowds. There were crowds? When did the crowds get there? Although clear as day, Dylan saw the opulent ballroom. Everyone in their finery, dancing away. It felt so familiar, but he couldn’t touch it. He was somehow in the memory and watching it, and Dylan didn’t know which one he preferred. 

 “Birds fly through a silver storm, figures dancing gracefully across my memory,” Dylan feels himself slipping deeper into the memory, into the skin of Duke, and he saw an even clearer image. 

 A grand ballroom, one cold night. The richest and most renowned people in Gotham, dare he say the entire east coast, in their nicest clothes as a band plays dance music. He sees familiar faces, although the fine details escape him. He mostly remember feelings. 

 He feels himself leaving the grasp of the strong man and entering into a wild waltz with someone older and taller than him, but somehow leaner than the strong man. Dylan remembered how he laughed, teasing his smaller figure as he struggled to keep up. 

 He then remembers stumbling into someone who was perhaps as strong as the strong man, and certainly bigger. He didn’t dance this time, but he remembers a warm arm around his neck as a fist messes with his hand and a chiding voice next to him, and he vaugely sees a small boy who’s eye bags stand out among everything. 

 Next, he’s whisked away by two girls, slightly older than him. One was dragging him haphazardly around the ballroom, but the other black haired girl was a direct contrast to the rowdy blonde. Patient, graceful, elegant, she stole him away and taught him certain steps he found himself mirroring now. He feels the ghost of happiness, of true comfort. He holds tight to the illusion, not wanting to let it go. Was this a memory? Was this some implanted falsehood coached into him? He desperately wanted to remain, he felt so real. 

 However, the tighter he held on, the more it slipped away. Soon, he was once again left alone, but he wasn’t out of his memory yet. Even though the grand ballroom had faded, there was still a feeling of being held. 

 “Someone holds me safe and warm, birds fly through a silver storm.” Dylan recalled softly, leaning into the memory. Not harshly with desperation like the ballroom, but gently. He was rewarded by the illusion of a squeeze. “Figures dancing gracefully, across my memory.” He then felt as if a great many people were surrounding him, yet he didn’t feel as though he was in danger. No, he felt a belonging. Something he can’t recall ever feeling. It felt so right. Was this Duke Thomas? 

 He suddenly feels envy for the boy. Either for the memories of him and the rest of the people surrounding them that brought him such warmth, or the fact that he seemed to live such a charmed life until the Wayne’s untimely murder. 

 Dylan finds the feelings slipping away, and he finds himself once again trying  to hold tight. One by one, the figures vanish and the feelings of safeness and belonging fade with them. “ Far away, long ago, glowing dim as an ember, things my heart used to know!” 

 He then is suddenly aware that he is with two people. Not the memories or the illusions, of a familiar but not nearly as comforting presence. Not yet, at least. He wasn’t ready to open himself up yet. 

 “Things it yearns to remember-” 

 Now, he looks at the mirror of the music box. Gone is the young boy, and staring back is the young man. He looks exhausted, tired, and ready for a nap. He feels spent, and he leans into Harley’s comforting embrace and welcomes Pam’s stroking. 

 The ghost of the warm embrace escapes him, leaving him in the real world once again. The cold real world of certainties, not of rosy and golden memories of what once was or never was. 

 And a song, someone sings, once upon a december.” 

#;drabble #;yellow immortal - duke thomas #holy shit this got long #enjoy my frenzied mediorce writing

[rayhantochtli]

Hermits I'm watching this season

#hermitcraft #hermitcraft 10 #mumbo jumbo #smallishbeans #ethoslab #keralis #bdoubleo100 #iskall85 #my art #holy shit i was gonna put 8 instead of 10 wtf #thats how long it's been since i did fanart (not really) #i posted this on twt and it got 200+ notes already and ????? how???? #i didnt even tag anyone or anything. it was just the caption 😭

[prettyboybun]

I am genuinely always thinking about being one of a pair of subs. I'm the obedient bunny, he's the bratty puppy.

Our dom has us kneel for him in the living room after having teased us all day. "Alright, listen, sweet things. I know you're all riled up for me, but I need to go to the store. When I get back, I'll use you both properly, okay?"

We nod, my pup partner squirming already, wiggling his hips. Our dom continues, "You are NOT to touch yourselves until I get back. Got it?"

I nod sweetly, and get my hair ruffled affectionately in return. My sub partner, on the other hand, bites his lip with a glint in his eye, nodding slowly. You could almost hear the cogs turning. Our dom partner gives him a look, but inevitably ruffles his hair as well. "Okay. I'll be back soon, I promise."

We sit still and kneel in the living room until the front door closes and we hear him driving away. Suddenly, my partner pounces on top of me. He's already rutting against my thigh and pressing kisses all over my face and neck.

"B-But," I gasp, "Sir, he said to- He wants us to-"

"I know, baby boy, but I need you so bad right now, he's not gonna have to know," He says, against my neck, "You like this, don't you?"

I groan, "Yes, of course I do, I want you so bad... but I wanna be good for sir..."

"Just don't touch yourself, sweetheart. That's what he said, right? Don't touch yourselves? I'm sure that means I can touch you."

I ponder it for a little bit. Eventually, I nod, biting my lip. I'm still unsure if this is going against sir's wishes, but feeling my puppy boyfriend rutting against me, lips on my neck... It just feels too good after a whole morning of teasing and denial.

Puppy leans up and whispers in my ear, "Good boy." I shiver, hairs standing on end.

I let him manhandle me roughly into the position he wants, which turns out to be frotting our tdicks together. I'm laying on the floor, pinned, whimpering, feeling a little guilty at technically disobeying, but mostly lost in the pleasure.

My puppy looks down at me and says, "Don't cum, either, bunny. You have to wait til sir gets back for that one, definitely."

I nod, breathless. Then I open my eyes and look at him questioningly, "What about you?"

He smirks and rakes his claws down the center of my chest, leaving four pretty red scratches. I moan, and he says, "I can take whatever he's gonna dish. Don't you worry your pretty little head- After all, who's making the rules right now?"

I whimper, "Y-You, sir."

"Good boy."

We stay like that, him roughly grinding into me as I whine and moan beneath him. Eventually, though, the door opens, and I gasp and try to squirm out of my puppy's grip. We weren't supposed to still be playing when he got back. But puppy isn't relenting, he's still rocking his hips sharply against me.

"What do we have here?" Our dom says, a little amused. He surely would have guessed this would happen.

Puppy grunts as he continues grinding on me, "Welcome back, sir." I look at him and he's looking him dead in the eyes, smirking.

"Oh, puppy. Just couldn't wait, could you?" Sir sets down the grocery bags on a table, and walks over and picks pup off me with ease.

I start scrambling to sit up, but my dom presses his boot to my chest and gently lays me back down. "Still, bun, stay here. Let me deal with our boy and then I'll be back for you, okay?" I nod, looking up at him with soft eyes. "There's a good boy."

For a little while, behind me, I hear struggling, teasing, and soft moans. Then, my dom comes back over to me and lifts me up into his arms, walking us over to his armchair. This is when I see that our puppy is tied up spread open on the couch, gagged, but noticeably drippy and empty. Sir sits me down in his chair on his lap, facing puppy.

"Spread your legs, bunny," He murmurs into my ear. I do as he asks immediately, earning a quiet, "Good boy..." In response.

I turn my head to look at him and start saying, "I'm sorry, sir, I didn't mean to disobey, I-"

He shushes me, petting my hair, "Oh, bunny, that's not your fault. I know you need touched, puppy just decided that it was his responsibility to do so. Isn't that right, pup?"

Puppy says something in snarky defiance, surely, muffled against his gag. "Exactly. I know you're my good boy, bun. That's why I'm gonna overstimulate you on my lap right now while your pup watches and can't do anything about it." My eyes widen, starry. I see that sir is smirking at puppy. Our pup squirms and growls against his bonds.

I lean back against our dom's chest, also looking at puppy as I begin to have my tdick touched, softly at first. Then, he applies pressure, making me moan quietly. Teasingly, he uses his fingers to spread my bunnycunt open on display at pup.

"Doesn't he look so pretty like this, puppy?" At this point, our pup is ravenously trying to get out of his bonds, but he's tied up too tightly. Sir adopts a fake pity tone as he says, "Aw, I know, puppy. You just wanna use him so bad, don't you?"

Sir plunges a finger inside me and curls it, making me gasp and moan loudly, "That's it, good bunny. Let every sound out, I want him to hear how good I make you feel."

I do as he asks, making obscene sounds as his fingers fuck in and out of me, thumb circling my tdick. He growls gently in my ear, "You need to tell me when you're close, okay, bunny?"

"I- um- I'm close sir, so close for you, sir," I babble, already feeling so overwhelmed with sensation.

"Cum for us, bunny. Cum all over my fingers." I clench down and shudder, crying out and cumming all over his hand. He doesnt take his fingers out, but he gives me a little bit of time to breathe before he starts fucking me again.

Eventually, I cum the same way again. Then a third, and a fourth time, stacking them back to back against each other. After I've cum five times, I'm absolutely spent. He takes his fingers out, cleans them off, and pets my hair and shoulders, letting me slump against him bonelessly.

Our puppy has given up on getting out of his restraints, but he's whining softly, looking at us with big eyes. Sir motions for me to kneel down on the floor, and I do so, a little slumped.

He walks over to puppy and plays with his dripping hole as he says, "Good boy, good puppy. You took that so well, I know that was difficult. Are you ready for your reward?" Puppy nods, frantically. "Come here, bunny, kneel in front of him."

I happily crawl over, kneeling in front of my pup, smiling softly at him. Sir takes his gag out and says, "Tell him what you want, pup. Nicely, if you would, our boy is a little overwhelmed as you might imagine."

"Pl... Please suck my tdick, bunny."

I oblige, glad to have him down my throat. He throws his head back and moans as I start to flick my tongue. Sir teases his nipples for a while, watching me service him. "Such good boys, both of you. You're both so good for me, I'm so proud of you, so proud to be your owner."

Eventually, sir takes my head and starts fucking my mouth on puppy's dick. Puppy moans louder than ever, babbling about how good it feels, thanking us both. Sir fucks my throat on it harder, growling, "That's it. Take it, take it, both of you."

I moan into his tdick, sending loud vibrations straight through him. Puppy jerks his hips up in time with my mouth bobbing on him, crying out, "Sir, I'm gonna cum!"

"Cum for me, puppy, cum down his throat," I can hear sir whisper in his ear. Pup cums explosively down my throat, covering my face in it.

Sir gently pulls my head off, as I stare off in a subspace daze. Puppy is panting, as our dom makes quick work of untying him, "Good boys. You're both so good for me, took that all so well."

He lies puppy back on the couch against him, and motions for me to lay on him as well. I jump up, eager to get snuggled after all that intense play, and he chuckles sweetly at me. Sir pets my hair when I get nestled into his embrace, "Good boy, there you go. Much better, love having both my sweet boys in my arms."

Puppy leans up to kiss me gently on the forehead. They both keep praising me and each other, and I deliver slurred praise back where I can, eventually drifting off peacefully in their safe embrace.

#☀️overstim #☀️bunny #dom thoughts in this post brought to you by 💡- subby stuff is me rhfnbdmsbdkjd #☀️pubby #☀️mine #☀️bound #☀️displayed #☀️group #sorry for how fuckimg LONG this got holy shit #anyways this has been my number 1 fantasy for SO LONG.... it's insane how long this has been in my brain #(and um. likewise how often the system plays with this concept for ourselves. esp with me ⚡️ & 💡)

[bixels]

Splatoon 3: Side Order is good, but not great. I still highly recommend it, but if you care about the story, you're going to be disappointed. Quick review: spoilers ahead.

Side Order was the devs experimenting with Splatoon's gameplay loop. The campaign is a rogue-like, and it works amazingly well. Super fun, super challenging, building my deck and fighting through challenges with the stakes of resetting really scratched an itch in my brain. They did a great job with it.

Unfortunately, I feel like priority went to game design rather than story. Much of the mysterious artwork we saw in the first teaser trailer was completely unused; turns out, all of that was just concept art that never made it into the final product. Side Order failed to make me care about what was happening. I don't know why the protagonist had to be Agent 8; it could've been anyone else and the story would've worked the same.

Octo Expansion was the absolute peak of meshing story and gameplay. The campaign's hook is insanely strong; we immediately empathize with Agent 8 because we know from previous lore that octolings like her have been trapped underground for all their lives. We care about her fight to the surface because it's a fundamentally ideological fight for freedom. The plot stuff about Tartar and the Thangs is just nice set dressing; 8's fight for freedom is the real story.

There's none of that in Side Order. I don't particularly care about Marina's metaverse, even if it's tied to Octo Expansion's story. I don't know why Acht is there other than backstory stuff. It really feels like 8 is just told to do something and she does it because she's the protagonist; she has zero personal stakes or motivations in the conflict. This is a story blunder the devs did in Splatoon 3's default campaign––forgetting to give the protagonist a personal reason to fight––that I hoped would be fixed here, but alas.

What makes it worse is that the gameplay and story progression are completely out of sync. I beat the entire game on my third run in 4 hours. With each run, you get up to two keys to potentially unlock bits of story. That means you'll get about one piece of the story every two runs. There are twelve pieces of the story; I got the first and then beat the whole damn game. Now I have to go back and grind to see the remaining story when I've already beaten the final boss and resolved the conflict. I missed the entire story because I never had to reset because I blazed through the gameplay! It's just a real shame that I experienced everything without knowing... why it's happening. The final boss had me asking myself what the hell is going on because I don't know the backstory at all.

Again, I still really recommend. The devs did a great job, but Side Order remains in the shadow of Octo Expansion's incredible success. Like the default singleplayer campaign, there's just a lot of lost story potential here that, while not necessary, would have really elevated this DLC into something amazing.

#long #personal #rant #splatoon #side order #it's a shame too because I got SO FUCKING HYPED at the title drop #when I realized that the entire first 30 minutes of the game was JUST THE OPENING TUTORIAL and they hit you with the music #and the “nintendo presents” and the title drop to a slow mo explosion. I thought “holy shit this is gonna be huge” #alas it wasn't because it turns out i'm better at roguelikes than the devs anticipated so i beat it in 3 hours lol #octo expansion was a cultural reset. it did something to my brain. the entire rising action part of the story; the reveals the twists the #boss fights the upward climb. it was so incredibly hype and just upped the stakes over and over. nothing's come close

[boltlightning]

the blade is folded steel. that’s gold filigree laid into the handle. if i may — perfectly balanced. the tang is nearly the full width of the blade.

#pirates of the caribbean #potcedit #disneyedit #filmedit #will turner #james norrington #cutler beckett #davy jones #the curse of the black pearl #dead man's chest #at world's end #*userbolt #long post #ask to tag #ceremonial swords were almost never used for battle yet will turner made this one very dangerous. inchresting #i've got very normal feelings about this sword #edit: the RANGE in these reblog tags holy shit #so glad we're ALL very normal about this #notes #1k #gif: potc

[inkskinned]

im gonna start a fight; and, at the same time, i need you to take this in the most good-faith way possible, but:

videos that involve body-checking and intentionally (and uncritically) show a mealplan of an unhealthy number of calories are just a revamped version of pro-ana food diaries.

and yeah, i know there's arguments. i address some of them under the cut. but at the end of the day, we're just coming back to romanticizing mental illness; we've just found a better platform for it.

this is already something we've done. we knew it was wrong and tried to stop it. and tbh. it just wasn't enough.

there are people who argue "well, what if you have an eating disorder, you can't help it if you don't eat!" except that as someone with an ED; we are not infants. we know what we're doing. part of having an ED is that you are like, maybe too self-aware. even if we can't help our own food choices, we don't need to fucking romanticize the disorder - something we've been warning you about since 2013. there are hours of setup, filming, and editing that go into these videos. they do not happen to fall into place randomly. there is a reason they are pieced together to be beautiful, bright, inspiring.

there's this woman who pretty much only posts daily plans under a normal amount of calories, and everyone defends her saying but it's better than nothing! and i'm like. except she opens those with images of her showing off her body and provides no context in the video or caption that suggests that she believes what she's doing is unhealthy. she has hundreds of thousands of followers on a platform designed for young kids and teens. i refuse to believe that by accident her content just happens to be cheery advice on "healthy" versions of starving.

for any other symptom of mental illness, we would be incredibly enraged by this kind of placid acceptance of a "tips and tricks" fast-start guide. imagine if people posted pink & pretty videos saying "best places to cut yourself" as if it was a fucking storytime. we, as a society, are so fucking fatphobic that we would rather accept blatantly harmful displays of self harm than admit that we are obsessed with a hyper-thin body type.

i am not suggesting someone never talks about their disorder. i talk about mine. actually, it's a plot point in my book.

here's the difference: i recognize it's a fucking mental illness. i am very careful to never mention a specific weight, eating pattern, or calorie plan. i always make sure to position it as something that ruined my fucking life. i do not put cheery music in the background and hearts and sparkles over my worst moments. i do not film it in bright light. i do not start each passage with an image of a thin body followed by "here's how to look like her."

eating disorders should not be framed as aspirational. and the problem is that society worships the "after" image, so long as you don't get too sick. there is a reason so many people who quit being "influencers" will later admit - i wasn't eating well that whole time; an obsession with food was completely destroying my life.

we let any uncredited, uncertified person write the most backwards, fucked up shit about how to get the body you desire! because the underlying, secret belief is: well, at least they're thin! and the real thing that fucking gets me each time - they make fucking money off of it. their irresponsibility and societal harm literally pays off for them.

"why do you care so much." "don't like it don't look." "so what if people experiment with new ways of thinking of food?"

thank you for asking. we're about to get extremely personal. it's because when i was 18 i discovered "thinspiration"/"thinspo." and it absolutely influenced, shaped, and codified my pre-existing eating disorder. i went from having some troubling habits and traits to being incredibly unwell within what felt like a matter of days. there were actual pages designed to train me on how to have an ED correctly. it was all so suddenly easy. i was sick; and the nature of the illness meant - i wanted to be sicker.

it takes an average of 7 years for a person to fully recover. i know this personally - even now, 10 years from the worst of it, i still fucking struggle. i am so much happier now and i eat what i want and i literally don't think about food at all (19 year old me would shudder) and yet - i still fucking know the calories of plain toast with butter.

an eating disorder is one of the deadliest types of mental illness. over 1 in 4 people with an ED will attempt suicide.

and i'm sorry. i just do not see the exchange rate of "high rate of engagement" versus "the value of a human life."

#and there's something else in there about like .... #tbh once i got over something like 1k followers #i stopped being specific about my ED for a REASON. #yes on ur personal locked blog that u use like a diary go ahead etc #but we are OBVIOUSLY not talking about that. we're talking about the sheer NUMBER of people i could be talking about #in that one paragraph. that you and i probably were thinking about 2 different influencers #bc they get to say that they're just posting FITNESS and if it's FITNESS it's OKAY and im like #jesus christ lord almighty #every person in recovery from an ED: this is incredibly dangerous holy shit do you know how much this would have triggered me #each of these ppl: how dare you!!!!!!!!! i am only harming those who WANT to engage with my content!!!!! #their followers: leave them alone !!! they can't help that they make an hours-long choice to frame their disorder as if it was #fucking cottagecore !!!! #like girlie this person needs THERAPY #again! i didn't even have that large of a following before i IMMEDIATELY deleted any specific mention of calories food etc #bc i recognize responsibility and i didnt EVER want to even ACCIDENTALLY encourage this #and im not even GETTING PAID FOR THIS!!! #aND THEY ARE!!! #something something something they know this content makes them money #they don't give a SHIT about u babe

[cute-girls-from-vns-anime-manga]

『会社に行きたくないOLちゃん』フィギュア化 by 大嘘@コミティア１４７参加

#Original #Brown Hair #Green Eyes #Long hair #Office Lady #Stockings #Legs #Thighs #HOLY SHIT ONE OF MY FAVORITE ARTISTS GOT A FIGURE?! #YOU BET YOUR ASS I PRE-ORDERED IT

[alecscudder1987]

ive just had a thought. see ive been joking as much as the next person about the ineffable beurocracy getting their shit together after 3 dates while it took aziraphale and crowley since literally before time was invented BUT it's quite literally just privilege.

you saw the shot where aziraphale grabs crowley's shoulder just after beelzebub and gabriel declare their love--this level of visibility is unprecedented, and something he and crowley have never been able to afford. while they (and we) might have softened to not-gabriel throughout the season, the second gabriel is gabriel again, he uses his position and leaddrship weight as archangel to fuck right off with his beloved. which, good for him.

but to aziraphale and crowley, this is fucking bonkers information. they spent their entire existences compromising on their relationship in order to not...be compromised. and gabriel just up and speed-runs dating the enemy because the worst consequence he faces is getting fired. gabriel and beelzebub never face consequences for their relationship, so of course it goes off without a hitch. no one looking over your shoulder because you're the guy looking over everyone's shoulder.

while im thankful they fucked off to alpha centuri so i don't ever have to see gabriel's smug face again, i do wonder if the "going off together" is really the good relationship A & C ought to model. if it's a happy foil to miserable wee morag and her girlfriend from the minisodes, it's still not what i believe crowley and aziraphale are going to do.

they've spent all of time becoming increasingly codependent, and while that's fun and all for a while, crowley and aziraphale really need their little human mundanities. going on walks. getting dinner. going for a drive to blow off steam. their path is getting distinctly more human-looking, and i think someday they're going to have to reckon with the idea of letting other people into their lives.

to bring it back to my first point, i've just been thinking about WHY crowley and aziraphale are Like That, when we've been presented with a new couple who most certainly isn't, and it made me think about it in terms of power. they have leverage, but they built it for themselves by learning everything about earth their superiors didn't know, getting a leg up anywhere they can. gabriel and beezlebub don't need a leg up. they have it. they're stepping on your chest and brushing dust from their costs as you try to climb past the first stone.

you could also look at it like queer versus straight relationships. queer relationships are often by circumstance somewhat secretive and full of codes and longing glances and not-talking-about-your-feelings BECAUSE it might get you into trouble. straight relationships often don't have this problem (though they might have others relating to other intersecting & marginalized identities) so they can get straight away into the declaring it part.

TL;DR beezlebub and gabriel got hitched immidiately while it took crowley and aziraphale all of time to kiss because the ineffable beaurocracy has about a million times more power and a billion times less consequences for getting caught about it than the ineffable husbands do.

#holy shit this got long i meant for it to be like 3 sentences maximum #this fandom does things to my brain and it is rapidly waking the special interest back up #i literally am already writing a fic i feel insane #good omens #go spoilers #good omens s2 #ineffable husbands #ineffable bureaucracy #good omens meta #james jabbers