#yes I am kind of going against my own principles here by calling people assholes

[trust-me-i-just-get-weirder]

No matter how righteous you think your beliefs are, they never give you the right to be cruel. I was just scrolling through the notes on a post on outdoor cats, and I saw people taking about breaking outdoor cat owner’s legs, stealing their pets and giving them to kill shelters, and shooting outdoor cats with a BB gun. Do you think an outdoor cat owner is going to read that and change their ways? Do you think they’re going to feel anything other than fear? If that’s how you respond, you’re not an advocate for animal welfare. You’re an asshole who’s found an acceptable target.

#personal #discourse #outdoor cats #people aren’t persuaded by harsh criticism and insults #that’s not how any of this works #the best you’re doing is recruiting undecided people to your side out of fear and galvanising angry people against you #I’ve seen actual vets talking about this and you know what they do? #softly bring it up and encourage vaccination and checkups #no one is persuaded by insults fucking Christ #yes I am kind of going against my own principles here by calling people assholes #but like #it’s kind of appropriate in this specific instance

[tinyboxxtink]

"Clueless" *Part 13*

Okay so this is 10 pages in my google doc right, and I swear I don't-- I don't know if I have more than one more chapter left in me from here guys! I might divide this one--- Okay. Here's what we're gonna do. This is gonna be slightly short, but then I'm IMMEDIATELY putting up another chapter, also slightly short. But it all leads to the finale, that will have to go up tomorrow. Cool? Cool.

Also- Warning SOME smutty smut? Awkward smut. LuLz.

(let's pretend/assume the girl in the gif is the reader yeah?)

Tag List

@chasingeverybreakingwave

@wanniiieeee

@milkshqke

@gibbs274

@lolliepopsicle

@aprildecker-blog

@word-scribbless

@objection-argumentative

@stars-in-the-skies-world

Part 12

Part 14

-------

You both quickly undressed each other, kissing each other all over one another’s bodies. You hadn’t had a lot of sex, and you were guessing Josh hadn’t either guessing on his response to your question about this. But you suppose you were both going to do your best.

“I um, am I hurting you?” Josh asked while he nibbled down the sides of your neck.

“What? No I’m fine babe, keep going,” You muttered, trying to stay in it.

“Look at this sloppy cabron,” You saw an image of Rafael standing in the middle of your bedroom. “He has no clue what he’s doing. You know you’d much rather have me nibbling on you, carino,”

“Shut up,” you growled.

“What?” Josh looked at you confused.

“What? Nothing baby, I’m sorry,”

Josh shrugged and continued, taking one finger and jamming it in your opening.

“Ow!!!” You screamed. It was so jarring and clinical, like a tampon being shoved up there too fast.

“Oh my god I’m so sorry babe, I thought-- I thought girls liked that,” It was dark but you could hear the blush in his voice.

“Baby you…” You half smiled, taking his hand and guiding it slowly around your opening. “You have to go slow, soft,”

“Oh. Right, yeah no of course,” He nervously chuckled, mimicking your movements. He continued to slowly circle your opening, slowly inching inside you. You closed your eyes and moaned softly, enjoying the sensation.

“Look at those stubs,” You heard Rafael’s voice again. “My long loving fingers wouldn’t be so rough with you,”

“Go away,” You muttered, trying to focus on Josh’s fingers inside you.

“What?” Josh stopped mid-circle inside you.

“I-I said, Go...faster,” You lied.

“Oh, Ok….can I, can I go inside you?” Josh asked softly.

“Yes, baby you don’t have to ask,” You were sort of getting annoyed now; You hadn’t had sex with tons of people, but you knew how to be sexier than this.

“See he’s a child! Asking, pleading, fumbling in the dark. You need a man who knows how to take care of you, amante,” Rafael’s voice sounded like it was right in your ear.

“Josh, let’s just agree right now to everything. Anything you wanna do to me, do it. If I don’t like it, trust me I’ll let you know, okay?”

“Okay!” He seemed more excited, now plunging into you deeply and pumping fast. Now this was more like it.

“Oh yes, yes right there…” You moaned, which encouraged him more.

“Yeah baby, you like that?” Josh asked in a sultry voice.

“Mmmm yes,” You moaned, glancing at the foot of your bed. Rafael’s image was standing there, smirking. You couldn’t help it, you tried to fight it. You shut your eyes tight and focused on the pleasure. It was getting more and more intense.

“Yes, oh baby deeper,” You moaned. Josh obliged, plunging harder and faster inside you.

“Yes….oh god Rafa right there….”

Your eyes shot open, a hand went over your mouth. Luckily, Josh was so into his own pleasure and you had whispered low enough that he had no idea what had just happened. But you did. You laid there, knowing full well now that you wished this was Rafael. You shut your eyes and just let yourself imagine it was him, you couldn’t fight it anymore.

Soon you were moaning and screaming, mentally concentrating on not saying ANY words, just moans trying to convince Josh you were enjoying him inside you. You were still getting there when you felt Josh’s legs vibrating.

“Baby…” He moaned. “I’m gonna… should I…?”

“Yes please don’t get me pregnant,” You said, more rude than you intended. He was so lost in his orgasm he didn’t notice, but immediately pulled out and ejaculated all over your sheets.

“Wow, that was amazing…” He fell back against you, sighing in relief. You however, were still waiting on your own orgasm.

“I um, I have to-- wash off,” You lied, climbing out of the bed. He nodded, still out of breath. You went inside the bathroom and locked the door. You sat against the door and spread your legs, inserting your own fingers and pumping them in and out of you.

“Yes, baby. That’s it…” Now you heard Rafael’s voice again. “I’m right here, I’m inside you…”

You moved your fingers faster, imaging Rafael’s lips all over you. “You smell so good carino, god I love it when you’re wet for me,” You bit your lip in pleasure, now bucking against your own fingers. “I love you so much, Y/N,” You could hear him purr. “Now, go for me…”

You felt the waves of an orgasm crash against you, your fingers now slowing their pace, you slumped against the door in relief. The pleasure was immense from just imagining Rafael being there, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like to actually have him. But.. you would never know.

The pleasure from your “session” was suddenly overridden by a surge of grief. Grief of what had just transpired not even an hour ago. You finally had him, you had him in your mouth. His hands all over you, it was like you could still feel them. That’s why it was so easy to replicate the feeling while pleasuring yourself. You knew what they felt like now. But...that’s all it was. You knew that was the most you’d ever get from him, a kiss goodbye. You were not about to just forget your principles and your feelings about being hidden away like a dirty secret. No matter how pleasurable his lips were.

Why couldn’t he just... man up? Why was he so afraid? Were you that awful? Was he that ashamed of you? Why didn’t he love you enough?

He had said the words, he said them out loud! You repeated them over and over, but the more you did the more you remembered the tone. As if he was saying:

“You’re lucky I’m saying this at all, how can you be walking away from ME? The great Rafael Barba.”

Josh would never talk to you like that, he was so soft and so kind. So wonderful. Why couldn’t...Why couldn’t Rafael be that…?

All of a sudden, you realized you were crying. You were crying softly, but quickly grew louder the more you thought about Rafael. He would be so smug if he knew that he got in your head, just like he said he had. He would be giddy with victory knowing that he was on your mind the entire time. You grabbed a towel off your towel rack and sobbed into it, trying to tell yourself to calm down. Trying to remind yourself that there was a beautiful, amazing man right in the next room. Not a snarky asshole. Josh made you feel safe and loved, not like some dark curse. You composed yourself and went back into the room, where unfortunately for you Josh had turned on the lights.

“Oh my god...baby are you okay?” He jumped out of the bed and ran over to you, immediately taking you in his arms and cuddling you. See, how could you want Rafael over this?

“Yeah, I’m just-- I’m tired,” You lied, nodding your head. “Can we just...take a nap?”

“Of course, whatever you want,” He took you back to bed and spooned you, stroking your hair.

“You were wonderful, Y/N. I’ve never had it so good,” He whispered. You felt half confused, half guilty. You hadn’t really done anything, except imagine another guy.

….I’m glad, Josh,” You smiled, snuggling into him, hoping he would just fall asleep and not push it any further. He did.

-----

Later, you and Josh walked into the living room to get something to eat. You were greeted with Ariel sitting on the couch flipping through channels.

“OOOOOOoooohhh!!!!” She teased. “And what were YOU two doing?”

“....Studying,” Josh smirked.

“Uh huh, studying each other’s bodies,” Ariel smirked back.

“Ariel!” You walked over and smacked her playfully.

“Y/N we’re all adults here, if you can’t discuss sex freely you’re going to have a very hard time in adulthood,”

“Hey Ariel, give her a break,” Josh came up behind you and kissed your head. “I totally get it,”

“Awww, it’s like watching two care bears copulate,” Ariel said mockingly.

“Ha Ha,” You rolled your eyes as you walked to the kitchen.

---

--Meanwhile in the living room---

“So you two had fun?” Ariel wiggled her eyebrows.

“...Yeah,” Josh nodded slightly.

“What’s that look?”

“I don’t know, she said some weird stuff,” He shrugged.

“Like what?” She asked quizzically.

“I...I don’t know, lots of mumbles,”

“Maybe you were so good she started talking in tongues,” She laughed.

“Oh yeah, totally that’s it,”

“Hey do you wanna continue our conversation tomorrow? I really want to try this bistro that Y/N won’t go with me to,” Ariel asked, glancing at the kitchen where you were.

“Why?”

“I don’t know, something about how they cook their food. Animal cruelty, or MSG or some crap like that, I tune out when she rambles,” She rolled her eyes.

“You’re so mean!” He lightly poked her. “Yeah, sounds good,” He paused, looking in the kitchen. “....Do you think it’s weird, us hanging out without her?”

“What? No, it’s totally innocent,” She waved her hands dismissively.

“....Then why haven't we told her?” Josh asked her seriously. They both looked at each other for a long moment.

“Hey Ariel what happened to the pizza that was in here?” You suddenly came walking into the living room, interrupting their conversation.

“Oh I...I think I ate it while I was high the other day,” She blushed.

“ARIEL,” You looked at her horrified. “You can’t smoke weed in your mom’s house!!”

“Relax, Debbie Do Good, I smoke on the deck,” She rolled her eyes.

“Oh good so the neighbor’s can call the cops,” You crossed your arms.

“Josh maybe you should take her back in there and ‘chill her out’ some more,” She made crude actions with her hands.

“Actually I should be getting back, you know to ACTUALLY study,” He started to get up and walk out. “Although I don’t know how much it will help, not like Barba is ever going to give me that internship,”

“Do you want me to go rough him up for you Joshie?” Ariel laughed in a patronizing tone.

“No, thank you Ari,” He teased back. “I’ll call you later baby,” He kissed your cheek and walked out the door.

#rafael barba #rafael barba x you #rafael barba x reader #rafael barba fanfiction #law and order svu #clueless

[serinemolecule]

Not to harp on the obvious, but the discussion feels hollow without it: the only reason some people - not all, maybe not most, but definitely some - push for "equality" and "inclusiveness" and etc. in tech is because it's seen as a desirable and powerful position. No one's been belly-aching about it back when it was fashionable to tell nerds to stop being fat and ugly and what a bunch of losers they are. It's only up for discussion now that there's something to be gained from it. It's hypocrisy.

(context: a lot of women-in-tech discourse)

I mean, I was belly-aching about it.

I like to say I was a feminist until I met other feminists. I definitely saw plenty of things nerds could be doing better for equality. But then the first time I met other feminists, they were harassing nerds and writing long essays about how nerds were even worse than average men (which still seems to me like an absolutely insane position).

That was... a really big crisis of faith there. I spent years reading feminist literature, trying to understand their point. And the crazy thing was, a lot of the principles and concepts do appeal to me. But then the way they’d apply it, talking about how privileged nerds were, or just using it as an excuse to be assholes to people, that’s always seemed wrong to me.

My approach at the time was just to try to understand it better in private, and never talk about it in public. This lasted until I read the SSC essays on social justice which I entirely agreed on, then I joined Tumblr to hit on Scott, and since then I started getting more comfortable with writing out my thoughts, but also the really bad SJ of the early 2010s just mostly faded away from the spaces I’m in. I still hear insane stories from other places (like the New York Times! wtf!) but it no longer feels like a crisis afflicting my own community, so I never wrote anything out.

Part of it’s that my community is the rats, now. SJWs may still exist here, but they don’t have a social power to turn us against each other. Whatever effect Topher’s tweet had on the rest of the world, it means he’s no longer welcome among rats anymore. We dismiss them with equanimity using the ancient proverb, “Haters gonna hate”.

Anyway, I suppose now’s as good a time as any for me to talk about what I think about feminist theory.

I get the impression that Scott is embarrassed by his old posts on gender politics, but I still endorse every word. Even the words people like to criticize the most, I endorse as an angry expression of “Why don’t you care about how many people your ideology is hurting?” That said:

Privilege theory – I remember encountering privilege theory and thinking “yes, this totally fits the model that normies are privileged and nerds are marginalized”, until I got to the part where they started talking about how privileged nerds were. I think the theory is still pretty good, and of course the practice about writing privilege checklists and using it to silence people is incredibly fucked up.

Patriarchy theory – Fortunately, no one talks about patriarchy theory anymore. It came from the radfems and it always seemed horrible to me. It's uncontroversially true that ruling class is mostly male, but patriarchy theory seems to just equivocate between that and insane conspiracy theories.

For example, “culture is built for the benefit of men at the expense of women” requires you to just dismiss everything that hurts men and helps women, to excuse that fashion policing is nearly solely perpetuated by other women, and even if it’s true, the fact that it is perpetuated by everyone means pointing the finger at a specific group will not help fix the problem. Did Kamala Harris exercise “girl power” when she kept black prisoners in jail past their release date? 

Cultural appropriation – The usual steelman I hear for this is “it sucks when white people take your culture for themselves, and yet still call it cringe when you practice your own culture” – but the only objectionable part is the latter! Stop objecting to the former part! There’s nothing wrong with culture mixing and it is in fact one of the most beautiful things in the world!

Part of it’s that I’m a first-gen immigrant, and cultural appropriation attitudes often come from insecurities second-gen immigrants have. Cultural appropriation just means I’m now an expert on your new culture and you’re not allowed to stop me from infodumping on it.

The other steelman is “misusing religious artifacts is bad” and I think to the extent that it’s bad, it’s bad whether you’re doing it to your own culture or to other cultures.

In general I think Halloween was, among other things, a great celebration of diversity that did not need to be cancelled, and I don’t think any costume was offensive to the majority of any culture.

Intersectionality – This word confused me for so long. People kept explaining it as “black women often have problems specific to their group that neither women’s groups nor black groups themselves are equipped to fight” which just seemed obviously true and didn’t seem like we needed a word for it.

Over the years, I’ve seen it be used as a reminder of “don’t forget how your activism affects other marginalized groups”, so it’s probably a useful concept to keep around.

Microaggressions – I think being oblivious to microaggressions is an autism thing, but I still think it’s insane to make them a political issue. Sure, you can vent about them, but acting like they’re on par with actual aggressions just seems like a losing cause.

On second thought, I don’t think I have a problem with making them a political issue in general. I think the whole tactic of SJWs being a hateful harassment mob makes the microaggressions thing just come off as especially petty.

I also think there’s a lot of competing access needs here. I actually really like infodumping about what kind of Asian I am to anyone willing to listen, and I think acting like the question is the root of all evil is really unfair, especially since literally everyone who’s ever asked has been happy to learn about the finer points about Chinese ethnic groups.

Isms as prejudice + power – People have mostly stopped discoursing about this, which is good. Language policing always seemed bad to me.

Objectification – SSC says everything I feel on the topic: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/03/17/my-objections-to-objectification/

The last time this came up in Discord, people said that objectification is more than the straw-man being criticized in this article, that it’s about people being entitled to your body or whatever. But I think the article does address that: “This is obviously a legitimate complaint. It’s just not a complaint about objectification.”

I got exposed to objectification as a criticism of hot girls in video games. And I just can’t see hot girls in video games as a bad thing.

Rape culture – [cw rape] This is an incredibly sensitive subject so I’m going to give you some time to stop reading here.

Our culture has a serious problem with rape. I think it’s important to understand that it’s usually committed by friends and family, that it’s depressingly common and has nearly definitely happened to people you know, that it’s usually committed by people who don’t think of what they’re doing as rape, and that all the discourse on it is really fucked up.

I also think that calling this “rape culture” entirely misses the point. I’m sympathetic that SSC doesn’t understand it: https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/19/i-do-not-understand-rape-culture/

Our problem isn’t that we glorify rape. Our problem is that we consider it a special kind of evil so bad that of course no normal person would ever do it, and this makes it easy to rationalize that whatever this normal person did couldn’t have been rape, which causes huge harms.

I don’t have answers, but I think it’s incredibly clear that calling it “rape culture” doesn’t help.

In general, I don’t think feminist activism on the topic of rape goes in the right direction. The smug “consent is like tea” video has the exact same problem. People don’t need to hear more “normal people would never rape” messaging.

#gender politics

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hello :) I was the anon who asked about the American left problems on general and thank you for your feedback, now, do you see this same trend with the European left? Other thing I saw with the American left is that Liberals and SocDems are so eager to call out socialist figures for "not acting out of their principles" just because a streamer who is a huge socialist has a PC Gamer so they can work on a daily basis, idk how you can conceal this postures, and again, thank you for the answer :D

Short answer: In Greece half of the time, Yes.

Long answer:

To be clear, the previous ask was for the US American Leftism and my answer was about the US, so it was one country. Large, but one country, under one government and one culture (I understand the states are not homogenous but they are as different as Thrace and Crete, not different like different countries.)

As it's natural, I can't speak for the "European Left", meaning I can't speak for 50 countries and more than 100 ethnic groups. Governments, languages, religions, customs, and history vary a lot from country to country. Greece has a political climate more similar to Albania, let's say, than the one of Estonia.

People from European countries may reblog this post and answer about the Left in their country. But I want to preface this by saying that "the Left" isn't the same across the continent. In some countries, the leftists were the "actual Left", not whatever US Americans consider Biden to be today. (He says he is a center-left I think, so he is just leaning Left. So you can call him a Leftist I suppose for the US standards). It would be more correct to say that the US has Left-ISTS and not Left-wingers. Greece has/had some prominent left-wing parties, while the Left never quite settled in the US.

For instance, EAM, a Left party, was the biggest fighter against the Nazis and their allies during our occupation. In fact, the upcoming Civil War of Greece (1946–1949) was a great fight between what was essentially the Left, and the Right + the Monarchy. (This is a generalization, but I just want to get a point across). And yes, with the "help" of the US and other allied countries in the Cold War, tens of thousands of Left-wingers died and got tortured up until the fall of the US-supported Greek junta (1974). It is a huge scar in our history.

A list of communist parties of Greece. That's in Greek but honestly, Google translate is your friend and you can't go wrong with just party names in translation. If you want more info and can't find anything more in English, ask me to search more for you.

Since my knowledge is best for Greece, I will speak about Greece. Nowadays the old "authentic" Communist spirit has mostly died out here. It's quite rare to find Greeks who are "Left", and more likely to find Greeks who are "Center-Left" (aka Leftists, if we want to use common terminology). I think Greeks recognize that the Left and the Right are both extreme and instead go for "Center-Left" or "Center-Right" the most.

When the Leftists are under 30 years old, most of the time they have heavily influenced by US politics. (I am not saying they prefer it solely because of US politics, I am saying it's one of the factors). And they usually know more about the history and social issues of the US than the history and social issues of Greece so, apart from not being well informed about the US many times they are not even properly informed about their own country.

These kinds of Leftists are out of touch with what's happening in Greece and, most importantly, how to approach the Greek people. They operate in a dreamland where we all live the "American Dream of Freedom" when even same-sex marriage isn't even legalized here (we only have cohabitation agreements). They approach most Greeks as close-minded enemies and show attitudes that may be fine for the US but most people here will call super entitled. So not only do they fall prey to the same traps as the US American Leftists, but even more, I'd say.

"Liberals and SocDems are so eager to call out socialist figures for "not acting out of their principles" just because a streamer who is a huge socialist has a PC Gamer so they can work on a daily basis".

Well, this cannibalizing of the US Left doesn't happen here that much because - I might be blessing my own beard (Greek saying) - I think Greek Leftists have more common sense compared to the US Leftists xD Not that I haven't encountered Leftists call a Bisexual woman "homophobic" because she mentioned lgbt+ people are a minority, or haven't heard obviously pale Greeks in an all pale Greek company in a large bar with all-light skinned Greeks calling Greeks "Brown" - an assumption about identity which plays by the rules of US Americans. There are those who parrot anything they see in us-centric social media but those are not the majority, I want to believe.

One more thing I've noticed both in US and Greek Leftists is that, despite trying to be very informed, they don't know much about the Left parties' past and many times cannot name policies of the party they support. They just support it because "I have a feeling it's morally right" (yeah because the Central-Rights are all immoral assholes who want to see all minorities dead and they don't want society to progress, right?).

And they rarely think about economics, defense, immigration, and freedoms. And it's all nice and beautiful until you tell them to think if they want these things to happen to them or/and minorities. Then they suddenly backtrack. Not to mention, the solutions they usually propose are so impractical! If you pride yourself on having the moral high ground at least get out of your theory bubble and think about the pragmatic consequences of policies! And if anyone suggests that those theoretical plans don't work because of factors the Leftists haven't considered they are suddenly a bigot (even though they want to get to the same results as the Leftists, it's just their approach that is different).

Also, because reading comprehension on this site hasn't gone up in ages, I'd like to leave a disclaimer that I believe that both non-extreme sides have negatives, it's just that we are talking about the (almost) Left here.

#answered #leftism #leftists #left #greek politics #greek left #politics

[princesssarcastia]

we’re tunneling under rock bottom, lads.

alrighty then.  ladies, gentlemen, and those of you who know better: here it is.  just laying bear the incredible shame which is my current descent back into hp.  I’ve been reading lots of fic, and now i’m having a lot of thoughts about it.  putting them under a readmore because I’m morally opposed to even accidentally subjecting people to this if they don’t want to see it.   in the immortal words of groucho marx, these are my principles thoughts, and if you don’t like them....well, i have others.

ugh. oh god. here we go.

i’m frankly disgusted with the way james potter is frequently cast as this HIMYM-Ted-Mosby-like character, who meets a woman—no, doesn’t even meet her.  just sees her.  and decides this is the woman he’ll marry, and then continues to pursue her even though she makes it clear she’s not interested...FOR YEARS...sort of casts himself as a wounded, sympathetic party...and then eventually succeeds!!  which is some Narrative Bullshit, because it implies that’s a way to get someone to go out with you, Which It Isn’t.  like, I don’t think this interpretation even has any canon grounding, but that’s beside the point because canon is a roast and I am carving off only the bits I want to eat for consumption.

the mindset i’m using to justify this to myself is that.  look.  tmi hour with princesssarcastia.  these books actually do mean a lot to me.  they were the books that made me like to read!  they opened a whole world for me; not just the world of HP but countless others, some better written, some much much worse.  it was like they flipped a switch in my head and suddenly i had this glorious form of escapism that had been in front of me all along but that I could now take advantage of.  I would literally not be the same person I am today if I hadn’t read them.  i know everyone says that but I really do mean it.  hell yes I should, and WILL, be more critical of the source material and the fan material now, compared to when I first read them.  I should not only be more critical, but I should also openly criticize it and its author, JK Rowling.  But it’s like with lovecraft, okay; he was shit and JRK is shit, but they laid out the bare bones of something more spectacular than their tiny, bigoted minds could fully flesh out.  so now, fleshing it out is our job, especially so we can rub it in their racist, transphobic, antisemetic faces that we’re way better at it than they ever were.

still hate snape!  really, really do.  he’s a bigot and a bully and he never changed, and the fact that he was poor and his father abused him doesn’t change that or make him redeemable somehow.  It makes him more interesting, sure!  More fleshed out, more three dimensional.  But as a person he still sucks.  He was Neville’s boggart!  And not in the way that McGonagall was Hermione’s boggart; not like some face or representation of a more abstract fear.  It was Literally just snape that Neville feared more than anything else in the world, and I will not abide that.  Snape is bad for the same reason Umbridge is bad: your teachers are supposed to be people you can trust, they are people entrusted with your welfare, they are supposed to broaden your horizons and introduce you to the world around you in increasingly complex but ALWAYS, ALWAYS KIND ways.  Snape does not do that.  And I always thought the idea of him still loving Lily decades after he inadvertently sent Voldemort on the path to murdering her, and spending those decades doing something he hated and making the children in his care as miserable as he was, was much more sad than it was romantic.  That’s not a romance, that’s a tragedy that he walked into with his eyes wide open, and karmically deserved.

The best fics are the ones that understand that Ron Weasley was harry’s first friend, that he was kind, and that his jealousy and temper didn’t make him any less those things.  Ron Weasley is a ride-or-die bitch with, frankly, more emotional intelligence than hermione had sometimes, and I respect the hell out of him.

There really must have been more to the wizarding world than Harry ever sees, and that makes it fertile ground for fandom to grow its own ideas in.  For instance, to fight a war against all the death eaters, their families, the bigoted ministry employees, and the snatchers, there simply MUST have been more order of the phoenix members than were named, the first time ‘round and the second.

When you think about it, the concept of the Order of the Phoenix is actually fascinating. because on the one hand, it’s kind of a private paramilitary group?  It’s basically a militia populated by some government employees, INCLUDING cops, and schoolteachers, and healers, and sometimes your neighbors.  That’s sort of a scary thought in the abstract, though it does literally happen in the U.S. allll the time.  But on the other hand, it’s a group of people dedicated to taking direct action against rising fascism in their government and society.  punch nazis 1995, amirite?

Very excited because today, for the first time, I read a harry potter fic where someone (hermione, of course) mentions human rights. [dead men have no tails, by DuskGlass] and it’s very offhand, narratively; there’s not deep exploration of it.  But it leads to some wider questions I’ve been musing over...

...which is, even though the wizarding world is separate from the muggle world, how does that work out historically?  specifically when it comes to shitty stuff, though there are certainly nicer areas of this to explore if you’d like to.  For instance, How involved were british wizards in colonial efforts?  Did british, french, and dutch colonists in the americas participate in the genocide against native people there?  In the atlantic slave trade?  How involved was the british wizarding world in colonizing India?  And, were native american wizards and indian wizards involved in that conflict?  I mean, i can’t imagine they weren’t.  And if they weren’t, and the european forces still succeeded anyway, they the european wizarding world would have to have been involved in that, right?  when exactly did wizarding and muggle society start splitting far enough apart that muggle wars were not wizarding affairs?  Are there wizards in every country on the planet?  Is there the same level of disengagement in every other country as there is in Great Britain? These are questions i’m sure Hermione must have gotten answered for herself at some point.  I’d like to know the answers as well.

In retrospect, a lot of Hogwarts classes seem centered around defense and offense; in training people in combat, even if that’s not explicitly what they call it.  not in any fudge/umbridge esque “they’re training the kids in combat to take over the government!!!!” way, but in a “this world is actually very, very dangerous, from creatures to rogue magical objects or rogue magical people who mean you harm.”  That’s a fascinating mindset to have; it’s a fascinating paradigm to shift to, I imagine, especially for muggleborns.  Sort of prudent in canon, given the whole Voldemort thing, but it makes you wonder if the wizarding world then just always has some kind of asshole trying to take it over and kill a bunch of people along the way.

I’ll probably have more thoughts at some point, but that’s it for now.  feel free to discuss these, or any other, harry potter thoughts with me further.  I gotta get my enrichment somehow.

#hp #meta #history #world building #im so sorry #but also if you're interested in these plz do talk to me #harry potter

[frecklesandfanfics]

7x12

It’s late on Thursday but it’s still Thursday and thus time for thoughts you didn’t ask for but I’m sharing anyway, and I have a lot of feelings so let’s get right down to it: (yoooooo this is the longest of these I’ve ever done but I had to get all the details of their fight in there)

Murphy and Emori kneeling right away obviously, bless their little cockroach hearts.

Quite the fashionable little eyepatch Sheidheda whipped up since we last saw him, and from what animal did he get these spikes on his shoulders?

I actually really liked Nelson--or at least Lee Madjoub who plays him--so I’m a little sad this is his end but at least he lived and died by his principles which is more than some people on this show get to do.

Bellamy looks like a goddamn fool in this white outfit but Gabriel is clearly digging it.

I absolutely despise Just-Call-Me-Bill and his cavalier fucking attitude towards his own fucking son.

Raven is ready to draaaaaaaag Bellamy. I love her anger and refusal to comply. And he lets them take her away! They’ve been family since the dropship days--he held her as Finn died--they lived on The Ring together for six years--“So much for family,” indeed.

Echo is absolutely roasting him. I love her. A lot. She is so right--she absolutely went through all of those things, never truly breaking even though she came close. (What’s a little attempted genocide between friends?)  And here he is, three months on Etherea and a whole wreck. Her line, “Watch us all die, I suppose,” is perfect. Bellamy’s “yes” to “is it more important than us?” is absolutely devastating. And with that, they’re broken up. It hurt more than I thought it would. 

ALSO how is “all of us for all mankind” any different from Octavia’s cannibalism motto in the bunker? Remember how you loathed her for that, Bellamy?

Knight’s really out here with all the exposition--and I wonder how long Nikki Bang Bang is going to put up with being called “Convict.”

Alright, Emori and Murphy’s ragtag band of fugitives is doing okay! Murphy, you literally only have to survive til the end of the episode bb. You can do it. And with that these two little horndogs lay down together to make some babies...only to be interrupted by Indra with Madi’s boyfriend.

Does a nuclear reactor count as a weapon? Well I hope fucking not since people live on this planet...including you.

Nikki is really on my last nerve. Thanks Emori--why don’t y’all just shoot her in the head, though?

Aw. Jordan and Hope. Please be best friends, Hope needs a wholesome influence. Jordan’s point about how the group are not their friends, but their parents’ friends, is so solid. I can’t imagine how alienated these two must feel. I love that all of these space people force Hope into hugs and comfort her--she doesn’t know how to show or receive affection so they just make her. This poor child. I know people have been hard on Hope across the fandom but I honestly feel so much empathy for her. 

Clarke and Octavia! My favorite female duo. This moment of bonding and understanding between them is everything I have wanted for seven fucking years. 

I love the way this scene is directed, the way they move, everything, all the details:

Clarke immediately gets in Bellamy’s face, but Octavia stands back. Feels like she knows that Clarke is the right person to handle Bellamy.

Dude. Your “experience” sounds like some kind of acid trip. 

Then Octavia steps forward, and Clarke steps back. 

Clarke forward again, with tears, her voice breaking.

Bellamy is breaking too, tears, everything, Clarke forward and in his face again. Clarke refuses to help and gives her normal reasoning for everything she does--she was trying to save her friends. Bellamy, with tears: I am trying to save YOU! (all of you but really just you clarke i mean c’mon) His threat to Clarke--if you don’t tell me where the key is--the threat hangs, Clarke shakes her head, he lays down the truth. “They will kill you. All of you. Let me help.” and her face is so angry, disgusted, disappointed, defiant--go float yourself. When she walks away he closes his eyes like he’s trying to keep the tears from falling. Clarke walks over to Octavia and when they take each other’s hands lemme tell y’all I BAWLED. Sisters. Equals. After all this time. 

Conductor Doucette (Steve to his friends) walks up to console this idiot with some speech about transcendence. I hate him. But he sure does look hot with this haircut. 

Every Memori scene is absolutely killer. “You think Hatch would have kneeled?” Also “Raven, in one of her more questionable moments, that I nevertheless respect...” Oh god, I love him. 

The looks between Cadogan-Bellamy-Doucette while Clarke is in the MCAP are so good. 

Bellamy: “It didn’t have to be like this.” Clarke, with tears running down her face: “Yes it did.”  I have a lot of questions about these lines. They could be read in a lot of different ways. Does Clarke mean that she would always have fought this hard, regardless of it being Bellamy she has to fight against? Does she mean that Bellamy’s decisions would have always brought them to this point? 

I am asking once again: what the fuck is Sheidheda wearing? And who had time to make this absolutely ridiculous and a bit too on-the-nose throne of bones?

Oh good, now when Clarke and Call-Me-Bill come through the anomaly stone they’ll be right in front of Sheidheda’s Mad Max insanity.

Madi is being such a precious fucking bean right now telling them all how she feels their pain. I cannot. I am dead. Also Emori being proud of Madi is EVERYTHING. ALSO Murphy’s “I’ve got this,” to a terrified Emori made my heart clench.

Miller’s “You good with this?” to Clarke touched my heart tbh. Everyone’s loyalty to her this season is everything I have needed for ages. 

Hm. Where did this asshole send everyone? I love the way Clarke immediately rounded on Bellamy. He won’t be able to make a right move in her eyes until this shit is over. 

I barked with laughter at “Your move, my liege.” And Murphy’s little grin when he sees Clarke! Cockroachkru forever!

Y’all, that was...a lot. Like a lot a lot.

In short: Becho breaks, Bellarke fights, and Memori tries to make babies at every turn. Sheidheda is a fashion icon (of sorts) a new ship launches with Hope and Jordan, Madi becomes leader of a new generation of delinquents, and Nikki Bang Bang gets the knock upside the head that she so deserves.

#the 100 spoilers #i have some questions #jackie's rambling again #bellarke #becho #breakups with no makeups #heartbreaker #don't mind the sobbing i'll just be rewatching Clarke and Octavia's scenes #a new kind of Bellarke

[hopeisour4letteredword]

innocent bones ch1

Summary: Apollo gets a wake-up call in a few ways. It’s okay, though--he’s got best-friend backup.

Link to AO3 in the notes.

Apollo’s first thought when his phone rings at some ungodly time in the middle of the night is fuck off. His second thought is oh my God oh no Clay, because he’s had a shit year and maybe it’s made him a bit paranoid and he’s Clay’s emergency medical contact. His third thought, as he toes the line of lucidity, is wait, that’s the ringtone I set for Klavier.

Fuck. If Klavier is calling him at this hour, it’s probably important.

He slaps haphazardly at his nightstand until he finds his phone and yanks it off the charger. He gives himself one last moment to squeeze his eyes shut against the ache of fatigue, then rallies enough to answer the call.

“Justice speaking.“

“...Hurts.”

Suddenly much more awake, Apollo sits bolt upright in bed. “What?”

“Herr Forehead,” Klavier says, in the most childish and petulant voice Apollo has ever heard out of him. To be fair, Apollo hasn’t heard him overtly childish all that many times, so that’s a low hurdle. It’s not much comfort. “Feel—feel sorry for me. I’m in pain.”

“You—what? Are you alright?”

“No.”

Apollo stares unseeingly into the darkness for a second until adrenaline overrides panic and he launches himself out of bed. He almost trips trying to keep his phone to his ear and disentangle the sheets around his legs at the same time. Light, where’s the light switch on his lamp? “Where are you? How bad is it?”

“It sucks,” Klavier whines. “An’ I’m all alone.”

“I’m coming to help. You’re gonna be fine. Are you—you sound really out of it. Did you hit your head? Are you drunk?”

Blood loss? he doesn’t ask. Don’t think about the worst-case scenario. Keep moving. He finds his keys and his wallet, tosses them over by his shoes near the door. No telling if he’ll need his bike or his bus card until he has more information.

“Drugs,” Klavier says, glumly. Apollo grits his teeth. Klavier is one of the most law-abiding people Apollo has ever met; there’s no way he took hardcore drugs of his own volition. Please don’t let it be roofies. Please don’t let him be stranded, injured and alone, in a place where somebody roofied him.

Clothes, clothes, Apollo needs to not get arrested for indecency the second he steps out the door. He yanks on the first pair of shorts he encounters. Shirt? He shoves a hand into his dresser blindly. It comes out clutching one of Clay’s old Sailor Moon shirts, faded and worn. Apollo wears it as a pajama shirt sometimes, but in public—fuck it. Klavier’s safety is worth the weird looks for being a grown man wearing a magical girl anime shirt in public. He’s not gonna dig around for an acceptable shirt at a time like this.

“Keep talking to me. What hurts?”

“My mouth.”

“Your mouth? What happened, do you remember?”

“They stole my teeth,” Klavier says, woefully, and that finally makes Apollo pause, balanced on one foot to pull a sock on the other.

“Your—your teeth?”

“Took ‘em—took ‘em right out. With knives. Now my mouth’s full of holes. It hurts, Herr Forehead.”

An image is cementing itself, slowly but surely, out of the fog of panic and lethargy in Apollo’s mind. He lowers his foot. “Who took your teeth?”

“Teeth doctor.”

“Did...did you get teeth taken out? By a dentist or—?”

“Yeah! Wis’om teeth. They stole them.”

Apollo slumps back against his door like a puppet with his strings cut, and sinks to the ground. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Oh my God, Klavier. Start with that next time.”

“Next time?” Klavier sounds genuinely befuddled. “But they’re already gone.”

“I thought you had been roofied or mugged or something,” Apollo says. He settles on laughter, and it comes out hysterical. “God. Don’t do that to me. I’m too young to have a heart attack.”

“Don’t do what? What’d I do?”

“You scared the shit out of me.” Apollo draws his knees up to his chest and leans on them, trying to take deep breaths. Klavier is okay. He’s not bleeding in an alleyway behind some bar. He’s not about to be assaulted. He’s only stoned on painkillers. “You owe me for this one. I was halfway out the door.”

“I didn’t mean to scare you.” There’s a rustling noise on the other end of the line. Klavier’s voice is soft and contrite. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

“That’s fine,” Apollo says. “We’re fine. I’m not mad. Well, maybe a little bit. Just—goddamn. Okay. Talking. I can talk. Wait. You’re home, aren’t you? You’re not wandering the city like this?”

He’s hyperaware of his own heartbeat, still too loud and too fast. That was a hell of a wake-up call. Apollo has more than enough trouble getting to sleep on a normal night. There’s no way he’s knocking out any time soon after this—might as well keep Klavier entertained if he’s going to be awake the rest of the night anyway.

“Yeah!” Klavier says, perking up again. “I’m home. Oh, but—Vongole is gone.”

“Gone?” Apollo frowns. “Where’d she go?”

“Sebastian took her.”

“What for?”

“He said I prob’ly shouldn’t walk her tonight,” Klavier says, despondently. “I miss her. She’s a good dog.”

“She is a good dog,” Apollo agrees. He scratches a hand through his bedhead and tries not to yawn. “But you’ll get to see her again soon. I’m sure Prosecutor Debeste will give her back tomorrow.”

“But I want her now.”

Apollo doesn’t have a rebuttal to that. God only knows how many times he sprawled next to Vongole on the floor while Mr. Gavin was out of the office, complaining about the trials of law school. She’s a good listener. Always knows when someone needs a hug. She’d make a good therapy dog if she didn’t have so much energy. It’s no wonder Klavier wants her back when he’s this miserable.

“Sorry, man.”

Klavier sighs melodramatically. “Can’t believe he left me and took my dog. I think he likes her better than me.”

“Can you blame him?” Apollo says, wryly. He realizes his mistake right as Klavier makes a quiet, wounded noise.

“...No.”

“Joke,” Apollo blurts out. Fuck. Of course Klavier is too out of it for their normal banter. “I’m joking. That was a joke. I didn’t mean—“

“It’s okay, Herr F—“

“Of course he doesn’t like your dog better than you. Don’t be stupid. That was a really shitty joke for me to make, and I didn’t mean it at all.”

Klavier laughs, weakly. “Right, sure.”

“You’re—ridiculously likeable.” It spills out of Apollo’s mouth before he can stop himself. But why should he stop himself? It’s the middle of the night and Klavier’s fucked up on painkillers and Apollo was an asshole. He can part with some kind words to make up for it. It’s the right thing to do, probably. God, he’s tired. “And a good person. Everybody likes you just fine.”

After a few beats of silence save for the shudder of Klavier’s breath across the line, Klavier asks, half-joking, “Even you?”

Apollo rolls his eyes. “No, I’m talking to you at three AM while you’re high as a kite on anesthetics because I hate you.” Another beat. “That was another joke. Just to be extremely clear.”

“You like me?” Klavier asks, so damn hopefully that Apollo doesn’t have it in him to pretend otherwise.

“Yeah.”

“I like you, too,” Klavier says, happily. Apollo’s heart thumps traitorously hard against his ribcage. He’s too exhausted to deal with his own pining right now. It’s not fair that Klavier can do this to him out of nowhere. He’s not even trying to flirt right now. He’s just a naturally affectionate person and it’s destroying Apollo. “I wish you were here. I wish Vongole or Sebastian was here. I’m bored and lonely and my mouth hurts.”

“I know, bud.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Sleep?” Apollo suggests. Klavier makes a dismissive sound. “Uh. Watch something on Netflix? Or whatever rock stars watch their movies and shit on these days.”

“I start falling asleep when I try to watch anything and then I have nightmares ‘cause my mouth hurts.”

That sounds like it will be a problem no matter what Klavier does to occupy himself. “Do you have more painkillers?”

“I... forgot where I put them. And how many to take.”

“Find them and read the bottle, then.”

“Print’s too small.”

“...Are you so drugged up you can’t focus on text?”

“No, but they made me take my contacts out before they stole my teeth, and—“

Klavier wears contacts? Apollo opens his mouth to ask about it, but there’s an abrupt series of loud noises on the other end of the call. Loud, brief knocking, the thud of a door closing, the jingle of metal on metal.

“Sebastian!” Klavier cheers. Apollo hears a distant curse and thumping. “You came back!”

A voice, muffled and indistinct. The intonation lilts into a question.

“Herr Forehead,” Klavier answers, matter-of-factly.

“Oh, good grief. Give that here.”

“No, don’t—!“

“Hello?” Prosecutor Debeste says, his voice clear and focused now. It has the polite edge of professionality. “Mr. Justice, I presume?”

“That’s right,” Apollo says. He feels kind of weird about talking to somebody from the Prosecutor’s Office who isn’t Klavier while he’s on the floor, hair a bird’s nest, wearing a Sailor Moon shirt and one sock. Yeah, Prosecutor Debeste can’t see that or anything, but it’s the principle of the matter. “Hi. Um.”

“Sorry about the trouble. I hope he hasn’t kept you up too long.”

“Uh, no.”

“Sebastian,” Klavier wails, in the background. “Give it baaack!”

“Are you staying with him right now?”

“Yes. Why do you ask?”

“Well, I just. To be honest, he made it sound like you stole his dog and ditched him.”

“Of course he did,” Prosecutor Debeste says, exasperatedly. Klavier whines, barely audible to the receiver. Vongole barks happily in response. “I’ve been here all night. I only took Vongole out for a bit to do her business and run around—she hasn’t been able to sleep either, not with Klavier this wound up. Don’t worry, he has someone keeping an eye on him.”

“That’s, um. Good to hear.”

“I can take care of things from here, so I’ll let you get some rest. Klavier can get in touch with you again in the morning if you need anything from him.”

“Sure, I guess.”

“Goodnight, Mr. Justice. Thanks for keeping him company for a while. Klavier, say good night—“

“But we were talking—!“

The line goes dead.

Apollo takes his phone away from his ear and just looks at it. He thinks maybe he should process the last thirty minutes. His mind chases itself in loops instead. After a minute, he presses the heel of his free hand against his eyes, trying to massage out the exhaustion headache that’s starting to set in. Fuck. He still doesn’t know if he can sleep. What’s Clay always trying to tell him, about resting and keeping your eyes closed for a while being better than not sleeping at all? Can’t be any worse, at least. He might as well give it a shot. He settles back into the sheets, long cold by now, and tries to relax.

A street—not dark, but dim, maybe, with the hazy glow of a setting sun in the evening. The shadows are long and the light is golden. It catches on the leaves of trees in the park, turns them ethereal with shining halos.

I’ve been here before, Apollo thinks, then, that’s absurd, it’s the park, of course I’ve been here before.

Another golden halo, beside him on the park bench. Klavier’s hair catching the sunlight it so often seems to be spun from. Klavier’s blinding smile as he laughs at something Apollo just said, something already forgotten. Déjà vu strikes Apollo again. He does remember being here, remembers the way Klavier turns to him with a conversational parry, smirking, words balancing perfectly on the bizarre line they walk between sharp and friendly.

That’s what he remembers. That’s not what happens this time. What happens this time is:

Klavier’s smile goes soft and warm, an affectionate curl of his lips, and he says, “I like you, too.”

#klapollo #klavier gavin #apollo justice #ace attorney #long post

[allbeendonebefore]

I was kind of under the impression that this is just a widespread thing in Alberta, especially because of the Angus Reid fractured federation survey (I cant include the link here, but you can Google it, its from January 24th 2019). When got back into Hetalia, I imagined the dynamics kinda changed to this, which would be pretty bad tbh. I hope its not that aggressive in Alberta, I will never be able to go check tho, too expensive :( I loved the bad french btw

i see you guys sending these asks super late at night and i wonder whether any of you sleep - idk where you’re writing from and i may be on the west coast but are you guys ok wherever you are? I just woke up but I have my tea and if I’m not caffeinated now I surely will be as I answer this.

I’m sure I’ve seen the survey you’re speaking of before and before I address it in any specific detail I just want to back up and re frame Why I’m Being Like This in regards to recent events and my orientation towards answering these questions in terms of Hetalia the way I do, because I think it’s the heart of how I answer.

the tldr of it is:

1. I have an opportunity to make interpretations of reality in unexpected and challenging ways, therefore widespread opinions don’t govern anything but my stupid gag comics in the simple sense that if everyone was represented by widespread opinion alone all the time, nothing would change and

2. if i can answer dozens of asks about ralph and oliver hanging out there’s absolutely no reason I can’t answer asks about ralph and jean hanging out, lol.

3. If you’d like a shorter, more concise “vision statement”, I have one on @battle-of-alberta here. (although now I notice the links don’t work on mobile so you’ll have to be on desktop for that one)

I’m assuming this will be long so cut time

(and yes, alas, the bad french is my legacy and I’m afraid it has not improved much although i swear i was an A student when i was actually taking it) (and no please don’t visit now, purely for pandemic reasons, it would be really expensive And you’d have a bad time) (and talking to me is free lmao) (I do not mean to say that you need to have feet on the ground to understand a place at all, i mean, at the moment I don’t lol)

headings because I say a lot

what even is hetalia

At the most basic level, Hetalia is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways. It can be for memorization, current politics at a glance or historical relationships in different settings. I use it for all of these things, of course, I certainly use it a lot in comics that take place in the much more distant past in @athensandspartaadventures. When I was writing that, I was in undergrad and AaSA was a tool to help me pass my exams, I didn’t think of how it might be read or interpreted by people who have lived in or experienced those places these days, or what kind of political and cultural tensions it might reveal. (Not to say that it has gotten me into sticky situations, exactly, but I am more aware of where things like that would arise now).

These days I look back on a lot of my experiences - both in IAMP/Hetalia and just as a person, and I think that if Hetalia is a tool it should be used with some awareness of intention and responsibility. Things in the fandom have changed as it became more mainstream and more well known and I think there’s a definite worry about screwing up or not representing Everything or not pleasing Everybody or not doing it Right. I have a simple, insufferably academic principle.

(That said, yes, you can still do it very wrong if you write a methodology.)

Still, it’s a comfort to me that I’m just doing the things the way I say I’m going to do them, and that is the underpinning of Inspired But Not Constrained By Hetalia. I don’t do things Himaruya’s way, I can’t do things the way IAMP would do them if it were running today because it’s not and things have changed, all I can do is do them how I would do them.

I have hurt people in the past because they sometimes couldn’t tell whether I was writing From an Albertan Perspective or not, and I’ve evoked some preeetty spicy comments over the last decade, and I realized that tone and perspective are something that really shapes how people understand and interact with my work and I’m trying to use that understanding in a conscientious way)

what even is alberta

So when you’re me and you’ve grown up in a province that is the Angriest in the country and the most Misunderstood in the country and the most Entitled in the country and nobody outside of maybe Saskatchewan has a good thing to say about you half the time and maybe you’re tired of that... you get kind of depressed thinking about how every year some kiddo comes on the internet ready to be excited about making or celebrating characters that represent themselves and No Matter Where They Go running into everyone else’s negative impressions first and foremost.

We joke about how everyone hates Toronto, though I’ve always understood it in a teasing way because I’ve never ACTUALLY met someone (outside of our current legislative assembly) who REALLY hates Toronto, but it does feel like I’ve encountered (directly or indirectly) people who do Genuinely hate Alberta and hoo boy is That a strange feeling. I mean, there’s an understanding that BC also ‘hates’ Alberta but half the people in BC are originally from Alberta so it’s a, uh, different feeling.

The story of Alberta from everywhere else is always the story of that Angus Reid article and the memes and comments and listicles that spin out around mainstream media. Alberta is giving too much. Alberta is getting too little. Alberta is too stupid to understand that equalization payments are a good thing actually, and Alberta is too dumb to understand you don’t really need EI if you make enough money in six months to own a house and multiple vehicles Just Because you own a house and multiple vehicles. Alberta is destroying the environment for everybody. Alberta has a huge concentration of white supremacists. Alberta is the Texas of Canada* and has the conservative streak and bible belt to match. Alberta should get annexed by the US. Oh, but Banff! We like Banff, though.

And like I said, politicians use these widespread feelings to stir up the sentiments of people who can’t afford to travel, people who are naturally suspicious of mainstream news, people who have barely even left their hometowns let alone the province and have no other means of validating what they hear, but people who’s emotions are genuinely tied to real feelings of alienation that really exist and HAVE existed for generations. And when the so-called “laurentian elites” in ontario and quebec make fun of them for being uneducated red necks, well, you hit a wasps nest and expected what, exactly?

what even am i doing

And like I’m faced with this question every day I decide to pick up my stylus and badger you all with unsolicited comics: do I want this to continue? Do I want to wear the mask that fits? Do I want to stand aside and say #notallalbertans #notlikeotheralbertans and stand over here on the island** patting myself on the back for not? being? there? Do I say yes, you’re right, and stand aside and watch loud mouth white supremacists co-opt wexiters and let them lead the perception of the province I grew up in just because that is what’s currently happening? Do I acknowledge the widespread sentiment and then pick apart every other province to say Well Actually You’re Equally Problematic Hypocrites, So There?

Obviously I’ve been saying no for a while. I’m perfectly happy to acknowledge the reality and when I draw stupid gag comics like this or this you can tell (hopefully) from my style that it’s tongue and cheek. When I draw less stupid not-gag comics like this or this I am trying to explore the Real Sentiments in a way that doesn’t completely polarize the issue and spin it out of control. I’m more of the opinion that even though Current Sentiments do get in the way that as personifications they 1. have some perspective and as people they 2. have some interest in not throwing out a friendship that was a struggle to build up every time the polls change or some new radical party seizes power. I do a lot of research and I want that to be reflected in my understanding of each characters deep seated beliefs and motivations, but I don’t want to let either the history or the current realities dictate the future if I am going to try to do that myself. 

why even am i doing it for

So like really the heart of the matter is: I am writing what I write for my thirteen year old self. She was the me who moved back to Canada from the United States, who’s first introduction to living there was a hellish surge of nationalism after September 11th. Who’s defense against that was to hide behind a shield of Canada is Better, Actually and who returned to Alberta during the boom years to realize that, oh wait, the rest of the country thinks we’re assholes just like they think the United States is. Who spent her teenage years learning that, boom or bust, the widespread sentiment in and out of the province is just as narrow, shortsighted, self interested, and stubborn as her own fiction of What Canada Was Supposed to be Like. Who learned that propping up that image at the expense of her friendships was not worth it, that propping up that image at the expense of people who are suffering and dying under that image is not worth it. Who found herself rehashing the same sort of gut reaction defensiveness online because the Guilt and Apologizing on behalf of her province compared to others felt Really Heavy for a kid who didn’t have any clue what to do about it and was just there to have fun and learn some stuff.

So I’m writing for anyone else who finds themselves exhausted and saddened by coming online and seeing that the only way that people can imagine Alberta is as an antagonist. I’d like to challenge everyone to start to imagine it better. It’s my little “escape” from reality, and for me it’s much easier to talk to people here where the stakes aren’t as high and the grievances a little less personal.

I’m also writing (in a more secondary way) for everyone who’s ever looked at alberta from afar and wondered What is going On inside your Head and is it always This

(no comment at this time)

as always, I’m here to explain At The Very Least what goes on in My head because at the end of the day, that’s all I can do. And though there are some things that make me angry and emotional, I’m happy to explain why. Happy to answer asks or chat on discord or whatever, any time I have the time. :)

footnotes

*This is just a footnote to say something I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of my comments, but this is an annoyance that me and my Texas Tomodachi share lol

**You’ll notice angry Albertans online have a favourite tactic, and that’s pointing out hypocrisy. They can justify A N y T h I n G by calling another province a hypocrite “so there” (i.e. BC can’t claim to be environmentally conscious because of Victoria’s sewage problem or Site C) - and while I am interested in shattering the image of Alberta vs. the Perfect Rest of Canada a little bit, I feel like it’s a very lazy argument that is used to deflect and not to help. I think it is more useful to unpack the sentiment of Why Alberta Still Feels Taken Advantage of rather than mudslinging, and when the mud starts flying no one seems interested in addressing problems anymore.

#hapo rambles #hapo replies #hapo rants #yeah y yeah alberta #projectcanada #iammatthewian #pc: alberta #iamp: alberta #Anonymous #will i actually directly address the survey #maybe later but i have other stuff to do #you can remind me

[satonthelotuspier]

For day 6 & 7 of Wangxian week I present the first WangXian POV for Soulmate’s Regret AU feat Mobster LWJ and Cop WWX.

Prompt palettes for the days are: 

Day 6 – Sacrifices – Devotion – Role Reversal AU

Day 7 – Passion – Marriage – Soulmate AU

Yes, I went with six prompts because why do 3 when you can do 6?

CW Mild spice at the very end.

“So we should just be OK with the fact he’s married to one of the biggest fucking gangsters in Shanghai, should we?” Su She demanded, knocking his shoulder against Wei Wuxian’s. And really, if he didn’t hear this at least once a month, Wei Wuxian would be fucking livid about now.

He did though, and so did his colleagues.

“Soulmate Covenant says you can’t be held accountable for or discriminated against because of who your spouse is. He moved out of organised crime when they met to avoid conflicts of interest. And Nie Mingjue would never ask him to get involved in a case that could be linked to the Lans. I’ve no idea why you’re being a dick, Su-xiong” Luo “Mian Mian” Qingyang said in irritation. Because everyone had had enough of his constant sniping this month. “And besides, watch your mouth, or you’ll end up with a law suit for defamation, if there was any proof, anywhere, of the Lans being the biggest fucking gangsters in Shanghai they’d be behind bars already”

“Fuck off, why are you pretending? They’re up to their necks in the criminal underworld, but heaven forbid we admit it. If it wasn’t for pretty boy here and his mouthy brother being the Lans’…” Su She trailed off at the unnatural silence that had suddenly taken over the group.

“Yes? Please do continue, what would you like to call us, before I knock every tooth you own, or ever will own, down your throat? Nothing? Can I help you with your sentence? Bitches, maybe? Whores? Cock-sluts? Or maybe the term you were looking for was lawfully wedded husbands?” the newly arrived Jiang Cheng asked in his frigidly cold voice, the one that said he was three seconds away from nuclear detonation.

Wei Wuxian sighed, trust his fucking hotheaded brother to turn up just in time to exacerbate the situation.

Su She seemed to find his spine then, either he didn’t think Jiang Cheng was perfectly willing to get himself suspended for punching another officer, or he just didn’t care.

If it was the first, he definitely didn’t know Jiang Cheng.

“Well, it’s fucking odd that everyone knows the Lans are behind half of the criminal enterprise in this city, but there’s no proof anywhere. Odd, when they have sleepers in OC and homicide. Sounds to me like someone’s feeding information to them”

Wei Wuxian leapt forward to catch Jiang Cheng’s fist before it could connect. Mian Mian was at his other side, holding him back.

“He’s not worth losing a week’s pay over, Jiang Cheng” he said soothingly. But Jiang Cheng was livid. He had the motivation Wei Wuxian didn’t over the issue.

He was the man who had sacrificed his marriage for his principles, (in name, if not legality) and to have his commitment to his career questioned would twist the knife into a never-healing wound.

“You pretend you’re all high and mighty, pretend you’re so pure and special because you supposedly “walked away” from your husband when you found out who he really was, which apparently isn’t a criminal, but everyone knows you still bend over when he tells you to, fucking hypocrite”

At the point he was released Jiang Cheng realised there was no need to continue to attack Su She, because Wei Wuxian’s fist had already put him on the floor.

***

Jiang Cheng tutted for the fifth time on the drive to Wei Wuxian’s place. “Why did you have to go and do something as dumb as that, Wei Wuxian?” he eventually broke the silence.

“Are you seriously reaming me for doing something you would have done two minutes earlier if I hadn’t had a hold of you?”

“Yes?” Jiang Cheng said in annoyance.

“I see, you just want to be the only one of us with the reputation for being a hothead, a bit of a maverick, am I right?”

Praise be, but Jiang Cheng actually cracked a smile. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Jiang Cheng smile. At least one that wasn’t half-sarcasm, half-wolf about to attack.

“I’m mad because you punched that asshat because of what he said about me, not what he said about you” Jiang Cheng told him, shooting him a look before returning his gaze to the road.

“He’s just a homophobic, jealous asshole, you shouldn’t have let him get to you” Wei Wuxian said as they pulled up at the gates of his house and Jiang Cheng leaned over to punch the buzzer. They were waved through as the gate guard recognised them.

“Big same, bro. But you shouldn’t have to put up with that kind of shit at work, whether it gets to you or not. Not when you sacrificed the job you loved, and the career you were blazing, for the man you fell for. The Soulmate Covenant exists for a reason, and Su She just put a nice big black cross next to his record, I’ll make sure Nie-da-ge hears the full story. And don’t get in trouble on my behalf again, Wei Wuxian, especially not when what he says is true. I can get into my own trouble, honestly” he pulled up on the drive.

“Shut up, Jiang Cheng. I lost it because he was twisting the knife. He shouldn’t talk about what he doesn’t know about. None of them know how walking away from Xichen-ge almost killed you, how choosing your career over your husband was the hardest thing you ever did, but you did it to keep to your principles. No way does he get to stick the knife into you over that”

There was a half smile, as Jiang Cheng leaned over him to open the car door, “Go on, fuck off, get back to that husband you’re so devoted to” he mocked.

“Want to stay for dinner?” Wei Wuxian half took the hint and unfastened his seatbelt.

“No, I’m good, thanks”

“You know Lan Zhan doesn’t blame you for leaving Lan Xichen, don’t you? He wouldn't mind you coming to dinner. He loves his brother, but he knows Xichen-ge lied to you from the beginning”

“Withheld the truth” Jiang Cheng corrected automatically. At Wei Wuxian’s raised eyebrows he shrugged. “I’m fine, I’m going to go and get a drink instead”

“Fine, be antisocial, I don’t care. But really, come to dinner next week, I might need the company to stop me going crazy on suspension”

“Nie-da-ge isn’t going to let it last that long, I can assure you. But OK, I’ll consider it. Now go and see your husband”

Wei Wuxian nodded once and jumped out, slamming the door behind him.

***

Lan Wangji was in his study when Wei Wuxian went to find him. As a courtesy he knocked loudly on the door before he heard Lan Wangji call his name.

They were very careful to ensure full privacy existed between them in terms of their chosen careers, Lan Wangji didn’t want to drag Wei Wuxian into his business, and Wei Wuxian didn’t want to be dragged into it. What he didn’t know he couldn’t feel guilty about knowing.

Jiang Cheng hadn’t been wrong, he’d loved his job in organised crime, and they were an amazing team, but, unlike Jiang Cheng, he’d walked into the relationship with Lan Wangji, his soulmate, the person who the snow leopard on his hip was meant to signify, with open eyes.

He’d known who, and what, Lan Wangji was, and he had loved him so much he chose to marry him anyway. Jiang Cheng had mockingly used the word devoted, but it wasn’t a lie. They were devoted to each other.

He pushed into the study at the acknowledgement it was safe for him to do so, and was met half way by Lan Wangji who wrapped him up in his arms as they reached each other.

“I need this” Wei Wuxian murmured after a few minutes, propping his chin on Lan Wangji’s shoulder.

“Tough day, Wei Ying?” he asked softly and Wei Wuxian nodded.

“Well, actually, I suppose not. I’m suspended though”

Lan Wangji pulled back a little to frown at him, concern in his light amber eyes.

“Just an argument with an asshole who was ragging Jiang Cheng, and me. There are always people who think we’re feeding you information”

Lan Wangji’s frown deepened, but Wei Wuxian poked him between the brows, “Turn that frown upside down, Lan Zhan. It doesn’t bother me, my conscience is completely clear on the issue, I don’t mess in your business and you don’t mess in mind”

Lan Wangji nodded after a few seconds consideration. Wei Wuxian knew he was contemplating annihilation for anyone who dared upset him, but he was calm and sensible enough to let Wei Wuxian deal with it in his own way.

“I don’t want anything getting back to Lan Xichen though, promise me?”

If Lan Xichen heard anyone had been disrespecting Jiang Cheng they couldn’t always guess how he’d react; it would enrage Lan Xichen, who would try to control the situation, or Jiang Cheng, who would then be pissed off at everyone.

“Mn, fine” Lan Wangji agreed; “If Wei Ying buys my silence, that is” Wei Wuxian’s eyes opened in surprised amusement. He knew Lan Wangji only teased, of course, something his husband had learned slowly during their marriage.

“Your pirate’s heart is showing again, husband” Wei Wuxian mocked gently, and Lan Wangji nodded, his pale eyes crinkling a little, which was his understated equivalent of a grin.

“Mn” Lan Wangji allowed himself to be backed up to the desk, as his hips his the edge Wei Wuxian stopped, cupped his face gently, pressed a soft kiss at the corner of his lips before capturing his mouth in a full, passionate. He put pressure on Lan Wangji’s shoulders, and his husband complied and allowed himself to be pushed backwards against the surface of the desk.

When he could delay breathing no longer, Wei Wuxian pulled back a little, admiring the hungry look on his husband’s perfectly formed face; one which was likely mirrored on his own.

“Tell me, Lan Zhan, what will buy your silence?” he asked as he he began to tug gently at the waistband of Lan Wangji’s tailored pants.

“I want you to fuck me, Wei Ying” the vulgar words on Lan Wangji’s tongue sent a shiver down his spine and caused his hips to cant up into the v between Lan Wangji’s thighs, which were bracketed at either side of his waist. They both shuddered at the contact.

“As my husband commands” Wei Wuxian agreed, his voice thick.

#wangxian #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #the untamed #the untamed fanfic #mdzs #mdzs fanfic #mo dao zu shi fanfic #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #established relationship #swearing #Shay's stuff

[pendingproductivity]

2020 READING RECAP!

This year sucked ass in so many ways, but it might be the best year of reading I’ve ever had. I discovered so many new favorites, revisited some old favorites, and even read a few books multiple times. In this post, I’ve listed my top five favorite books from this year in the order that I read them because I don’t think I could possibly rank them against each other. They have all become some of my favorite books of all time. I’ve also included a few honorable mentions which are ranked with my favorite listed first. And lastly, I have two notable rereads of some old favorites. I also added links to each book on goodreads and bookshop so you can easily add anything to your tbr or buy it! This is going to be a long one, so buckle up. Without further ado, here is an overview of the books I read in 2020!

.

s t a t s :

reading goal: 30

total books read: 31

new (to me) books read: 22

average rating: 4.2/5 stars

.

t o p   f i v e   f a v o r i t e s : 

Beartown and Us Against You by Fredrik Backman

(Yes, I know I’m kind of cheating by counting this as one book but just roll with me here) Beartown takes place in a tiny community in rural Sweden which is defined by their hockey club. When the junior hockey team has a chance at winning the national championships, the entire town throws their full support behind them. The burden of the pride of their community rests on the shoulders of a handful of teenage boys. For one, the pressure boils over and he commits an act of violence that leaves a young girl traumatized, and the entire community divided. 

Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead, and pulled the trigger.

This is the story of how we got there.

These two books were downright spectacular. Over the course of this year, I’ve completely fallen in love with Backman’s writing style (we love a good onomatopoeia) but more than anything else I just adore his characters. Each one is multidimensional, and even the most infuriating residents of Beartown have their redeeming qualities. I also love the attention he gives to even the side characters whose motivations shape the story even if they only appear for a few scenes. These are stories about right and wrong, courage and fear, and most of all, humanity itself. I laughed and cried and felt more emotions than I thought was possible. Beartown was amazing, but I actually thought that the sequel, Us Against You, somehow surpassed it, so make sure to read both!! (TW: rape/sexual assault)

goodreads - bookshop (Beartown)   goodreads - bookshop (UAY) 

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When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Paul Kalanithi was thirty-six years old and on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training to become a neurosurgeon when he was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. His memoir, When Breath Becomes Air, follows his journey from being a naïve medical student, to a brilliant neurosurgeon at Stanford, to being a cancer patient and a new father confronting his own mortality.  

I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.

This memoir caught me completely by surprise. It was assigned reading for an English class and I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it let alone completely reevaluate my perception of the world around me because of it. Kalanithi discusses learning, medicine, life, and death as he seeks to answer the age-old question, “What makes life worth living?” and the unique perspectives that he offered fascinated me. When Breath Becomes Air is an unfinished manuscript, since Kalanithi died in 2015, but the epilogue written by his wife might just be the best part of the whole book. To tell you that I was sobbing while reading it would be an understatement. The reason why this book made this list is because I finished it in March, but I still think about it relatively often. When Breath Becomes Air has left a lasting impact on my life, and I highly recommend it!

goodreads - bookshop

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The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Evelyn Hugo was a Hollywood legend, but after her sudden departure from show business in the late 80s, she completely fell out of the public gaze. Now she is finally ready to tell the true story about her scandalous and glamorous life and she has specifically chosen Monique Grant, a virtually unknown magazine reporter, for the job. For Monique this exclusive is the opportunity of a lifetime. Evelyn tells her story of ambition, friendship, love, and of course each of her seven husbands. However, it becomes evident that Evelyn’s life has intersected with Monique’s own in tragic and irreversible ways.

It’s always been fascinating to me how things can be simultaneously true and false, how people can be good and bad all in one, how someone can love you in a way that is beautifully selfless while serving themselves ruthlessly.

This. Book. It was absolutely captivating. I’m honestly not even sure what to say here without giving too much away. The plot is truly a wild ride as Evelyn leads Monique through the story of her life. There are so many twists and turns: some that I saw coming and others that completely blindsided me. And that not even to mention Evelyn Hugo herself who is one of the strongest, smartest, most compassionate and deeply flawed characters I’ve ever read about. All the characters were complex and layered, but she was really something else. There were so so many emotions and so many tears and I really don’t know what else to say. I’m begging you to read this book; it will blow your mind.

goodreads - bookshop

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A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

Ove is a curmudgeon whose life is turned upside down when a young, vivacious family moves in next door. That’s it. That’s the synopsis.

Death is a strange thing. People live their whole lives as if it does not exist, and yet it's often one of the great motivations for living. Some of us, in time, become so conscious of it that we live harder, more obstinately, with more fury. Some need its constant presence to even be aware of its antithesis. Others become so preoccupied with it that they go into the waiting room long before it has announced its arrival. We fear it, yet most of us fear more than anything that it may take someone other than ourselves. For the greatest fear of death is always that it will pass us by. And leave us there alone.

You’ve seen the Pixar movie: grumpy old man meets young person who shows him life is worth living and they become buds etc. etc. Sure, you could essentially boil down A Man Called Ove to that simple plotline but it is so much more than that. It’s heartbreaking and hopeful and you’ll laugh and cry while reading it. This was the most wholesome story I had read in a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed every last bit of it. I’ve already explained my love of Backman’s unique writing style, but this novel in particular does a beautiful job of tackling deep themes such as grief and purpose with a generous serving of humor. I also just adored the ending. While this book isn’t at all fluffy or entirely lighthearted, it gave me all of he warm fuzzy feelings I was craving. I cannot possibly recommend it enough!

goodreads - bookshop

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Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen 

Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters must find wealthy husbands because upon their father’s death, the entirety of his estate will be passed on to a male cousin, leaving them penniless. Conveniently, a wealthy gentleman called Mr. Bingley moves into the neighborhood, bringing along his even wealthier although most unpleasant friend, Mr. Darcy. 

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

I definitely didn’t think that I was going to enjoy this book nearly as much as I did. The story truly is timeless, and I absolutely adored Elizabeth and Darcy. The biggest surprise I had while reading is that the humor is still funny today and of course Lizzy is fucking hilarious. She is confident, principled, and more than happy to roast the shit out of anyone who deserves it. And then there’s the matter of Mr. Darcy being so sweet and kind (after he stops being an asshole of course) and greatly contributing to the unattainable standards I have for men. It was also nice to have a socially awkward male lead, and in many ways I related more to him than to Lizzy. This book is everything I want from a romance novel plus class criticism and feminism and Elizabeth being an absolute badass. Enemies to lovers is my all time favorite romance trope and I loved reading one of the OGs. Also, I’d just like to add that Mary is the most underappreciated character of the whole novel because she’s really just trying her best. Mostly I was just completely impressed with how this novel has withstood the test of time and it has become one of my favorite classics! Please please give this book a chance even if you don’t typically enjoy classic novels!!

goodreads - bookshop - barnes&noble (this is the edition I have and it’s just so gorgeous I had to include it!)

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h o n o r a b l e   m e n t i o n s :

The Martian by Andy Weir

Mark Watney is one of the first people to ever walk on Mars, and now it seems like he’ll be the fist person to die there. A raging dust storm forced his crew to evacuate without him and he finds himself alone on the red planet with the entire world believing him to be dead. This book just barely missed being one of my top five of the year, but it was absolutely amazing. I love reading about people finding clever solutions to problems and that is basically what this entire story is. I maybe understood half of the technical science jargon if I’m being generous, but the story is plenty enjoyable even without extensive scientific knowledge. I adore Mark’s wit and mindset, and I loved watching him wriggle his way out of impossible situations with the odds completely stacked against him. The Martian is a story of perseverance and humanity, but it’s also absolutely hilarious. I highly recommend this one if you haven’t picked it up!!

goodreads - bookshop

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Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Shaker-Heights appears to be the perfect place to raise a family. It’s progressive, has low crime rates and is all around an idyllic bubble. This all begins to change when a single mother and her daughter move into town with a disregard for the status quo, and a custody battle erupts, dividing the community. This was a great book that ended up being surprisingly thought provoking, and I particularly enjoyed the novel’s criticism of liberal idealism. The story itself was entertaining and I think it’s definitely worth a read! 

goodreads - bookshop

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Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

Alex Claremont-Diaz is the first son of the United States who finds himself intertwined in a damage control PR stunt with his sworn nemesis, Prince Henry. They have to pretend to be best friends to ensure that their confrontation at the royal wedding doesn’t get in the way of American/British relations. I’m sure you can guess where this is going. This is totally a feel-good love story, but it also finds the time to tackle real issues surrounding politics and societal expectations. I loved this book so much that I read it twice this year (the second time because I was so stressed about the election and I needed to distract myself with the fictional 2020 election that takes place in the novel) and also I’m just a sucker for enemies to lovers. (sidenote: the turkey catastrophe is one of the greatest scenes in literary history and you cannot convince me otherwise) 100% would recommend!

goodreads - bookshop

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n o t a b l e   r e r e a d s :

The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

The Jim Dale audiobooks are my ultimate self-care tool when I’m stressed or sad; I just find them to be so comforting and I can’t explain why. Because of this I probably listen to at least one of the books every year, but it’s usually just whichever one I happen to be in the mood for. But it’s been so long since I’ve listened through the entire series, and this year seemed to be the perfect time to do so! 

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Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

This used to be my favorite book of all time. I’m pretty sure I first read it in sixth or seventh grade and I’ve reread it so many times since. I’ve been planning on rereading this book my first year of university for such a long time, and the time finally came! The book especially hit hard this semester because Cath feels disconnected from everyone at school because she doesn’t want to go to parties or make much of an effort to find friends, and because of COVID, I ended up in almost the exact same situation, (except unfortunately my roommate doesn’t have a cute ex-boyfriend who hangs out in our room). This was definitely another comfort read like the HP audiobooks and it made me feel a bit better about being stuck in my dorm room. 

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If you actually made it to the end of all that, wow, you’re a real one. I hope you got a few new book recs out of this! If you want to see the thirteen other books I read this year, you can check out my 2020 reading challenge. I read so many amazing books this year I had  hard time narrowing down my favorites, so there are still plenty more great reads that aren’t included in this post. If for some reason you feel like keeping up with the books I read in 2021, follow my goodreads account for dramatic and ranty book reviews. Happy New Year, and here’s to 2021 being full of wonderful books!

#booklr #reading #reading recap #reading wrap up #mine

[amirosebooks]

Dean’s Old Yeller Principle

“He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks. That’s how much I’d come to think of the big yeller dog.”

— Fred Gipson, Old Yeller, Chapter 1 (Published in 1942)

When I was twelve or thirteen my English teacher passed out copies of Old Yeller as assigned reading. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the book, the quote above from the opening chapter tells you most everything you need to know for the context of this meta post. And for those of us who are still emotionally scarred from the damned book, I’m sorry for dredging up those memories.

Now, before I go any further, a disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, this meta and interpretation of canon is my own. I’m not trying to “preach” to anyone about why Dean “is allowed” to be an asshole while he’s grieving or going through some shit. Or any other argument that consistently gets thrown back in the face of meta posts like this whenever Dean is being an emotional dick. You’re entitled to your interpretations, feelings and reactions, as am I. I’m merely offering this meta to 1) get it out of my mind 2) point and wave about the nods to this classic book that’s traumatized generations of American children 3) cheer Dean on for turning yet another teaching from the “older, wiser generation” John came from on its head.

Groovy? Okay, now we can move on.

I’m gonna throw the rest of this under the cut for length and to keep people who are sensitive to pets / animals dying in really sad ways from having their days ruined by talking more about the book unless they’re good with having that happen.

Now, as I said in my disclaimer bit, Old Yeller is largely considered classic literature here in the states. My memories of it are a weird mix of vague on the details and strong on the emotions it evoked. From what I remember, the main character was a young teenager when his family brought home Yeller. For whatever reason, our main character hated this dog. I don’t remember the details and they’re honestly not important to this meta. The hate he felt toward the dog is important. So is the fact that the hate slowly turned into love and devotion to the dog. Which made it even more gutting when, on a hunting trip (if I remember correctly) Yeller was bitten by a rabid animal and contracted rabies.

At the end of the novel, the Coates family are once again attacked by a wild animal, a wolf, and saved by Yeller’s bravery. Yeller is bit during the attack and becomes infected with rabies. Travis knows that despite his connection to Yeller and Yeller’s protection of his family, the dog must be killed before it becomes fully rabid and does any harm to him and his family. As the man of the house while his father is gone, Travis takes it upon himself to put Yeller out of his misery with his hunting rifle. Travis is heartbroken by what he has done, but knows that it was the right thing to do for his family. (From here.)

Sound familiar? Good. That’s what I thought too when we got the shot above in the graveyard in 14x20.

[Obviously, rabies, once there are symptoms like Yeller had, is incurrable, so putting him down was literally the only option. And we are talking here about Supernatural, which operates on soap opera rules so anything goes, but let’s just roll with the similarities for the sake of argument.]

I remember telling my husband while we were watching it “Dude, they’re really going to Old Yeller Jack, omg.” (I even made fanart of the moment.)

And then, something incredible happened.

Dean threw out the script yet again and set off season 15 with the dull thud of a gun being tossed into the grass.

Now, I hear you. “That’s great, Ami. Why should we care?”

Lemme tell you a thing, friend.

In order to tell you thing thing, I want to take a trip way back to season 4. Back when the brothers were still nose deep into John Winchester’s gospel of Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

(Screencaps are all from Home of the Nutty.)

4x21 - When the Levee Breaks

Sam: Stop bossing me around, Dean. Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I’m asking you, for once, trust me.

Dean: No. You don’t know what you’re doing, Sam.

Sam: Yes, I do.

Dean: Then that’s worse.

Sam: Why? Look, I’m telling you-

Dean: Because it’s not something that you’re doing, it’s what you are! It means- Dean cuts himself off.

Sam: What? No. Say it. (Sam has tears in his eyes.)

Dean: It means you’re a monster. (Transcript from here.)

I remember the first time I watched the show and I got to this episode. That fucking line was such a gut punching moment. And it was such an effective and emotional moment that Ruby was able to extend it later to further manipulate Sam.

Now, the screencap I grabbed for this moment is of Dean in tears (well, that single man tear he’s known for) after labelling Sam a monster for a reason. I want to remind all of us of just how much it killed Dean to have to use that label for Sam. To have to try to rationalize that the boy he raised, his brother, the guy who has been there forever and has always been Dean’s charge to take care of is now the thing that Dean is going to have to put down because he falls under the label of monster.

You know what, let’s go back a little farther, to the first episode of season 2. To this moment:

Remember this look? The one we later learned was thanks to John telling Dean that Dean was going to need to put Sam down? That Sam was going to become a monster? Yeah, ouch.

I added the year Old Yeller was published (1942) to the quote at the top of this meta to help give some context about the time it was written and the world it was released into. I’d also like to make note that in 1957 (or about a year before Henry Winchester jumped forward in time to meet the brothers in season 8 and give them keys to the bunker and had to choose to abandon John when John was still a fairly young boy) Disney released a movie version of the book. It’s absolutely, if the movie exists in the SPN world, the kind of thing young John would have watched and taken some kind of black and white moral guidance from.

It’s the kind of book/movie that John would have probably (note, this is where we start diving into my own headcanons for a moment) made sure the boys were aware of when he started thinking about bringing them on hunts to keep them from freezing because the “person” on the other end of their shotgun is someone’s mom. I could see it being the kind of thing he’d use as a way to show them both that, yes, shit is hard but you have to do the right thing and sometimes that means killing the thing you love. At least, I could picture him thinking that way. (Also, this still makes me wonder about exactly how early John started suspecting there was something different about Sam, but that’s a whoooole other post.)

Moving on and forward to season 6.

6x20 - The Man Who Would Be King

Castiel: The angel-proofing Bobby put up on the house – he got a few things wrong.

Dean: Well, it’s too bad we got to angel-proof in the first place, isn’t it? Why are you here?

Castiel: I want you to understand.

Dean: Oh, believe me, I get it. Blah, blah, Raphael, right?

Castiel: I’m doing this for you, Dean. I’m doing this because of you.

Dean: Because of me. Yeah. You got to be kidding me.

Castiel: You’re the one who taught me that freedom and free will –

Dean: You’re a freakin’ child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn’t mean that you get to do whatever you want!

Castiel: I know what I’m doing, Dean.

Dean: I’m not gonna logic you, okay? I’m saying don’t… Just ‘cause. I’m asking you not to. That’s it.

Castiel: I don’t understand.

Dean: Look, next to Sam, you and Bobby are the closest things I have to family – that you are like a brother to me. So, if I’m asking you not to do something… You got to trust me, man.

Castiel: Or what?

Dean: Or I’ll have to do what I have to do to stop you.

Castiel: You can’t, Dean. You’re just a man. I’m an angel.

Dean: I don’t know. I’ve taken some pretty big fish. (Transcript from here.)

This was after two seasons of Cas fighting by their side. Two seasons of Cas giving heaven the middle finger on behalf of the Winchesters. It was enough time for Dean’s first reaction in a time of confusion on a hunt was to call Cas for help. And it was enough time for Dean to go from assuming Cas was a demon summoned with “bad mojo” to drag him out of hell on behalf of Sam to genuinely starting to care about Cas.

Dean did threaten to take Cas out here if he persisted down the path he was on, but you can tell by the rest of the conversation and just how hard it was to convince Dean that Cas was lying to them that Dean was hoping talking would work and he wouldn’t be forced to put Cas down.

Unfortunately…

6x22 - The Man Who Knew Too Much

Castiel: You doubted me, fought against me, but I was right all along.

Dean: Okay, Cas, you were. We’re sorry. Now let’s just defuse you, okay?

Castiel: What do you mean?

Dean: You’re full of nuke. It’s not safe. So, before the eclipse ends, let’s get them souls back to where they belong.

Castiel: Oh no, they belong with me.

Dean: No, Cas, it’s it-it’s scrambling your brain.

Castiel: No, I’m not finished yet. Raphael had many followers, and I must punish them all severely.

Dean: Listen to me. Listen, I know there’s a lot of bad water under the bridge, but we were family once. I’d have died for you. I almost did a few times. So if that means anything to you… Please. I’ve lost Lisa, I’ve lost Ben, and now I’ve lost Sam. Don’t make me lose you too. You don’t need this kind of juice anymore, Cas. Get rid of it before it kills us all.

Castiel: You’re just saying that because I won. Because you’re afraid. (Behind him, Sam picks up the angel killing sword.) You’re not my family, Dean. I have no family. (Sam stabs Castiel in the back with the angel killing sword. Sam groans. Nothing happens. Castiel pulls the sword out. There’s no blood on it. He puts it down.) I’m glad you made it, Sam. But the angel blade won’t work, because I’m not an angel anymore. I’m your new God. A better one. So you will bow down and profess your love unto me, your Lord. Or I shall destroy you. (Transcript from here.)

Again, Dean tried to argue with the overpowered angel, he tried bargaining, pleading, and appealing to Cas’s fondness for them, but it didn’t work. Sam was the one who was forced to try stabbing Cas and it… also didn’t work.

7x01 - Meet the New Boss

Sam: Dean, look, I know you think that Cas is gone –

Dean: It’s 'cause he is.

Sam: He’s not! He’s in there somewhere, Dean. I know it.

Dean: No, you don’t.

Sam: No, I don’t. But, look, I was pretty far gone sometimes myself, and never gave up on me.

Dean: Yeah, and it turns out that you’re about the Same open book as you’ve always been. Hallucinations? Really? I got to find out from Death?

Sam: What was I supposed to do?

Dean: How about not lie? How about tell me that you’ve got crazy crap climbing those walls?

Sam: Why? You can’t help. You got a lot of pretty severe crap swinging your way lately, and – and I thought –what? I thought why burst the one good bubble you had left? It’s under control.

Dean: What? What, exactly, is under control?

Sam: I know what’s real and what’s not.

Dean: Sam –

Sam: Dean, look, we can debate this once we deal with Cas.

Dean: Yeah, you know how I’m gonna deal? I’m gonna stuff my piehole, I’m gonna drink, and I’m gonna watch some Asian cartoon p**n and act like the world’s about to explode because it is. Hey. You got to be kidding me. “Massacre at the campaign office of an incumbent Senator by a trench-coated man.” There’s security footage. Well, I think reaching Cas is, uh… out of the cards. (Transcript from here. And hopefully my slight censoring the last paragraph keeps tumblr from blacklisting this post into the aether…)

Here’s a sad thought for you, how often do you think–while Cas was terrorizing the country as Godstiel and, later, after he walked into the lake and exploded into Leviathan goo–Dean thought about how he should have listened to Bobby and Sam and taken Cas out before he had the chance to swallow the Leviathans and become super powered? Probably a lot, I’d guess.

This moment, as much as I, personally, hate seasons 6 and 7, went pretty damn far to reinforce this Old Yeller principle in Dean’s moral code.

He had to sit back and watch, literally, while someone he cared about went out of their goddamn mind with power while killing and terrorizing people. He had to do that knowing that there was a moment when he could have done something to prevent it. He could have killed Cas when he had him locked up in the ring of holy fire and they were having one of their many breakup moments.

Dean felt like he could have stopped all of this, but he’d been weak and tried talking it out first instead. And you can’t convince me that he didn’t check the news and every drop of blood Godstiel brought about to the blood on his own hands because of that choice to give Cas a chance to see reason.

10x09 - The Things We Left Behind

CASTIEL: How are you, Dean?

DEAN: Fine. [Cas gives him a look.] I’m great!

CASTIEL: No, you’re not.

DEAN: Yeah, well, I lost the black eyes, so that’s a plus. But I still have this. [Dean reaches over and gently slaps the Mark on his arm.]

CASTIEL: Is the Mark of Cain still affecting you?

[Dean flashes back to his dream from earlier, of the blood covering him, the dead bodies lying around him.]

CASTIEL: Dean?

[Dean blinks hard, coming back to the present.]

DEAN: Cas, I need you to promise me something.

CASTIEL: Of course.

DEAN: If I do go dark side, you got to take me out.

CASTIEL: What do you mean?

DEAN: Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever. And don’t let Sam get in the way, because he’ll try. I can’t go down that road again, man. I can’t be that thing again.

(Transcript from here.)

I may hate seasons 6 and 7, but holy damn do I love season 10. I know it’s not a favorite among many people in the fandom, but it’s one of mine.

This moment, this burger date of sadness and pain, is a big favorite for me. Dean sees the writing on the wall. He’s been a Knight of Hell now. He’s been as darkside as he can get. He’s, likely, being reminded daily of his time in Hell in the last ten years of his stay there where he was torturing souls. And he’s begging Cas to keep him from returning to that place. He’s begging Cas to adopt the Old Yeller principle because he sees it as the only option left if the mark consumed him again. And that kills me.

Let’s take another jump forward to season 13, where Dabb & Co really started putting Dean’s Old Yeller principle into text in a heavy, purposeful way.

13x02 - The Rising Son

SAM Dean, wait a second. (Sighs) The kid came through for us today. Jack saved us.

DEAN No. No, whatever that was, that was a reflex. It was a sneeze. Maybe next time he sneezes, he kills us. Good night.

[DEAN hears a clacking sound coming from a distance. He follows the noise to JACK’s room.] JACK Ah!

[DEAN finds JACK trying to stab himself with a blade. The wounds immediately heal.]

DEAN Okay. What the hell?  (he gets in the room) Give me that. You—Don’t be an idiot. Look, A, this is not gonna do anything to you, okay? And B, you… What the hell?

JACK Exactly. What the hell am I? I can’t control… whatever this is. I will hurt someone.

DEAN You know, my brother thinks you can be saved.

JACK You don’t believe that.

DEAN No, I don’t.

JACK So… if you’re right?

DEAN If I’m right… and it comes to killing you… I’ll be the one to do it.

[DEAN leaves.]

(Transcript from here.)

Can I just bask in the glory of the grieving widow!Dean arc from the beginning of 13 for a moment? I’d also like to take a moment to 🙌 Jack for being a wonderful Team Free Will mirror (and mimic) from the word go.

Ahhh…

Okay, moving on.

I loved this bit in 13x02 so much. Partially because it’s such a heavy handed foreshadow to 14x20, but also because it shows so clearly how good Jack is at reading the emotions in the room. He’s, like, three days old at that point, but he’s already having an existential crisis about whether or not he’s evil. He already understands (yes, thanks to jackass grieving widow!Dean…) the whole Monster = Evil = Kill The Thing.

He also shows that he understands the Old Yeller principle. And, for better or worse, he and Dean reach an unspoken agreement here about it. (Again, this is my reading. Your mileage may vary.)

13x04 - The Big Empty

JACK I’m afraid.

MIA/KELLY Why? Why are you afraid?

JACK Sam thinks you were right, that—that I’m good. He wants me to believe it, and I wanna believe it, too. It’s just, I… I’ve hurt people. I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. And I know I should feel bad, and I say I feel bad, but most of the time, I mostly… I don’t feel anything. And that’s why I think maybe… Maybe I’m a monster.

MIA/KELLY Jack. It doesn’t matter what you are. It matters what you do. And even monsters can do good in this world.

JACK You really believe that?

MIA/KELLY I have to. I have to.

[MIA hugs JACK again.]

(Trancript from here.)

Killing me would be kinder than subjecting me to these feelings so soon after being introduced to this fucking character. Omg. Poor Jack.

Now, yes, a huuuuge part of Jack’s opinion of monsters and the whole “What do we do with monsters children? That’s RIGHT, we kill them.” thing is because Dean is an asshole when he’s emotional and grieving and deep into survival mode.

But, that doesn’t change the fact that Jack is still worried about the fact that he doesn’t feel things the way that everyone else seems to. That he has powers no one, including him, can understand. And that he’s killed people without meaning to. He’s afraid of himself just like Dean was afraid of what he was capable of if the mark took him over again.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

(Sam continues down the hallway while Dean turns to another hallway and approaches his bedroom door. He stops as if to listen to something and then continues down the hall, away from his bedroom door. He enters Jack’s room, where Jack is sleeping and talking in his sleep)

JACK Stop! No!

DEAN Jack? (Dean touches Jack’s shoulder to wake him) Hey. (Jack jumps up, anxious and disoriented. Dean holds out his hand towards Jack to calm him) Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Easy. You’re just having a bad dream.

JACK (breathing heavily) Sorry.

DEAN It’s okay. You don’t have to apologize. I have 'em, too. All the time.

JACK You do?

DEAN Sure.

JACK You, um… What do you see?

DEAN Well, depends. Mostly…mostly people I couldn’t save.

JACK Me, too. Over there in the other world, I said I’d protect those people. But…I saw so many of them die. And…I tried to save them. I…I tried, but… I’m sorry. I wasn’t strong enough.

DEAN Jack… (Dean sits on the edge of Jack’s bed) it’s not about being strong. I mean… Look, I don’t know what you saw over there, and I don’t know what you went through. I know it was bad. But I also know that you came out the other side because you are strong. But even when we’re strong, man, things are gonna happen. We’re gonna make mistakes. Nobody’s perfect. Right? But we can get better. Every day, we can get better. So whatever you’re dealing with, you know, whatever…whatever comes at us, we’ll figure out a way to deal with it, together. You’re family, kid, and we look after our own.

(Transcript from here.)

It’s not about being strong. IT’S NOT ABOUT BEING STRONG.

This is where we veer away from Old Yeller a tiny bit because, again, in the book Yeller had rabies which they could do nothing about.

The moments I’ve highlighted in this post all come back to one motivation. The overpowered person/angel/asshole in question was trying to gain enough strength through supernatural (lol) means in order to have the power to destroy a (perceived) bigger threat than whatever the cost was to get that power.

Sam’s demon blood drinking was supposed to give him the power to destroy Lucifer and get revenge for Mary and John and their lost childhood. It went badly and earned Sam the label of monster and falling, at least temporarily, into the territory of the Old Yeller principle.

Cas started lying to the brothers and working with Crowley so they could gain the power to stop heaven from starting yet another apaocalypse. Cas wanted to keep the Winchesters (Dean) safe from being destroyed in a holy war after being forced to fight his brother to the death. Again, this did not go well and lead to Cas succumbing to the Leviathans’s power and dying front of Dean after losing the Winchester’s trust.

Dean took on the Mark of Cain to defeat Abaddon, the evil that made John grow up without a father. It left him torn between going on a, essentially, soulless killing spree or becoming a Knight of Hell… again.

Hell, even the way Jack came into the world was fraught with Sam lying to Dean about working with the BMoL to have the power and strength to defeat Lucifer/the nephilim. Not to mention the months of lying Cas did after he decided that Jack’s power and strength was the only way they could destroy Lucifer once and for all. Again, this ended with Cas dying in front of Dean and the BMoL trying to exterminate everyone including the American hunters.

That’s the lesson Dean is trying to instill (hypocritically, let’s be honest) to Jack here. Strength and power come at a terrible cost and if you can solve a problem without resorting to that level of fuckery that things will be better.

And, also, that if things do go bad, that Jack is family and “we look after our own.” To Dean, this is where the Old Yeller principle kicks in. It is, in a rather fucked up but well earned way, the best option he knows for making sure another one of his loved ones doesn’t fall under that monster label. That none of them end up with more blood on their hands or bringing about the end of the world, again, because of their soap opera problems.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK I’m sorry.

(Jack walks towards the exit and Castiel goes to follow him)

CASTIEL Jack!

(Dean grabs Castiel’s arm)

DEAN No, hey, just – just let him go.

(Jack is walking through the woods, banging a closed fist into his hand and punching his shoulder)

JACK You keep hurting people! You keep… (Jack flashes back to all the people he has hurt with his powers – Nate, Sam, Dean, the female police officer) hurting… (flash to the male sheriff) (yelling) Why do you keep hurting people?!

(Transcript from here.)

This lesson, the lesson of power and strength not being the best answer because of the cost it comes with is not an easy one to learn. Especially when you were born as a superpowered, emotional Winchester by adoption. Life is scary when that’s the hand you’ve been dealt and using the power you have is an appealing balm to combat that fear.

13x23 - Let The Good Times Roll

JACK (moving towards Lucifer, eyes glowing and hand outstretched)Tell me the truth!

(Lucifer’s eyes start to glow, his head tilts to the side and he starts speaking)

LUCIFER She saw me when I was scouting out the bunker. She saw me and she screamed, and then…so I crushed her skull with my bare hands. And it was warm and wet, and I liked it.

(Lucifer’s eyes return to normal and he looks confused)

JACK You’re not my father. You’re a monster.

LUCIFER (yelling) Come on, man! (Lucifer bellows so forcibly that Sam and Dean cover their ears, his eyes glowing red) Okay. I tried with you. I really tried with you.

JACK Everything you told me was a lie.

LUCIFER Because I told you what you wanted to hear, man. So what?! I killed the girl! Big deal! She’s a – she’s a human! She doesn’t matter!

JACK So am I!

LUCIFER Yeah? And that’s your problem. (pointing at Jack) You’re too much like your mother.

(Transcript from here.)

To me, this moment reads as Jack embracing that black and white Winchester thinking. He has yet (even now that’s he’s currently dead in season 15) to grasp the concept of people being morally gray. He sees himself as either embracing the monster side of himself from his bio dad or rejecting that side of himself to embrace Kelly’s human side. The side that can’t hurt people on accident. The side that makes him more like the Winchesters. Because he doesn’t want to fall under than monster label. He doesn’t want to fall under that Old Yeller principle. He doesn’t want to hurt so many people that he will have to die because neither he or anyone else can control him.

Yes, this moment is FAR more complicated than just that, but it’s definitely part of it.

14x10 - Nihilism

DEAN Sam said that one of your reapers really came through with the assist. I’m thinking that was probably you.

BILLIE Don’t tell anyone.

DEAN You broke the rules.

BILLIE I took a calculated risk. I warned you about the dangers of jumping from world to world. But you ignored me, didn’t you?

DEAN Rescuing Mom and Jack, helping out those other folks – I’d say it was worth it.

BILLIE And just look at you now. Do you remember visiting my reading room? The shelves and shelves of notebooks describing the ways you might die?

DEAN Yeah. Upbeat classics.

BILLIE Well, it’s the funniest thing, but they’ve all been rewritten. They all end the same way now – with the archangel Michael escaping your mind and using you as his vessel to burn down this world.

DEAN All of them?

BILLIE All of them. Except one.

(Billie hands Dean a book. He opens it and then looks at her, stunned)

DEAN What am I supposed to do with this?

BILLIE That’s up to you.

(Dean looks at the book again and when he looks up, Billie is gone. He looks back at the book and then looks around, a mixture of fear and confusion on his face)

(Transcript from here.)

Remember what I said about Dean being well aware of the price that has to be paid in exchange for the power and strength to defeat supposedly unbeatable enemies?

Yeah… Dean “knows” that the time has come for him to call his own bluff. The one from all the way back in 10x09 (not that he was bluffing then, but he didn’t have to take action on it then) when he asked Cas to take him out. “Knife me. Smite me. Throw me into the freakin’ sun, whatever.��

We didn’t know that was what this moment was until the next episode. But this is the moment when the Old Yeller principle went into effect again. And you can see how much it hurts Dean, how resigned and heartbroken he is over it.

14x11 - Damaged Goods

DEAN It’s a Ma’lak box. [DEAN closes the door to the box. He and SAM are standing over it.] Secured and warded. Once inside… nothing gets out, not even an archangel. Especially an archangel.

SAM Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve – I’ve read about these, but – but no one’s ever – they’re impossible to build.

DEAN Yeah, well, not so much.

SAM That’s your plan? You want to be buried alive?

DEAN Buried’s not safe enough. Plan is, pay a little hush money, charter a boat to take me out to the Pacific. Splash.

SAM You and Michael, trapped together – for eternity?

DEAN Yeah.

SAM You do realize how insane this is, right?

DEAN It’s the only sane play I’ve got. Michael gets out, that’s it for this world. And he will get out.

SAM Well, how do you know that for sure?

DEAN Because I do. Because I can feel him in my head. That door is giving. I can feel it giving.

SAM But there has to be another way.

DEAN There’s not, okay? There – Sam you’ve tried. Cas has tried. Jack… And I love you for trying. But none of it’s gonna work.

SAM We don’t know that.

DEAN Yeah, we do.

SAM What?

DEAN Billie.

SAM Billie?

DEAN She paid me a little visit. She said that there’s only one way this ends right. And this is it. This, right here, this box. So, she gave up the special recipe, and all I had to do was the work. It’s fate.

SAM Since when do we believe in fate?

DEAN Now, Sam. Since now.

(Transcript from here.)

Here is the moment. The one where Dean was at his absolute lowest. When he hit that point where resignation about his fate met having to act on his principles. 

14x12 - Prophet and Loss

DEAN Well, I will call this a win. Kinda nice. Going out on a high. SAM “Going out” being the operative phrase. DEAN Sorry. SAM “Sorry.” How sorry are you? Sorry that you fight to keep Donatello alive, but when it comes to you, you just throw in the towel? Or are you sorry that, after all these years, our entire lives, a-after I’ve looked up to you, after I’ve learned from you, I-I-I’ve copied you, I followed you to Hell and back… are you sorry that all of that it – it – it means nothing now? DEAN Who’s saying that? SAM You are, when you tell me I have to kill you. When you’re telling me that I have to just throw away everything we stand for, throw away faith, throw away family. We’re the guys who saved the world. We don’t just check out of it! [SAM pushes DEAN.] DEAN Sam, I have tried everything. Everything! I got one card left to play and I have to play it. SAM You have one card today! But we’ll find another tomorrow. But if you quit on us today, there will be no tomorrow! You tell me, uh, you don’t know what else to do. I don’t either, Dean. Not yet. But what you’re doing now, i-it’s – it’s wrong! It’s quitting! I mean, l-look what just happened. Donatello never quit fighting. So we could help him because he never gave up. [SAM moves closer to DEAN.] I believe in us, Dean. [DEAN doesn’t say anything. SAM gets angry and punches DEAN in the face.] I believe in us. [SAM tries to punch DEAN again, but he stops him.] DEAN Hey, hey, hey, hey! [SAM hugs DEAN.] SAM Why don’t you believe in us, too? DEAN Okay, Sam. Let’s go home. SAM What? [SAM pulls away from the hug.] DEAN Let’s go home. Maybe Billie’s wrong. Maybe. But I do believe in us.

(Transcript from here.)

And just like Dean predicted in 10x09, Sam was able to talk him out of sacrificing himself. How was he able to do that? By reminding Dean that they were the fucking Winchesters. They fucked with the cosmic balance constantly and always, always found another way. A way to avoid the Old Yeller principle. A way to live and fight again.

Which, they totally did, but the price of not throwing Dean into the ocean for an eternity of alone time with alt!Michael banging away in his head was their adopted child.

14x20 - Moriah

JACK: You’re not gonna lock me up again, are you?

DEAN: No.

(Dean raises the gun, aims at Jack and exhales deeply. Jack kneels down and bows his head. Dean, looking puzzled, lowers the gun and walks closer towards Jack. When he’s right in front of Jack, he aims the gun directly at his head. At this moment Sam comes speeding into the cemetery, car tires screeching. He gets out of the car and starts running towards Dean and Jack)

SAM: Dean? Dean!

JACK: (to Dean) I understand.

(Sam is still running, yelling for Dean. The music is getting more suspenseful as Dean holds his aim steady at Jack)

SAM: Dean, don’t! Dean? Dean!

JACK: I know what I’ve done.

SAM: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Dean! Hey, hey, hey! Dean!

DEAN: Stay back, Sam!

SAM: (Panting)

JACK: And you were right all along. (Chuck comes up alongside Sam) I am a monster.

SAM: (to Chuck) Do something. … You’re enjoying this.

CHUCK: Shh.

(Dramatic music plays)

(Dean cocks the gun. He looks Jack in the eye for several seconds and then slowly lowers the gun. At this point, Castiel also comes running towards the area)

(Dean uncocks the gun and tosses it to the side)

(Transcript from here.)

I have yet to rewatch this episode, but from what I remember I don’t think it had completely sunk in to Dean in that moment of choice that Chuck was there revealing that he was invested in the outcome of this showdown between Dean and Jack. In that moment, that split second of choice between following through with what he’d believed for so long for following through with an extension of the order John gave him about Sam back in the hospital back in 2x01, Dean made a choice for himself. And that choice was to believe that they’d find another way. He decided that when it came right down to it, he couldn’t kill his child for making the same bargain for power and strength that he himself had made multiple times over the last 14 seasons.

He was also directly confronted with a similar situation to that from the end of season 6 and beginning of 7 with Cas and the Leviathans, in that when it really came down to it, he wasn’t capable of murdering someone he considered family.

And then Chuck had to go and erase any chance they had in following up on that. He killed Jack so that they didn’t have a chance to find a way to help Jack balance the power he’d absorbed from destroying Michael or living without his soul.

So yeah, from where we sit now with only one episode of season 15 under our belts waiting with baited breath to see where the rest of this end of the road season takes us, it makes sense that Dean, of all people, would be in the middle of an emotional fucking collapse. And that he would be a huge, whiny, pissbaby douchebag about it because that’s the Dean Winchester way.

Does that make his behavior okay? No, of course not. But does that turn any of the rest of them into saints? Nope, of course not. And I, personally, wouldn’t have it any other way. I like that they’re flawed and fucked up and keep getting back up and going back to each other and keep trying. That’s why we’ve had 15 goddamn seasons of this. Because it’s what they do.

#15x01 #spn spoilers #spn parallels #jack kline #dean winchester #spn meta #season 15 #jack the nougat nephilim #my spn meta #tumblr mobile ate this post the first time i tried posting it but it was in the cache on my laptop so it's back!

[its-rockin-pete]

(Very) Expanded Drabble Pt. 1

Small Forewarning/Side note: I changed the timeline a little bit (referring to visiting day)

Enjoy the read! Feedback, opinions and constructive criticism is always very welcome.

Chapter 1

The cold air wraps around my body and seeps through my jacket, making my skin tingle like I’m not wearing one at all. I sit on the roof’s raised concrete ledge and look down through the hole in the roof above the compound- it’s so dark that I can barely see the net below. Well, you generally can never see the bottom from this high up anyway- It’s only really visible on bright sunny days, which are rare.

All of a sudden, I feel someone shove my shoulder- not with enough force to throw me over the edge, but definitely enough to scare me. I gasp like it’s the last breath I’ll ever take and plant my hands on the concrete ledge before whipping my head around to see who it was.

“What the hell?!”

Peter looks back at me with a dumb conceited grin and chuckles.

“Just testing your reflexes. Look alive, Aria, you’re a Dauntless now.”

He swings his legs over the ledge to sit next to me, leaving about five inches between the both of us.

“Why are you here? Did you need a little five-minute break from harassing people or something?”

He turns his head to look at me, his lips curved into a pout and his nose scrunched ever so slightly.

“No…” he pauses “I needed ten minutes.”

I suppress a chuckle while I sway my feet over the open-air beneath me and shake my head.

“You’re such an asshole.”

“I know,” he shrugs and looks down at the roof below.

“What are you doing here? It’s freezing, and you think that skimpy little jacket is going to do you any good?”

I look over at him and pause before responding; I’m trying to decide whether or not I trust him enough to tell him why I’m actually up here. He doesn’t exactly have the best reputation.

“I’m just thinking… And yes, I’m aware that this jacket is doing next to nothing for me, but I didn’t know that it was this cold outside.”

Upon looking over at Peter, I notice that he’s wearing a heavy, but form-fitting fleece quarter-zip jacket; what I’d give to be bundled up in that thing right now.

“Thinking about what? The fact that it’s early November and you’re wearing that?” He draws his brows together and pulls one corner of his mouth down in a sort of half-frown half-smirk type expression.

“Funny…” I pause for a second, “I’m thinking about home, and how I’m the only Amity transfer that’s made it this far.”

“I have to admit, it is shocking. Amity don’t belong in Dauntless, but here you are. I honestly didn't even think you’d make it off the train on the first day. I’m impressed.”

“Hey!” I smack his shoulder, the impact making my cold fingertips sting a little bit.

“What? I’m just being honest, You guys are so weak and over-emotional about everything. Dauntless destroys people like you. Why did you even transfer anyways?”

I’m silent for a while. Why did I choose Dauntless? Well, the three main principles of my last faction definitely had something to do with it.

 One: Opinions of others cannot damage you. 

Two: the wrong is past. You must let it rest where it lies.

And three: You have to avoid cruel thoughts. Cruel thoughts lead to cruel words and hurt you as much as they hurt their target. 

I followed those concepts pretty closely for the most part, but the one thing that I always struggled with the most was leaving the past behind. I could never live in the present, I was always either stuck in the past or far in the future; Hell, I’m still like that today.

And the whole “avoiding cruel thoughts” thing- I only ever have cruel thoughts regarding people who deserve to be put in their place- those who do wrong to others out of spite; people like Peter.  Nonetheless, they’re “cruel thoughts”, and they are not welcome with Amity. I do believe that sometimes, the best way to solve problems is with a level head and a kind manner, but it isn’t easy to do.

“I wanted to be able to be assertive and to defend myself as well as the rest of the factions. Kindness isn’t always the way to go. Sometimes you really gotta grab life by the nuts and remind it that it’s your bitch.”

Peter nods at first and lets a couple seconds of silence pass by before suddenly staring at me with wide-eyes like he can’t believe that those words had just come from my mouth.

“Wait, what?”

I have to laugh- his face was priceless. “Why do you look so surprised?”

“Why do I look surprised?! Do you even know what you just said? You of all people? Little miss soft-spoken, “Please and thank you”, never not sorry, well-mannered pushover?”

That long strand of words came across as an insult- my cheeks that were freezing cold now slowly began to warm up as a blush of frustration crept into my face.

“I am not a pushover… And what’s wrong with having manners?”

He chuckles and looks up at the skyline, “So sensitive… I rest my case.”

“Stop, I’m not as weak as you think I am…”

“Well obviously because you’re about to make it to the second stage of training- well, barely… Man, watching you get tossed around like a rag-doll the first time you fought was pathetic. But let’s face it- you won’t make it far with the fear sims. You’re so fragile that someone could accidentally look at you the wrong way and make you cry.”

His last statement is even more embarrassing for me because I’m actually on the verge of tears. My throat feels tight, and my cheeks are clammy from the cold air mingling with the heat of my blushing face.

“Well, at least I know how to express my emotions. At least I allow myself to feel human instead of making people fear me just because I don’t want them to know that I’m the one who’s afraid of myself.” I growl, my feet now idle.

His malicious smile quickly disappears as if I had flipped a switch.

If I learned one thing from Amity, it’s was how to read people like books.

He looks at me with narrowed eyes that radiate pure resentment and hostility, and I wait for him to throw some type of deep-cutting, vulgar insult at me, but nothing happens for several seconds. His lips are slightly parted like he wants to rip me to shreds with his words, but nothing comes out.

Then it hit me. I had just shut him down. I hit his weak spot.

“And you know what?” I continue even though I know that I’ve done enough damage already. Deep down, the Amity still inside of me feels bad about it, but at the same time, the Dauntless in me is telling me to show no mercy. “Hiding yourself behind a vicious front is the most cowardice thing anybody can do. How can you even call yourself Dauntless?”

His face is now a prominent rosy hue; not even the cold night air can mask his current state of humiliation.

“You better watch yourself, Doormat…” His clear warning rumbles from his chest; usually, that tone of voice would make my hair stand on end, but I’m in rare form tonight.

I have no control over my words at this point: “Or what? You’ll throw me off this ledge and further prove my point that you’re nothing but a coward?”

Before I could even blink, he had yanked me backward by the collar of my jacket and quickly turned around, getting to his feet to stand over me as soon as I hit the ground. He leans down and grabs me; my jacket bunched in his fist that is now pressed firmly against my throat, he draws his other arm back, ready to knock me out in one hit.

I wince and turn my head to the side, instantly regretting ever saying those things. I knew something like this would happen.

But now seconds pass, and I am not unconscious- I slowly open my eyes that were previously shut so tightly that nets of creases formed at the corners of them, and looked up at him.

The fist that held me was still clenched tightly but was now shaking. His arm was still drawn back, ready to swing, but he didn’t move. Everything about his facial expression still threatened my consciousness; everything except his eyes. Tears now shone in his eyes. I am no longer afraid- I am sorry. The Amity inside of me is surfacing again.

His chest dramatically rises and falls a couple more times before he sighs as if the breath had been trapped in his lungs for days, and releases me from his grip.

My head hits the bed of tiny stones blanketed across the rooftop, and my tense muscles unravel. I can breathe again.

By the time I sit up, Peter is already on his way back towards the ledge. I imagine him hitting the net wanting nothing more than to be alone. I study him as he walks; his footsteps are heavy, and he looks defeated.

Defeated by a ‘Doormat’.

Go figure that one out.

Now I am left to think about what had just happened. Should I be afraid? Should I be proud? Maybe This is what Peter really needed but never wanted to hear. I won’t know until the next time I talk to him, which very well could be never again.

Time will tell, I guess

Chapter 2

When I went to bed, he was nowhere to be seen, and by the time I woke up, he was already gone. I kind of expected that to happen. I stretch my arms and straighten my spine, letting out a low moan as I feel my muscles wake up. Looking around, I notice that I am one of the first people awake; I’m rising with the regular early-birds today, which is strange considering that I usually sleep as late as I possibly can without having to rush to get to training. I technically could go back to sleep if I wanted to, but I feel plenty rested and don’t see it necessary.

As soon as I am dressed and ready to go, I head upstairs to go hang out in the pit until it’s time to grab some breakfast. On my way down the hall, I can already see a few Dauntless-born boys rough-housing, and a few groups of people just chatting in the pit. Watching the kids play makes me miss being that young. I remember going out and tending my own little garden with my mother, her teaching me little tips and tricks on how to care for certain plants along the way. Then I remember how much I miss my mother.

My thoughts are ripped from my mind as someone grabs my arm, pulls me further back into the hallway, and pins me to the wall by my shoulders.

It's exactly who I expected it to be.

Peter.

I’m not sure if I should be frightened or not, but I definitely feel it. I look back at him wide-eyed, my lips slightly parted.

“Don’t you dare tell anybody about our conversation last night. If you do, I swear on my life, you’ll regret it. Got it?”

Of course. He’s threatening me out of fear.

“Oh, will you really?” I instantly realize my mistake- I’ve just challenged him.

“I suggest you watch your mouth before you end up in some trouble that you can’t get yourself out of.”

I should take that comment seriously considering his past “incidents” with other initiates, but I don’t. Without a second’s notice, I knee him just above his groin and shove him back by his shoulders. Before I can pin him to the opposite wall, he elbows me in the chest, only distancing me a few steps back. When he comes towards me again, I dodge a punch that's intended to hit my face but ends up hitting my shoulder instead.

I sharply exhale to keep myself from yelping in pain- even after his fist leaves my shoulder, I can still feel each of his sharp knuckles buried in my muscle, but I don’t let it stop me.

He goes to hit me in the stomach, but before he can, I kick his forearm away and push his chest with enough force to make his back hit the wall. Then I pin him; One arm folded against his chest with my elbow digging into him just beneath his armpit, and the other holding one of his shoulders to the wall.

“Calm down.” I hiss

“Yeah?” he breathes “Or what?”

I immediately knee him in the stomach, causing him to scream as he becomes winded.

“That's what,” I say that even though I know that what I did was just a cheap-shot. When it comes to real, gritty, competitive combat, I know I am no match for Peter. When we first fought in the ring, he had me on the ground bleeding before I even knew what was happening.

“Now, come with me. Keep up the bullshit and I’ll hit you where it really hurts.”

I grab hold of his right arm and grip it as tightly as I can, pulling him along with me down the hallway.

We continue walking, turning down hallways that I am unfamiliar with in hopes of finding a private place. I eventually find a corridor far beyond where I have ever ventured and stop halfway down, releasing a deep sigh before letting go of his arm.

“What is wrong with you?”

He tilts his head and scowls at me, clearly annoyed. “You brought me all the way down here to ask me a stupid question like that?”

“No, I came here to try and help you,” I growl back 

He huffs as if he's trying to hold back laughter and rolls his eyes at me, “I don’t need your help. I don’t need anybody’s help. Now leave me alone.”

He starts to turn and walk away but I grab his sleeve and tug him back before he can get far.

“You’re not going anywhere until you talk, and if you think I’m kidding, you’re wrong.”

He yanks his arm away from me and looks like he’s just about ready to knock me on my ass.

“You want me to talk? Alright, read my lips;  Fuck off.” He pauses, “You had no business opening your stupid little mouth last night.”

“And neither did you.” I snap back at him.

He looks away from me and lours, kicking a pebble to the side with his boot.

The silence makes me grimace- It is much too bitter for my liking. “I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

“Don’t apologize if you don’t mean it. You meant everything you said yesterday.”

“Because I know it's true. You don’t need to hide yourself from me, you know. It's okay…”

He looks up at me, still seemingly upset, but I can tell that now, most of his anger comes from fear.

“And why should I trust you?”

“Because if I was someone who couldn’t be trusted, I wouldn’t’ve dragged you all the way here to talk in private.”

He tightly presses his lips together and furrows his brows at me. I’m not really sure what to expect at this point.

“Why do you care?”

I wasn’t really sure of an answer myself.

“Stop trying to change the subject.”

He shakes his head and looks down, “This is ridiculous. I’m not gonna be held here by some nosy bleeding-heart who wants to know my life story for whatever reason.”

This time when he goes to walk away, I let him. I realize that I shouldn't be forcing him to open up, and I feel horrible about it.

“Maybe you should focus on your own problems before worrying about mine,” He adds; He had already turned the corner and was out of my sight, but his voice was still clear as day.

My own problems?

Maybe he can read people just as well as I can.

Chapter 3

I stare at the ceiling, thinking about what Peter had said to me. He was right- I’d been ignoring my problems since training started. My mother, and how she fought me over my decision to transfer; how cold we were towards each other up until the Choosing Ceremony. 

I begin to wonder if she’ll show up on visiting day. I doubt she will, but then again, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe she’s come to her senses and realized how selfish and harsh she was being.

Maybe.

My stomach twists into a knot and it feels like my throat is being tangled in barbed wire as I remember my mother’s face when I told her I was leaving. I remember the tense silence that was strung between us whenever we were in the same room and how it made me feel sick.

I wonder maybe if I had told her that I was transferring to a different faction if she would’ve reacted differently. A faction that I could, in her terms, “handle”, like Abnegation or something.

I can’t sleep despite the fact that my limbs are heavy and my muscles are exhausted.

I sit up and swivel my legs over the edge of my bed to slip my sneakers on. I slowly stand, trying my absolute hardest not to make any noise, but I still find myself wincing at every little creak my mattress makes as I lift my weight from it.

When I get up the stairs, I try to make my steps light as possible as I walk down the hallway. I have no idea where I'm going, but at least I won't be stuck in that dorm.

I decide to walk down to the net- maybe I’d be able to see the stars as clearly as I was able to back home. 

╳╳╳

When I arrive, before I even get to the stairs leading to the platform, I’m shocked to see somebody else lying in the net, staring at the sky. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with the idea. It was a boy- broad shoulders, long legs, and a muscular build. The hair gave it away- it was Albert.

“Want some company?”

I must’ve startled him, judging by the way he suddenly lifted his head at the sound of my voice.

“Oh- uh… Sure, I guess…”

As soon as I get to the top of the platform, I pull the edge of the net down towards me and hoist myself into the net- I end up rolling down into the center of the net next to Al, causing us to be uncomfortably close to each other, our bodies pressed close together.

I nervously chuckle and rest the arm pressed against his over my stomach in an attempt to make things at least a little less awkward, but I don’t think it works.

He keeps his gaze towards the sky and stays silent for a while, and so do I. I can't help but wonder what he’s thinking about. As I lay next to him, I can still hear his sobs from his past sleepless nights in my head- it hurts me to know that such a kind-hearted person could be in so much pain.

“You okay?” I make sure that my tone is as gentle as it can possibly be.

He’s silent for a while before responding, “Yeah… I’m alright.”

I turn my head to look at him with my brows taut and my eyes worried, waiting for him to look back at me. When our eyes meet, I study his expression before speaking; his dark brown eyes are focused on mine, but they aren't the same eyes that I see during the day- they look tired and absent. From his eyes alone, I can tell how deeply dejected he’s feeling.

“It’s okay to not be okay, you know…” to me, it sounded like I was trying to tell myself that it was okay, but as soon as I saw Al’s expression become even more despondent as he looked away from me, I knew that he needed to hear those words more than I did.

“Not in Dauntless… ” His voice trembled and he took a deep sigh before continuing, “I should have never come here. I did it for my parents, and I regret it. I should’ve done what my gut was telling me to do.”

I can tell that he’s crying now by the way his voice quivered when he spoke. His situation reminded me of my own, except I actually did what my gut was telling me. And I’m glad I did.

I let him continue.

“I can’t face my parents on visiting day. I can’t. They’ll see how weak I still am- they’ll be so disappointed in me…”

I sit up and grab hold of his hand as I catch the gleam of tears running down his cheek, “Don’t say that. You’re not weak, you are human. You are far from a disappointment, Albert, I promise you that…”

He sits up as well- seeing Al cry is much more painful than just hearing his sobs while lying in the dark. I feel heat build behind my own eyes, and my vision becomes clouded with tears. Before my tears even get the chance to become noticeable to Al, I pull him close to my body and hold him tightly. 

No, I don’t know Al very well, but I have observed him throughout the past few weeks and taken note of his apparent personality traits. Another Amity habit. I realized that he and I are very similar- I might even say that I’ve formed a personal connection with him without even speaking with him much.

Again, very Amity of me.

“I’m sorry…” Al sobs into my shoulder. I rub his back and press my forehead against his shoulder, hoping it’ll help calm him at least a little bit.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” My voice is soft, just as it used to be when I lived with Amity.

Minutes pass, and we are still holding one another; I don’t mind though. Once Albert somewhat composes himself, he pulls back from me and looks into my eyes. His lip trembles as he gives me a broken but appreciative smile. My heart that felt broken seconds ago now feels warm and whole.

“Thanks… I needed this.”

I smile back at him and nod, “I’m always here if you ever need me… You’re gonna be okay, and I’ll make sure of it… Remember that you are stronger than you think you are, Okay? We can do this together.”

He nods and then pulls me close once again, and this time, his embrace sends a wave of relief over me.

“We should get to bed. We have a big day ahead of us.” I pat his back a couple times before pulling away and smiling at him. A new bond has been formed

#divergent fanfiction #divergent series #divergent #tris prior #peter hayes #tobias eaton #eric coulter #albert divergent #abnegation #amity #candor #dauntless #erudite #these tags are purely for clout don't mind me #fanfiction

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Succession S2E2 Thoughts

Overall: 

Much better than the terrible agony that was the first episode. 

I still want to wrap Kendall up in a hug and transmit some life into him by osmosis. Shiv...I’m sorry, but I know a lot of you really love her, but I...really don’t. I have some sympathy for her, because she is the person made by a very hostile father and a very hostile world. And there is an element of me being biased towards Tom (although I will admit--will list--all his horrible qualities; I’m just glad he has a decent handful of redeeming ones), but Shiv is a pretty cold person (and yes, I would say that about Logan as well, and Roman--them especially--so I’m not calling her cold simply because she is a strategic, smart woman. But I feel like she has the capacity to be a decent person, with a decent heart, but she will never allow herself to be that kind of person. And that’s the tragedy of her for me. 

Her and Tom’s relationship is, in my view, incredibly unhealthy and fucked up. It’s a one-way street, and they could really be so much better, but...I don’t think they ever will be, unless Tom somehow...takes over, but *snort*. Talk about a clown running the circus. Whew. But yeah, as long as Shiv has so much power skewed in her direction and she doesn’t hesitate to use it and hold it over him, theirs will not be a relationship composed of equals, but Tom will continue to think, in his demented brain, that somehow they mostly are? King and Queen? No, no, Tom. Nice try. But you’re not on that level. It’s true that I see very small, slivers of moments when they need each other, but I...have seen...honestly, I can’t remember seeing one moment where it was clear that Shiv really loved him, just that she needed him. And those are very different things, at least for me. My dream scenario is that Tom can work up the nerve to leave her and be with someone who actually deserves him, but...that’s a different show, certainly not this one. So I suppose I’ll have to sit back and watch this trainwreck. 

Actually, I find it interesting to see the relationship between Logan and Kendall, and Shiv and Tom. They are very parallel in some big ways. Logan and Shiv are both very dominant, both dictate the terms of the relationship, both steer it, manipulate the other person at will, are both strong-willed and strategic but can be cruel, and both place their own interests above everyone else’s. They’re the controllers. Kendall and Tom, at least in this season so far (Tom has always been), are the submissive ones, the yes-men, acting at the behest of their counterparts, both very insecure about their relationships with those counterparts, although, granted, Kendall has passed over into dead-eye territory, where Tom has some life left. I can see how being in their position might be at times comforting, not having pressure on them, kind of enjoying the freedom that being submissive and simply obeying offers. And, really, in the dynamics of both relationships, I really feel for Tom and Kendall. Shiv is, of all the children, most like her father, and was from the beginning, but I think she’s leaning more and more that way, which...is a bad way to lean if you want to cling to some part of your soul. So I...am a bit worried about both Kendall and Tom, but I know something’s going to give at some point. In some way. So I’m...interested. 

One last thing: what made this episode so much better than the first one, for me, is the attention paid to the absurdity of the characters and their lives. That is the glory of the show for me. When it tries to get me to truly sympathize too hard with characters who, by and large, are not very sympathetic, I...am very turned off. Because we’re talking about uber-rich douche-bags who only care about themselves and their power. The only sympathetic characters (and even the moments when sympathetic characters have sympathetic moments and aspects) are ones who show motivations other than power grabs and greed. BUT, when the show highlights the absurd nature of...this entire palace drama? It’s at its height. Its at its best. This episode had a ton of that, and I was very grateful for it. The Vaulter dude was always a great vehicle to highlight some absurdity, and he came through here. Greg, of course, highlights the absurd aspects of Tom and the Roys in general. Connor himself. Amazing. The absurdity bouncing around in this episode made it so, so much better than the first one. 

Overall, B+ episode. 

As I watched: 

Oh, yay, the theme park! Been looking forward to seeing these parts. 

Beavis and Crackhead. Nice.

Aww, MM, you’re getting gray and it’s so...weirdly cute. Damn it. Also I can watch you try to get popcorn out from between your teeth with your tongue all. day. long.

Hmm, Logan listening to Shiv. Roman sees what’s happening. He’s not as stupid as he seems. Which we knew, but it’s nice to see. 

Mondale! And the Mondale voice is back! Tom & Mondale might be my favorite friendship on the show. 

The amount of time Shiv spends looking at her phone instead of talking to and listening to her husband is...pretty fucking sad. She LITERALLY walks away from him when he’s talking. Cool. 

“It’s not really a thing.” UM. WUT. No it’s a huge thing. One partner wanting to fuck other people, while the other one clearly doesn’t really want to is...a huge thing. And not talking about it is going to make everything worse, but sure, okay, continue thinking it’s not really a thing. 

Oh god, it’s kind of painful, how hard he’s trying to...rationalize that he’s okay with everything about their relationship. And trying to like...show he’s ready all the time, always down to fuck, just in case she was wondering. Heh. You can see the insecurity just coming off him in waves. 

Ha. I’m sorry, writers, but...an American wouldn’t say “cheeky” like that. Someone needs to check the British-isms. But it’s nice to see even a show like this mess up. ;) 

I mean, yes, this is a drool-worthy penthouse, but settle down Tom, or I’m worried you’re literally going to start fucking the sofa.

One of these days, Tom is going to actually...not roll over like a submissive dog. Maybe. 

*sings* Tom and Greg, together again, wheee! Tom and his punching bag. Tom, you better watch out, because at some point the bag is going to punch back. 

Um. Tom. I’d go easy on the creepy sexual metaphors. You can’t quite speak with the...disgustingness of Roman. Please stop trying.

LOL Name me one principle. Although, god, this is the ugliest side of Tom. How willing he is to compromise himself for advancement. He’s honestly...kind of a whore sometimes. And it’s his least appealing aspect of his character (his most appealing, of course, being his handsome, handsome cute face). 

By the way, non-Americans, real Americans don’t throw around this many “fucks.” And we don’t constantly speak in sexual metaphors. Granted, I’ve never been among these kinds of...terrible people, but still. 

OMG, her name is actually CYD PEACH?! Wow. No wonder you’re a badass bitch. With a name like that, who wouldn’t be? 

I kind of like this news lady, talking to Tom like the moronic asshole he is. Her sarcasm is just oozing out of her and I love it. This was such a great scene. 

Rough first day, Tom. But, hot damn, is he actually motivated to do...real work? Color me interested to see how this goes. 

Gerry, you’re amazing. You might be one of my favorite characters. 

IPAs that looks like run-off at the car wash. Ahahahahahha. Great line. 

OF COURSE CONNOR HAS AN EMAIL BULLETIN. Actually, Connor might be one of my favorites, too. He represents the most what I like about the show. The absurdity of it. It’s when the show strays too far away from pointing out absurdity that it gets...not nearly as enjoyable. 

Another great example of the absurdity: The conversation between Roman and Connor about the president. 

Ha, yes, Roman invited you to dinner because he’s learning your game, Shiv. He’s learning, against all odds, how to 

You did a thing. Mazel Tov. Another great scene with Roman and Tabitha. 

Oh, Tom, baby, you’re so nervous to...talk to your wife. Heh. That’s kind of sad. And ahahahhaah, you still think you’ve even in the uh, line of succession (too on point?) for CEO. Oh, Tom. You idiot. And, Shiv, you are...you don’t think Tom should get the big job, please. Come on. I wish she’d...be truthful about how much she wants it, at least with Tom, JFC. But honestly isn’t really in her vocabulary, so... ALSO, RAWR. Let me say how SHOCKED I AM that Shiv gets turned on when she thinks about herself being powerful. She gets off when she literally has Tom by the balls. Shocker. Shocker. 

AHAHAHAH, GREG’S APARTMENT SHOPPING. YES. LOL. THIS IS GREAT. Greg is the best. AWW, DID KENDALL JUST GIVE GREG AN APARTMENT? AWWWW, KENDALL! Aww, that awkward hug was probably the most physical affection Kendall’s had in...a long time. LOL. OMG KENDALL WANTS TO BE BUDDIES WITH GREG. YES. 

Oh boy. The most awkward dinner in history. Tabitha is so chill. OH NO, TOM AND TABITHA ALONE IN A ROOM. YOU SHOULD TRY SWALLOWING SOMETHING. OMG JKFDL;AJFKLAFJKSA;KJFDL. AHAHAHAHA. YEEEESSSSS. I like when the relatively powerless characters make a cutting power move. 

NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HIS BODY. DON’T YOU, EVEN. 

Okay, seriously, y’all stop making fun of Tom so hard. Jfc. My heart is going out to him here, honestly. Tom can be a dick sometimes, but this is cruel stuff. 

OMG OMG OMIG OGMD OSALJFSAL;FJSK TOM I’M SO PROUD OF YOU. I’M SO, SO PROUD OF YOU. FOR TELLING SHIV TO FUCK OFF. YES. I’M SO DAMN PROUD OF YOU. DKFLS;FJDKSAOMGGGGGGG. It’s nice to see the tiniest hint of backbone. 

Oof, this is what Tom and Shiv call “talking”? Meh, yeah, Shiv, you need him. You need a stable presence. You need a loyal sounding board. You need a yes man. Their relationship is so fucked up. Yiiiiiikes. They’re pretty much the WORST at open, real communication. 

Oh, boy, oh, boy. Poor Greg. Kendall, you dick. Making this your drug party. Ugh. I’m so fucking disappointed in you. (I’m still pulling for you, though.)

Guh, yeah, the scene in the car with Shiv and Gil...these kinds of scenes really show Shiv’s ugly side. (And Gil’s for that matter.) People needing the upper hand. People shitting all over each other. People needing to be right. 

Logaaaaaan, you’re such a dickheeeaaaad. A manipulative, awful dickheeeaaaad. Although, what a great line: make yourself at home. In...daddy’s office. 

Jesus, Kendall, you need a real car, man. 

AAAAH, IT LOOKS LIKE THE HUNTING EPISODE IS NEXT. AWESOME. 

#succession #succession hbo #tom wambsgans #greg hirsch #shiv roy #roman roy #kendall roy #logan roy

[punishandenslavesuckers]

Mollymauk Tealeaf wakes up in a grave by the road ten years after he died. Things have gone a bit wrong since then and he might be the only one who can set things right… since it’s the Mighty Nein themselves who’ve gone wrong. AU: Where Molly comes back to yell at his super-powered Level 20 friends. (AO3 - part1) (AO3 - part 2)

They end up under a large tree growing on the side of the road – bizarrely massive, thick, with a deep halo of canopy. The only one like it for half a mile in either direction and growing very near the mud that marks Mollymauk’s gravesite. Yasha tells him not to look at it, but like a festering wound, he can’t help but stare into the shallow pit. The churned earth is sweet with torn grass. Shocks of wildflowers still carpet the moss around the grave and there, knocked down in the long grass, is a small wooden plank, driven like a trellis into the ground where vines grew over the words carved there:

HERE LIES A FRIEND.

Caduceus has a small iron kettle warming near the flame. Fragrant and herbal. He’s roasting apples over flame, tending carefully to their rotation. He hasn’t said much since they settled here, leaving Molly and Yasha to huddle and speak quietly. Molly is mostly clean, his clothes dry, and Yasha helpfully combs bits of green stuff from his hair. Her touch breathes a cantrip, warm heat moving through Molly’s skin. She is exceptionally gentle.

Molly lays with his head in her lap, his neck resting on the cross-cross of her legs, sleepy comfort dominating his would-be troubled thoughts. For a while, he lets her stave off the anxiety, lets nothing but the friction of her fingers cross his mind.

“Did you see me die?” Molly asks eventually.

She’s quiet for a moment, but her fingers in his hair are unflinching. She quietly plaits parts of his hair with small blue flowers, running her fingertips along the curve of his horns, nails picking slightly at the metal in the bone.

“I heard Beau call for you… then nothing.”

Molly feels his heart tighten like a stabbed animal. “They buried me?”

“In your Platinum Dragon tapestry. Do you remember?”

Molly grins. “I remember. From Zedash during the festival.”

He can hear her smile in her next sentence. “That seems so long ago.”

“For me it was just a few weeks ago.” Molly moves his hand up lie back against Yasha’s knee. She takes his hand, lacing her fingers in his before he goes on. “I won a strawberry in a bag toss game. You won an arm-wrestling contest and had your first candy apple. Jester bought them.” He smiles, a sweet-tart memory flooding his mouth a little. “Doughnuts and drinking. That… that was a brilliant day. Wasn’t it?”

Yasha is quiet.

“Yasha?”

“I forgot about the candy apples.”

Molly tilts his head back. Yasha’s staring blankly into the fire to the side of them, a small grief written big in her eyes. Molly squeezes her hand to bring her back. When she seems to break out of it, eyes finding his again, he sees they are inexplicably bright, threatening to run over. So he takes their laced hands and pulls her knuckles to his mouth, kisses the ink there. Her skin tastes like static. She smells perpetually of rain.

He thinks, silently, that these hands can probably split the earth open. Call lightning enough to tear the world apart. He thinks that she’s the manifestation of a storm god’s will but, somehow, is sitting here with him while they wait for tea. She’s looking at him like a wonder and he doesn’t know what to do with that.

“It’s okay,” Molly says, smiling back up at her. He squeezes her hand. “You’re my best friend, you know. Maybe you have other best friends now, but for me it’s still the same. So you know you can tell me anything and I’m obligated to like you anyway.”

She laughs, but it hurts.

“Oh Mollymauk. You’ll be so disappointed.”

“Not possible.”

“I was a coward. I ran away.”

“Hasn’t everyone?”

“You don’t understand. I… I will have to show you for you to understand it.”

“Then show me,” Molly hisses, tilting his head back farther, glaring. “You won’t shock me. The world was on its way to war when I died. A slaver cracked my ribs open. It’s a brutal world and I always knew that. You know I knew that.” He squeezes her fingers again. “If you were brutal too, then I prefer that to your dying on principles. I believe in doing a good turn when possible. Sometimes it’s not. That’s okay.”

Yasha just stares helplessly at him. “Oh... dammit.” She wipes her face. “I forgot what you’re really like.”

“I think,” drawls Molly, “all of you are remembering a really different Mollymauk than the one that died.” He grins to break the mood. “I’m sort of an asshole. I love you, but I’m am not one to judge. Remember?”

“I’m starting to.”

“Tea?” rumbles Caduceus suddenly, materializing directly beside them.

Molly jumps.

“Oops. Sorry. I thought you heard me coming.” He kneels and offers Molly a small fired clay tea cup glazed in green. It smells sweet and delicious. “Careful. This mix is very rare. The last of its kind actually, I’m pretty sure.” He ponders. “Yeah, I’m thinking it’s the last of its kind, but this is a special occasion.”

Molly sits up to cautiously accept the tea. Yasha moves forward, unfolding her knees so Molly can sit back between them, leaning against her clavicle while she too accepts the tea. Yasha drinks hers. Molly follows her lead. The warmth of the drink spreads immediately though him, the bone cold in his body suddenly sliding away into an easy, fragrant heat. He blinks. Shocked to find a sudden rush of warmth behind his eyes too. As though it’s been years since he had tea and he just now realized he wanted for it.

“This is really good, Caduceus.”

“Thank you, but it’s hardly anything I did.”

“What kind of plant is this?” Molly examines the bottom of the cup. “You say it’s going extinct?”

“Sort of. I’m honestly not sure what kind of plant it is, but it only grows here.” He smiles warmly. “I’ve been tending the garden for a while though. Shame to see it go, really.”

Yasha’s head jerks up at that. “Caduceus,” she says, eyeing Molly with a faint nervousness. “Did… is this the tea from… uh…��� She eyes Molly again. “From… here-here?”

Molly, who is half-way through his tea at this point, pauses.

“Of course,” says Caduceus, tilting his large pink head curiously. “That last of it should really go to you two, wouldn’t you say?”

Yasha coughs a little. “Uh...”

“What?” Molly demands, deadpan.

Caduceus considers a moment. “Ooooh, I see. You think it’s a little odd that I gave them the tea from –”

“Eh!” Yasha blurts, waving a hand to stop him speaking and Molly immediately lowers his tea cup. “Uh, it’s nothing.”

“What the hell is in the tea?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me right bloody now or I’m throwing it in your hair.”

“The flowers that steeped this tea grew from the earth around your grave,” says Caduceus easily. His tone and expression have a pleased warmth to them. “The apples I’m roasting fell from the tree that grew as your headstone. I don’t think either will grow anymore since I raised you. That splendor was, specifically, in your memory, Mollymauk Tealeaf.” A shrug. “That’s why I thought, of all the people in the world, it made sense that you and Yasha should have the last of it.”

Molly stares.

Yasha is grimacing.

“I’m drinking tea grown from my own grave dirt?” Molly says, slowly, clarifying. “Plants that grew on my corpse?”

“Yes,” says Caduceus, smiling. “That’s nice, right? Circular.”

Molly eyes the cup, eyes Caduceus, eyes Yasha, then Caduceus again. “Yeah, alright.”  And he downs the rest of the cup. “Can I get some more? It would be a shame to put me to waste.”

Caduceus’ smile broadens and he turns to Yasha. “I like them. I thought I would, but I like them a lot.”

Molly watches the firbolg amble away to get more of the tea. “He’s nice,” Molly says, draping his arms over his knees and looking at Yasha who seems relieved. “And unassumingly dark. I like it.”

“Yeah,” Yasha says. “He’s a good person.”

“Great hair.”

“Really great hair.”

“Do you mind if I ask who he is to you?” Molly drums his fingers on his knee. “He, uh, raised me from the dead and I gather he did it for the Nein and… apparently against his own moral code? Is that right?”

“Yes.” Yasha pauses, a faint shadow of regret in her eyes. “Caduceus serves the Wild Mother. Goddess of the grave and green things. Raising things from the dead is… not what he does, but he did this. I honestly…. I don’t really know why he did it.” She stops a moment. “He’s a friend though. He’s been with us since you died. He helped us kill Lorenzo and I still, to this day, I don’t know what we did to deserve his friendship.” She lowers her voice. “I think all we’ve done is break his heart in these last years.”

Molly waits a moment. Then, quietly, “Yasha.”

“Not yet.”

“I promise, whatever it is, I won’t hate you.”

Yasha closes her mismatched eyes. “It seems like such a long time ago, Molly. I… when you died everything changed. The Nein became something new.” She smiles. “They were so strong. We stood with gods in battle, Mollymauk. I don’t know how to tell you the story except… except that we were beautiful.” She wipes her face. “I wish you could have seen it.”

“I’m sorry I missed it.”

“I’m afraid for you Molly. Caduceus wants you to talk to the others and… he sees things sometimes. He dreams things that may be come true. I feel like it will be dangerous and I don’t want to lose you again.”

Molly cocks a brow. “You’re scared of them. Of the others?”

“Not all of them. And not for the same reasons. They’re all… things have changed. They’ve changed. Some of them are unrecognizable, Molly.”

“But Caduceus thinks I’ll have… what? Some sway? He wants me to talk them down from something?”

“Perhaps. I’m a little out of touch. I’ve been part of the storm for a long time.”

Molly tries to smile. “Well, I didn’t come back just to sit around and drink dead people tea. So… if there is something you think we can do to help our friends, then I’m up for it. Just say the word.”

She’s quiet for a while. Then, “I don’t want to lose you though.”

“You won’t. None of them are going to hurt me.”

“Oh, Molly. No.” She looks at him with a startled, frightened expression. “Don’t assume that. Don’t assume they wouldn’t hurt you. You don’t know their natures now. Please. If you want to do this, I’ll come with you, but don’t assume that.”

Molly hesitates then. “Really? You’re sure?”

She nods.

“Okay… well… that’s a little upsetting but…”

“I’m not asking Mollymauk to go into danger without protection,” says a voice suddenly.  

Molly twitches and looks over his shoulder, finds Caduceus standing there with his staff in his hand rather than tea cups. Molly notices, vaguely, that there are definitely green stems coiling from the wood in his staff, definitely living lichen in the whorls of it. He cups the crystal at the tip, lifting it toward his face, and gently breathes on the stone there. The amethyst begins to glow soft pink. The faint fey light swells from within and casts warm light across the downy slopes of Clay’s face. He looks to his companions and his eyes are lit again with a mirroring flame.

“If you want,” he says to Molly. “I have protection I can give you.”

Molly tilts his head. “Uh, well, I don’t turn down magic from clerics,” he says slowly. “Even ones that give me my own death tea as a beverage.”

“Good,” says Caduceus, smiling serenely. Then he makes a hand gesture at Molly, fingers sweeping in a small, precise series of movements, and in another language that pulls his voice deep and resonant, he says, a word and the word shivers through Molly’s chest, takes root, and sits there. Caduceus nods while Mollymauk shudders. “There. I can’t do it again until we rest but…”

And he gets no farther because in that precise moment something moves in the grass behind him.

Molly immediately sits up.

“Hey,” he says, frowning. “What’s that?”

“What’s what?” Caduceus says blankly. He peers behind him. “I don’t see anything.”

“Right there,” Molly says, annoyed.

He points as the small blur in the grass. The blur freezes. Actually, it’s not a blur at all now that Molly is looking properly. it’s a very small figure in a cloak. It seems startled when he both points and continues to point at it as it darts sideways, bouncing like it’s trying to magically avoid his stare. Weirdly, Yasha stares around, confused. Her eyes pass right over the small thing in the grass which is definitely panicking under Molly’s open attention.

“OI! I see you.” Molly starts to get up. “What are you –?”

There’s a burst of light and a deafening BANG.

Caduceus jerks, hard, like something shoved him forward.  He staggers for a moment, surprised, the foot of his staff coming down in the grass as he suddenly leans his full weight against the wood. His eyes are wide, lips parted on the word he was saying… then he drops to his knees with a cry, clutching  his shoulder.

There is blood. Blood soaking through the fabric.

Yasha doesn’t even cry out.

She immediately grabs Molly, yanking him to his feet. The hair along the back of his neck stands up in a sudden field of static. Her fingers dig into his shoulders, the sinews in her arms and chest suddenly tense as she lets loose a terrible, shivering war-scream that Mollymauk has never heard before – a scream that reverberates in her throat and chest, like there are a hundred voices screaming in unison and the dark celestial dim transcribes something hot into Molly’s blood.

“GET UP, CLAY!” Her voice shakes Molly’s bones. “GET UP AND MOVE!”

And Caduceus grabs his own shoulder and bares his teeth, a flare of greenery shooting up from a wound, spitting blood as a small geyser of bloody ivy erupts from the hole, grows over, then withers and dies. And then Caduceus isn’t wounded anymore. He grabs something from a cord around his neck, like a tuft of fur knotted on twine and he focuses, his fingers pinching that bit of fur and forming a sigil in front of him. He whispers, “Show me Nott.”

And his eyes flash, his expression goes rigid with fear and he looks at Molly and –

And the second shot hits Mollymauk in the chest.

He’s in Yasha’s arms and the bullet still punches through Molly directly under his right clavicle, lodging in the inside of his right scapula and the shot instantly –

Molly jolts awake. He’s lying in a field beneath a massive, luminous moon. He knows it instantly. The air smells warm like spring, like crushed grass, like rain on the horizon and he grabs frantically at his chest, at the wound surely but there’s nothing. Just his own shirt, his own ribs, his unbroken clavicle. He can’t understand what’s –? What is going on?

A beautiful person in black feather-lined armor suddenly kneels over him and takes his hands, quickly, squeezing them to stop him scrabbling. Their fingers are cool to the touch, but they warm as Mollymauk calms. He can’t say how, but he feels he knows them, trusts them. They hold his hands between their palms.

“Not yet,” says the raven knight. “Don’t worry. I’m watching over you.”

“What’s happening?” Molly rasps. He grips their hands tight, knuckles pushing white through his skin. “What is this? That bloody hurt!”

“I know it does. I’m sorry. You won’t remember it on the other side though.”

“Fuck. I have to keep going don’t I?”

“Yes.”

“Then do it. Just –”

The raven knight shoves his forehead back and–

Molly spits up blood, gasps, his entire body glowing just pulsingwith the pain but he’s conscious. Blood is soaking his chest. At least three ribs sit shattered from the impact in his chest. There is a burning hot bullet inside him and he can’t scream because his right lung is collapsed. He is barely aware of someone holding him, clutching him like a busted doll in their arms. That they’re moving. He’s being carried, his head lolled against someone’s shoulder as they dash with his body in their grip.

He hears Yasha say, horrified, “Molly?!”

Her hands tighten. A flare of healing knits his ribs, cool blue arcana fusing the bone and inflating his ruined lung. He retches, feels that slug of iron in his chest wink out of his insides. He tastes blood and it’s too familiar. He’s choking, his chest cracked open and – “Respect,” says the beast standing over him, before his hand tenses on the glaive and – Molly yells. He thrashes and Yasha grabs him like cat lunging out of her arms.

“Molly! Stop! Stop, I have you!”

“What the fuck?!” Molly howls. Yasha is straight jacketing his arms to his sides, bear hugging him against her. “What the fuck was that?!”

“She must have followed me,” Caduceus is saying. He’s crouched behind the trunk of the apple tree, which provide very meager cover for seven feet of giant pink and gray firbolg bulk. He blinks anxiously, his ears flipped back against his skull now. “If she uses an explosive round, there’s not a lot I can do about it.”

“Is Caleb with her?” Yasha demands wildly. “Would he come? I thought you said –?”

“Is that Nott?!” Molly interrupts, Yasha still collaring him against her chest. She’s got her back flat to the apple tree and her eyes are lit with sparks of blue electricity. “Did Nott just try to bloody kill me?!”

“No,” Caduceus says, perfectly mild, “She definitelykilled you. My Death Ward pulled you back.”

Molly barely has time to process that before something detonates on the other side of the tree and a blast of fire and concussive force blows grass and dirt across the field around them. The apple tree shakes and wood splinters. Yasha kneels down, her arms still tight around Molly’s ribs, her body hunched protectively around him and it takes Molly a moment to realize she’s absolutely shaking.

“Nott.” Caduceus is speaking into a shimmering pendant on his wrist. “Nott, are you there?” A pause. “What are you doing? This isn’t like you. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, fuck you, Clay!” snarls a voice that… that honestly does not sound like Nott at all. The usual grated snarl oddly clear, almost too high to be the goblin rogue. “Are you seriously asking me what’s wrong? You turned on me once. I’m not gonna stand around while you make something to hurt us!”

“I didn’t make anything. It’s Molly –”

“Liar! That was a warning shot! I won’t give you another!”

“Nott!” Yasha is just yelling around the tree. “Nott, it’s really Molly! You almost killed him! Please, stop!”

“I can’t believe you’ve done this.” Nott sounds gutted. “Yasha, that’s not Molly! You know it’s not! We tried to raise him before!” There’s a pained noise from the pendant and Molly feels Yasha tighten her hold around him, as if to reassure herself. “Yasha, he didn’t come. He didn’t come before so why would he now? He’s gone. I’m sorry, Yasha. I’m so, so sorry, but Clay is lying to you. He’s just trying to get you on his side.”

Caduceus grimaces. The pendant on his wrist spins slightly. “Nott, please, I don’t want to fight you.”

“Psh! I’ll bet. You wanna know if I’ve still got an artillery round?”

“Yes. That. But I don’t want to fight people I love.”

“If that was true, you wouldn’t be out here constructing monsters in Molly’s image. All you care about is the balance of things or whatever! You don’t care about the rest of us!”

And here, Molly wiggles one arm free of Yasha’s grasp, snatches Caduceus’ wrist and pulls the pendant toward him.

“Hey!” he says loudly, a little flustered into the communication charm. “Nott, this is Molly. Hi. I’m not an undead abomination. I’m actually pretty much just me. Can you please, for the love of whatever god, please stop shooting at us?”

There’s a deafening silence.

Molly monitors it before adding, quietly, “Nott, it’s me. Honest. If you want to look me in the eye or do magic or whatever to check, I’ll let you do that, but you have to stop shooting.” A beat. “See? I told you those machines were a bad idea. Last I remember you just stole the one firearm from Hupperdook and I didn’t even want you to have that.”

Quietly, from the other end, Nott’s unfamiliar voice says, “Mollymauk?”

“Far as I can tell, yeah.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Okay. But do you have to killme while it’s still a topic of discussion?”

“Yes.” Her voice is so soft on the line, he can barely hear. “Because if I talk to you, I think you’ll convince me.”

“Okay, Nott, you see how that’s pretty worrisome for me, right?” Molly feels Yasha releasing her grip around his ribs. “I’ve been upright for all of ten minutes and I have old friends trying to kill me. Please, I’m really myself, I swear, and you’re scaring the hell out of me. Okay?”

“I don’t care because you’re not the real Mollymauk. I don’t care if you’re scared.”

“Nott,” Molly says. “I know this feels wrong and scary. I get it, but I’m really me so… you know… Don’t. Bloody. Shoot. Me.”

“You’re not real.”

“I’m real.” Caduceus has slipped the pendant off entirely, is letting Molly hold it, cupped in his hands, “Nott, it’s me. You know the rules have always been different with me and death. Maybe… maybe this is just another time the rules are getting bent around me. I don’t know. I honestly don’t, but would you let me figure that out before you blast the unholy hell out of me?”

Another long silence.

Then, “What was the name of the dwarf we meet on the road? The one who fought with us.”

“Keg. She smoked and wore plate armor. I liked her.”

“What card did you pull for Jester when you met her?”

“Uh, uh… Let me… The Moon. It was The Moon. Gods, Nott, I don’t have the best memory to start with. Trivia is not my strong –”

“What did you buy from Pumat Sol?”

Molly raises his voice at the piece of jewelry. “You can’t ask me to recite a grocery list to prove I’m a real person, Nott! That’s stupid!”

“Shut up! Shut up!” squawks Nott, sounding panicky. “If you’re really Molly, tell me the most expensive thing you bought from him. You’d remember that! You’d remember if you were Molly.”

“Gods, uh…” Molly racks his brain. “My heart pendant?”

“You remember the Hour of Honor in Hupperdook?” Nott’s voice sounds strained now, like its being bent over a hard surface. “Tell me who won.”

“I won. Beau lost. Fjord won. And you finished them off in a double or nothing.” Molly grips the pendant tighter. “Then we danced the rest of the night and were fucked up in the morning and got all our bloody money stolen. Every single coin we had. We killed a war machine and left Kiri with a nice family there. Then we set out and I made everyone a really nice dinner and then it all went to shit. Nott, it’s me. I’m not trying to trick you, I swear. Are you alright?”

Nott kind of chokes. “What?”

“The night I died, I thought you were… I couldn’t see you.”

Another long pause. “I was fine. That – I mean, obviously I was alright. I’m here talking to you. What are you–?.”

“I know! Gah, but… for me it was… Sorry. I’m glad you’re okay, you know, even if you’re trying kill me now. I mean, it’s fair. I might be a zombie from your perspective. No hard feelings.” A beat. “Maybe a few hard feelings, depending on how this goes. Nott?” Molly exhales noisily, a little miserably. “Can’t we be friends for a few minutes? Please. I’m really tired.”

“You told me not to steal from certain kinds of people,” she whispers. “What kind of people?”

“The happy ones. Don’t steal from happy people.”

“Oh.” Nott’s voice cracks. “Oh fuck. Molly?”

“Yes?”

There’s a noise from the long grass and Molly peers out into the still smoldering field beyond the apple tree. There near the road, standing up from a crouched position, is a small figure in dark cloak. Molly stands up, stepping partially out from behind cover only to be immediately yanked back by Yasha who moves to block him with her body. But the figure – apparently Nott The Brave, tiny as he remembers her – is tossing aside a thin metal weapon, a longer, heavier version of the sidearm he’d seen her carry all those years ago.

She tosses two more smaller weapons to the road, raises empty hands.

“Yasha?” Nott calls, sounding nervous now. “You’re not gonna stab me because I shot Molly, are you?”

A long pause.

“No,” says Yasha, but begrudgingly.

“Or electrocute me with lightning?”

Another pause. A sigh. “No, Nott, of course not. Do you promise to stop shooting us?”

“Yes. Yes, I promise.”

“Okay.” Yet another pause. “If you hurt him, I will kill you though, Nott. Sorry.” Yasha seems embarrassed. “Just don’t do anything. Okay? I don’t want to –”

“Right! Yeah.” Nott waves her hands frantically. “On the same page. No killing. Got it.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“No, but you… you promise-promise?”

“I don’t… know other ways to promise, but… sure.” Nott shrugs. “I promise-promise?”

“Glad to see some things never change,” mutters Molly.  He ducks under Yasha’s arm and moves carefully into the open, a little warily, hands spread and empty in front of him. He crosses the smoldering grass, boots crunching in the burnt earth. “Nott? That you?”

“Uh, hi?” says Nott. Her hood is so low he can’t see her face.  

“Hi?” says Molly.

Nott just stands there, awkward, her weapons all on the road and Molly just stands there, also awkwardly, back from the dead and slightly disheveled.

“You bloody shot me,” Molly points out.

Nott holds out for a full three seconds.

Then she makes this strangled, animal noise and breaks into a sprint, bee-lining straight at him. Fast. Arcane fast. Her feet don’t seem to touch the ground. She’s so fast he barely has time to react and she’s leaping up and tackling him, arms hooking around his neck, crossing ankles at the back of his spine and there’s very suddenly a small, sobbing… gnome? There’s a gnome in his arms. Dark hair, dark skin, sobbing profusely into his shirt saying over and over:

“Oh shit! I’m so sorry! I’m sorry! I thought you were a zombie thing, Molly!”

Molly just wraps his arms around her, blinking and confused.

“Uhh? Wow. You look… different?”

“Oh, uh, right.” She leans back and stares at him with bright golden eyes, gleaming cat-like from an otherwise adorable gnomish face. The only remaining ghost of the goblin girl he recollects. This new Nott has freckles and a slightly crooked front tooth. Her hair is fluffy and black. There’s a little scar bisecting her right brow and she seems a bit embarrassed. “I look… different now. Uh, it’s new.”

“Is it real?” Molly asks, fascinated. He uses two fingers to gingerly lift a section of bangs, his other arm hooked underneath Nott’s bottom, keeping her weight on his midriff. He grins. “Wow. Nott. You’re gorgeous. Is this how you’ve always imagined yourself?

She nods, a little anxiously.

“Well then, you look great!” Molly laughs, hugging her in a great teddy-bear squeeze and spinning around on his heels. She squawks indignantly but doesn’t fight him. “Ah! It isyou! Fuck! I thought you died while we were fighting Lorenzo. I thought he hit the cages while you were trying to unlock them.” He tucks one hand up behind her head, pulling her against his shoulder. “Gods, I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“How are you here?!” Nott yowls.

“I have no idea!” Molly laughs.

“You jerk!” She pounds his back with her fists. “You can’t just come back in the middle of everything!”

“Sorry my miraculous resurrection is inconvenient for you. Should I fuckin’ off myself and reschedule?”

“DON’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!” She grabs hold of his head and he realizes she’s fighting down sobs a little. “That’s not funny! Don’t!”

Molly stops spinning and leans back a little. Nott’s gripping his horns like a pair of bony handholds at this point, something that would annoy him if he weren’t so completely fucking elated. She’s staring at him, eyes just scouring his face furiously for some discrepancy, some signal that he is not what he says he is. He waits, patiently for her to finish.

“Do you think Yasha will forgive me?” Nott whispers. “Do you think Clay will? I shot him.”

“Sure.” Molly shrugs. “What’s a bullet wound among friends?”

“Less than you think,” says Yasha suddenly. She’s moved to stand beside Molly and it says something about how enamored Molly is with Nott that he didn’t notice her approach. Very quietly the barbarian woman looks at Nott and says, “Hello there.”

The gnome-gunslinger lifts her face. “H-hi, Yasha.”

Yasha’s face wrinkles a little, at the corners of her eyes. “It’s been a while.”

“I missed you,” Nott says, rather like she’s afraid to admit it and has been carrying that around with her for a few years.

Yasha, a smile in her voice, says, “I missed you too.” She swallows. “I’m sorry that I… I’m sorry, Nott. For everything.”

Nott’s face immediately winds up, her golden eyes welling up.

“Shit! Me too!” She covers her face with both hands and yells into them. “I fucked everything up. I’m so sorry. I just… I should have gone after you or done something. I just… I thought you didn’t want us to find you anymore and after we lost Fjord I just…”

She’s vibrating with emotion and Molly preemptively opens his arms as she lunges out of his grip into Yasha’s waiting hold. Yasha catches her up, hugging her like she’s been waiting for weeks to do it and just stands there, holding her friend while she cries.

Nott is wailing. “Why did you leave?!”

“I had to,” Yasha says, clutching the smaller woman, cradling her head. “I had to, I’m so sorry, but I had to.”

“That sucks!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I lost all of them after you left.” Nott’s voice is muffled, her face jammed into Yasha’s hair. “I don’t know what to do. You’re all running off with your freakin’ gods and stuff. Even Clay left!” Her fists are knotted in Yasha’s clothes, gripping leathers of it like handholds. “I don’t have a god I can run off with. I needed someone to stick around! I can’t just… just blow up the problem this time, Yasha. I literally do not have a magic bullet.”

“I know,” Yasha whispers, holding Nott so tight Molly can see her arms shake. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Nott sniffs. “What are we gonna do?” she whispers. “They aren’t listening to me anymore. They stopped listening to Caduceus. I can’t get them to stop. I thought… I thought Clay had a plan or something. This isn’t a plan. This is a shitty shitty –”

“Okay. Wait.”

Yasha and Nott stop hugging just long enough to look at Molly, blinking through tears. Molly feels a little bad about that but not bad enough to keep his trap shut. He gives an apologetic head tilt, grimacing.

“Sorry, but… I still don’t know what’s going on. You keep talking gloom and doom. What the hell is going on? Why are you shooting your friends? Why is Yasha walking around as a talking lightning bolt? Just… tell me?”

Nott looks at Yasha. “You haven’t told him?”

“You started shooting before I could,” says Yasha dryly.

“Oh. Right.”

Molly feels a hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll tell you,” Caduceus says. His eyes are pale and a little tired. “It was my dream that brought us here. I saw it over and over that I needed to come here. The Wild Mother herself stood in your grave, Mollymauk, but death – and the unmaking of death – is not the domain of the Wild Mother. Only the grave.” His heavy hand squeezes gently, almost bracing Molly. “Death is the province of the Raven Queen.”

Molly just stares up at Caduceus. He thinks, vaguely, that Caduceus Clay is the most interesting person he’s ever had the pleasure to stare at in close quarters and he smells faintly of drying flowers, but also Molly doesn’t understand a godsdamned word he’s saying.

Mollymauk just shakes his head. “What the hell are you saying?”

Caduceus gently, but firmly, takes Molly’s shoulders in his hands and holds his stare.

“I’m saying the Stormlord sent his disciple to your headstone and the goddess of the grave opened her hand for you. I’m saying the Raven Queen is conspiring with the wilds and the storm. I’m saying something is so wrong in the world that the gods are breaking their rules to fix it.” Caduceus looks mournful as he presses on. “I’m sorry, but I think my dreams mean this: there’s something you need to do in this world, Mollymauk Tealeaf and if you don’t …. the next epoch starts now.”

And, well, there is nothing to say to something like that.

Silence stretches like road between all four of them, a long and winding ribbon that Molly dreads to touch.

Eventually though, Nott breaks the quiet with a soft, appropriate, entirely universal, “Fuck.”

part 3

#critical role #the mighty nein #mollymauk tealeaf #caduceus clay #yasha #long post #nott the brave #vax'ildan #cr2 #critical role spoilers

[iamchrissi]

II’ve seen Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Short non-spoilery thoughts:

The animation is top notch. The story is... meh. Like, the idea isn’t bad, but it kind of didn’t really grip me. The character work varied very much from some truly good scenes to ... well. All in all it’s not a terrible movie, but I’m not sure I’d call it a good one either.

FULL SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT:

I’ll start with a short outline of the plot:

Credence survived the last movie and is in a magical carnival in Paris, with his girlfriend Nagini. Grindelwald escapes. Due to hijinks, and Dumbledore’s influence, Newt ends up in Paris, and brings Jacob, who remembers and has been in a relationship with Queenie. Tina is there for work, and Queenie to visit Tina. There’s also headhunters looking for Credence, as there are rumors he the last male Lestrange, Leta Lestranges brother, who disappeared as a baby. Credence and Nagini escape looking for answers into his past. Tina, Jacob and Newt look for Credence, and also Queenie, who wanted to visit Tina but never arrived. She ends up with Grindelwald, who tells her she’s innocent and lets her go. Leta Lestrange and Newt‘s brother Theseus arrive, too, to find out about Credence. Eventually, Leta tearfully confesses that she’s known for sure that her little brother is dead since she was a little girl and blames herself for it, making it impossible for Credence to be said brother. Grindelwald calls for a great assembly of wizards and witches interested in his ideology. He gives a grand speech and shows them visions of WWII. Queenie, Jacob, Tina, Newt and Leta all listen to it, while the aurors including Theseus show up. They kill a listener, which Grindelwald uses to prove the others that he is right. He asks them all to bring his message into the world. Queenie, who has been promised a world where she can marry Jacob, joins him to the loud protests of Jacob. Grindelwald kills pretty much all the aurors other then Theseus. Credence too, joins him while Nagini protests. It looks like Leta might join him, too, but she instead tries to kill him, essentially committing suicide by villain. She looks in the direction of both Newt and Theseus and says ‘I love you’ before being disintegrated. Nicholas Flamel shows up to help contain the curse Grindelwald cast. They manage to stop the curse, and a niffler brings Newt a piece of jewelry that Grindelwald treasured. He later brings it to Dumbledore, stating it’s a blood pact. In the last scene, Grindelwald gets advice on how to approach Credence from Queenie, and gives him a wand. He also tells him that his name is Aurelius Dumbledore.

So, thoughts:

- Let’s start with the last part. I very much hope that the whole Aurelius Dumbledore part is a lie, because otherwise Rowling just broke her own world. According to Rowling herself Dumbledore is born in 1881. His mother died when he was 18 (1899 or 1900) and his father has been imprisoned in Azkaban since before that. Yet, this movie wants me to believe that in 1927 he has a little brother that’s under twenty? I know writers can’t do math, but come on, this is egregious. Also, like a dead little brother wouldn’t have shown up in Rita’s book, like, really.

- Staying with Dumbledore, he was surprisingly good. Like, with all that ‘he’s not gay here’ that I heard before that, I expected the worst, but he is actually good? Like, there is a scene where he is interrogated by aurors who want him to duel Grindelwald, and he refuses. They bring up the fact that they used to be friends, as close as brothers, and Dumbledore immediately says that they were closer than brothers. Later, he stands in front of the mirror Erised, and he sees both Grindelwalds current face (god is Johnny Depp ugly) and happier memories of their time together. Jude Law sells the hell out of that scene, and though it’s never said openly, you’d have to be blind to miss the fact that Dumbledore is still in love with Grindelwald.

- He has quite a few other good scenes, like asking Newt to go to Paris, where you can really see him going for a manipulation that would have totally worked on Harry. There‘s also a scene where he tries to comfort Leta about her little brother, stating that he lost his sister, and when she asks whether he loved her he says that he didn’t love her as much as he should have. That was a pretty good scene.

- And then in the end they kind of ruin it by saying that the blood pact is the reason Dumbledore didn’t fight Grindelwald, and now that Newt brought him that piece of jewelry he can go fight him. I very much preferred it when it was an emotional decision not to fight his old love. This blood pact just seems like a get out of jail free card, so that Dumbledore’s not to blame for anything. Idk, I like my Dumbledore complicated and morally grey at times.

- Also, Dumbledore did not teach Defense against the Dark Arts! He taught transfiguration!!! He was still teaching that when Tom Riddle was at school! Minverva McGonagall started teaching in the fifties, not the twenties!!!!

- Seriously, there was a female Professor McGonagall at Hogwarts in Newt’s and Leta’s school time in the movie. This makes no sense. And we know it can’t be a relative, because McGonagall is the name of Minvera’s muggle father.

- Leta, on the other hand, was a very pleasant surprise. She is an actually three dimensional character, who is complicated and kind and I really love her, guys. We actually get flash backs of her school time, how she made friends with Newt, which is super cute, and also a very sweet Slytherin/Hufflepuff friendship. Her whole backstory is just super tragic. Like, her father, a rich old wild pureblood, saw her mother, who was married and had a kid on her own, but he imperiused her and made her come with him. Then, the mother died giving birth to Leta, but her father never loved her because she’s a girl. And then he marries again and has a son which he totally dotes on. And then, when travelling to America per ship, Leta, who looked like she was somewhere between five and seven at oldest in that flashback, exchanges her constantly crying baby brother for the sleeping baby next door, just so she can sleep for a bit, but then the ship sinks and the baby she exchanged is saved with her while her actual little brother drowns, and she blames herself for it despite having been a child herself. Like, darling, let me hug you. And people are talking about her missing little brother and how her father doesn’t love her all the time in Hogwarts, and she’s mean towards those, but she is also kind to Newt, who is kind right back, and oh my god, I didn’t expect so many feelings about Leta Lestrange. And she just feels so well rounded.

- And then she dies. And I feel very conflicted about it. Because on the one hand, it makes sense that her character would choose to do this. Because she blames herself for her brother’s death, and she has been really unsettled and depressed and she finally unloaded the true story, and you can see how she feels that she can die now, that death is what she deserves and that it would be a relief. There’s a line after she tells the story where Newt tells her that it’s not her fault (and he’s right!) and she says that he has always loved every monster, that just describes her feelings very well. So it makes sense she’d do a suicide by villain. On the other hand, this is kind of textbook fridging, what with it being used to bring Newt and Theseus closer together and finally giving Newt the motivation to fight Grindelwald. Like, textbook fridging, and the fact that the black woman, one of three named black characters, commits suicide and feels like a monster also makes me uncomfortable. Like, I am white, therefore it is not my place to speak on this and if I’m wrong I’m truly sorry, but it just felt kind of racist.

- Also, I’d have really liked to know what she sees in Theseus? I mean, he’s not a terrible character, but we do not see anything that explains what those two see in each other. And there is also no explanation as to what Newt took the fall for, or why they stopped being so close. And the fact that she looks at both brothers when she says ‘I love you’ made for a nice scene, but still no answers as to why she ended up engaged to Theseus.

- Meanwhile, Queenie became an asshole. Like, Jacob doesn’t think they should marry because of discriminatory laws, so she puts him under a love spell that has him do everything she wants? Of course, the movie doesn’t acknowledge what a horrific consent violation that is, but I do. And then she has a mental break down in Paris, because so many people and her being a legilimens, which... not a bad idea, only later she never has any problems with it again despite being among even more people, and last movie it wasn’t a problem either. And then she joins the man who wants to kill and enslave all muggles, because he promises her she could marry her muggle. Like, yes, she’s supposed to be naive, but she’s not supposed to be this bloody stupid.

- Jacob spends the whole movie running after her, essentially. He’s even more of a comic relief character than last time. In the end he makes a principled stand, which was good, because otherwise the whole character would have become a joke, but even so it was on the edge at times. Why he remembers is handwaved, in a way that doesn’t really make sense, but I guess that’s to be expected.

- Tina is nice and good at her job and unreasonably jealous when she hears that Newt might be engaged to Leta, which totally fits her character, though. I like that she’s still shown to be kind and caring towards Credence but also principled and tough. Newt and her also have a very sweet scene where he tells her that it’s actually his brother who is engaged to Leta. She is not shown to react to Queenie’s defection at all, though, which was just weird and unfortunate, because like, this is her sister. Her choosing to work with a dark wizard is something that Tina should at least somewhat react to.

- Newt is still Newt. He has an assistant to help take care of the beasts, but she is in only one scene. Dumbledore’s manipulation kind of not really working fit, as did that he didn’t even realize it was manipulative, because Newt just thinks so very different from Dumbledore. And it was cute that he decided to go to Paris only when he realized that Tina was there. His relationship with his brother made a lot of sense, given that they simply don’t speak the same language, metaphorically. I’d have loved to see more of him and Leta, though, because I love Leta.

- Credence story as a hunt for truth made sense. Ezra Miller was amazing. And that he ends up back with Grindelwald, with the visual callback of Grindelwald craddling him like in the last movie, also fit. I’m not at all interested in the Aurelius Dumbledore angle, but I’ve explained that above.

- Nagini. Nagini, Nagini, Nagini. It has been discussed by and long as to why her whole story is offensive, and I won’t be able to say anything that hasn’t been said better before. The movie doesn’t redeem the story. Nagini is there to be Credence’s kind, sad girlfriend.  The actress is pretty good, but she couldn’t do much with a script that mostly just needs her to look sad and hold hands with Credence. She survives the movie and is seen to stick with the heroes, which would make me feel way better if I didn’t know how she’s going to end.

- Nicholas Flamel also shows up for a bit, but without his wife, which ... doesn’t really make sense, but at this point I’d kind of given up on coherency.

#fantastic beasts spoilers #fbtcog spoilers #fbtcog #hp spoilers #spoilers #hp

[othercat2]

Hi! So let me start by saying I'm loving your fic! I hope you're still doing request and prompts for it, so, could you write about David's opinion about Karkat before vs his opinion on him after the talk they had over pesterchum about Dave's future? If you someday also write the discussion David had with Dave right before that conversation I would owe you my life.

(Oh sheet I forgot to say WHICH fic I was talking abt in my last ask, sorry about that! I was talking about two for mirth)     

TotallyValid Concern

Dave is an okay kid. (Okay he’s in his twenties, butstill. He’s a goddamn kid.) You aren’t at all sure what you expected when you startedtalking to him, and later, met him at the airport for his visit. You’d seen himon TV and online, but TV takes off a few pounds and most of your actualpersonality. (You wish you’d reached out to him sooner.) Dave is smart,apparently shares the family sense of humor and is really, really good at aswordsmanship style that seems vaguely European. (No katanas shitty orotherwise here.)

You were maybe worried the kid would be some kind ofbasket case outside of TV appearances and comments on social media. You’d metrepatriate activists, and while they never went into too much detail, it was alwaysenough to make you uneasy and angry that anyone had gone through the shit theyhad. (It was also pretty shitty they were still going through shit.) But heseems okay, if also really nervous.  

It is pretty much not Striderly to take notice of such things,so you spend a lot of time distracting him until he relaxes. He’s impressed byyour penthouse and immediately feels the need to text about it to the Emissary.He laughs about whatever the Emissary texts back and tucks his phone away.

You…really don’t know how you feel about that. It becomespretty clear that Dave likes the Emissary, and frequently texts him, or sendshim pictures. Framing it as some kind of survival thing or something didn’treally work. Dave acted exactly like someone in a relationship, not someonepretending to be in one for their own survival.

There’s a lot of discussion over dinner, the three of youfeeling Dave out, Dave trying to figure you out. He doesn’t talk about Bro,which you aren’t really surprised about. You wouldn’t want to talk about Broeither. He does talk about having been a gladiator, and a little about havingbeen sold to the Grand Highblood. He also gives Hali a little lecture abouttrying to get him in trouble. “It’s not just rude, it can get someone killed,”Dave says. “You don’t set people up like that. If you get caught, everyone’sgoing to be against you, when you could have had allies instead.”

Hali taps his chair leg with his heel. “It’s not like hewould have done anything to you,” he says.

“Yeah but you didn’t know that, did you?” Dave pointsout. “It’s the principle. Karkat’s an Emancipationist so I wasn’t in any dangerbut if I had been, it would have been your fault.”

The conversation goes on to other things, but you can’thelp but thinking about the Emissary. About what the guy was actually like.Dave seemed pretty fond of him, but you weren’t sure you could trust that. DidDave have the frame of reference to know whether someone was “dating material”?Was the Emissary actually as much of an “Emancipationist” as he talked upbeing? (Did it even mean the same thing?)

So you worry. You have completely valid concerns.

Dave talks up how the Emisssary, “Karkat” didn’t want aconcubine. He also talks about “trying to get his seduction on” and some of thetraining he went through. “I really liked the dance lessons. The other classeswere kinda dumb though,” he says, dismissing them. “I ended up meeting a bunch offacilitators and sex workers online, and they liked my dancing, so that waspretty great. I got reblogged a couple times by actinicFlame who’s a well-knowncourtesan who blogs about dancing, mostly.

Mona wants to see the dancing, because she’s a traitor.(Mona: “David, it’s obviously something he’s proud of, and enjoys doing.” You:“It’s some kind of sex thing. I do not want to see my nephew doing some kind ofsex thing.” Mona: “David, it’s clear the dancing is an art thing, not just a‘sex thing’ let him show off.”) You do not want to see the dancing, but areover-ruled by the boys, who are also traitors.

The kid takes it out to the roof. Under Mona’s directionyou and the kids have dragged up a few of the chairs that usually live out bythe pool. Dave performs a dance with a lot of leaps and spins with his sword, asecond slow dance with a lot of posing, and then something he refers to as his“victory dance,” which involves a lot of strutting around and posing andswinging his sword.

You can’t help but be impressed. You think he couldprobably do the dancing professionally, in the UPT. You think he could probablygo to school for it, and make your suggestion for it a few nights later. Hecould probably get into one of the modern dancing troupes, or maybe start atroupe of his own. The kid gives you a skeptical look.

“I didn’t really get an early enough start, Uncle David,”the kid says.

“I don’t necessarily buy that,” you say. “I think youhave the chops to go on and have a really successful career at dancing. I didsome research about schools you could go to, with good dance programs.”

“Karkat already has me enrolled in classes,” Dave says.“Mostly a bunch of literature classes. At school feeding institutes in theEmpire.”

“The ones you talked about him signing you up for out ofthe blue?” You ask. “That you complain about?”

“Like the dance programs you want me to sign up for?”Dave shoots back. “Which are in the UPT, not the Empire, where I actually live.With my master.”  

“Is the story about you being rescued by the GrandHighblood and put in the custody of the Emissary not true?” you ask. “I mean,that the concubine thing was completely fake, like the fake married trope?”

“It was a joke, which is different from being fake,” Davesays. “At least as far as I can tell from what the Grand Highblood thinks. Andwhat he thinks is what matters, and what he thinks is that I belong to Karkat.”

“So you belong to Karkat, but you also belong to theGrand Highblood, and you have to put up with what they want,” you say. “Wheredoes what you might want come into play?”

“Well, I want tobe able to fight in the ring, but that’s not going to happen,” Dave says withconsiderable amusement. “And you can’t exactly offer me that.”

“Hey, fencing is a thing,” You say. “Hell, there are allkinds of sword competitions out there. I’m sure we could find you something.The sky’s the limit, kid.”

“I still belong to Karkat,” Dave points out. “Who doesnot live in the UPT.”

“But you don’t have to,” you say. “Even with this GrandHighblood hanging over your head telling you where you have to be, if Karkatcared about you, he’d let you stay here, right?”

“There’s no ‘if,’” the kid says, a little angry, but alsostrangely amused. “I know he cares about me. He’s so careful it’s almost alittle annoying sometimes.”

“Well okay,” you say. “So say I buy you from the GrandHighblood.”

“No,” the kid says.

“What, you don’t think I got the money? I bet I could buyhim out a couple times.”

“Yeah, but then I’d owe you,” the kid says, glaring atme. “And I don’t know what you want.”

“You’re family,kid,” you say, feeling a little frustrated at this point. “I want to know you’resafe. I want to make up for not being around to call CPS on that asshole. Jesuskid, you got raised by my asshole brother and sword and sandal epics I have aconcern!”

The kid flushes red at that. “I’d still owe you, UncleDavid. You can’t just–argh!” His hands go up in the air, form a gesture, adiamond with the first two fingers of either hand. You know that symbol is theone for moirallegiance and “pale��� feelings in general. “It’s appreciated UncleDavid, really. Don’t offer to buy me, don’t make an offer to the GrandHighblood for me. It will not go well.”

“Kid–” you start to ask if he is actually in danger buthe shakes his head.

“Nope, look,” he says, lowering his hands. “I can’t giveyou a reassurance you’d actually believe,” he says. “You don’t have anythingthe Highblood would want that would be more than making his moirail happy. Hethinks I can make his moirail happy, and I really care about his moirail. But Ican’t give you a reassurance you’d believe, because you don’t know any of the signs and I keep forgetting.”

“Signs, huh.”

“Codewords and handsigns,” Dave says. “Which I shouldn’tbe telling you about. There’s ones for ‘yes I really am safe,’ and ones for ‘noI am not safe’ and ‘can I trust you’ and things like that.” He gives you asour, irritated look. “And I can’t reassure you, so you need to talk to Karkatyourself.”

“Okay,” you say. “Kid, I really am sorry about Bro. If I’dknown the asshole had somehow reproduced…”

“You cut off contact, right?” Dave says. “How would youhave known?”  

“Maybe I shouldn’t have,” you say. Maybe Bro had cared about you in his own way.After all he named his kid after you.

“No, fuck that,” Dave says. “Don’t even think of feelingguilty about it. I would have cut him off eventually if he hadn’t died. I won’tsay it didn’t mess me up as a kid, but as an adult I can say he was a shittycustodian, and the cutting off contact was the only thing you could have done,okay?”

You want to argue that, and you do, a little. But the kidis pretty definite about what he thinks about your guilt. There’s some morearguing about the Grand Highblood, going to school in the UPT and the like, butthe kid eventually argues you into talking to Karkat.  

#homestuck #two for mirth #dave strider #alpha dave strider #Iwoorl