#((to anyone who sees this i am so sorry))

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

posting this with absolutely no context

[ducktracy]

there are a lot of evil people in the world and a lot of darkness in the world and so it’s very important for me to stress that now more than ever is the time to spread kindness and compassion. combat the evil by not only not partaking in it, but actively refuting it. destroy the notion that being compassionate or generous or kind to someone is uncool or embarrassing or even scary. be the change you want to see. start a chain reaction. positivity only breeds more positivity. do an act of kindness for someone so that that person who is too afraid to do it themselves can see you, realize that they’re not alone, and perhaps sheepishly follow your example. and then the next person who is too afraid but sees that person can do the same. when bad news comes out about bad people or horrible atrocities in the world it’s such an easy impulse to despair, and obviously it’s important to feel what you need to feel. grieve. be angry. be sorrowful. be empathetic. but dust off your pants and get up and be a part of a chain reaction that, no matter how small the scale, and spread compassion and love and care. all the reasons why you might not—“it’s hard! it’s scary! people will make fun of me! it’s useless because there’s too much evil!” are all grade A arguments as to why you should. you have no idea how many people you could inspire to do the same. even if it doesn’t get you anyway far, you can at least say you have the nobility of trying. please choose love and please choose life. you are worth loving and you are worth inspiring others to love

[comfortless]

Everything you write leaves me breathless <333

Sorry in advance for my English

I was thinking about König, (maybe in an ancient rome/Greek settling) being so alone and desperate for connection that he turns to religion: one day he's walking in the woods, deep in thought, when he finds an abandoned temple. The inside is small but lavish, with a life sized statue of what must be its goddess. He sees this lovely sculpture, abandoned and alone and sees himself in her. He becomes a dedicated, fanatic and soso lovestruck worshipper. Unknownly to him his goddess, woken by his prayers, has been watching him and listening to him. One day while he's praying in front of her her statue moves and talks and now his deity is in front of him. Looks like he has an opportunity to worship her like she deserves ;)

granting you ten million kissies for this prompt and your sweet words! your English is perfect, little wisp! <3 also… giving me an excuse to write more loner/loner and mutual worship?! you have spoken to my heart…

content/warnings: 18+. minors do not interact. historical/myth au; vague time period, brief mentions of violence, fluff, pining, not very explicit smut, mutual worship.

The spirit of the temple feels disorienting, though the architecture is a still, white marble, the floor riddled with leaves and dirt, creeping up the sides of the building as if river water had washed the entire thing ashore… Something feels very alive here, feathered out on the air, a pulse of thunder, the breeze beneath dove’s wings, enthused and yawning. Hungry.

It only becomes more apparent the closer he steps to the statue.

She is unlike any he has ever seen before, carved with the same skill, but so much smaller than the other statues in their temples, so much more lifelike that he almost thinks to greet her. She’s been painted unlike most, a perfect vision bathed in color where she stands out amidst the sea of white and green surrounding her. The temple has not been stained with blood, no offering strewn before her bare feet, left for the rot or dragged away by the dainty hands of this very goddess. No maidens sit in prayer, no men lower there swords to her…

There’s nothing to tell him just who she is, either.

Despite his better judgment, his hand does find her side, a swift draw up from the vision of her thigh peeking from her robe upward to curl over her hip. Her beauty is unmatched, impossible to describe and the call seems almost tangible, shrieking at him in whispers to bend a knee and let her in. So, he does. He prays to her in the silence, alternating between whispers and his own thoughts.

He tells her of his struggles: a soldier brought in from a small tribe up north, robbed from his parents as a boy, how all he knew now were the Roman ways yet could rarely comprehend their customs and deities. Maybe she could offer him some counsel or solace…? Make the weight of his blade feel less heavy as he struck down men that could very well be his own brothers? Give him something to return to when old wounds reopened and he bled, hurt with no one but himself to tend to his heart or his injuries.

The goddess only blesses him with silence: the wind does not pick up outside, there is no disembodied laughter, no sudden thought of an offering or new words to speak to her. She is void of an answer just as the very temple she waits inside is empty of all else.

This does not dissuade him from returning.

Returning to the city after another battle some months later, his first thought is to return to her, to leave the things he’s taken from dead men at her feet, to paint the temple with the blood lingering on his weapon. There is honey, wine, meat and jewelry made of stones from the sea. There is brittle, dried flakes of blood polished from his blade and left to settle onto the floor like the leaves of late autumn. He presents these things to her with a grin, thinking that assuredly this goddess would call back to him then, grant him with a love so consuming that all of the evasion and emptiness cursed upon him would be untwined.

He kneels before her statue, presses his cheek to her thigh, sighs content at the feel of cold marble against the ever-burning of his flesh, gazes up at her like an adoring dog.

Assuredly, if this temple were built for a being that did exist at all she would know just how she was all that this lonesome soldier had, would know the way that he loved her and waited with bated breath and heartstrings pulled taut for her to love him in turn. A greedy, begging muzzle that utters his prayers, words he’s never spoken to anyone whether deity or mortal, only to her in the quiet of the forest.

It’s not madness that provokes him, but the gentleness of her face and the tender look in her eyes, an expression that no other had ever offered to him, no one but this little forgotten goddess. Whether pitying or loving, he did not know. It was only enough to keep him returning: for many days, his path from the city led straight to her feet, even some nights were spent lying upon her floor, finding peace finally being able to sleep next to something apart from lonely walls.

The sun rises and sets each day where he sits and speaks to her as though she were a living, breathing woman. Occasionally he reads aloud to her in the stillness, cheekily tells her when another goddess’ name is brought up within the lines of poetry that they could never hope to compare.

It’s ridiculous when he does not even know what purpose she serves, but this silent figure is his only companion, the only thing that sets his heart ablaze and mind focused in battle because above all else, he has to return to her. Though she can not share his words, he knows somehow that she shares in his loneliness.

Finally, he thinks to ask her the question that has been burning at the tip of his tongue for weeks and months. One, that he has tried to hold back, display a patience that he lacks. It’s after a night of sleeping on cold marble, an ache in his neck from its hardness and his own refraining from bringing a cushion from his own home in his desperation to return to her.

“Why won’t you speak?,” he asks, somber as he makes his way to leave the temple, only halting in place to cast her a fragile look from over his shoulder. He has read the epics, heard the stories and seen the blessings of other deities… Yet no matter what he does or how often he tethers himself to her leg and dotes upon her, she still meets his devotion with nothing but her silence in return.

König is left with the thought that his gifts are not enough, that he, himself, is not enough, even as her sole devotee. To keep his mind preoccupied, he keeps to the city for a time. The bed is cold, the people still see him as a barbaric outsider, and the horrible coil wound around his heart only seems to tighten its grip further. He feels as though he has left a part of himself out there in the forest within the four chalked walls of her temple.

This loneliness does not feel like one he is forced to swallow down, it feels like a vicious sort of ache, the twisting of a dagger beneath ribs to sink in and steal away what little of a life he does have.

He returns to her the following night, with a furrowed brow and a grave look upon his face. There’s an intent to demand she free him of her, that this longing finally pass, but as his sandals reach the entrance to the temple, those thoughts fall away from his mind like droplets of rain, a cool drizzle that begins to fall outside the very moment he is sheltered.

The statue— the goddess moves.

She tilts her head and inspects him fondly, the perfect mouth he has envisioned speaking to him so many times prior tilts upward in the gentlest smile as her bare feet move to carry her body forward.

“A test,” she explains as though answering his question from only the past day, almost saddened by her own words as her gaze lowers to the space between them.

König’s heart does not roar then, it only melts with the knowledge that someone like her has been left alone for so, so very long that she felt the need to prove to herself that he would return to her side. He would. Time and time again he would. When she raises her head to look him in the eye, her own clouded and misty, he only silently prays that she could see such a vow upon his face.

“I am worthy then?,” he questions, forcing himself to remain rigidly in place despite the call- the urge, to circle her, just once, drop at her feet to then feel her pulse beneath his fingertips. Anything. Even an assurance would be reward enough, but there is always a greed in the hearts of men, one he feels burning a hole through his very being even now.

Her lips press to a line and her gaze seems faraway, lost in her own thoughts that must be as mighty as Olympus itself. After a time, she only answers in a soft whisper, “It is I who am unworthy of you.”

All discordance in his chest pulls to a halt at this, all apprehension and sadness are whisked away when she instead comes to kneel before him. She curls her arms around his leg, presses her cheek to his thigh as he had done so many times before. The goddess gazes up at him with not just affection… but reverence, as though he were the strongest warrior of myth, deserving of even the love of something only as ethereal and sweet as she could provide.

His breath catches for a mere moment before he lowers himself at her side. The stares exchanged from both are full of an unspoken wonderment, all of the things that words alone would fail to speak in truth.

He waits out the rain there, sat beside her with the air surrounding them charged with such a great and unspoken affection that even Venus would taste a bitter envy on her tongue should she pass by to see.

She tells him she can not recall what she was the goddess of… or if she was ever truly any goddess at all. The marble surrounding her was put up for a purpose, but she’s never seen the Elysian Fields or climbed Olympus on her own. Her memories are scattered blurs, and she confesses that she feels tired when she tries to parse things together in a way that he will understand.

He listens while he tends to her by offering the honey and dried meat left in offering for her here, then fetches fresh water from the stream that brooks several yards away and returns to her side with a face both damp and flushed.

König tells her of his life too, how during every battle since stumbling upon this sacred place he has kept her in mind; he has no wife to return to, no other women to bed, that since their meeting his life has become hers. He confesses he had the intention of returning only to force a curse upon this madness that had enveloped him, but… he could never have brought himself to do so, even if she had not appeared to him warm and breathing.

Her laugh then could have prompted waves of flowers to bloom and birds to sing in tune, whimsical and so precious he only begins to feel himself fall, truly. Not out of sheer desperation, but with genuine affection.

When her exhaustion does take her, she does not mind the way his arm curls around her middle to tuck her body closer to his own. The goddess has no fury within her, only mirrors his own feelings with a fluttering of lashes and a soft sigh.

So she sleeps, pulled close to him like a lover rather than a stranger. When dawn breaks, when König knows he’s to be called back to train and fight with the other soldiers, have dull talks about what land to cross and take for their own next, she tells him she will wait there for his return.

He can not concentrate as well on his training this day. The plans for future wars and battles do not send flurries, hot excitement through him. The world is an endless gray, reflected above with darkened clouds threatening further rain. There is only one place he wishes to be, one that yearns for him more than his own home or the women waiting on the street for coins the other men readily supply. When one, a native Roman, does ask him why he does not just venture to the brothel to put himself in better spirits, König only grits his teeth to still his hand from quieting him eternally. These men knew nothing of the love he feels, and certainly they didn’t deserve to.

The temple is no different from how he found it the night prior. The goddess sits with her hands curled in her lap, smiling just as fondly at him as she had before. His heart shatters at the thought that she had sat there waiting for him in such a way all day. He swears to her that he will have a proper bed made for her, bring her the softest of furs and cushions stuffed with downy feathers to lie upon. For now his offering is only fruit and wine, things that she shares with him while she shushes his concerns with quiet words and gratitude that he had returned.

She lowers herself again before him after pulling her robe free and lying it upon the floor. It is no proper bedding at all, but she swears that it is enough, that his own warmth is just enough for her to be sated and comfortable. His head swims when she kisses his thigh, drags her lips up from his knee to rest there with that reverent look in her eye. Mortals coupling with deities was not unheard of, but to think it could happen to him…

She is a goddess. How is he supposed to… How could he ever dirty her with himself? He thinks to refuse her before she tugs away the barrier of fabric between them and takes him into her mouth. Stunned, he only watches her, feels her in a way he has never felt a woman before until he finds his voice again.

“Lie down,” he breathes, shaky and tentative as he rests his hand upon her cheek. She complies, giddy and content when she’s splayed out on the white robe beneath her, legs parting immediately and her arms reaching upward to invite him into her hold.

There’s no tact when he lies atop her, feels the warmth of her thighs around him and her arms curled over his neck. His forehead is pressed to her own when togetherness is found, and when she sighs so soft as she envelops him in full, his mouth descends upon her own.

She doesn’t praise him, doesn’t need to in words, because the muffled sounds and cries that leave her lips are more than enough to spear him onward. König, however… he babbles ceaselessly, overwhelmed and overcome by such a profound joy, he can not keep himself from reciting every word that comes to mind, whether vile or pure.

“My goddess,” he whispers into her hair, eyes half-lidded and dazed with each shallow thrust. “We could have had this for a season… you have made me wait so long, hm?”

The way she feels is unmatched, he thinks, when her breathing shudders and she only seems to constrict him further. To think he could bring a goddess to ruin… the grin that crosses his face when he pushes his head against her neck is bordering on both ecstatic and cruel.

“I will give you a demigod,” he hisses against her throat, not at all subtle about just how far he was willing to go to keep her here. With him. More than Olympus, she belonged beneath him, and the tremor that wracks her form then is all of the confirmation he would need.

She sobs his name when the tension becomes too much to bear, fingernails graze the flesh of his shoulders as she shudders, falls into such bliss that her words of praise come incoherent and weak. He follows her to a saccharine abyss with a guttural groan.

The aftermath is softer than any other moment he has shared with her. There are an abundance of kisses pressed between them, littered across her flesh and his own with whispers that leave his mind cloudy. Her worship is subtle by comparison to his own, coming in honeyed stares and such words he would never dare to repeat, no lowly poet deserved to ever hear them, their voices could never compare to her own.

The goddess holds him close, bumps his nose with her own and makes a promise; she tells him for as long as he shall live that this temple was as much his home as it were his own. That even when this body of his does die, she will seek him out in the Elysian Fields, lie at his feet as he had done her own; that no matter what may come, they will never be apart.

[jespardon]

Heyyy reuploading part 3 of playfighting with the most ridiculous censorship ever because tumblr is dumb as a rock ✌️

Part 1/2 here

Full version

[medi-bee]

isat pokemon au, my liege?

my rambling in tags

[jade-of-mourning]

finished (please reblog that one!)

don't know shit about this fandom but my friend showed me the youtube videos and i was like oooooo… i have no idea what kinger looks like.

anywho; sketches. will probably clean these up & color properly at some point bc jax got so stretched that he is approximately 3 pixels now. but until then i figured i'd just put it out here bc i have to do college instead of drawing now!

[hwanwooyoung]

[210701] M Countdown :: PTT (Paint The Town) :: Yves

[freedjustinemywife]

Thunder Legion death leaks —>

SO SORRY FOR THE LONG WAIT!! for anyone concerned about the leaks involving the thunder legions death, its not all the leaks but its what i could find in such a short time!! (vpns are a nightmare)

theres not a lot of info HOWEVER THERE ARE SOME ENGLISH COMMENTS SORT OF EXPLAINING IT??

i HIGHLY reccomend checking out the tweet to vet it!!

heres a link to it

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Concept: LQR big naturals but also with the flattest ass. Make him a titty dorito

Lan Qiren Breasted Boobily down the stairs of Cloud Recess

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[lesbianralzarek]

trying to not complain about the discrepancy between how much content fictional women and poc have vs the white dudes in every fucking fandom im in, because no one owes me fanart/fic and i can make shit myself, but holy fuck can any of you name a woman?

[the-anime-man]

Important Announcement:

January 1st, 2025, I will no longer share ANY posts that are Palestinian Fundraisers. I will block if you ask me to donate or share. Sorry.

[kybelles]

mary was only around 21 when she had neil. she was barely an adult. i need to be sedated.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

i will never understand how or why the httyd movies did the books such an injustice.

the movies aren't even an adaptation - they stole the name of the series, the name of some of the characters and places, and the general idea that there are dragons. honestly, i would be fine with the movies and maybe even like them if they didn't capitalize off of cressida cowell's incredible books that never get any credit.

the books are an amazing story about the cycle of violence and how vengeance and revenge is dangerous. hiccup says that the past is a ghost story, one we need to learn from to better ourselves. the books are about how everyone deserves freedom, how every creature, every being on the earth deserves to be free. we see that in the slavemark, with the dragons.

and like... hiccup is so different. they did him a severe injustice. he's scrawny and intelligent and learned to talk to dragons simply by observing them! he chooses kindness first above all else; instead of yelling at toothless to train him, he is kind. and in the end, that kindness is why toothless chose to save him. bc even toothless himself says that dragons are inherently selfish creatures who care only for their survival. hiccup is brave - his beliefs differ drastically from both the vikings and the world.

hiccup is a child who chose to do the right thing even at the expense of himself. he agreed to free the slaves on nobert's ship, and in return, they gave him the slavemark which is easy to give but cannot be removed. he was like twelve. and having the slavemark means he cannot be with his tribe or his family, it means he isn't considered a human being anymore. and he keeps it a secret for awhile until it's revealed and when it is everyone turns their backs on hiccup. his family, his tribe, his mentor, people he TRUSTED. everyone except fishlegs, and, once she got over the shock, camicazi. he was thirteen. and even when he lost his memories and was really injured, he persisted. he was told to go to tomorrow and to save the dragons and he did bc in his heart he knew it was right even though he didn't know who he was or how he got there.

and fishlegs,,, oh my god FISHLEGS!!! the did him SO DIRTY!!! fishlegs is hiccup's best friend, one of the main motivators for hiccup. he steals norbert's potato for the sake of fishlegs, he gives fishlegs his dragon and goes to retrieve another, he takes the blame for fishlegs. and fishlegs does the same for him. he takes the slavemark with pride. he refuses to turn. he gives hiccup his lobster claw necklace which is his most prized possession. he is brave for hiccup, he believes hiccup is alive. he fights for hiccup harder than anyone else ever has. he does not turn. his is loyal, has allergies, has asthma, has a squint and a limp, has glasses bc he's blind without them... and he's still a hero despite being a runt, despite everyone even the adults telling him he's hopeless, telling hiccup to leave him behind.

and they cut camicazi! i'm sorry, but astr*d is nothing compared to camicazi. camicazi is a tiny, feral child who can easily best hiccup, fishlegs, and pretty much anyone in a sword fight. she can bring a grown man to tears with her rudery and smack talk. she is recklessly brave and craves adventure and follows hiccup blindly bc she trusts him that much. she isn't in love with hiccup - in fact she doesn't care about romance and love. she gives up everything to help hiccup bc she has a strong sense of justice. she is the motivator, the cheerleader, she finds a positive in everything. she never gives up. literally never gives up. and that's one of the most inspiring things about her: she always has hope.

and toothless! god!!! toothless is *thought to be* a common or garden dragon. he is horrifically tiny, he is literally toothless, and is the biggest brat in the world. he will cause problems on purpose. he has a stutter, he's the most selfless selfish dragon around. he and hiccup can talk to each other. he masks his fear with singing and being annoying. his growth is remarkable. he starts off refusing to obey hiccup, doing the opposite of what he says, making life harder for literally everyone around him, and he's still somewhat like that. but he's also braver, more caring, more willing to make sacrifices for the sake of others. he's clever, which he needs to be to make up for his size and aggression. he protects hiccup with everything he has, therefore, he protects what hiccup cares about just as hard. he was the only dragon that didn't abandon the vikings in the first book bc he cared about hiccup.

and snotlout,,, god,,, i will never forgive the movies for butchering snotlout. hiccup's cousin, the bully character, the one who is horrifically jealous that hiccup's dad was born before his. the one who desperately wants to prove himself, to be worthy, to make people proud. and you hate him, you despise him. he betrays everyone many times bc of the nothing promised to him by alvin and his mom. he loses himself, turns his back on himself, all bc he wants to prove himself. all bc he wants to be better than hiccup. and hiccup still forgives him and gives him chances, sometimes out of pity, but also bc snotlout is his cousin. he can't just turn his back on him no matter how miserable snotlout made his life. and in the end, snotlout sacrifices himself for hiccup. he gives up his life for hiccup in one last attempt to set things right. his death and the events preceding it are one of my absolute favorite moments in the book. gives me chills. makes me cry.

that's the thing with the books - they're so realistic. there is no inherently happy ending where everything works out. the first book begins with "there were dragons when i was a boy", implying that they're gone now. the books show there are consequences to our actions. they enslaved the dragons, they fought against them during the dragon rebellion all bc alvin and his mom said to, and now they're gone bc a simple apology doesn't fix hundreds of years of enslavement. and the only way for the world to move forward was for the dragons to leave and heal on their own. and now they have to learn to live without them. and yeah i've heard the third movie ends like that but. it doesn't have the build up. it doesn't have "there were dragons when i was a boy". it doesn't have eleven books of development to back it up, to make it feel meaningful.

i know that the movies are really special to a lot of people. i know that, on their own, they're genuinely good movies. i can acknowledge that the soundtrack is amazing and the animation is beautiful. i just can't see past the way they butchered the world that i love, the world that i grew up with. i can't see past the way people yelled at me for saying i liked the books better, the way that people gave me weird looks when i showed them a picture of the original toothless, when i tell them that nightfuries aren't even a type of dragon. cressida cowell created hundreds of different dragons, and the movies couldn't even pick from that. i can't forgive the way that barely anyone knows there are books bc the movie barely gives credit to them. i cannot forgive the way they capitalized off the books and then shoved them aside. i know cressida thinks they're good movies and i know a lot of httyd book fans also like them. but i just... i cannot get over how much they changed and how they missed so much and ignored the books. also they got rid of camicazi so hiccup could have a love interest and that is unforgivable to me.

if you disagree, that is a-okay. we're all entitled to our own opinions. i just ask that you, perhaps, try the books out. give them a chance. bc they're amazing works of art and also just like. don't yell at people who don't like the movies? whether it's bc they prefer the books or just aren't into that kind of movie. and just remember that dreamworks didn't come up with the story; cressida cowell did.

[workingforitallthetime]

I am BEGGING you to say more about Will and Mack in silence on the other side!! on my KNEES!

conveniently, i have 3.5K of will/mack that i could not resist expelling from my brain at the end of the google doc. grab a marshmallow stick and let me tell you a campfire story.

(this is very much an epilogue and is not going to make sense unless you've read silence on the other side. if you want the reward of mack/will you have to suffer through the mortifying ordeal of will/gabe/leno.)

Will could wait for Gabe to ask, but she’s done letting things happen to her. She packs a suitcase. She sits on the couch and waits. When she hears the sound of Gabe’s key in the door, she slips off her ring and clenches her fingers around it. The diamond digs into her palm as she rehearses the words in her head. I can’t get married. I’m sorry.

She texts her sister on the way to the airport, after the angry red dent fades. The pale strip around her ring finger is going to take longer, just like the mark on her neck. Can I stay with you for a couple of days?

Of course. Grace answers quick. Are you in Boston? Is everything ok?

Will’s not going to cry in the back of an Uber. Flight gets in at 10:30. And no. 

As the plane pulls away from the gate, she texts Ryan. I’m moving back to Boston. She should switch into airplane mode. Instead, she waits as they taxi.

The reply comes as the plane rounds the turn onto the runway, bright rows of lights blazing the path ahead. Didn’t know you were from Boston.

Will’s swiping her thumb over the text thread to delete it when one last message pops up. Thought it was West Philadelphia. She snorts in spite of herself, and lowers her thumb onto the red trash can before she can second-guess it. She’s not going to cry on a plane, either.

The night air when she emerges from the sliding doors at arrivals is still late-summer muggy. Grace picks her up at the airport, and Will gives her the briefest version. I told Gabe we’re not getting married. No, it wasn’t a mutual decision. No, I don’t know what it’s going to cost. No, I haven’t told mom and dad yet, I’ll do it tomorrow. No, don’t say anything in the bridesmaid group chat, I’ll do it tomorrow. 

The wheels of her suitcase are gritty on the floor of Grace’s apartment. She changes into pajama pants and an old St. Catherine’s t-shirt. She drinks a glass of water and racks the glass in Grace’s dishwasher. She sinks onto the couch, tipping her head back on top of the cushions.

“Oh my god.” Grace stops short at the edge of the room, peering at Will over the armload of bedding she’s bearing. “Did you break up with Gabe because he’s a vampire?”

Will touches the mark on her neck. It doesn’t feel like anything. If she hadn’t seen it in the mirror, she wouldn’t know it was there. “Wasn’t Gabe.”

Grace’s eyes bug out. I don’t want to talk about it, Will says, it’s not a thing. It’s not, like, the reason. It’s just something that happened. She takes the sheets from Grace and shakes them out and tucks herself into the couch. The streetlights outside cast thin stripes through the blinds and across the floor. She’s not going to cry into Grace’s fleece Patriots blanket.

The feeling in her stomach, hollow and sick, that settled in while she waited for Gabe to come home hasn’t gone away. It won’t go away for many days yet. Terrible days. Days of overhearing her mother on the phone apologizing to relatives about their nonrefundable flights. Days of trying to cancel wedding registries before she gets any more notifications about purchased gifts. Days of ignoring the voice messages from her parish priest, the one who was supposed to officiate. The absolute last person Will wants to talk to is a priest.

She goes back to the Midwest, feeling like a burglar in her own apartment as she packs up her things while Gabe is pointedly not home, driving her car along ugly interstates back to Massachusetts with her dad. Somewhere in Pennsylvania, while the road is empty in the beam of their headlights and they’re between episodes of a podcast about white collar crime, he tells her he’s proud of her. He knows it must have been a difficult decision. He trusts her to make the right choices. All Will can say past the lump in her throat is thank you. The tears trickle down the sides of her face in the dark.

She stays at her parents’ house. She writes thank-you notes that are mostly apologies. She goes to brunch with the friends who were supposed to be her bridesmaids, tells them it just didn’t feel right, I knew I’d regret it. None of them mention the cost of the bachelorette weekend last spring, but Will knows they’re all thinking it. When her mom asks, Will tells her she can pick up the dress if she wants. Will doesn’t want to see it. Every time she drives past the country club, the sick feeling in her stomach twists into a hard knot of shame.

On the September Saturday when Will was supposed to get married, Grace makes her go for a hike in New Hampshire. Golden leaves drift over the top of the low stone wall along the trail. At the top of the mountain, granite hills and colorful trees spread out below them. The lake in the valley sparkles in the autumn sunshine. They eat burgers at a roadside diner afterwards and drive back into Massachusetts after dusk, and then the day is over. It’s over, it’s done, it’s finally behind her, and now everything else is ahead.

She starts commuting into the office again. When coworkers ask, she tells them the Midwest didn’t work out. The engagement didn’t work out. After that, there aren’t any conversations about how unreliable she was last summer. She stays on top of her inbox, meets her deadlines early. Never misses a meeting. 

Boston’s not the same. Her old places are all Gabe’s old places too. Her friends are all Gabe’s friends. Most of them aren’t reaching out. Even the ones who are on her side seem confused by her. They don’t understand, because Will can’t imagine telling anyone the real story.

She thinks about going out. Thinks about getting on the apps. Trying to figure out… whatever it is she has to figure out. She can’t manage to pull the trigger. Someone could see her, recognize her.

Losing Boston, or at least the version of Boston she used to love, feels like another breakup. A separate grief just as painful as her grief for Gabe and everything their life was supposed to be. But Will ends it just as unflinchingly as she did her engagement. She finds a new job, something in finance or business or law in New York City, because that’s the place you’re supposed to go to start over.

The details of the job aren’t important. All that’s important is that it’s a job where beauty and breeding and ruthlessness are assets, and Will’s able to leverage all three to the hilt. Oh, and also it’s in an established industry where Rick Celebrini is a known and feared figure.

Will makes the connection pretty quickly when she’s introduced to her coworker Macklin. Mack is a half-step ahead of her at all times and it would be infuriating for Will, if she didn’t like him so much. Or if he didn’t like her so much. Everyone tells them they’re such a great team, hitting all their metrics, seizing opportunities, climbing the ladder together. Will sees in Mack a kind of internal steeliness that matches her own, which isn’t that surprising from someone who was raised by Rick.

Will’s kept cautious by the pervasive sense that she would fuck up anything she started with Mack. That’s what she does. She ruins things. She ruined everything with Gabe, and she’ll ruin anything she starts with another guy. And she really can’t afford to ruin anything with Rick Celebrini’s son. She’s found her niche in this industry, and getting on the wrong side of Rick would mean starting over, again.

So Will remains just as impervious as she can be. Even as she and Mack get closer and closer, and everyone in the firm starts to talk about them as a dynamic duo, and their rising stars are more and more closely linked together, she keeps everything strictly professional. Sometimes her eyes follow the lines of Mack’s three-piece suits not just to appreciate the tailoring, and as soon as she catches herself she looks the other way.

(She’s scared. Scared that nothing’s ever going to feel like it did with Ryan. Scared that nobody else is ever going to love her as much as Gabe did. She’s scared she doesn’t understand what she wants and that she’ll never figure it out. She’s scared there’s something fundamentally wrong with her and that’s why she hurts people. She’s scared that how much she likes Mack means she’s going to hurt him too. She’s scared and nobody knows it, least of all Will.)

Mack’s fascinated by her, and all the more fascinated because of the total blank of her personal life. When he tries to draw her out, he learns about growing up in Lexington, prep school and field hockey, going to BC. They talk about Boston, joke about their BC/BU rivalry, threaten to bet on the Beanpot. Will goes to office happy hours, is clever and engaging at client dinners. But she dodges all questions about what her life is like outside of work. Mack doesn’t know anything about her friends, doesn’t know whether she’s dating anybody, doesn’t even know whether she’s straight.

But Mack knows the connection’s there, and he’s going to keep trying. Picture those gifs from the 49ers game: Mack’s trying to get Will’s attention, and Will’s ignoring him, and Mack doesn’t even care. He’s willing to work for it. He wants to work for it. That’s how Rick raised him: how hard you work is the measure of how much you care.

One day Will rounds the corner by the elevators and walks into a knot of coworkers talking about some smart maneuver Mack pulled, something he talked over with Will in advance so she immediately recognizes a reference to a client or a contract term. “No dick, but he’s got plenty of balls,” says someone with their back to Will, and everyone who saw her come around the corner gets an awkward expression on their faces.

Will gives them the same look of icy disdain she uses to shut down people who call her Mack’s work wife. Someone says loudly that they’ve got a conference call starting in a few and the group hurriedly dissolves, except one office gossip who caught Will’s momentary confusion and has been simply dying for an excuse to have a conversation with her on this topic. She follows Will into the elevator. “Didn’t you know he’s trans?” she says as soon as he doors close. “It’s all very hush-hush, nobody ever says anything because Rick’s bitten a few heads off about it. I was there at an off-site when he literally yelled at someone about pronouns.”

(Just imagine Rick Celebrini when his kid announces he’s a boy. Okay, says Rick, not in so many words, if you’re a boy you’d better be the most boy you can be. What are you doing today to be a better boy? Mack’s grown up with Rick micromanaging his medical care and tailoring his punishing workouts to achieve some not entirely defined standard of masculinity and generally making Mack feel like he’s not working hard enough if he’s not at all times trying to be The Most Boy. Rick does not react kindly to anyone who suggests that Mack is anything other than his son… including and especially Mack, who is immediately reminded that he is All Boy, Only Boy if there’s ever any suggestion he might stray from Rick’s expectations of masculinity. Mack knows better than to say yes when the menswear stores he frequents suggest a pink shirt or a floral tie to go with one of those three-piece suits.)

Not that Will knows any of that. She dials the iciness a few degrees colder and hums the most neutral hmmm in her vocabulary until her coworker blessedly exits the elevator, disappointed by Will’s unsatisfying reaction.

Will lets the doors close. She punches the button for a different floor without looking at the display, aiming generally for something a long way away.

It’s just a surprise, that’s all. That’s why her heart’s racing, the unexpectedness of it. A confounding variable in the already tangled mess of Will trying to sort out her own identity. It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything on the long list of reasons why she needs to keep Mack firmly in valued colleague/work best friend territory.

It’s a chink in the wall, though. And a wall that’s already being subjected to Mack’s considerable efforts, as well as geologic forces beyond Will’s control, is going to crumble eventually.

It happens at the holiday party. Some swanky venue rented out for the night, marble pillars, parquet floors. Raw seafood on ice, top-shelf drinks. Towering centerpieces with pine boughs and crystals. Will, in her classy little black dress, doesn’t have a date, of course. Neither does Mack, in his black suit with some requisite element of lowkey corporate festive. A red plaid vest, a tie with tiny holly berries on it, something like that.

They circulate through cocktail hour like the pros they are, catching glimpses of each other through the crowd, always aware of where the other one is. Somebody’s seated them at the same table for dinner (Mack might have had something to do with this) and after a couple of glasses of champagne Will forgets that she ought to be making holiday-appropriate small talk with everyone else at the table and she starts doing what she actually wants to do, which is talk to Mack. Mack, with his blue eyes and soft hair and strong fingers tapping the base of his rocks glass, making Will feel like she’s at her witty, charming best. Basically, everyone else is Tyler Toffoli on the plane and Will and Mack are in their own little world.

They sneak sideways glances at each other during the speeches and toasts, silent acknowledgement of corporate inside jokes. Will doesn’t look at Mack when Rick’s got the spotlight, but she can feel him sitting up straighter next to her, a little bit of extra rigidity in his spine.

After dessert the table groups start to dissolve and word starts to spread among Mack and Will’s coworkers, the younger crowd, about where the afterparty’s headed. Mack catches Will at the edge of a conversation and says something low into her ear, just for her. Want to go someplace else?

Will does.

Mack takes her someplace loud and anonymous, with more drinks and a crowded dance floor. Will doesn’t shrug off Mack’s hand at the small of her back. They dance, closer and closer together, and Will’s eyes are shining, and when Mack finally kisses her Will kisses back like she’s drowning. 

I’m calling a car, Mack says, and Will doesn’t let go, too much adrenaline and champagne and desperation to think about whether this is theoretically a bad idea. It’s been so long since somebody she cares about has touched her. Mack’s apartment is quiet and tasteful and Will barely sees it. She doesn’t want Mack to be something that happens to her. If this is happening, she’s going to make it happen just as much as Mack is.

If I was going to write a sex scene here it would be about how the expectations of masculinity that Rick has imposed on Mack have taken root in Mack’s assumptions about how he ought to have sex, and how that does or doesn’t align with what Mack actually wants, and how all of that collides with what Will wants, which is to eat that boy’s pussy.

Will falls asleep with her head on Mack’s chest and wakes up with the enormity of it all setting in. This is big, this is huge, and nothing that happened last night alleviated the underlying fear that she’s going to fuck it all up.

Mack can practically feel the tension radiating across the sheets at him. He reaches for Will. “I don’t want this to be a one-off.”

This does not have the desired effect of Will relaxing into him. Heart sinking, Mack tries again. “It can be if you want, though.” The pinch in Will’s brows doesn’t go away. Mack scoots back so he’s not touching her. “Just so you know, that’s really not what I want.” In the absence of a response, Mack starts desperation-yapping. “I know there’s something here, and I think you do to, and last night felt…”

Will’s eyes are huge across the gap between their pillows. She has to say something. “I’m a bad bet,” is what comes out. “I break everything.”

“Are you saying that because you want me to walk away?” Mack’s hoping that’s a quick answer, but Will looks like she’s actually thinking about it, so he keeps talking. “Do you want me to walk away?”

Very quietly, against the pillow, Will admits it. No.

Mack exhales. “Like, I’m not gonna. It’ll have to be you.”

He grins, like this is a joke, and it infuriates Will because he doesn’t understand. It’s not funny. Will’s warning him that he’s going to get hurt and he’s laughing. “That’s what I’m worried about,” Will hisses through her gritted teeth.

“That you’ll break up with me?” Mack, incredulous. “I can take it. That’s not a reason not to, like, try.” He reaches for Will again and Will lets him. “I could change my mind and dump your ass too.”

Will gives him a scornful look at the suggestion that anyone could ever break up with her, and Mack cracks up because it’s such an extremely Will reaction. “Let’s just be good, okay?” Will lets herself be pulled into his arms. “Until you break up with me, and I’ll deal with it. We can be good for now, right?”

Will whispers it against his lips before she kisses him. So good.

Eventually they get up. Will picks through Mack’s collection of sweats and ends up in a Canucks hoodie and Lulu joggers because she refuses to wear anything that has BU on it. They get coffee, and while they’re drinking it at opposite ends of Mack’s couch with their feet tangled together in the middle, Mack says I think you should tell me more about what you said earlier. About breaking everything.

Will’s silent, turning the sleeve of her coffee around and around the cup. There’s no way to avoid it. Mack’s going to have to find out sometime, if they’re going to do this. And Will really, increasingly every second, wants them to do this. “I was engaged,” she says, watching Mack. She can practically see his mouth forming questions, but he waits. “Like two years… three years ago now. My college boyfriend. Gabe. We were together for seven years. We moved to [Midwest city].”

“You lived in [Midwest city]?” Macklin’s laughing. “I can’t even picture it.”

“I know, right?” Will briefly experiences the warm glow of being known before she gets back to business. “It didn’t work. I cheated on him.” Will takes a deep breath. “Like, a lot. Her name was Ryan.”

She watches for Mack’s reaction to the pronoun, but he just nods. When Will doesn’t say anything else, Mack asks, “What happened to her?”

“I don’t know.” Will used to think about googling, but there’s no place to start. Ryan. The dive bar. The city. That’s all she knows. “It wasn’t… like that.”

“What happened to Gabe?”

“I ended it.” Will doesn’t have to google Gabe. He pops up in suggested posts, in her friends’ tags. He has a new girlfriend. They got a puppy. “It was, like, not very long before the wedding,” she adds, just so Mack knows how awful she is. “It really, really sucked.” Will puts all of the anguish of that brutal September into each really.

Mack forms his next question carefully. “Did you break up with him because he was a guy, or because he wasn’t the right guy?” 

“I don’t know.” Will lifts her chin defiantly. It’s the most vulnerable thing she’s ever said. Here’s my fucked up situation. Here’s what you’re getting into. 

“What’s that mean for me?” Mack does not relate to identity crises, having had his own identity rigorously reinforced since adolescence (or so he thinks). “Being… the guy that I am.”

“Oh, are you trans? I hadn’t noticed,” Will says, like she didn’t have her tongue in his pussy ten hours earlier.

Mack laughs, and that’s enough vulnerability for two people who don’t like it and are going to have to figure that part out later. “We should have dinner next weekend, if you don’t break up with me before then.”

If I was not inherently resistant to established relationship fic, there would be a lot to explore here. Chiefly, I’m intrigued by what happens when Rick’s singleminded focus on Mack’s masculinity (and the not-necessarily-positive ways that Mack has internalized that), collide with Will’s attraction to Mack, which is not premised on masculinity. Will’s got to figure her own shit out somewhere along the way, but she’s at least pretty sure that 100 percent masculinity is not on her list of priorities in a partner. I think that Rick is immediately welcoming to Will, to a degree that’s almost curious, and Will and Mack slowly realize that in Rick’s eyes Mack’s earned some kind of manhood badge by bringing home a hot girlfriend. Also, as ever, there’s a plot to be made out of Rick treating Will like another Celebrini child who warrants Rick’s micromanaging, and Will figuring out how to resist that without alienating Rick, and along the way prompting some realizations for Mack about the ways in which his Sheriff Rick upbringing was maybe a little bit fucked up.

Anyway. Here’s how the story would end. Mack makes it a running joke about Will breaking up with him. What do you want to do for Valentines’ Day, if you don’t break up with me before then? At first it’s jarring, and then it’s a comfort, a little reassurance that Mack still likes her enough that he’s willing to risk it all going wrong. Yeah, I could do Thanksgiving in Lexington if you’re not going to break up with me… Do you want to come to Whistler with us this year, if you haven’t dumped me by then?... I’m going to book our flight for R.J.’s graduation weekend unless you want to break up first. And then, over time, it starts to become jarring again. We should move in together when your lease is up if you’re not going to break up with me.

“Stop saying that,” Will finally says. “I’m not going to.”

“You’re not going to break up with me?” Mack’s about to fist-pump over his long game paying off. “Like ever?”

“Like ever,” Will confirms, and Mack can’t get down on one knee fast enough.

[scarletfasinera]

I hate when people are like "I already didn't like xyz so it's not difficult for me to boycott it unlike those loser customers that actually Liked the thing which I could never understand bc I was never a customer uwu" bc like. That literally isn't boycotting lmao. That is just Never Being A Customer In The First Place, which means nothing actually.

Boycotts are primarily about applying pressure (or completely making it impossible to operate) via financial/commercial/economic impact. AKA it's about money and capital.

If you already weren't spending money on a product/franchise/company, then you were already never part of their sales data, and you just doing nothing & making absolutely no change to your daily life and just continuing to not be part of their sales data as normal, has literally no material impact. You were already never a factor. The people who WERE customers & WERE part of the sales data & ARE withdrawing their money from those sales figures actually ARE making a material impact.

"Supporting" something isn't about vibes or thoughts or feelings or you telling your best friend how much you like a thing, "support" in a meaningful sense is specifically material. It is financial. Refusing to continue supporting something means taking the money you were previously spending on it & putting it elsewhere. If you were never spending money, you were never supporting it, and therefore it doesn't make any difference if you continue to not support it. Boycotting is something CUSTOMERS and CONSUMERS do.

SO STOP FUCKING BRAGGING ABOUT IT & STOP MAKING FUN OF PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY ARE BOYCOTTING FOR "EVER LIKING XYZ TO BEGIN WITH" & STOP SPREADING THIS FALSE IDEA OF HOW BOYCOTTING WORKS LMAO sorry for capslocking I remembered I was annoyed

I just hate this low-morale mean-spirited bullshit some people do in the notifs on boycotting info posts where they arbitrarily moralize about something they just don't understand so they can pat themselves on the back for doing literally literally nothing AND inadvertently spreading misinfo in the process. Be quiet. Go do something that matters. There are plenty of posts going around, including from Palestinians themselves, with lists of references for how to help Palestine & other similar causes for people currently in crisis, please please do something For Real instead of boasting online about your fandom superiority complex as if it means anything.

[smilebug]

alright call me crazy but. how do folks feel about an android wall-e jesskas au