#THE RAGE EMINATING FROM THIS PERSON

[triona-tribblescore]

PLLLEEEASSEEE LOOK AT HOW FUNNY THIS IS. (This was under one of my posts of Leo saying "I like men :D")

AND THEN SOMEONE ELSE COMMENTED ON THE ART

LIKE-

[drowninginblox]

The Tell

Based off of this scene (SPOILERS FOR XMEN '97) I am back on my nightcrawler bs!!!!

Have some angst and hurt/comfort to bide yall. I'M WORKING ON PART 3- MIDTERMS HAVE ME BY THE SOUL!! Yall know the drill: 2nd person bc idgaf GN pronouns for yall (I think?) No beta we die like (spoilers)

He was gone. You were across the world and you knew he was gone. In a step, in a breath, in a waining thought- all silenced by the wind in your hair whispering "Gambit's Dead"

You rushed home as soon as possible, making it just a day before the funeral. Everyone was barely holding it together but seeing you after all these years, a ghost, sent waves. Logan, Rouge, and Hank were all indifferent to your presence, understanding but also contempt of the fact that now- now you show up, after years away. This is what got you back.

Scott was worse- not even bothering to speak to you, just walking away altogether. Jubilee didn't know you that well, but from what she knew and how she is, she took you in with a grain of salt. Smart girl- that one.

Kurt, now that was a reaction. Moments after you were let in, Kurt was getting tea for everyone and as soon as he saw you- everything fell apart. Not many people have had the displeasure of seeing the Nightcrawler angry. After all, the few who do, don't live to tell the tale. But now you've seen it thrice. But unlike the times before- you stayed and took it all.

All the vile curses, both English and German, all the arm motions and tears, all the looks of emotions so mixed it could count as a cocktail. When he was done, and stark silence filled the over-occupied room, he muttered. "Welcome home Windwalker." Before dacking your shoulder on his way out.

You knew you should have left at that moment but you stay ed for the funeral. As soon as it was over and Kurtis touched your heart once again, you started to walk away again.

You made it ten minutes before he came racing after you. "Wait." He called from behind you.

A sigh and half of a turn was the most you got before the brunt of a sword collided with your eye- sending you stumbling into a nearby tree. "You are not leaving until I'm through with you, Zepher." You wince. Not at the pain. You didn't bother to stand as Kurt readied his blades. You just closed your eyes and waited. A moment passes before Kurt shouts "Steh auf, verdammt! Get up and fight me!" The rage eminent in his voice. You open your eyes to see him looming from listed over a yard away. His stark eyes contrast the gloom of the landscape. Where this moment was pure mourning, he was nothing but firey disgust. Contemplation washed over you, but you got up. You didn't bother to ready yourself as if you could- Kurt was already on you, his swords slashing into you. Kicks sent you here and there while the memories of late-night training sessions made your tears mix with the downpour. Blood followed soon after.

Whether it be minutes or hours later, he was finished with you. On the brink of passing out either out of blood loss or exhaustion. He stepped back to look at you. "Warum liegt mir so viel an Ihnen?" He mumbles. You only swallow back the copper taste in your mouth. His eyes narrow, finally seeing you as the human trash you are. You close your eyes and hope that the devil is kinder than this fallen angel.

You wake to smoke. immediately sitting up and coughing out the vile intruder. You use your mutation of wind manipulation to give yourself a radius to breathe. Kurt appears next to you before grabbing your chest and suddenly teleporting you outside. He doesn't linger to explain whats going on- just leaving you to watch as these human-robot things destroy the manor. You take out a few that try to break in and even save Logan from one too. When the chaos is settled, everyone makes a gameplan- something something Rouge, something something Magneto- you were out for most of it. It wasn't until Kurt gripped your shoulder that you found yourself back in reality. Kurt stares at you for a moment before grabbing your waist and teleporting to the outside of the manor's green.

"I-If you want a round two... go ahead." You offer even though the bandages wrapped around your torso and arms are turning pink. "I know you wanted to for harder." You close your eyes. "Can I say something though?"A beat passes. you feel his tail swing against your ankle. "Make it quick." You nod. "I'm going to say I've changed, or that I feel sorry, or that I've repented- because... I don't think you care about that." You let out a breath. Your heartbeat is still racing. "But what I am going to say is, that when I left- I didn't do it to hurt you." Something builds in the back of your closing throat. "I- I had to leave to protect you. And I know it was stupid to not say anything- especially given our last conversation. But I had to go. Y-you mother-"

"Mystique."

You nod, and you feel your cheeks get wet. "She found my family. My blood one. And you know that I've been keeping tabs on them since I left- she said that she'd kill them and then go after you guys-" She tries to suppress the frown that was deepening. "I know that I should have told you but I was scared. You told me what your mother is capable of. And I couldn't just stand there so-" A weight envelopes you. A warm, protective, weight, that grounds you to the moment. You open your eyes to see the thing you've been dreaming of for the past decade finally become reality. Kurt's buried his head into your shoulder and holding onto you for dear life. For a moment you can only watch. But as reality slowly but surely seeped in, the cracks in the years-old walls finally led to you crumbling in the arms of your oldest friend. You return his hug, clutching him to make sure that this wasn't one of the most twisted dreams you've ever had.

His tail wraps around your calve. "I missed the west wind," He mumbled into your embrace. You hold him tighter. "And I yearned for the fallen angel."

[anghraine]

Disney-era Lucasfilm has given me essentially one film I adored (Rogue One, which also has my favorite SW ship and two of my favorite SW characters in Cassian and Jyn). It's also produced two more films that I very much liked (though only one of those still remains high in my estimation tbh), and a bunch of SW material that is not really the SW that plays in my mind, but at least fun and interesting to think about with the very glaring exception of TROS. I never had any investment in Legends, either, so for me the Disney era is not some huge loss.

I say all of this to emphasize that I'm not a kneejerk Disney SW hater. Nevertheless, I'm actually very disappointed with DLF's tendency to emphasize how ground-breaking and diverse and ~challenging some new SW media thing is without doing much to support the people involved or appearing to foresee that a fanbase prone to bigotry, nostalgia, and throwing screaming temper tantrums for decades on end is not going to react well. This is in no way an excuse for those fans, but DLF does not seem to ever predict how SW fans will respond despite their well-documented history of responding really badly to anything that remotely challenges them.

I love SW and I love my personal friends in SW fandom, but there have always been a significant number of vocally hateful and reactionary SW fans who manage to shape the discourse around basically everything in it. This is completely predictable. The fact that DLF seems completely unprepared for this reaction every time they give central roles behind and in front of the camera to women and/or POC, and also appears to do very little to support the actual RL marginalized people they hire when not just cravenly giving in to the worst elements of the SW fanbase (*cough*TROS*cough*) is incredibly frustrating.

Yeah, this is about DLF's poor handling of eminently predictable fan tantrums over The Acolyte which has just culminated in cancelling it after a bare eight episodes, but it's happened so many times at this point. The Acolyte was far from perfect but after how visibly unprepared DLF were for the raging bigotry directed at Kelly Marie Tran, John Boyega, and Daisy Ridley, or how weird people were about Solo, or the misogynoir surrounding the response to Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi, or or or—they absolutely could and should have known that something like The Acolyte was going to need a lot of higher-level support to have any chance of success. At the very least there's no excuse for being surprised at this point.

And it feels a bit like it, and the actual people involved in it, were never really given a fair shot and the real higher investment is going to be in, like, Baby Yoda 4: Now With More Ewoks.

My friends and I just finished our first run of Jedi: Survivor, which we really, really liked, but there is definitely a tragic white boy protagonist propped up by POC and/or women (many now dead!) aspect to the whole thing that feels essential to its popularity. And it is frustrating and disappointing and all the more so because it's so eminently foreseeable at this point.

[flowerandblood]

The Pearl and the Sapphire (3)

[ modern! • Aemond x Baratheon! • female ]

[ warnings: sex content, oral sex, fingering, smut, angst, sexual tension, obsession ]

[ description: As a representative of a large family-owned gemstone business, Aemond is attending a major jewellery event where jewellery makers from all over the world are exhibiting. One of them is the Baratheon family. Aemond is tasked with focusing on attracting new customers, but his attention is diverted by the youngest daughter of the eminent maker Borros Baratheon. Slow burn, bitchy, possessive and obsessive Aemond, lots of dark angst and sexual tension. ]

A story which is an alternative universe of The Impossbile Choice taking place in modern times. The characters are all the same as in the main series, however, for obvious reasons they will behave differently and experience things differently from medieval times. You can read this without having to delve into the main series.

Series moodboard: Aemond & Miss Baratheon

* English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy! *

Previous and next chapters: Masterlist

______

He had no idea what had popped into his head to suggest meeting her in this kind of place in such a direct way, embarrassment and shame got to him as soon as he entered his hotel room. He figured she surely thought he was desperate.

He decided that he would try to be professional and not to show what was hidden in his head.

He turned up at the restaurant ahead of time, informing Alys beforehand that he was going to have a meeting with Borros. He didn't want her meddling in affairs that weren't her own, and he knew that if she found out about the meeting with his daughter, she would surely pester him with messages and check when he would be back.

He sat down at a table tucked as far back as possible so as not to draw attention to himself. He waited all tense, feeling his heart pounding.

Why was he stressing so much about this meeting?

He shuddered when he heard someone's footsteps beside him and saw her above him. He swallowed loudly, seeing her black dress with a white collar, feeling with shame how his cock throbbed greedily at the sight. He stood up, not knowing how to act, how to greet her.

He felt relieved when she extended her hand to him and he shook it. He swallowed loudly feeling how soft, warm and small her hand was. They ordered wine and he started a conversation, wanting to understand why he was actually seeing her and not her father.

"My father values freedom of action. Also the choice of materials to work with. He now works with who he wants and decides for himself what is best for him. He fears that your company, with lawyers deliberating over every comma in the contract, will arrange it so as to influence his decisions as much as possible." She said, and he furrowed his brow at her words, tense.

What was she implying?

"You think we're going to try to trick your father?" He asked annoyed, and she looked at him, something in her gaze that confused him.

"Can I trust you?" She asked suddenly, and he opened his mouth and closed it, surprised and flustered.

What was he supposed to say to her?

"No." He said in accordance with what he himself thought. Seeing her hurt, shocked face he continued, wanting to explain what he meant.

"You can't trust me, just as I can't trust you. You will protect your father's interests and I will protect mine. There is no friendship in business or holding hands in the sunset light." He said with a tinge of mockery, which he immediately regretted seeing a grimace of pain and some kind of disappointment cross her face.

"I didn't know that to trust someone you had to be able to be friends and hold hands. I thought it was enough to be a decent human being." She said in a trembling voice and he pressed his lips together, feeling both rage and shame, his hand clenched into a fist.

"I'm not a decent person." He explained, not wanting to leave her with any illusions.

"Nevertheless, I have with me the terms and conditions of our company written down on paper, without paragraphs written in small print. You can look them over and determine whether you want to pass them on to your father or not." He said a little softer, sensing that something was happening to her, that his answers had broken her for some reason.

Why was she approaching this so emotionally?

His lips parted as he saw tears run down her cheeks. His heart was pounding like crazy and he had no idea what he should do.

They both flinched when her phone began to vibrate in her clutch bag. She wiped her tears quickly and pulled it out, but when she looked at the display she turned pale and shuddered, he felt like she was about to faint.

What was happening to her?

She hid the phone quickly back in her purse, looking at her hands on the table as if she had completely forgotten his presence.

"… are you all right?" He choked out finally, horrified by her condition.

She drew in a loud breath and laughed despairingly at his words through her tears, pouring herself a full glass of wine.

"No."

She wiped her nose, swallowing quietly, trying to calm herself down.

"I'm sorry. Thank you for your honesty. Can I have these documents?" She asked in a slightly hoarse voice.

He swallowed loudly and nodded, grabbing the folder he had placed on the windowsill earlier and handed it to her.

"Go over it calmly. You don't have to rush. My grandfather really cares about this and is willing to wait and read your version of the agreement if you want to present us with one." He said in a slightly softer, calmer tone.

"All right. Thank you." She said softly. They both shuddered as her phone began to vibrate again in her handbag. She took it out, muted it and tucked it back in, her lips tightened into a thin line.

"Someone doesn't understand the word 'no'?" He asked suddenly and swallowed loudly, surprised and embarrassed by his own directness.

What right did he have to ask such things?

He saw her puzzled and confused look, and for a moment she thought strenuously about what she should answer to such a question.

"In a way." She said, grasping her glass in her trembling fingers and taking a deep sip of wine from it.

He pressed his lips together at her words and thought they both needed it.

A relaxation.

It wasn't about quick, rough sex.

He wanted something else from her, but he wasn't sure what.

"Let's move to my room." He said after a moment and pressed his lips together watching her reaction, she threw him a surprised, horrified look. "We can think together about what to answer to a man who won't let you alone."

Say yes, he thought.

I'll give you everything.

He felt a wonderful heat of satisfaction surge through his body as she nodded her head.

They drank what they had in their glasses to the end, then rose from their chairs. He took the half-full bottle in his hand, recognising that they might still need it. They headed for the lift without looking at each other, as if they were both ashamed of what they were doing.

They rode in silence to his floor and started down the corridor. He prayed that Alys wouldn't come out of her room, he didn't feel like explaining himself to her. He quickly put his card to his door and opened it, letting her in, looking around and finding to his relief that no one had seen them.

He walked in behind her and closed the door, turning on the hall light, pulling off his leather jacket and boots. She also pulled off her shoes and put them next to him, then stepped deeper uncertainly, looking around.

His room was actually an apartment with a view of the city, couches in the middle and a huge TV, a large double bed to his left. He saw her glance at it out of the corner of her eye and swallowed quietly, he felt his cock pulsate painfully hard in his trousers.

There was no way this was going to end well, he thought.

Still, he never felt better.

He moved to the kitchenette and reached two glasses from the shelves, feeling a pleasant heat in his stomach. He knew it wasn't just the effects of the alcohol.

He turned, walking to the small table opposite the sofa, placing the glass on it, seeing that she was still standing in the same place, terrified.

She was afraid he was going to do something to her.

That he would add something to her drink.

"What does he want from you?" He asked, wanting to relax her, to distract her from her worrying thoughts.

She blinked and lowered her gaze, embarrassed, coming shyly closer, her scent reaching his nose again. She sat down on the sofa and he sat beside her at the other end of it, keeping his distance, wanting to give her the feeling that he would not do anything against her will.

He saw that with a trembling hand she had taken her phone out of her clutch bag and unlocked her phone. She began to read the messages she had apparently received and pressed her lips together, tucking her mobile into her bag again.

He saw that she had shut herself in and was breathing anxiously. She swallowed loudly and looked at him finally. He felt a shudder pass through him at her words.

"Question for question."

He tapped the inside of his cheek with the tip of his tongue, wondering whether to agree. She could end up asking him something he didn't want to talk about at all. He decided, however, that it might be interesting and he would have a chance to learn more about her.

He nodded, leaning over and pouring them the rest of the wine from the bottle. He heard her sigh quietly.

"My ex-boyfriend wanted to be my friend. Months later, when I finally got myself together, he now decided he had made a mistake. That maybe we should get back together after all." She said with resignation, reaching for her glass.

He felt discomfort and a tightening in his stomach at the thought that she had been with someone before, at the thought of some men before him touching her.

That this men, this idiot, who left her wanted to take her for himself again.

"You and the woman you were with at the banquet. Are you two together?" She asked uncertainly, taking a sip of wine, leaning against the sofa, settling herself comfortably, looking at him expectantly. He pressed his lips together, looking ahead, raising his glass to his lips.

"No."

It wasn't a lie.

"Why did you break up?" He asked immediately and felt her move next to him uneasily. She swallowed loudly, pulling her legs up to her thighs, changing position.

"He wanted to have some more fun." She said quietly, as if in shame, and he cast her an anxious glance, feeling a strange tightness in his throat. He wanted to say something, but she pre-empted him with another question, from which he froze.

"Are you sleeping with her?" She asked without even looking at him, her gaze directed to her glass, which she held in her hands.

He felt his heart start pounding hard. Her question felt like a realisation of what he was doing, a realisation of who he really was. He thought there was no point in deceiving her, that she deserved at least to be completely honest with her.

"Yes." He said, immediately taking a deep sip of wine, unsure if he could bear her reaction.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, and saw that she had swallowed with difficulty, sleepiness and fatigue on her face. She finally lifted her gaze to his, despite the fact that what he had said had clearly struck her, he could see no condemnation or disgust in her eyes. She parted her lips slightly as if struggling with what she was trying to say.

"Why did you want us to come here?"

Silence.

He stared at her feeling the artery in his neck pulsing hard, his heart pounding like mad, his member throbbing in his trousers. He was ashamed of how obvious his desire was and didn't know what to answer. The longer they looked at each other, the more uncomfortable and vulnerable he felt.

"You can say it. It's okay." She said softly, gently, and he felt heat spilling over his lower abdomen, his throat tightening as if in pain. There was something tender, reassuring in her voice, as if she understood him.

She was not judging.

"I want it." He whispered almost silently, his lower lip trembling as he spoke the words.

She pressed her lips together and lowered her gaze, as if his words intimidated her, though he didn't believe she hadn't expected them. He thought she would tell him that she couldn't, that she had just ended a relationship and didn't want to spend the night with a stranger whose private life was one big mess.

He twisted in his seat as she set her glass down on the table and moved closer to him, sitting in front of him on her lap. She took his hand in hers, and he shuddered when he felt her thumb run over his skin.

For a moment he didn't know if he should move or do anything, his gaze fixed on their hands, her touch gentle, safe, respectful. He set his glass down on the table and looked at her. He took her soft cheeks in his trembling hands.

For a moment they both just looked at each other breathing unevenly, asking each other wordlessly for permission. They leaned towards each other and their lips touched tentatively, her lips puffy and moist, sweet from the wine and her scent.

They both sighed quietly, gently sucking and licking their lips with a wet click, he purred contentedly as she wrapped her arms around his neck. He wandered his nose over her soft face, his one hand tentatively sliding down to her thigh, his fingertips trailing over her skin.

He felt shivers run through her, her hands holding him tightly.

He wasn't sure if this was really happening or if it was just his imagination.

His face slid up to her ear, surrounding her cheek and neck with his hot, aroused, erratic breath.

"– I want to taste you –" He whispered. She drew in a loud breath and trembled all over, clasping her hands in his hair.

He looked at her, her cheeks were flushed, her parted lips red from alcohol and lust, she stared at him with a warmth from which he felt hot in his chest.

"– will you let me? –" He asked softly and she nodded shyly, embarrassed by what they were both doing, what they both wanted.

He murmured contentedly feeling his heart pounding, his hands involuntarily sliding down to the thin material of her panties. Wanting to help him, she lay on her back, looking at him with her lips slightly parted, her whole body quivering with emotion.

He couldn't believe that this was really happening.

He slid them slowly down her thighs, watching her face the whole time, wanting to be sure she hadn't changed her mind. She swallowed loudly and pressed her lips together, placing her hands on either side of her head, looking at him pleadingly.

She pleaded him not to hurt her.

He leaned over her, grasping one of her thighs in his hand and pressed his lips to her skin in a gesture of devotion, of desire, of tenderness. He had never treated Alys like this, never felt the need to do so, knew that she just wanted him to fuck her.

But he knew that she now placed her trust in him, and even though she knew he was not a good person, all she wanted was for him not to take advantage of her weakness, not to make her regret it.

His lips with sticky, loud kisses slid lower and lower leaving wet marks on her skin, he felt her breathing quicken, her body trembling in his hands. With a soft, sure movement, he pulled her down so that he had her in the perfect position, lifting her dress up slightly, looking at what was underneath.

"− fuck −" He exhaled, involuntarily running his finger over her entrance, seeing the state she was in, already soaking wet. He heard her squirm softly, surprised by this sudden gesture, her whole body tensed and breathless.

"− you're leaking −" He said delightedly, feeling that from the mere sight of her juices running down her buttocks onto his couch he had become completely hard.

She really wanted it.

She moaned helplessly, sweetly, trembling all over under his touch, as if she was trying to escape from him and at the same time wanted to feel him harder. He ran his thumb over her clit, massaging it in circular, slow motions, spreading her wetness, holding her thigh with his other hand so that she could not move away.

She mewled, tilting her head and he licked his lips involuntarily, seeing how sensitive she was, how his slightest touch drew out reactions from her that made him hot, even though he hadn't done anything to her yet.

"− what made you so wet? − hm? − messages from your ex? −" He asked teasing her, breathing loudly, the tip of his middle finger slipped inside her hot insides and her body arched backwards, she sobbed quietly at his words.

"− answer me −" He said coolly, looking down at her, watching her beautiful, gentle face, all red with exertion and arousal, her lips parted and swollen, her chest rising and falling restlessly, her gaze hot, thirsty, fixed only on him.

"− no −" She mumbled with difficulty, trembling all over, her hands clenched into fists. He hummed with satisfaction at her words, his finger slid in and out of her with a wet click of her juices.

"− maybe we can find the answer to that question together − what do you think? −" He cooed, putting out his finger, gripping her thighs in his hands, spreading them wider, leaning over her. He heard her drew in air loudly feeling his hot breath on her womanhood.

She arched her back and whimpered when the tip of his tongue ran over her sticky entrance.

"− I fucking knew it −" He growled out, pressing his nose against her clit, his tongue slipped deeper, involuntarily wanting to taste her more, her moisture spreading over his palate like the sweetest juice. "− I knew you would taste wonderful −"

He felt her hands clench in his hair, pressing him closer, her thighs trembling in his arms, sweet moans of pleasure erupting from her lips after each of his slightest touches.

Never before in his life had he been so aroused, so thirsty, filled with such tenderness and desire.

His tongue slid in and out of her with a loud, wet click, licking her more and more boldly, concentrating on the hidden point just at her entrance from which spasms passed through her. He groaned throatily when he felt her hips involuntarily begin to respond to his movements, seeking fulfilment.

He heard her sigh of surprise when he abruptly stopped, trailing his lips between her folds and her clit, teasing her only with his hot breath.

"− so − what made you so wet? −" He asked teasingly, waiting for her answer, once in a while tip of his tongue run over her entrance, driving her insane. He heard her swallow loudly, her hands stroking his hair, holding him close.

"− you −" She whispered in a trembling voice so quietly that he barely heard it. A dangerous grin full of satisfaction spread across his face.

"− I can't hear −" He murmured, teasing her, trailing his moist lips over her hot flesh.

"− you − please − ah! −" She moaned loudly, parting her lips wide and clenching her eyes shut, her body arching as his tongue suddenly slid between her folds again, moving quickly and intensely inside her, rubbing her where she needed it.

"− that's fucking right −" He hissed out between caresses, sinking his face deep between her thighs, eating her like a starved man, the only sounds in the room were her loud moans and the sticky, perverted clicks of his saliva mixed with her moisture. He felt her walls begin to pulsate around him and he knew what that meant.

"− Aemond − oh god −" She mewled, and then suddenly her whole body went breathless and tense, a loud, helpless sob escaped her lips.

She tried to push him away from her as the orgasm violently shook her body, but he held her thighs in his hands, not letting her move away one bit, licking devotedly everything that flowed out of her.

He rose at last, wiping his chin and mouth with his hand, looking at her with satisfaction. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted slightly, her cheeks and lips red. Her face had an expression of bliss and serenity, her hands placed idly on either side of her head.

She looked so innocent.

He looked down at her, slowly undoing the button of his trousers and unzipping his fly; she heard it and threw him a quick, uncertain look.

"You still want this?" He asked lowly, looking her straight in the eye, leaning over her, placing his hands on either side of her head. She swallowed loudly, looking at him uncertainly, and then nodded.

"Are you taking pills?" He asked, brushing his lips gently over the skin of her cheeks, wanting to remember this feeling, her hands stroking his face so tenderly, the touch of her fingers so gentle that he felt himself melting.

She shook her head, looking at him with shame. He hummed under his breath and kissed her forehead.

"It's okay. Come here." He murmured, grabbing her in his arms and getting up from the couch with her. Only then did he feel the wine humming pleasantly in his head, she seemed surprisingly light.

He set her down on his bed and reached his hand to the bedside table, pulling a packed condom from one drawer. He saw the look on her face, her eyes big, her lips parted in an accelerated breath.

She swallowed loudly as he lay back between her thighs sliding his trousers and his boxers down a little. She looked away seeing his throbbing, swollen manhood.

With a sure, light movement he put the condom on and grasped her cheek with his hand directing her gaze back to himself.

"– look at me – at what you've been doing to me since I saw you –" He said spreading her thighs, her breathing sped up suddenly at his words. He leaned over her, licking his lips, feeling his heart pounding like crazy with arousal, directing the tip of his member to her entrance.

He had never wanted so much to be inside any woman before.

"– already during the show I was wondering how to get you into my bed – how tight and hot you must be inside –" He murmured, hearing her breathing get quicker and quicker. They both moaned loudly as he slid into her a little, her walls clenching against him greedily.

"− fuck −" He breathed out, with another intense thrust entering her fully, feeling how warm she was, her body leaning back, tasting how much he was filling her tight insides.

He couldn't stop himself, her core was too pleasurable, too warm. Involuntarily he began to move his hips, sliding into her with ease thanks to the wetness from her earlier orgasm.

"− oh, baby −" He exhaled, speeding up, entering her with a loud, wet slap of flesh against flesh, looking at her gentle face on which dreamy delight was painted.

He was surprised to find that they both began to pant loudly, looking at each other with a kind of helplessness, feeling that they needed each other, her hand drew him close and their foreheads touched, her hips tentatively beginning to respond to his movements.

They kissed once, then again and again, uncertainly, slowly, as if they were unsure whether it was too intimate gesture. There was a tenderness and care in their soft, swollen lips that he wouldn't have suspected himself of, he'd never done it this way with Alys, never enjoyed a woman's body in this way.

"− my sweet girl −" He breathed out, moving faster and faster inside her, thrusting into her with all his strength, a whimper escaping her lips, her walls tightening on him steadily.

"− you like it when someone takes care of you, don't you? − when someone fucks you properly −" He gasped in a trembling voice, and she sobbed loudly, struggling to get the confirmation out of her throat.

He tightened his hands on her hips, her fingers entwined in his hair holding him close. He was looking down at her with parted lips, moaning and panting with her, feeling that he wouldn't last much longer, her legs entwined around his waist.

"− I'm gonna cum now, okay? − I'm gonna cum inside my sweet little girl −" He exhaled, and she nodded, shuddering beneath him all over.

"− oh, yes, please −" She mewled and moaned loudly as he slid his tongue into her lips, his hand sliding down to her swollen clit teasing her with his thumb, his cock rubbing against the point hidden inside her with each brutal thrust.

They both moaned low into each other's mouths feeling the orgasm shake their bodies, their hot, loud breaths surrounding their faces, their hands clenched painfully tight on each other in fulfilment.

"− yes − god, yes −" She whispered sweetly, writhing beneath him, giving herself over to the pleasure she was experiencing with him.

He kissed her feeling a wave of pleasure shake him, he felt an immense, overflowing relief, he purred and panted into her throat holding her to him tightly, her walls clenched against him greedily.

Never before had he felt so fulfilled, so at peace.

They both shuddered and looked at each other horrified when they heard a loud knock on his door. He felt his heart pounding at the thought that Alys had heard what they were doing while she was looking for him.

"Aemond? What the fuck? Who the fuck are you in there with?" She asked in a raised, angry and broken tone. His lover looked at him with terrified eyes, her lips quivering with despair. He shook his head wordlessly telling her to be quiet.

"Aemond!" She shouted, slamming her fists against the door, pulling on the handle, however without his card there was nothing she could do.

He lay on top of her feeling her trembling and embraced her, kissing her neck, stroking her head, closing his eye.

"You fucking bastard! Are you fucking this little girl? This little slut? God fucking damn you! How could you do this to me!" She whined and he heard her loud sobs.

He felt how she began to sob quietly in his arms, terrified and shaken, and he embraced her tighter, kissing her temple, letting her snuggle into him, wanting to protect her from what was happening. He heard her quiet, broken whisper.

"What have we done?"

____

Taglist 1

@its-actually-minicika @notnormalthings-blog @nikstrange @zenka69 @bellaisasleep @k-y-r-a-1 @g-cf2020 @melsunshine @opheliaas-stuff @chainsawsangel @iiamthehybrid @tinykryptonitewerewolf @namoreno @malfoytargaryen @qyburnsghost @aemondsdelight @persephonerinyes @fan-goddess @sweethoneyblossom1 @watercolorskyy @astral-blossoms @randomdragonfires @apollonshootafar @padfooteyes @darylandbethfanforever9 @fudge13 @snh96 @rwdkarla @echos-muses @ipostwhtifeel @letmeloveyouuuu @yentroucnagol @valeskafics @tempt-ress @ahristata @menaosama @queenofshinigamis @dark-night-sky-99

[jajatoc]

about the character list: do you have any thoughts on Lara Ravel? [:

Thank you so much for asking!!!! I love Lara to death I'll gladly reflect on her character if you'll have me!!!

favorite thing about them- The anwer to this one is very silly. We share the same name. It was the first time a character I cared a lot about in a videogame had the same name as me! Because of its Russian origins I truly do not see it used often.. Aside from this, Lara Ravel is a very gorgeous character and I really like her in both Classic and 2. She changed a lot between iterations, I believe, and most of the changes are determined by her childhood friendship with Burakh, Filin and Rubin.

She constantly has nerve wracking anxiety and is painfully cautious, taking well measured risks at best. She values herself, but lives in a haze, in an empty house too big for her, so she tries to fill it with people as much as she can. Of course in 2 this point is exaggerated (positively), while in Classic her house is still very rich and bright (i love all the textures and patterns in the Shelter by the way. So beautiful), but she still hangs off in a secluded side room where all the colors seem duller, almost as if she ultimately needs to distance herself from others.

She has a sharp mind, sullied by deep, world ending grief. She lost her father in a spring a thousand years ago, and then, inexplicably, winter set in over her life.

Suddenly a chance to finally prove her kindness to the world presents itself in the form of a plague. She sets her shelter up to help people, until her fear sets in again, and she closes her doors. In the end her father's killer shows up, and she somehow sheds any fear she had grown into like a well worn coat. She walks in a determined fog to her gallows or her instant death, intending only to enact revenge over somebody else while completely disregarding her own still living existence. Death had always more value to her anyways, a bigger weight than life ever had. I'm always struck by Yulia's description of her in Classic, of how she already sees a walking corpse in every person, ready to lose them before she even has a chance to know them. This is deep rooted trauma over the death of her last living family member, and in a patho 2 perspective, over the loss of her childhood friends.

Despite it all, she isn't a loner, she is a rich woman (grown almost miserly in her modesty in 2) that spends her time among other eminent women of the city. She has a circle of acquaintances that trust her so much so that she is able to raise someone's reputation by merely speaking a good word about them. She definetely has power, but she is a Humble.

I love her stronger personality in 2, even if prone to wavering. She had been a sister to three boys once, growing alongside them, and this side of her never left even as they grew apart. Even if it's a rare thing to witness now, her good natured irony and sarcasm is the healthiest side of her personality. I love how her nickname is "gravel" and "proud trout" in the original russian text,,,

least favorite thing about them- *sounds of car tires screeching to a halt* I could never dislike anything about my wife. But. I hate how in two you can try to matchmake Lara with Rubin or fight with her about Nara. It makes my stomach turn. Leave them alone.

The single other thing I dislike.. is her treatment about the mental crisis over Block. I hate how people get to handle her rage and treat her like she is going crazy. (Mostly in classic. I actually love that you can find her goodbye letter in 2 if you fail to stop her.. it's a horrible sacrifice but it gives her a terrifying sense of agency. She really needed help and support and you weren't there. God) She has suffered so much!!

favorite line- I'm sure I also had a screenshot of it once somewhere but I'm in love with the sewing box item touch description in 2: Gravel once knitted a sweater for me. I asked her why it was blue. She told me that blue is the color of morons, and never made me another.

Like there she is!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

brOTP/OTP/nOTP- Of course, the Apple Baskets are endgame without question. Those people. Have surely something going on that I would love to see resolved. In a very gender non conforming way. I love strong platonic relationships, but they can genuinely do whatever they want. I need them to not die and stick toghether and continue whatever weird boygirls dynamics they had. Please. Also I need Lara to interact with Yulia perhaps. Perhaps

random headcanon- I always pictured Lara as a kid wearing her dad's reconditioned military garments... a jacket cut to her length with shortened sleeves, the shoulders falling too large on hers.... his old caps of course... sigh........

song i associate with them- I thought a lot about the Apple Basket gang (I even started writing a fic which I miserably abandoned..) mostly associating them to Adrianne Lenker music, but the songs I think most fit them (especially Lara) are Night Scented Stock and Army Dreamers (back to back specifically) by Kate Bush.... physically painful music......

favorite picture of them- The bonfire gang. They brought Tema a tiny mattress to rest with them. I'm sick as fuck. ALSO the very early Lara concept art!! While I'm in love with her intricately textured classic hd design (aside from the hair.. in my head it is frizzy and tightly curly like in her portrait) the concept art where her striking dark eyes and hair contrast so well with the white dress and scarf are truly gorgeous! It reminds me of the way older Catholic women would cover their hair to go to pray in church.. it's like a reverse mourning attire, in white.

Thank you so much again for asking and sorry for taking an ungodly amount of time 😭😭

[berrypass-de-murdler]

2 - 10 Grand Entrance, Grand Exit

Holy crap ten episodes in already it hasn't felt like that long...

I'm in a rush today cuz I gotta be somewhere :'D LAZY INTRO

DON'T READ THE EPISODES WITHOUT READING THE BOOKS!!

Logico stands uncomfortably in a tight crowd. Viscount Eminence, Silverton the Legend, and Assistant Applegreen are there all of a sudden, apparently more guests to Lady Violet’s ‘party’.

APPLEGREEN: HEY! Don’t you remember? I’m not ‘assistant’ Applegreen anymore! I’m AGENT APPLEGREEN! I work for Hollywood now! LOGICO: Thank you… for that necessary recap. APPLEGREEN: 😊

President White and Sable SHOULD be there, but I guess they aren’t. The doors rattle. The friends stare expectantly! Out comes Lady Violet.

VIOLET: The holiday party… has officially… BEGUN!!

Some confetti cannons go off and an ensemble plays a fanfare. Everyone cheers (except Logico, because he doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to be cheering for). And they all step inside.

EMINENCE: [amazed mini-vampire noises!] SILVERTON: I appreciate the gold trim… APPLEGREEN: I want to BUY IT ALL!! VIOLET: I am so happy to have you all in the Violet Manor with me on this occasion. First, you will move into your bedrooms.

She walks up a golden staircase and gestures towards many, many doors. There’s a dead person in front of one of them! Violet screams in rage.

VIOLET: HOW DID ONE OF YOU KILL SOMEBODY BEFORE I EVEN LET YOU INTO THE BUILDING?!

Logico tries to calm her down. 

VIOLET: I’m fine… everything is fine… LOGICO: Well. I wouldn’t say everything- VIOLET: IS THAT HELPFUL?? LOGICO: No…

Murder time. Silverton spies something out the window and rushes (as fast as a slug could possibly ‘rush’) outside. Suspicious! Logico follows him at an equally pathetic speed. But it seems he’s only distracted by a rabbit topiary.

SILVERTON: Hello bunny. [pet pat pot] That’s a fantastic bunny… I wish I had my very own bunny… 

He tragically hugs the bush. Logico cringes. This is hard to watch! He goes back inside. A bag of pure money awaits him! 

LOGICO: Okay, who brought this much shopping money? EMINENCE: Not I! I would never stoop so low as to carry my own cash! I only want your blood!

A compelling argument indeed. Violet screams suddenly!

LOGICO: WHAT? WHAT HAPPENED?? VIOLET: That thing got into my house!!

She points aggressively to a pigeon with a note in its beak. Politely, the bird hops to Logico and drops the paper to him.

“Don’t ask how I know, but Silverton the Legend brought a back of cash. ;)”

LOGICO: How cute. 

The bird returns home to Irratino, escaping Violet’s crushing grasp. Logico looks at the body one more time, and realizes the blood has been drained from the individual. 

LOGICO: I probably should have checked that first. EMINENCE: Yes, I did it. He was an agent of the Revolution, and therefore, he had to go, just as the Red Revolution must go! But Old Drakonia shall remain. The aristocracy shall remain! And we of the vampiric race shall have our rights restored! Keep your faith and hold out, and remember, as St. Lupine said, God Fights for Us! LOGICO: Who is St. Lupine? I feel like I’m seeing the name a lot.

Eminence dives out the window and flies far away to a gothic castle in the distance. Who could have thought he lived in a place like this! 

Applegreen tries to sneak out with the bag of money.

LOGICO: No no you don’t! APPLEGREEN: BUT I NEED IT MORE!

That’s probably true, but regardless, like a good person, Logico throws the cash back to Silverton. It hits him on the head and he falls into the rabbit bush, leaving a giant hole in it.

SILVERTON: NO! BUNNYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY-

The end!

I am still obligated to give you them again, their ship name is cheesmallow

Ily baiii

The power of Goat Lord compels you!

See you next time murdlers!

[barbatusart]

Have you thought about cazadors personality prior to being turned?

very glad i received this ask post-work drunk lmao. i havent given his mortal personality too much thought, but he’s a nepo baby even if he’s still mortal & enjoyed the benefits of his mother’s privilege & wealth all the same, albeit never as a successor of any sort. he was aware she was what she was - she told him as much & told him she planned on outliving him. i feel they had something of a colder relationship than normal (probably raised by spawn & servants in his formative years) but still like Very beloved by his mother & treated more and more warmly the older he got, ie the more she could have a proper conversation with her son.

as a spawn himself i think he’s harboring a lot of understandable hatred & rage towards vellioth, but Because he comes from a background of being a nepo baby he feels he deserves more in this life. hes doing his best to plot from day 1 of being turned by vellioth. emin was turned when he was like 90 or so & during his spawn tenure had the name “cazador” in mind already but wants to have fully earned it in his own eyes before donning it - that and vellioth would never allow for it as his spawn. and at his core maybe the planned uprising of his is a way to feel closeness with his mom again. i feel that explains a lot about his preoccupation with trying to recreate a family dynamic with himself as patriarch in later years. the same boy sobbing for his mother bullshit we’ve seen time & time again in so many other monsters both real & fictional

[cassowary-rapture]

Tchaikovsky re: Piano Concerto No. 1:

I played the first movement. Not a single word, not a single remark! If you knew how stupid and intolerable is the situation of a man who cooks and sets before a friend a meal, which he proceeds to eat in silence! Oh, for one word, for friendly attack, but for God’s sake one word of sympathy, even if not of praise. Rubinstein was amassing his storm, and Hubert was waiting to see what would happen, and that there would be a reason for joining one side or the other. Above all I did not want sentence on the artistic aspect. My need was for remarks about the virtuoso piano technique. R’s eloquent silence was of the greatest significance. He seemed to be saying: “My friend, how can I speak of detail when the whole thing is antipathetic?" I fortified myself with patience and played through to the end. Still silence. I stood up and asked, “Well?” Then a torrent poured from Nikolay Grigoryevich’s mouth, gentle at first, then more and more growing into the sound of a Jupiter Tonana. It turned out that my concerto was worthless and unplayable; passages were so fragmented, so clumsy, so badly written that they were beyond rescue; the work itself was bad, vulgar; in places I had stolen from other composers; only two or three pages were worth preserving; the rest must be thrown away or completely rewritten. “Here, for instance, this—now what’s all that? (he caricatured my music on the piano) “And this? How can anyone …” etc., etc. The chief thing I can’t reproduce is the tone in which all this was uttered. In a word, a disinterested person in the room might have thought I was a maniac, a talented, senseless hack who had come to submit his rubbish to an eminent musician…. I was not only astounded but outraged by the whole scene. I am no longer a boy trying his hand at composition, and I no longer need lessons from anyone, especially when they are delivered so harshly and unfriendlily. I need and shall always need friendly criticism, but there was nothing resembling friendly criticism. It was indiscriminate, determined censure, delivered in such a way as to wound me to the quick. I left the room without a word and went upstairs. In my agitation and rage I could not say a thing. Presently R. enjoined me, and seeing how upset I was he asked me into one of the distant rooms. There he repeated that my concerto was impossible, pointed out many places where it would have to be completely revised, and said that if within a limited time I reworked the concerto according to his demands, then he would do me the honor of playing my thing at his concert. “I shall not alter a single note,” I answered, “I shall publish the work exactly as it is!” This I did.

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Sometimes a Girl Needs a Firefly Fix. Was It Worth It?

Off the top: I do not endorse Whedon's behavior. Frankly, I'm not going to mention him at all in the rest of this post. I also don't endorse the "great man creator" myth. Lots of people were involved in making Firefly, and we can honor their contributions while holding that hard boundary against predatory and abusive behavior.

Sometimes a girl needs a Firefly fix. Growing up, my TV and movie access was pretty restricted, but never in my life did my parents say no to a book, so novelizations and spinoff novels were often how I first engaged with media and narratives (see my two and a half tubs of just Star Wars books). So when I was missing Firefly and couldn't access it, I dived into the books. My results were decidedly mixed.

I made the eminently logical decision to start with the first of the Firefly books, Big Damn Hero. I'm pretty confident that space western isn't common enough as a genre to have generic space western story issues, but honestly if you had changed all the names and take the Firefly branding off this book, it would have still been aggressively mediocre, just without the familiar characters that made me pick up the book in the first place.

Frankly, I don't have much at all to say about this book. It was fine. The plot was fine, if a bit on the generic side. The characters were fine, I didn't feel like anything contradicted the show. There was nothing particularly memorable about it, it was a fine way to kill a couple of hours on a rainy weekend afternoon.

Novelizations and tie-in novels, in my experience, can vary wildly in quality, so the violently mediocre first experience did not turn me off the Firefly novels in and of itself. I made sure to do a little more research before I picked up the next one, though. These books do technically have an order, but I went full chaos goblin mode and fully just ignored order. Instead, I looked at the focus characters and basic plots (spoilers were also not something I cared about, because c'mon).

I am an unabashed Mal and Inara shipper, and frankly the fact that Inara living with a terminal illness was deprioritized in the show (I know, there was a ton of drama with getting cancelled, this is an opinion and feeling, not a criticism) was wildly disappointing for me, so when I read the blurb for Life Signs, I had hope that we might actually get some Mal/Inara and some illness rep, which we just do not get enough of (massive shoutout to One for All for anyone who wants some incredible chronic illness rep that isn't John Green).

So, objectively, this book was better than Big Damn Hero. And with the benefit of hindsight, I would even call the book good. But if I'm being totally honest, when I was reading the book, I felt LIED TO. Inara shows up in the first two and last chapters, and the rest of the book is Zoe having an existential crisis about Mal's judgement and turning around a pulling another woman up behind her (which honestly I can get behind, Zoe is awesome). I was actually furious because Inara had basically zero agency or opinion about anything, and the framing wasn't Inara's voice and experience, it was Mal's man pain. Literally, the framing was patriarchal and infuriating.

The being lied to and shitty framing aside, the plot was intriguing and carried me through the book in one sitting (that was admittedly part rage as well, but the plot overall was solid), and the character work was solid. As long as you know what you're actually in for with this book, I think readers would genuinely enjoy it. I plan on giving it a second try once I've gotten some distance from the rage and the disappointment, but it definitely landed in the "this says it has illness rep but actually no, this is patriarchal man pain and the actual person experiencing the illness could be seamlessly swapped out for a table lamp without materially changing the story" category.

What Makes Us Mighty was my "third strike, you're out" book, and actually I was really impressed with this one. This felt more like Firefly than the other two books had, and there was some incredible work in it. The highlights include:

Mal going absolutely feral on a toxic, predatory rich guy

Jayne having some actual character growth and nuance beaten into his head

Simon Tam getting to do his doctoring thing

Zoe being an absolute QUEEN

The absolutely most horrifying SFF weapon I have ever read (this is a disputable claim, but even if you're not putting it at the top of the horrifying weapon list, it PLACES)

The Sereneity crew doing what has to be done with compassion and mercy and absolutely making me sob while reading

This book single-handedly redeemed my Firefly novel experience, and honestly I would actively recommend this one to Firefly fans. Not so much Big Damn Hero, and maybe not Life Signs (would depend on the reader), but hell yes, read What Makes Us Mighty.

[pearblossommina]

ToG Read-a-Long, Queen of Shadows, day 12

Ch77

magical hand holding GOD THIS IS LIKE AN INTENSE ANIME SAILOR MOON MOMENT

you two!!!! You are so powerful and full of friendship!!!!!

“Rowan shifted, his leg flashing in agony as he exchanged his limbs for wings and talons. He loosed a cry, shrill and raging. A white-tailed hawk soared out of the small opening, past Aedion.”

Y’know, I just realized. Now that magic is back, Aedion probably has another form, too!

I want someone to bite him on the neck and teach him how to shift

What form will he take! He was already deemed a “wolf” but since daddy is a mountain cat, perhaps he’ll be a cat, too?

Ch78

Um ok

That’s a TWIST

So do I believe it, or is this a cunning last-ditch effort to try and get mercy from the good guys?

I gave a hard time believing that the All-Powerful Dark Lord would be satisfied instilling a minion as the King of Adarlan just to be a Duke but

Duke Perrington IS a pretty despicable person so, maybe this is true?

How odd, how very odd.

I say let’s kill him anyway to be safe

“Chaol is alive,” the king murmured through his emaciated hands

(HAHA YEAH HELL YEAH)

(you can’t kill him he’s filled with the spirit of pure, totally platonic love)

(DORIAN)

(GO GET YOUR MAN)

(THE TIME HAS COME)(THE TIME TO HUG AND KISS)

Ch79

“The scent of pine and snow hit her, and she realized how they had survived the fall.” Rowan saved them! And Dorian and Chaol are together again!

LOVE

This is so utterly amazing ahhh my heart

I love this

Can we all please hug and kiss now! And roll around in the grass, and feel joy and laughter and friendship!

Please!

"If you loot, if you riot, if you cause one lick of trouble," she said, looking a few in the eye, "I will find you, and I will burn you to ash." She lifted a hand, and flames danced at her fingertips. "If you revolt against your new king, if you try to take his castle, then this wall"-she gestured with her burning hand-"will turn to molten glass and flood your streets, your homes, your throats."

Chill out, queen!

They just lost one tyrant, lol, no need to come at them with such ferocity, RELAX

“She was barely inside the oak doors before she collapsed to her knees and wept.”

Baby

Please don’t cry

I love you! Everyone loves you!

Look what you’ve DONE today. Look at all that you’ve achieved. It was a miracle, YOU are a miracle, and now!

Now!

You need to rest; so you will be ready for the shower of love and joy that’s coming your way.

Ch80

(SJM: do you feel a growing spark of hope in your heart?

Me: Yeah! Yeah, I finally do! Thank you!

SJM: *writes about Elide in eminent danger*

Me: why?)

YEAH that’s it MANON go save your GIRL

(My whole heart) (I am shipping them so hard)

(I know I’m fucking insane but in this moment it feels real)

Ch81

“And Manon’s golden eyes glowed as if they were living embers as she looked at the two guards gripping Elide. As she beheld the disheveled robe.”

I AM SO LOVE WITH MANON

GOD

SHE’S SO HOT

THE WAY SHE CAME FOR HER

THE WAY SHE BRUTALLY KILLED THOSE MEN

MANON

YOU ARE MY LESBIAN FANTASY, PLEASE

PLEASE

THIS JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER

Ch82

Omg Kaltain. 😭

Baby!

Baby, no!

I have hated watching you suffer. I have hated every minute of it. I love you for being willing to sacrifice yourself, but you don’t deserve to end your story here. I just want to feel happiness, oh honey. I want you to come with them!

“Kaltain unleashed the last of her shadowfire, tipping her face to the ceiling, toward a sky she’d never see again.”

😭😭😭

SHE JUST WANTED TO SEE THE SKY

Ow

my heart

That was incredibly satisfying to read lol

I’m so glad most of the characters are still alive and everyone’s THEMSELVES again. I couldn’t ask for anything else.

(Except maybe Kaltain to go on living)(and become best friends with Aelin and match her, flame for flame, and maybe they could paint each others nails and gossip about boys)(and everything would finally calm down and everyone could just be happy)

[nicklloydnow]

“My admiration for both of these eminent writers developed in isolation of one another — but I have always unconsciously identified them as the same sort of writer, and indeed, the same sort of person. There are various superficial similarities: the TB diagnosis that prevented both of them from joining the armed forces, the foreign birth, the rampant womanising, the shared hatred of fascism and suspicion of communism. Much more importantly, they seemed to share the same outlook. Both of these writers took the view that truthfulness was more important than ideological allegiance and metaphysics, that the facts should be derived from the real world, rather than the world of ideas. They were similar stylistically too: both wrote candidly, clearly and prolifically.

(…)

Both Camus and Orwell are rightly credited with being “antitotalitarian” writers. And yet their reasons for being so are not wholly political. They were antitotalitarian not just because they opposed totalitarian regimes, but because they both understood that the totalitarian mindset requires you accept that truth comes from ideology. If the ideas say something is true, it becomes true, and is true. For Fascists and Communists, ideology is not merely a set of values or beliefs, but a cohesive explanation of the past, present and future of mankind. This is what Camus referred to in The Rebel as the desire “to make the earth a kingdom where man is God”. Orwell and Camus both understood the dangers of such thinking, and sought to repudiate it in their work.

Ironically enough, neither Orwell nor Camus really believed in objective truth. Orwell, despite being a champion of free expression and the speaking of truth to power, acknowledged that “objective truth” itself was an “illusion”, albeit a beneficial and “powerful” one. Equally, Orwell remarked that totalitarian ideology “demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth”. The key word here is “disbelief”. For Orwell, truth was more of a commitment to reality than a philosophical framework for deciding true from false. Indeed, perhaps this is why in Nineteen Eighty-Four, all Winston’s attempts to formulate a definition of truth ultimately fail. But this is precisely the point. Orwell understood that truth was a mentality, not a formula.

For Camus, the story was the same. In his Nobel Prize banquet speech, he said the following:

Truth is mysterious, elusive, always to be conquered. Liberty is dangerous, as hard to live with as it is elating. We must march toward these two goals, painfully but resolutely, certain in advance of our failings on so long a road.

His conception of truth was the same as Orwell’s. For Camus, truth was an unreachable summit, but one worth climbing for. Truth, for Orwell and Camus, was a destination towards which it was better to travel hopefully than to arrive.

(…)

It seems that this anxiety Orwell and Camus had about the truth is as prescient today as it was in 1945. But it raises an important question: how can an individual think truthfully in a world dominated by untruthful narratives?

Towards the end of his novel La Chute, Camus’ narrator ponders this question:

Don’t lies eventually lead to the truth? […] Sometimes it is easier to see clearly into the liar than into the man who tells the truth. Truth, like light, blinds. Falsehood on the contrary, is a beautiful twilight that enhances every object.

Here Camus struck a critical distinction, not just between truth and untruth, but between ways of thinking about the problem. While he embraced the fact that truth can never be fully or directly known, Camus conceptualised truth as an internal struggle, against the need for the absolute certainty provided by the “beautiful twilight” of falsehood. Ironically enough, then, Camus’ idea of real truthfulness lay in uncertainty, and in diligently maintaining an awareness of that fact. In other words, truthfulness means thinking in good faith, in honest suspicion of even the most appealing of narratives.

Orwell’s work seems to proffer a similar conclusion. In Nineteen Eighty-Four Winston takes solace in the idea of an internal self-awareness.

He was a lonely ghost uttering a truth that nobody would ever hear. But so long as he uttered it, in some obscure way the continuity was not broken. It was not by making yourself heard but by staying sane that you carried on the human heritage.

Orwell – ever the protestant humanist – placed a great deal of faith in the idea of the sceptical conscience. In the world of the novel, “staying sane” meant remaining critical, even if only in secret. It isn’t Winston’s ability to say two and two make four that allows him to rebel: it’s because despite the universally believed falsehoods purveyed by the state, Winston continues to think diligently and honestly.

For both of these writers, the truth was less a metaphysical question than an attitude. Their novels revolve around the quotidian, everyday experience of the world, in things rather than in ideas. They were both much more concerned with the facts that could be taken from experience than those that could be thought up through ideology. This was the attitude that sustained them throughout their intellectual lives, and united them as figures. And it’s for this reason that I like to think of them as friends, although their paths never crossed.”

“If you have enough power, you can make people believe things which are not true. And your lies may last for centuries, or even forever.

Yet it need not be so. One dark winter’s afternoon, long ago, in the age of steam trains and suet puddings, one of my prep-school teachers (I think it must have been the fearsome Mr Witherington, withering by nature as well as by name) pressed into my hand a small green book which would turn my whole world upside down.

‘Read this,’ he said. ‘It will teach you to understand history as it really is.’

The book is called The Daughter Of Time by Josephine Tey, herself a rather mysterious woman about whom we know astonishingly little.

The title is a reference to Sir Francis Bacon’s remark that ‘Truth is the daughter of time, not of authority’, which should be better known.

It is in a way the single greatest detective story ever written. Those who know of it belong to a considerable secret society, which is still far too small, of lucky people. Those who have not yet read it have a great treat, and a great shock, in store.

(…)

I won’t repeat the piece-by-piece demolition of the case against Richard, and the growing mountain of evidence against his sly successor, Henry VII, which piles up as the case proceeds. I am rather hoping that some of you will get hold of The Daughter Of Time and read it yourselves, and do not want to spoil it for you.

For there is a much deeper point to all this. We all take far too much on trust.

(…)

And once you know all this, you feel, at least I feel, the unending urge to question any commonly accepted idea about the past or the present.

Whether it is the Covid panic (wildly out of proportion), who really won the American War of Independence (the French), the true nature of the ‘Good Friday’ Agreement (a vast surrender to terror under American pressure) or the current conflict in Ukraine (some other time), I now always remember the defamation of Richard III, and rebel against any view which is held by everybody.

Sometimes, it is true, everyone is right.

(…)

But look deep into most of the other things you believe and you will find that it was not quite like that, and in some cases was wholly unlike what you have been led, all your life, to believe.

(…)

You see, it never stops, and it never will, so the rest of us must never stop questioning what we are told.

Thank you, Mr Witherington.”

“Regular readers here will know of my great liking for the detective stories of Josephine Tey, and above all for her masterpiece ‘The Daughter of Time’. I’m always amazed that so many people have never heard of Josephine Tey or of this extraordinary, life-changing book. So it seemed to be a good choice for a programme where two guests, and the presenter Harriett Gilbert (herself a member of a distinguished literary family) try to persuade each other of the virtues of books they like.

I found myself describing ‘The Daughter of Time’ as ‘one of the most important books ever written’. The words came unbidden to my tongue, but I don’t, on reflection retreat from them. Josephine Tey’s clarity of mind, and her loathing of fakes and of propaganda, are like pure, cold spring water in a weary land. Her story-telling ability is apparently effortless (and therefore you may be sure it was the fruit of great hard work. (As Ernest Hemingway said ‘if it reads easy, that is because it was writ hard’). But what she loves above all is to show that things are very often not what they seem to be, that we are too easily fooled, that ready acceptance of conventional wisdom is not just dangerous, but a result of laziness, incuriosity and of a resistance to reason.

The other two books, well, I’ll leave you to listen, though I would say that ‘A Landing on the Sun’ was to me a very sad and distressing book, and I’d like to know a lot more about how it came to be written. In fact, I suspect that serious biography of Michael Frayn would be very well worth reading. As for ‘What’s my Motivation?’, I didn’t want or expect to enjoy it, yet I did, and I would never have opened it (the awful cover is enough to put most people off) had it not been Harriett Gilbert’s choice.”

[ahlulbaytnetworks]

The Last Signs Heralding the Appearance of Imam al-Mahdi (Ajf) and Jesus Isa Ibn Maryam (as)...

There is a Hadith from Imam Muhammad Baqir (a.s) that for three or seven consecutive days, one will see reddish yellow fire raging in the East.

Sufiani will emerge in Palestine, where he will start a revolt in the month of Rajab.

He will be an uncompassionate rebel and his rule will last for eight consecutive months. He will conquer and rule Egypt for four consecutive months. Sufiani will conquer Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, and Syria. Sufiani has been specifically described by Aimma (a.s) as an ugly, blistered, green-eyed, cross-eyed person who will be an enemy of the friends of the Ahlul-Bait (a.s).

Imam Ali (a.s) has said that Sufiani’s hatred of the devotees of the Ahlul-Bait(a.s.) will be such that any person named:

Ali,

Fatema,

Hassan,

Hussein,

Zainab,

Ruqaiya will be arrested and beheaded straight away without further investigations. Sufiani will rip the Mimbar of the Holy Prophet (saww.).

The holy house of the Prophet (Saww) which contains his grave will be pulled and used as a stable. Horses will be tied in that Holy place.

Sufiani will then decide to attack Makkah. His purpose would be to demolish the Holy Kaaba and kill the entire population of Makka. Sufiani’s army will set out via Baghdad but, as Allah (swt) would have it, when they get between Medina and Makkah, in the desert of Baida, suddenly one night they will hear a voice from the sky which will say, “O Baida eat up the entire army of Sufiani.” It is said that the entire army numbering 100,000 persons will be swallowed up by the earth, except for two. The two who will be spared will suddenly encounter an angel. He will slap both of them turning their faces right round, looking behind instead of front. And that will be the time when Imam al-Mahdi (Ajfs) will already have reappeared in Makka. The Imam will establish his authority in the Holy Mosque at Makkah in the Haram.

The angel will then order one of them calling him Bashir. “O Bashir, go straight to Makkah, into the Haram and inform the Imam that Sufiani’s army has been swallowed up by the land. The other called Nazir will be ordered to go to Sufiani and tell him that the Imam has already appeared. He should proceed straight to Makkah and declare allegiance to him.

Sufiani will prepare to attack the Imam but will not have enough courage.

The Imam Mahdi(Ajfs) will catch Sufiani in Jerusalem and will kill him.

Imam Ali (a.s) has said that nine definite signs will precede the emergence of Al- Mahdi (Ajfs). These nine signs are:

Dajjal will emerge. A loud voice will be heard from the sky. Sufiani will appear and wage a fierce war. The army of Sufiani will be swallowed by a sudden opening of the land between Makkah and Medina in the desert of Baida. A revered wise saint will be murdered in Makka. (This saint is to be a Hashimite descent.) A Seyyid descendant of Imam Hassan (as) will emerge with his army.

The army of Seyyid-e-Hassan and an image of a man will appear in the sky opposite the sun. There will be two eclipses in the holy month of Ramadan contrary to the normal order and calculation and the eclipse of the moon. On three occasions a loud voice from the sky will be heard in the holy month of Ramadan.

"THE REAPPEARANCE"

Jesus Isa (Jesus),

Prophet Khizr (as),

Hazrat Ilias, and

Hazrat Idris (a.s) will give allegiance to the Imam when he re-appears. Also Jibrael (as )will announce 313 companions of the Imam. These 313 companions will be people of eminent piety, great knowledge and absolutely steadfast in their determination and faith towards the Imam Al Mahdi (Ajft). Another 1000 people will be in the army of the Imam. These people will fight battles and kill enemies like Dajjal, who will appear from India.

Dajjal will have the musical tunes with him. Then the Imam Mahdi (Ajft) will lead the prayers, Isa (a.s) will be behind him.

Let us all pray to Almighty Allah for the reappearance of Imam al-Mahdi (Ajfs).

Adapted from: “A Short History of the Lives of The Twelve Imams”

[totallyshattered]

Kara gazed imperiously at her roommate, Lanal, her massive tits overflowing the now far too small bikini she wore.

That bitch Lanal had hassled Kara about being nerdy, meek, and androgynous for all of high school, then college, even into medical school. They'd competed all their lives, and though Kara always had the edge in brains, Lanal's superior looks had often put her over Kara for opportunities.

She'd even succeeded in making it into the same internship program as Kara, working at the medical research hospital owned and adminstrated by the famous doctor, Alexis Rhodes, aka Dr. Lexi, as she told her employees to call her. Worse yet, they'd been forced by financial necessity to lease an apartment together close to the hospital, so there was no escape from the torment.

Kara had managed to finally get a one up on Lanal when she'd been selected to perform her residency in the flagship hormonal research division of the hospital. Lanal and been furious, and had gone on a whisper campaign to destroy Kara's reputation. Thankfully, nothing had really come from it, but being outed as a lesbian had been extremely embarrassing for the timid girl even if it was treated as normal by the hospital's staff.

After the embarrassment had passed at being outed, the fury had set in. How dare that cunt, Lanal do this to her. Kara had always known the woman was outwardly homophobic, but as a sneaky, tech savvy roommate, she had discovered to no great surprise that Lanal's personal porn stash was full of Mistress and Mommy porn. It's always projection.

So, with a cold rage burning inside her, secret knowledge of her rival's weaknesses, and access to experimental research and chemicals, Kara took action.

She'd reviewed the previous fertility research that Dr. Lexi had built her fame on and compared it to several of the new treatments that included bone regrowth, nerve regeneration, and brain neuron transmission. Over the course of their residencies, Kara managed to consolidate several genetic hormonal augmentations derived from the other research lines and had even tested them in secret trials on her own in the lab setup she'd turned her bedroom into.

Kara knew the time was right and took a full week off to begin treating herself. It had been painful. Every bone in her body hurt as her body structure changed. She was also ravenously hungry after the initial phase had completed, and she ate almost continuously as her body burned through calories and vitamins.

Joyfully, the results were beyond her wildest hopes.

She'd grown from a mousy 5'1" and 90 lbs to a whopping 5'10" and 150 lbs. Her breasts were massive, her hips curved obscenely, her hair had grown nearly two feet, her lips were puffy and sumptuous, and every nerve in her body seemed to be hot wired with feeling.

Moreover, she felt sharper, more focused, and eminently confident in her new self. Kara was a new woman.

Her smile was delightfully cruel when Lanal had walked in on her seated on their shared couch and frozen in confusion as if her brain's operating system had just crashed. It took several moments for her to realize the new alpha female in front of her was Kara.

Lanal could only stammer as Kara rose from her seat, grinned in predatory glee, and sauntered over to her now demoted-to-beta-status rival.

Kara pinned her former adversary against the door, her massive tits threatening to smother the diminished Lanal. She whispered seductively to the stunned girl, gloated over her new superiority, mocked the beta female's pathetic C cups and meager curves, and described the revenge she was going to take on Lanal's body.

The enthralled girl felt her body shiver as her new reality was dictated to her, feeling her mind and will being overwritten by Kara's new commands. Her nipples felt like diamonds rubbing against her bra, and her panties were soaked. Lanal felt herself submit to her new Mistress, desperate to serve and service.

Kara's smile widened as she felt her pheromones overwhelm and enslave poor little Lanal. At last she had her revenge. She was going to enjoy her new personal slut.

Kara raised her finger to Lanal's chin, lifted the slave's face to meet her eyes, and inquired, "Who's your Mommy?"

"You, " Lanal whispered as she came so hard she passed out in Mistress Kara's arms.

[daimonclub]

Jonathan Swift reflections

Jonathan Swift thoughts and reflections Jonathan Swift reflections, thoughts, ideas, opinions, humor wits, short texts and great words of wisdom and criticism by the famous author of Gulliver's Travels and other great literary works. Your notions of friendship are new to me; I believe every man is born with his quantum, and he cannot give to one without robbing another. I very well know to whom I would give the first place in my friendship, but they are not in the way, I am condemned to another scene, and therefore I distribute it in penny worths to those about me, and who displease me least, and should do the same to my fellow prisoners if I were condemned to a jail. Jonathan Swift It is true there has been all along in the world a notion of rewards and punishments in another life, but it seems to have rather served as an entertainment to poets or as a terror of children than a settled principle by which men pretended to govern any of their actions. The last celebrated words of Socrates, a little before his death, do not seem to reckon or build much upon any such opinion; and Caesar made no scruple to disown it and ridicule it in open senate. Jonathan Swift He was perfectly astonished with the historical account gave him of our affairs during the last century; protesting “it was only a heap of conspiracies, rebellions, murders, massacres, revolutions, banishments, the very worst effects that avarice, faction, hypocrisy, perfidiousness, cruelty, rage, madness, hatred, envy, lust, malice, and ambition, could produce.” His majesty, in another audience, was at the pains to recapitulate the sum of all I had spoken; compared the questions he made with the answers I had given; then taking me into his hands, and stroking me gently, delivered himself in these words, which I shall never forget, nor the manner he spoke them in: “My little friend Grildrig, you have made a most admirable panegyric upon your country; you have clearly proved, that ignorance, idleness, and vice, are the proper ingredients for qualifying a legislator; that laws are best explained, interpreted, and applied, by those whose interest and abilities lie in perverting, confounding, and eluding them. I observe among you some lines of an institution, which, in its original, might have been tolerable, but these half erased, and the rest wholly blurred and blotted by corruptions. It does not appear, from all you have said, how any one perfection is required toward the procurement of any one station among you; much less, that men are ennobled on account of their virtue; that priests are advanced for their piety or learning; soldiers, for their conduct or valour; judges, for their integrity; senators, for the love of their country; or counsellors for their wisdom. As for yourself,” continued the king, “who have spent the greatest part of your life in travelling, I am well disposed to hope you may hitherto have escaped many vices of your country. But by what I have gathered from your own relation, and the answers I have with much pains wrung and extorted from you, I cannot but conclude the bulk of your natives to be the most pernicious race of little odious vermin that nature ever suffered to crawl upon the surface of the earth.” Jonathan Swift In the school of political projectors, I was but ill entertained, the professors appearing, in my judgment, wholly out of their senses; which is a scene that never fails to make me melancholy. These unhappy people were proposing schemes for persuading monarchs to choose favorites upon the score of their wisdom, capacity, and virtue; of teaching ministers to consult the public good; of rewarding merit, great abilities, and eminent services, of instructing princes to know their true interest, by placing it on the same foundation with that of their people; of choosing for employment persons qualified to exercise them; with many other wild impossible chimeras, that never entered before into the heart of man to conceive; and confirmed in me the old observation, that there is nothing so extravagant and irrational which some philosophers have not maintained for truth. Jonathan Swift Judges... are picked out from the most dextrous lawyers, who are grown old or lazy, and having been biased all their lives against truth or equity, are under such a fatal necessity of favoring fraud, perjury and oppression, that I have known several of them to refuse a large bribe from the side where justice lay, rather than injure the faculty by doing any thing unbecoming their nature in office. Jonathan Swift I will venture to affirm, that the three seasons wherein our corn has miscarried did no more contribute to our present misery, than one spoonful of water thrown upon a rat already drowned would contribute to his death; and that the present plentiful harvest, although it should be followed by a dozen ensuing, would no more restore us, than it would the rat aforesaid to put him near the fire, which might indeed warm his fur-coat, but never bring him back to life. Jonathan Swift They look upon fraud as a greater crime than theft, and therefore seldom fail to punish it with death; for they allege, that care and vigilance, with a very common understanding, may preserve a man's goods from thieves, but honesty has no defence against superior cunning; and, since it is necessary that there should be a perpetual intercourse of buying and selling, and dealing upon credit, where fraud is permitted and connived at, or has no law to punish it, the honest dealer is always undone, and the knave gets the advantage. Jonathan Swift And he gave it for his opinion, "that whoever could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together. Jonathan Swift Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: like a man, who hath thought of a good repartee when the discourse is changed, or the company parted; or like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.” Jonathan Swift I have ever hated all nations, professions, and communities, and all my love is toward individuals: for instance, I hate the tribe of lawyers, but I love Counsellor Such-a-one, and Judge Such-a-one: so with physicians - I will not speak of my own trade - soldiers, English, Scotch, French, and the rest. But principally I hate and detest that animal called man, although I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas, and so forth. This is the system upon which I have governed myself many years, but do not tell... Jonathan Swift It is a maxim among these lawyers, that whatever hath been done before may legally be done again: and therefore they take special care to record all the decisions formerly made against common justice and the general reason of mankind. These, under the name of precedents, they produce as authorities, to justify the most iniquitous opinions; and the judges never fail of decreeing accordingly. Jonathan Swift I replied that England (the dear place of my nativity) was computed to produce three times the quantity of food, more than its inhabitants are able to consume, ... But, in order to feed the luxury and intemperance of the males, and the vanity of the females, we sent away the greatest part of our necessary things to other countries, from whence in return we brought the materials of diseases, folly, and vice, to spend among ourselves. Hence it follows of necessity that vast numbers of our people are compelled to seek their livelihood by begging, robbing, stealing, cheating, pimping, forswearing, flattering, suborning, forging, gaming, lying, fawning, hectoring, voting, scribbling, freethinking... Jonathan Swift Ingratitude is amongst them a capital crime, as we read it to have been in some other countries: for they reason thus; that whoever makes ill-returns to his benefactor, must needs be a common enemy to the rest of the mankind, from where he has received no obligations and therefore such man is not fit to live. Jonathan Swift I have one word to say upon the subject of profound writers, who are grown very numerous of late; and I know very well the judicious world is resolved to list me in that number. I conceive therefore, as to the business of being profound, that it is with writers as with wells; a person with good eyes may see to the bottom of the deepest, provided any water be there; and often, when there is nothing in the world at the bottom, besides dryness and dirt, though it be but a yard and half under ground, it shall pass however for wondrous deep, upon no wiser a reason than because it is wondrous dark. Jonathan Swift J. Swift quotes Quotes by authors Quotes by arguments Essays with quotes Thoughts and reflections News and events Read the full article

[that-one-person-is-lost]

The Giver

I feel like the only way I’m useful is when I’m giving.. giving advice, giving gifts, giving money.. I feel like its the only thing I can do to keep people around.. I feel like I’m constantly pouring from an empty cup and when that flood turns to a drip I’m replaced.. by the next shiny new fountain that they can drain till dry.. and then toss them aside n rinse and repeat.. I feel like the only way I’m worth keeping around is if I’m giving something to someone and the second I need something in return I’m ostracized for think it’s should flow both ways.. but I guess all raging rivers only flow one way.. it it supposed to be that every personal relationship is the same way.. just raging and pushing from only one direction.. with one giver and one taker.. in a forever flow till the givers river runs dry.. and the taker eventually moves on like a heard of animals looking for a new water hole.. I feel like a river… a giver that’s constantly raging.. my well is running dry tho.. and what that means I’m sure you know.. I’m no longer of use and replacement is eminent.. to see a pattern like that you don’t need to be intelligent.. because when I give her has nothing left to give, they have no use in this world no reason to live.. and so the takers turn their noses and I gave her with nothing to give doesn’t fit in there poses..

[uncannybrutal]

I wanna talk about the completely batshit levels of Twitterification and rage within the Homestuck fandom circa 2019, specifically about the human characters' races - canon, headcanon, and absolute vitriol between real people. (long post)

No one seemed to acknowledge that only 4 of the 8 kids - Jegbert, Dave, Rose and Jane - would have any real-life background on the actual history surrounding the concept of race and how it manifests on the day-to-day culture of the US, how it is, how it shaped the culture they participate in. You know, like, as its participants. They're the only ones who would even really have any meaning for it and express it in various distinctly American ways: I'm talking Rose's "especially ethnic wedding" bit, I'm talking that conversation between John and Dave where Bro is talked about as a white dude, etc.

Jade, Jake, Roxy, and Dirk, as [fictional] people, were never racialized in any significant way - feel free to lmk if this is wrong. As far as I know though, fundamentally, they are truly raceless in canon.

And look, this is actually important to me as someone who grew up outside the USAmerican culture, in which race is given a very extreme level of importance compared to most other places in the world (and kinda rightfully so? considering the violent history, the atrocities), and I had only recently moved to the US/was only just starting to learn about this when I started to read Homestuck and participate in its fan culture. Which, despite having people in it from all over the globe, IS eminently American.

People were blocking and callout-posting over Pesterquest sprites and the fanart of said sprites. Group chats were made, cliques were formed, and there was this sort of... divide between notable people of color who liked Homestuck and notable white people who liked Homestuck. It was a weird time. Headcanons were being made about fictional people then real people were being attacked over said headcanons, real people being driven to real levels of real mental illness over drawings of fictional characters.

But if that seems like a shallow and antagonistic way to put it, that's because it is. If you were IN IT, especially as a person of color, it became something that was legitimately important to you. An elaborate example based on real feelings: It meant everything to you to see Roxy with those curls after growing up surrounded by 2010s anime interpretations where any wave in a hairstyle was clearly done by a hair curler. And because it was so important to you, when it technically became the standard for Roxy, you were honestly kinda angry that some people kept drawing her with the same hair and features they always did before - the white features they always drew her in. The white features everyone treated as the default, as the most attractive, as the "you can draw them however you'd like, but this is just kinda how they are normally"-- white.

White as the default was and is a big problem in the Homestuck fandom, and if you consider the fandom history and also the existence of real people with real feelings, there was never a chance it wouldn't turn out the way it did. It was a disaster, honestly.

But it is funny, looking back into a time that never existed anywhere but the text itself, that only half the characters relevant to this thought would give a fuck about and be shaped by race in any important way. It was always about real people, never really about the characters themselves. Functionally, in this context, the characters became agents of projection. This shouldn't have harmed anybody... if not for the fact that the text doesn't exist isolated from reality. Homestuck doesn't exist in a vacuum.

Homestuck just so happened to exist in the same world and in the same culture that treats that distinct whiteness as the default, and unfortunately, both as a fandom and by itself, Homestuck couldn't have existed without that - at least not without being changed beyond recognition. That's just the reality of it, even if I wish it could've been avoided in a different reality or something. Everything that happened was just a result of this, and it was inevitable.