#actually. i say that as if that's not fully a part of why i love him. there's no 'but' between those statements there's just +

[edenfenixblogs]

I actually really appreciate how honest you are here!

And I think it is FINE to have no clear opinion. I actually think it’s great to admit that you don’t have the background or expertise to comment on a subject.

Some will say it’s about sacred land. But most Jewish people will say it amounts to a land back movement, because Jews are indigenous to the region and have been living in exile for a long time. Many Palestinians will say the price of Jews returning home has been to subjugating Palestinians. Jews and Palestinians will disagree both within their own groups on this as well as with each other’s groups. It’s complex and totally ok for you to say “not my circus, not my monkeys” and nope out of it. I honestly wish more people would do that tbh.

The part that is both offensive and that causes harm to Jews is when you make blanket statements about large swaths of our identities. The total percentage of Jews who call themselves Zionists is hard to pin down. But it’s typically estimated between 60 and 95%. Definitely the majority of Jews. Most figures I’ve seen exist between 70-80%. I’m not a Zionist, because there are MANY branches of Zionism and none fully reflect my views. But the general idea that Jews are from Israel, are indigenous to Israel, and exist in diaspora is something I do believe. That has 0 to do with how I feel about Palestinians, and I don’t want any harm to come to anyone because of Jewish indigeneity.

But most Jews who call themselves Zionists (which, again, is most Jews) feel the same way. A lot of us Jews everywhere in the world have had a lot of people say and do horrific stuff to us since 10/7 in the name of “freeing Palestine,” but it amounts more to harming Jews than helping anyone. And most of the people Reblogging that stuff haven’t done or said anything to help or even ACKNOWLEDGE Jewish suffering which is also extremely widespread right now.

If you are going to talk about this subject, I’d recommend talking to Jews and expressing interest in why and how we think and feel the way we do about things.

Or if you don’t want to talk to Jews, please PLEASE read “People Love Dead Jews” by Dara Horn. It’ll do a lot of work to explain how you can inadvertently end up perpetuating antisemitism by doing things you think are harmless. If you want a copy I can literally GIVE you one. Please.

But if you can’t be bothered to learn about half the people affected by a conflict then you probably shouldn’t be speaking about it.

I also have plenty of resources on my blog and can link to specific posts if you like. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing stuff. But there is something wrong with acting like you do when you don’t.

pleaaaaaase y'all the process of having a manufacturing facility declared kosher has nothing to do with a rabbi blessing the food

pleaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaase stop

you can literally google what is required

[tsunaso]

"OH MY SWEET SUMMER CHILD"

pairing. (Implied) Omega!Mikey x Alpha?Sanzu x Alpha!male reader

synopsis. when Alpha Sanzu messes with the wrong omega, he learns the hard way that karma never misses. — 1.5k words part one.

warnings. mdni, amab reader, dead dove, drugging, (Implied) bitching, degradation, dubcon (due to altered state), physical restraint, dark omegaverse, humiliation, mentions of death.

alpha Sanzu who is a joke of an alpha. has little to no respect for beta’s nor omega’s, and acts like he can get whoever he wants when he wants. thinks that his looks will let him get away with harassing omegas, but karma always catches up.

alpha Sanzu who messes with the wrong omega one day and lives to regret it for the rest of his pathetic life. the omega who he had almost gone too far with was mated to the gang leader who owned the city!

　　　　　　　　　　　　⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽ ☆ ☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅　　　　　　　　　　　

“What the fuck is going on!?” Sanzu yells practically foaming at the mouth as he struggles against the ropes tying him to a wooden chair. 

“My my… what am I going to do with such a dumb fucking alpha, practically came here willingly, with the way you jumped at the smell of omagan slick.” M/n lowly purred as he strolled into the room. his scent glands work on overdrive as he pumps it out into the bare room. 

Sanzu instinctively starts to pump out his scent to try and dominate M/n’s but for some reason, his scent is a hint sweeter than usual, he makes a face but he doesn’t pay any mind to it.

“You know you're lucky that it was so easy to bring you in,” M/n face drops into a scowl. “Otherwise you would have been shot dead.”

“What are you even talking about?!” he rages, “Once I’m out of these stupid ropes I’m going to fucking gut you.” Sanzu roars with venom as he starts to growl.

M/n ignores whatever nonsense Sanzu is yapping about before sparking a lighter to light his cigar. He takes a puff before finally looking at Sanzu again. “You don’t even know why you're here… do you?” M/n says in mock pity as he lets out a quiet laugh. 

Sanzu finally stops posturing and really takes in the situation. His eyes dart around the room as he notes that he has been kidnapped to an unknown second location and is trapped in a bare room with a chair, mattress, sink, and toilet.

“Where am I?” Sanzu says quietly as he finally stops pulling at his restraints. His bright pink hair falls onto his cheeks as he tilts his head slightly. This action made his eyes contrast with his hair beautifully, you could almost say he looked cute.

M/n looks at him amused by what he is trying to do. “You’re in my-” M/n cuts himself off as he hears the door open. “Actually, hold that thought…”

M/n fully turns around to meet his mate's gaze. “Love! I’m so glad you came!”, he pauses “I know it must’ve been hard for you to come… here,” M/n says in a softer tone.

Sanzu’s eyes widened as he realized who had just entered the room. A relatively short man with long black hair and equally black eyes stared blankly at Sanzu. The man's face cringes before looking away and stepping closer to M/n.

“Is this why you kidnapped me? For some no-name omega?” Sanzu questions, his face mask of disbelief and shock. This was the omega he was messing around with in that club's alleyway!

M/n’s eyes narrow sharply, his scent souring in anger. “Watch your fucking mouth, you're talking to my mate.” M/n rages on, “You put your dirty grubby hands on my mate.” 

M/n clenches his fist, before letting out a quiet sigh when he feels his mate rest his hand on the small of his back. “This was the one that hurt you, yes?” M/n asks, turning to face his mate.

As soon as M/n says those words the tension in the room thickens as Sanzu’s mind races, as he tries to think of just who M/n is… did he really piss off such an important person?

The black-haired omega stiffly nods, a pinched look coming across his face. “I should’ve rocked his shit in that fucking alleyway” the omega lets out a growl, just thinking about the event made him angry.

Omagan pheromone starts flowing into the room like an angry river but, just as soon as it appears, it disappears. “Just.. leave me out of whatever you're about to do.”

Sanzu watches as the small omega struts away, he had never scented anything like that before. With pupils blown wide, he tries to come up with what it smells like but he can’t put it into words.

Why was he perceiving that omega's scent like this? He had scented him before… and he didn’t smell anything great, so why did he smell so different?

“Are you finally feeling the effects of the drugs?” m/n inquires, bending slightly to take in Sanzu’s ever-sweetening scent.

Sanzu blinked slowly, his pupils blown wide as the realization began to settle like poison in his bloodstream. His scent was sweeter. Too sweet. Like ripe fruit on the verge of rotting—cloying, wrong.

“What the fuck did you do to me?” His voice cracked as the first tendrils of fear curled around his throat.

M/n smirked, blowing out a slow stream of smoke that lingered in the air like a noose. "What do you think, Haruchiyo? Or should I say… soon-to-be Harumi?” 

He crouched down to meet Sanzu’s panicked gaze, tilting his head mockingly."That’s a cute nickname, isn’t it? You better start thinking of one because you won’t be the same 'big bad alpha' much longer."

Sanzu thrashed against the ropes again, his muscles straining, but it was futile. His movements felt sluggish now, like his limbs weren’t entirely his to command. The scent swirling off him was intoxicating—too intoxicating, and the disgusting sweetness of it made bile rise in his throat.

"You drugged me?" His voice was shaky, cracking on every syllable. He wanted to sound angry, but even he could hear the fear starting to bleed through.

M/n let out a low, mocking chuckle. “Oh, it’s so much more than a drug. You see…” He leaned in close, letting the embers of his cigar illuminate his smirk. 

“We’ve been working on something special for alphas like you. Arrogant pricks who think they can take whatever they want without consequence. It speeds up the shift—unlocks a side of you you’ve probably felt in your worst nightmares. You’re going to be softer, sweeter, more… submissive than you’ve ever dreamed of being. Just think of it as karma.”

Sanzu’s heart pounded in his chest as his body betrayed him further. The gummy sweetness of his scent thickened, curling around him like a noose. His mouth was dry, his skin too warm, and his thoughts felt like they were swimming in syrup.

“Fucking liar,” Sanzu spat, though it came out weaker than he intended. “You’re bluffing. This isn’t possible.”

“Oh, but it is.” M/n grinned and straightened up, casting a glance toward the door. "I thought about just killing you, you know. But, my mate is merciful, and I figured—what’s worse? Death or living the rest of your pathetic life as what you perceive to be at the bottom of society, as an omega? You’ll be crawling for scraps, begging for mercy, begging for attention.”

The sound of footsteps approaching the room pulled Sanzu from his growing panic. The door creaked open, and in stepped the omega mate once again, his dark eyes locked on Sanzu with unrelenting hatred.

“Still talking, huh?” the omega muttered. He crossed his arms, his posture deceptively casual. But his scent—it sharpened, cutting through the air like a blade. Even drugged, even in his haze, Sanzu felt the command embedded in it.

“M/n,” the omega said, his voice cool and steady, “how long does he have before it starts? The heat, I mean.”

Sanzu froze, his eyes snapping between them. The heat?

M/n looked at the omega with a knowing smile, shrugging casually. “Oh, not long now. A couple of hours, maybe? By then, he’ll be begging someone to knot him. Doesn’t even matter who.”

He exhaled more smoke, his tone darkening. “You’ll finally know what it feels like to be hunted, Haruchiyo. You’ll know what it’s like to be nothing more than a toy for someone stronger than you.”

Sanzu’s breathing turned shallow, panic clawing up his chest. “You’re lying! You can’t… You can’t fucking do this to me!” he snarled, but his voice wavered, and his pheromones betrayed his fear.

“Oh, darling,” M/n purred mockingly, leaning close enough that Sanzu could feel the heat of his breath against his ear. “I already have.”

The omega stepped closer, standing just within Sanzu’s line of sight. He tilted his head, studying him like one might a bug under a microscope. “He’s still posturing,” he said flatly. “Let me stay and watch when it starts.”

M/n arched a brow, smirking. “You’re so cruel, my love.”

The omega’s lip curled in a wicked smile. “I told you before—we should’ve killed him in that alley. But I guess watching him crumble works too.”

Sanzu wanted to snarl, wanted to roar, wanted to say something, anything that would put him back in control. But his body was growing weaker. His scent—the sickly sweetness was almost unbearable now, and the ache in his lower abdomen made his stomach churn.

He was losing.

And for the first time in his life, Haruchiyo Sanzu was terrified.

[kings-highway]

i get the feeling the minecraft just wouldn’t be one of the games kenma would play/be interested in. it’s so much of an open world, aimless, and strategy-less game (not that there isn’t strategy involved, but not like a regular play-through or pvp game like mortal kombat or smth) that i think he just would not enjoy it very much. i could see him being a speedrunner or only someone who joins to help fight stuff but that’s ab it

okay I'll bite. I think you're absolutely right. I think Kenma is highly driven by the reward system of video games, skill trees and leveling up and quests and definable ways to prove you are winning and minecraft would probably bore him. And he probably wouldnt think much about it. Not all games are for him, and thats fine.

However, you know who would fucking love minecraft? Kuroo. Kuroo wouldnt even bother searching up guides or explanations. the sheer level of discovery and crafting and options available to him would keep him occupied for ages. Everything would be exciting for him. And then he gets to fight a fucking dragon at the end? Perfect

Anyway, I believe when Kuroo sends a text to Kenma that says "haha just beat minecraft!" Kenma would be so pissed. First off - he didnt know you could "beat" minecraft. Second - KUROO BEAT A VIDEO GAME BEFORE HE DID? What horrible alternate reality is this? And then Kenma would FEVERISHLY have to work through minecraft to beat it to prove that he could too. He'd blitz it in like a day and text Kuroo like "And??? So did I." but then Kuroo would be like "haha my favourite part is the redstone coding. It works pretty well, I made a ton of automated minecarts and built like a whole rollercoaster" and Kenma would be like "what the hell are you talking about?" because he only did what was 100% necessary and didnt play around.

Anyway I also fully believe that Daichi would absolutely love minecraft and he'd just fully commit to the survival aspect and have a big old farm and worry about making sure his cows have enough space and 100% I can imagine him and Kuroo logging on together with their stupid little headsets at like 11pm and then when Kuroo dies in the mines via surprise creeper Daichi's cackling laughter over the other ends says "this is why we beat you at nationals" and Kuroo considers learning how to punch people through the screen.

They invite Kenma online to play with them since Kenma officially knows how to play now and doesnt like being left out the ONE time Kuroo actually wants to play a video game instead of volleyball and he just keeps dying and now he has two idiots laughing at him.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I came across this take, thought you'd probably have stuff to say about it.

"The character that is the first in the group to trust Zuko?" Aang. Literally Aang. We see it in the Blue Spirit episode, and THAT was the "we could have been friends" moment that Zuko spent nearly all the show secretly obsessing with, to the point that he had a vision of himself BECOMING Aang.

"Sokka was the one in favor of leaving to die" BULLSHIT, Katara was agreeing with him fully, once again, AANG was the one going "What fuck, no"

"Katara trusted him twice during book 2" She trusted him once, in Crossroads of Destiny, immediately paid the price for it. If you're going to count The Chase, you gotta count it as EVERYBODY trusting Zuko (and Iroh).

"The character who Zuko emotionally connects with?" Literally everyone in the Gaang, hence the life-changing field trips (and the talk with Toph in Ember Island). Not to mention IROH, MAI, and even Azula at their old Beach House.

"The character Zuko feel safest letting his guard down" Literally what fucking guard? Zuko has ALWAYS struggled to NOT let his emotions boil over and he has the recurrent problem of saying literally ANYTHING that comes to mind, and hurting the people he cares about, because that boy has NO chill. He literally "talked to Aang" in the North Pole when Aang's soul had literally left his body. That boy went up a mountain just to scream at God to fuck around and find out. What. Fucking. Guard. Did he "let down" around Katara?

"The character who helps Zuko heal from his trauma?" Iroh. Literally, that's his entire role in the story. Other people had important moments with him (his mom, Aang, Mai, and yes, even Katara) but IROH is the one with him through it all and the one he literally thinks of as his "shoulder angel" telling him right from wrong, healthy from unhealthy. His "fuck you, dad" speech to Ozai literally included "Uncle was a much better father than you." Katara had fuck all to do with Zuko's healing journey, because he had ALREADY mostly dealt with his trauma by the time they actually became friends - or even people who had friends in common. She had nothing to do with his healing/redemption arc.

"The character known for showing most compassion to others?" Katara does fit, but so does Aang, and (depending on what part of the story we're on and as long as your name is not "Azula") so does Iroh. And even if Katara was, undeniably, THE most compassionate one, with no one else even coming close to it - how does that translate to "Therefore she and Zuko are meant to be?" He is not the only person who needed/deserved compassion, nor is that all it would take for him to fall in love with someone.

"The character who primarely bears the burden of having to step-up into a parental role?" Yes, adultification was indeed a big source of pain in Katara's life (even if the Gaang, and especially Aang, brought some childhood joy/freedom back into her life). But WHAT THE FUCK does that have to do with Zuko? He's nobody's replacement parent. Hell, he needed someone to step up and parent him, hence Iroh being part of the story. He had a fucking regression in his emotional maturity after being physically abused. WHERE is the connection between this character and Katara's character?

"The character who represses their emotions for the sake of others?" Literally could not be Katara. One thing she DOES have in common with Zuko is wearing her heart on her sleeve. Even when she does try to surpress her emotions (see her mixed feelings about Hakoda's return) EVERYONE can immediately tell something is up because it affects everything that she does.

This "Katara repressed her emotions" and "Zuko only lets his guard down around her" nonsense is THE perfect exemple of why I say Zutarians don't like the actual canon dynamic between Zuko and Katara (and maybe dislike even the characters themselves). They literally took these characters that feel intensily and express themselves without much (or any) thinking because they're pure feel and instinct - and replaced them with a generic pair of characters that are "tough" and try suffocate their emotions so nothing can hurt them because that's a popular romance trope, even though it's clearly the wrong trope for them.

No one hates the true "zutara" dynamic quite like zutarians themselves, that's why they're constantly trying to re-write history.

[emptymanuscript]

XD!

So, laugh rule but also:

What’s kinda throwing me is that I think this is actually pretty close to the central thesis of the actual mystical/religious tradition/lineage I’m actually in.

Like, the belief is absolutely that the god we call God is real (as are many other gods and other things) but that the fundamental idea of Divinity vs Mortality is not real. That the fundamental purpose of most religious thought is so the Divine can keep us in our place, even though we’re perfectly capable of doing what they do and achieving apotheosis into being without a difference. The problem with God is that He thinks He’s it and the problem with people is that we think we aren’t.

And, yeah, the fundamental task of the novitiate (initiate? I’m always fuzzy on those. The person just starting out who knows enough to look but enough, yet, to do. Early level apprentice who is learning the ropes sort of person) is to Self Create.

Like that’s the most necessary part of the tradition. You’re supposed to study your little butt off (obviously why I am drawn to it XD, studying everything as a religious devotion? Sign me up! I am a B+ child and I want you to love me teacher XD). But the purpose of the study is to find the hidden resonances, what is actually true, that is not actually recorded in full anywhere because you are divine so only you can fully define you.

It’s self definition by using the other. I am that. I am not that. I am like that but not in this way, etc. Just using metaphysical principles rather than your social group.

Or, I suppose, in ADDITION to your social group.

My actual biggest criticism of my tradition lineage is how often we’re inconsiderate assholes. Not just that we’re not nice people but that we’re not nice people in and on principle. For whatever reason (some I know and some I don’t) the first thing we seem to say we’re not is good, kind, and caring. Like, the exact thing we would want in our own deities and berate the Demiurge (the god who thinks He is God because He was the deity that did all the original creating as far as He is concerned) for not being is what we’re not going to do, too.

Which I get as an act of anger and provocation and boundaries. But I really don’t understand as a mature decision for the path of one’s life. I hear it’s better to reign in hell than serve in heaven but nothing I see demands that that is the actual choice at hand.

There IS a lot of worship. And, yeah, I think part of the draw to my tradition/lineage is that it speaks to lonely weird people who are happier surrounded by books than crowds. But there’s nothing actually NECESSARY to the path about starting a cult, claiming that you’re evil, and then proving it by manipulation and lies. But somehow, those are all the famous people writing the influential texts.

Like, why not be the sort of person you wish that a deity would be. Be your own dream fulfillment. And instead of putting yourself up at the top of a pyramid of something icky, just be the sort of person that other people like hanging around.

Of course, that may just be me being a novice. Wizards aren’t exactly known for their EQ. We know the forbidden names of gods and a whole mess of trivia. My current joke is that if you want to find one of us, go looking for a party. Go to the weirdest one you find. Like, these are not the cool kids, you get me? Look at the people who are up against the wall, not partying. Find the most boring person out of them. That’s your most likely candidate to be a Wizard.

If they are, the questions to ask are ones that lead you to awareness of their humility and sure confidence in themselves.

The more confident they are that they know the secrets of the universe, as a whole, for everything and everybody, the farther back toward initiation they are. The more they need to fight for their own self definition and boundaries, the closer they are to being in the “middle” of their journey. It’s not really the middle it’s simply that you’re very self confident at the very start and very self confident at the end. But the majority of the journey is taking a hammer to the ego when we’re often the sort of people who don’t have a lot of ego defenses to spare.

Which means defensiveness and love/worship cravings are rampant. A great area to promote Narcissistic impulses.

That’s actually a big warning I’ve run into a few times now. That a lot of people simply break and become these megalomaniacal monsters who are just completely full of themselves and their arcane power. They become Demiurge like. They think they’re it. You’re just a prop to them and their power trip fantasy.

Mostly, I hear the solution to be this gray ascetic humility. That the world is illusory and transitory and that includes me and my feelings. So you become this immovable, unimpressable center point. Nothing bothers you. It’s why I talk about my own lineage as shit-eaters. Because that’s a literal example from them. That you should be able to have the same experience and same emotional impact whether you have the best meal of your life or eat literal feces. All that matters is your will and willpower and, yeah, power… so you can enact your will.

Can’t say I like the idea. I do not particularly want to eat feces. I like enjoying food. And this dichotomy strikes me as false. You either reject life or are conquered by it. Meh. I like dialectical thinking not dualistic thinking. And the entire point is to make something new. Something you. Not to simply repeat the old lies and oppression.

If you’re a god, great. Namaste. In all humility and seriousness. I see and acknowledge the divine in you. I welcome it. But as a living, breathing, experiencing person who participates in the world with other people, I would ask some questions:

What are the benefits of your worship to you?

What are the benefits of your worship to your worshippers?

How are you the same as your worshippers?

How are you different from your worshippers?

What are the drawbacks and costs to you that come from your being worshipped?

What are the drawbacks and costs to your worshippers from worshipping you?

If you put yourself in the place of one of your worshippers (pick a few at random) would you feel the benefits and costs weighed out in your favor?

If you put one of your worshippers in your place (pick a few at random) would you come to the conclusion from the outside, with a godlike view of the whole situation, that it weighted out to an activity that was ultimately favorable to them?

For the worshipper you have put in your place, would you be satisfied with how their worshipper’s lives would work out for them in the care of that other?

What would be the benefits to you of rejecting the idea of being worshipped all together?

What would be the costs to you of giving up that particular place at the center for just being one of that particular group you get along with?

DO you actually get along with your worshippers when they aren’t worshipping you? Or do you only like them for their worship? Are they the people you would surround yourself with if you weren’t in this group together?

What benefits might they get from being let go from worshipping you? From being let go from the group?

What would it cost them if they were to stop worshipping you? What would they necessarily lose if they left the group?

Looking at the balance of your answers to these questions and comparing it to likely possible alternatives (NOT the best, NOT the worst, NOT the strangest), is worshipping you the best thing for your worshippers?

Looking at the balance and considering the likely possible alternatives for yourself, is being worshipped in this way the best thing for you?

Looking at all the answers that you’ve written out, and being honest with yourself, with the full divine view of what is and what could be, is this situation what you actually want? Would that answer change if it was for someone else? WHY? WHY is this the best arrangement? Or WHY isn’t this good enough? WHY does it matter who the worshipped is versus an alternative versus the worshippers? WHY? WHY? WHY? There is a reason that children demand this endlessly. It is the most necessary question to understand their lives. That doesn’t really change when a child grows up and realizes their own divinity.

They say you gotta worship god because he created stuff, but I created myself, and my epic boobs, and I'm real, so aren't I better than god? Maybe I should be worshipped. Much to think about

[galaxiasgreen]

🍺🖤This Hell We Create

Sebastian x F!Muggle!Reader with eventual smut, minor Garrinis [E-Rated, 5.6k words]

"Just... be careful." He takes your hand, bowing to kiss the fingers like delicate embers in a breeze. "Now, bar girl," he murmurs, "where's the fun in that?"

Harlow prepares to take his revenge. Sebastian has a plan to protect you.

[MASTERLIST][FIRST][PREV][LAST] [read on AO3, read on Wattpad]

TW: coarse language, blood/ injury, gendered language, explicit smut MDNI (dom!Seb, dirty talk, wall sex, porn with feelings, public sex, cunnilingus, very slight breeding kink), and one threat of sexual assault (not made by Sebastian or the bar girl). This occurs in Harlow's paragraph of dialogue shortly after he is reintroduced, which you can skip over if you'd prefer. Please take care. <3

6. worth the risk

Sebastian's urges never seem fully satiated, but you're happy to try. Minutes may pass, or hours. You indulge the time making love, passionately, raggedly, between bouts of uncontrollable laughter or breathless, all-consuming kisses. His smell becomes part of the place, part of you. Sometimes you sleep for a little while only to wake and start all over again, with hands that already know the right places to tease.

It must be three o'clock when you next stir. In the indigo bloom of darkness, Sebastian is limned by the hazy moon rays that wander through the curtain parting. Light makes his back muscles cleave sharply down his body, burnished with ink. Even obscured, he is beautiful. You pull up slightly, rousing him – he half-turns, clasping your hairbrush.

"What are you doing with that?"

He puts it down. "Thought I'd comb my hair a little."

"I like it mussed."

"Especially when you muss it?" He lets out a low chuckle. "Sleep, love."

"Only if you join me."

Sebastian doesn't care that your breath smells bad and there's crust in your eyes. He slips in beside you, enveloping you with that broad, strong warmth that draws you into his protection. It's safe here. Nothing can hurt you. He kisses your brow, and it feels like music, heart beating a slow, steady rhythm that lulls you to sleep as easy as the clouds drift lazily across the sky.

"Shall I tell you a secret?" he asks when you're next awake.

You smirk and roll into him. "Go on, then."

"You know Ominis is my best friend? His last name's not actually Gaunt." His eyes twinkle. "It's Weasley."

"That's your secret? That he's married to Garreth's sister?" you scoff. "Bit odd for a man to take his wife's surname, but hardly worth hiding, is it?"

"He's not married to Garreth's sister."

"Oh? He's adopted?"

"Wrong again. Ominis and Garreth, they're..."

"... Work partners."

"No... it's just the two of them living together, so they're..."

"Best friends? And without you. Must be a blow to your ego."

"God, bar girl." He laughs. "They're fucking."

You jerk backwards. "What?"

"More precisely they're married, but I guess that also means they're fucking."

You don't know how to react. "Two men, married?"

"That's a better secret, isn't it?" He winks. "Keep an open mind."

You're not really sure what to do with this information, but the pieces rearrange in your head. That explains their relationship a little better, not of boss and underling, but of lovers hiding beneath a veil of secrets. At least you can relate to that.

"Should I be worried they'll try to poach you from me?"

"Ominis would rather eat rocks," Sebastian says, laughing. "Garreth... wouldn't surprise me if he tried. I'm very desirable, after all."

You snort. "Tell me something about you, then. Something no one else knows."

"Now that's a tougher order." His hands settle in your hair and he plays with it gently, sending sparks down your scalp. "How mysterious do you think I am?"

"If you could bury your secrets at the bottom of the ocean, you would."

"Touché." He draws his fingers up, massaging your head. "All right, I will confess something... I bite my nails."

"That's why they look so bad."

"And I have a terrible addiction to looking at myself in the mirror."

"Sebastian."

"It's painful to be this handsome, bar girl."

"You're certainly a pain." You drag your fingers down his chest, letting each bristle of hair be the spark that keeps you alight. "I'm serious. Or do you really think you're an open book?"

"Not at all." His voice comes out gravelled but meek. "Are my secrets worth knowing?"

"You are worth knowing. Every piece of you."

You snuggle into him to emphasise this truth. I am safe, the motion says. I will guard your heart as you have guarded mine. After a moment, he slowly traces each vertebrae of your spine, one by one by one like a bead of liquid silver trickling down a stairwell. On a cold winter's night, it couldn't be any more comforting a touch. Perfect.

"I regret what I did for the wrong reason."

By the small of your back, he pauses and meets your eye, waiting, urging for a sign to continue. This path is fretful and dangerous, another way it could upend your perception of him. But very little could, and you place a kiss on his chin in solidarity.

"It's the worst part of me." He continues it quietly, like distant rain. "Every day in prison I thought about my uncle. How would I do it differently? How could I help my sister without dooming us all? The truth is... that fifteen year old boy didn't know any better. He didn't have a support network. He didn't feel like he could trust the teachers. His best friends were against his ideas from the start. You know that feeling that makes your entire body recoil? When your disgust is so resonant you feel it in your bones, and you'll do mental somersaults to think of anything else? I thought it was remorse.

"But I realised after confronting it... I didn't regret his death. I regretted what it did to my soul. I regretted the decisions that led me to her death, and drinking. I regretted hurting her and my friends."

"You regret getting caught."

"Yes." He's barely audible now. "It took a long time for Anne to come to terms with not only what I did, but why. I killed him for her."

You cup his cheek, steadying the demons that manifest like embers in ash.

"And look how far you've come since then. You got through prison. You're getting better. You've made new, lasting connections. She's looking down on you with a smile."

Instead he smirks. "Hope not. That means she's seen my dick." But there's sadness there, and worry and hesitation and pleading and all the things that remind you of the man behind the façade. "I felt relief, not regret, that he was dead. That I gave her a chance to live. Does that... am I a selfish monster?"

You wrap your arms around him.

"Selfish, yes, but that doesn't make you a monster, Sebastian," you say, listening to his heartbeat with ease. "That makes you human."

By sunrise he hasn't thought of a plan, but when his cock thrusts into you, and your face thrusts into the pillow, you can't bring yourself to worry. He empties over your bed several times and takes measures to make sure you're equally pleasured too, that by the time you clean yourselves up for the morning you're already tired.

You make it in time to intercept your mother from tottering right over the bannister.

"It's all right," you say to him, when you eventually coax her to the armchair. "If you need to be somewhere else—"

"No," he says, with that half-smile that is yours. "There's nowhere else I'd rather be."

A natural charmer and entertainer, he helps clean, feed and move your parents to the sun room. By some miracle they actually recognise him too, the man who vanishes in the fireplace – you want to ask more about that but suspect Sebastian will give answers so cryptic they couldn't solve a fiendish crossword – and with his help you finish the morning's work in half the time. Ada arrives to watch them and says nothing of Sebastian's presence, agreeing without words to keep one more secret sealed on her lips.

The pub opens for the breakfast rush without any issue out of the ordinary. You swab countertops. Serve customers. Take coin in your pocket and snags on the chin. Sebastian remains through it all, the fallen guardian angel ever present and watchful, and though he resists as long as he can, it's not even twelve before he's halfway into a stout, foam coating his lips in a golden froth. You're tempted to lick it off.

The day is almost perfectly normal. Almost.

Because there is one thought that keeps you twitchy and addled. One thing that makes your hair stand on end, hyper-vigilant of every noise and new face. Harlow's retaliation may not be immediate. It may not even be next week. But he will come – and you have no idea when.

So each night, Sebastian stays to protect you.

It becomes as easy as breathing to fall asleep in his arms, sometimes after riotous love-making or kisses that leave you breathless, sometimes after enjoying one another's company in the small ways, words as loud as ghosts and touches as searing as the moon in the cloudless sky. You refuse to relax at the start, and try to remember what could happen the moment you let your guard down, but with Sebastian lulling you to sleep with a story, a crooked grin or the simple safety of his embrace, the promise is a difficult one to keep.

It was only a week ago, but Harlow becomes as distant a memory as a decade.

And that comfort is dangerous.

You're in the beer cellar below, hunting for the rye whisky, when Sebastian wanders down to find you. Without the peek of natural sunlight you could fool yourself into thinking it's night, the thicket of kegs set gently aglow by gas lamps on the wall.

"Thought you might want my help." His brow dances. "Or my muscle. Whichever suits."

"I'm just debating whether it's worth bringing up another rye. We're low and Old Dodder could neck it solo." You turn to him fully. "You haven't heard anything?"

"No."

"It's been a week. No one's heard from him even once?" You tap your nails on the keg's rim. "Why? What's he doing?"

"How'd you know there hasn't been hundreds of attacks I've valiantly fought off?" You fix him a look, which only broadens his smile. "We're keeping an eye out, I promise. Don't stress."

"In this line of work that's impossible. There's about ten different things I have to manage, and that's without a criminal gang out for my head."

His smile turns a little smug, and he prowls closer, a distinctive glimmer in his eye. "Then let me help?"

"Oh yeah? Sebastian Sallow, bar boy? I'd fancy watching you hold a tray of beers without spilling a drop. Or taking a cheeky sip."

"I was thinking more the stress, love."

He tucks you between a cluster of kegs and himself. Much taller and broader, Sebastian's scent overwhelms all others, richly dark musk, leather, sweat, oak, stout. His thumbs find the small of your waist, pressing you inwards, trapping you.

"What did you have in mind?" you ask demurely.

His kiss captures you mid-breath, and you sink into him, taken by his strength and dominance. You've kissed him tens, hundreds of times now, and it never feels any less euphoric. He tastes of malt and gold, caramel and power, and with his lips meandering across your cheeks and down your jaw, then enthusiastically across your throat with enough bite to sting pleasantly, it's hard not to demand he fuck you then and there.

"Sebastian—"

"Sssshhh." He caresses your lips. "No more stress."

The kisses set fire to your core as he trails down the front of your apron, down to your tapered waist and the volume of your skirts until he's on his knees before you. Anticipation makes your sex throb, and when his hands slip under the layers, drawing it above his head, you let out a little bleat of surprise.

"T-This is a cellar!"

"Then you'd better keep quiet, love."

Without warning he buries his face between your legs, and you're embarrassed, secretly pleased, to realise how wet the bloomers cling to you with excitement. He tugs on the string holding them in place to reach your entrance, swollen after a pathetically minimal amount of stimulation. Sebastian just has that way – a few words, a touch, a smile, and you unravel. His nose caresses your clit, and you let out a gasp.

"You smell delicious," he murmurs into the folds, flowering open at the vibration. "Spread yourself for me."

A wet, warm tongue slides across you, and you grab the keg to anchor yourself, so turned on you widen your stance and roll your hips forward to give him better access. He chuckles, another vibration, and continues to lick the ache, slow, leisurely, each lap so discreet in reality but loud and slick to you.

"Wider," he demands softly. "Let me taste more of you."

Propriety crumbling, you inch your legs outwards, allowing Sebastian easier access.

"T-This is too risky—"

The trap door flies open, filling the cellar with sunlight. You yank your arms to your sides at once. Sebastian freezes, tongue suspended on your clit – but not retreating.

"There you are!" Bonny heads down a few steps – she tilts her head. "What you doin' in there, miss?"

Thank God there's a bunch of barrels in the way. "S-Stock count."

"Cook did that this morning?"

Shit. "I know, I'm just—"

His tongue grazes deeper over your entrance. You almost moan. Bastard. Instead, you physically wrench your facial muscles back into place.

"Bein' thorough?" offers Bonny.

Another lash of his tongue, this time playing with the rim.

"Very," he whispers.

You knee him gently but he just licks again. Fuck. It's harder and harder to look calm, harder to control the urge to sink your fingers into the curls and ride his fucking face.

"T-Thorough, yes," you manage. "I'll be out in a min."

She makes to step forwards. "Want any help?"

"No! I mean, no, thank you." You can't focus. Bonny's there but in your mind's eye you can only see Sebastian between your legs, working you to climax. "Promise I won't be long."

His pace quickens, sliding back forth back forth. You nudge him again, which only makes his tongue more eager. The world teeters.

"Aw'right, well," says Bonny, "I'll tell the bloke with the walking stick to wait at the bar then? He's looking for your man but I can't seem to find him."

Sebastian coils his arms around your thighs, adjusting the position as his tongue slips easily inside you.

"Yes!" you cry, then cough. "Yes, that would— be— great."

Bonny makes a face but shrugs and swings the door shut behind her, leaving you in dusky silence again.

"You arsehole—"

He doesn't let you finish, using his whole mouth now to stimulate your clit and entrance in tandem. Burying in and out, across and up, kissing and sucking. Your head cranes backwards, your hands fist your skirt to channel the frustration, the desire. Fuck, it feels amazing. A guttural moan escapes your mouth but doesn't even sound like your own, so lost in the thrill – and when Sebastian licks and licks and licks without stopping, you're quickly arcing your back and bucking against his mouth until the release comes swift and fast, pulsing sloppily over his face.

It takes a few seconds to regain some measure of poise. Sebastian drops the skirt and reveals himself grinning widely and sticky with cum.

"You're incorrigible."

"And you're welcome."

"We could've been caught."

He thumbs his face and licks it off, without taking his eyes off you. "You enjoy the risk."

"I'm at risk of being caught and destroying my reputation. You're hiding under my skirts."

He stands and slips your chin into his grasp, tilting it up to ghost his lips.

"Careful, love. I might like to show you how brazen I can be."

One step closer pins you between the wall and him. His breath susurrates as he dips down to your ear.

"I'd fuck you on that counter if you'd let me."

The image of you sprawled out for all to see, naked and begging and at the mercy of his pleasure, sends heat up unspooling through your core again, and a coy glance downwards shows that same desire reflected in his physical form.

"Ominis is waiting for you."

"Hm." He grasps your arse tightly and hoists you to the wall, pressing his bulge between your legs. "Let him wait."

With two firm tugs you undo his breeches, and Sebastian claims your mouth, tongue still salty and sweet with your juices. He roughly grinds forwards, pulsing a new wave of pleasure down your navel, satisfying of the feel of his hard, eager cock. One stroke elicits a mid-kiss groan down your throat, and when you reach to grasp him, please him, the wetness that quickly blooms from the head drives your wants mad.

The nights are tender and loving, but today, with the pub hall only upstairs, Sebastian buries the tip, then the entirety of him, inside you in a quick, flush motion. You feel full yet famished still. Legs curled around him and arms steady, you become a vessel for his pleasure as he ruts into you so hard the floorboards groan. Someone could hear you – you're sure of it. If Bonny or anyone had another question or thought to check on their boss, they would get treated to a sight of Sebastian's cock between your legs, yet you take each thrust willingly and frantically, rocking to his rhythm in desperation to find a new release. He's right, you enjoy the risk. You enjoy him. Clinging to his back, you relish his hard muscles bearing your weight, and dig your nails into his shirt and flesh beneath.

He peels free as he adjusts position, gripping your thighs like vice, and his mouth finds the swell between your neck and collarbone. The sensations tip you closer and closer. Your body doesn't just want to orgasm, it needs to. You have to let go. A rasping moan bleats from your lips, broken by ragged pants.

"Keep quiet, love," he commands. "Only I get to hear you cum."

Your spine hits the wall with each thrust. The fire builds until its pleading, beseeching for release, and with one final desperate movement you clench around his cock and freely orgasm, biting your lip to curb the scream that surges up your throat. Divine pleasure wracks every bone.

"S-Sebastian..."

His name blurted like that makes his grip tighten. He pants raggedly, pumps with no rhythm, eyes fluttering upwards and nails biting, and when he finally pulls out to twist away before his release spurts, his face contorts with pleasure, almost pain, that he can't cum inside you, leave you dripping and marked as his as you work.

Knees too week to stand, you slump to the floor, spent.

"You really... are incorrigible..."

He lets out a low chuckle and runs a hand through his sweaty curls.

"But you love it."

You do.

He leans over and slips a hand around your waist, pulling you up to his chest. For a long moment, as your hearts climb down from the high together, neither of you say anything. Despite his past, his secrets, his vices, Sebastian has become the one place where you can truly be yourself. There are no worries or impossible expectations, no societal burdens, no weight nor responsibility. No stress. He is the safety net, the impenetrable monument, the sun that whispers to the sprout to thrive, and if Heaven exists, it's this beautiful connection, the golden threads that bind you together with something far greater than love.

Adventure, freedom, the new and unexpected but never unwelcome. Sebastian is all those things and more.

"I don't want to see what the brute wants," he murmurs. "I'd rather stay here with you forever."

Your focus tugs back to those brilliant coffee eyes.

"Just for now will be enough."

To divert suspicions, you go back to the main hall first.

Tidying yourself up is harder than it sounds, with the flush of sex fresh on your face. With a final kiss, Sebastian promises to clean up as you head up out the stock room and into the hall. Ominis is distinctive immediately by his unfittingly taut posture, state of overdress and cane slotted tightly into his palm, but he lifts his chin as you approach, like he can scent you coming.

Hopefully not. He might mistake you for his friend.

"Good afternoon, madam," he greets cordially, setting his teacup down. "Sebastian is close by, I presume."

Sebastian saunters out next, and it seems to take all his willpower not to touch you. His easy smile capsizes from post-coital bliss to pre-disaster despair.

"Please tell me you're here to buy me a drink and nothing else?"

"I have news," he says. "On Harlow."

"Then out with it," you demand. "What do you know?"

"It's best I discuss the matter with Sebastian privately."

"Why? They're going to come here, ain't they?"

He makes to retort, but Sebastian cuts in. "She's right, Ominis. Let's both hear it."

Ominis purses his lips in hesitation, but stands. "Very well. I have... informants who have received word that he intends to strike the premises with a dozen of his men tonight."

Your heart leaps into your throat. "What? Tonight? Then why are you here? Go stop him!"

Ominis is unrelentingly stoic. "Intent is not a crime, and unfortunately Harlow has a large enough following that means we must catch him in the act to arrest him. Any premature move could give away the element of surprise. He underestimated you last time, so I imagine he will bring full..." he rolls his lips, "firepower tonight."

"I have a plan, don't worry," Sebastian adds at your horror. "Been cooking it some time."

"And you didn't think to share it with me?" you snap.

"It's no longer safe for you here," Ominis says coolly. "You'll need to make accommodations elsewhere for the time being."

"And what about my pub?"

"Let us handle it."

"I'm hearing a lot of don't worry about it and not enough telling me what you plan to do."

"That's all I can share. Sebastian," he says abruptly, "we'll discuss more later, once I have logistics in place."

He glides away like he hasn't just upended your entire world. It's one thing to target you, another entirely to target this place. You live here, work here, grew up here, met Sebastian here. It can't all end in ruin.

"Just for tonight, lay low at my place." Sebastian fishes in his pocket and places a warm metal key into your palms. "Garreth will be more than happy to watch your parents, he has a spare room, he's very discreet and he adores old people."

You don't even have the brain power to fathom how Sebastian could organise that in one afternoon. "I won't cower."

"Not cowering. All you have to do—"

"No." You thrust the key back into his hand. "This time you tell me what's going on. It's not a pig-headed customer or a carriage to the seaside, Sebastian. This place is my life."

"I know, and I would never do anything to jeopardise it."

"So why can't you tell me your plan?"

"Because I don't want you to worry about me, more than you already will." He steps closer, gets quieter. "Everything will work out, but for that to happen, I need to know you're safe and far away. I can't... I can't risk you getting hurt. I can't work to protect this place knowing you're in danger."

"You're on leave," you whisper. "I don't want you getting hurt."

"I won't." He puts the key back and cups your hands over it. "I know it's hard for you, but—"

"Trust you?"

"Now you're getting it." His hands slip away – you miss the warmth keenly. "It'll be over by morning, I promise."

This side of him, confident and self-assured and doubtless everything will be okay, draws you in like seduction. This isn't the first time you've put your faith in his hands, but now it kindles a feeling of helplessness in your belly. He's never let you down before and has no reason to now – but still, you can't help feel pushed over your limit.

There's more at stake this time. Your life and your parents' lives are more important, yes, but it feels... wrong, to abandon your home when it needs you most.

"All right," you back down, uneasy but left without options. "Just... be careful."

He takes your hand, bowing to kiss the fingers like delicate embers in a breeze.

"Now, bar girl," he murmurs, "where's the fun in that?"

The door opens before the third swing of the knocker.

"Brilliant timing!" Garreth greets, ushering you inside. "Just tucked your parents into bed!"

It took a forty minute walk to reach the Weasley townhouse on the west side of the city. You've forgone wondering the hows and whys of Sebastian's machinations, so it doesn't surprise you to find your parents in the spare bedroom, sitting up and nattering about green flames. The place is surprisingly plain, with a sparse number of portrait photographs on an empty oak shelf, a navy armchair that clashes with red wallpaper and a cuckoo clock, except instead of chiming on the hour, it chimes at seven minutes past.

"Cup of tea?" asks Garreth. "It'll be good for the nerves, and not to brag, but I'm very good at hand-brewing."

"No, thank you. Is Mr Gaunt here?"

"Why would he be here?" he blurts. "He doesn't live here, or anything. He's just my colleague. At work. Working. Yeah. He and Sebastian are already on the case."

You stew on it as you ensure your parents are settled and comfortable. It's already past nine and the pub closed early, and if Ominis' intel is correct, Harlow's gang will be storming the place in a few hours. He wouldn't hesitate to deliver a killing blow; Sebastian would, despite his blood-stained past. What if, in granting mercy, he gets badly hurt or killed?

"What about Kath?" you ask, and Garreth stiffens. "Does she know?"

"Errrrr." He laughs nervously. "Don't be mad..."

"What, Garreth?"

"They're not exactly doing this... by the book..." He holds up his hands. "They won't be able to stop Harlow any other way. And trust me, even when Seb's off his tits he's too competent to let shit go awry."

"So it's just him and Ominis? Against Harlow's entire gang?" You glare at him. "What exactly is this plan?"

Garreth goes a little pale. "They're going to use bait to lure him into a trap they've set. That's all."

"Bait?" you snap. "What bait?"

"It'll be fine, I promise! Over by one, Seb told me. He's that confident."

Time seems to distend. Sebastian was right – you are worrying, so much it gnaws your insides. They're outnumbered and outmanned and assuming Harlow will be idiot enough to fall into whatever this trap is they've set, presumably at your pub's expense.

"Where's that handsome, tattooed young man, hmm?"

You spin to your father, wrenched from the conversation. "What?"

"Oh, if I were fifty years younger, sweetheart," your mother chimes, relaxing next to him, "I'd be all over him!"

You don't know whether to laugh or cry. Of course they remember him, out of everyone they've ever met. "He's busy right now."

"Not without another woman, I hope?"

"No, Mama."

"What a lucky chap he is to have you at his side. Not everyone gets that, you know." Your mother turns to face your father with a smile. "The adventures we had... they were always worth the risk."

Adventure, and freedom, and the new and unexpected but never unwelcome... a painful ache goes through you. Wasn't that something you learnt when you were with Sebastian? Living, rather than surviving? Taking the risk rather than hiding away?

Downstairs, you grab your things as Garreth opens the front door.

"You can stay, if you want," he says, leaning against the doorway. "It'll be a tight squeeze, but I can whip up a bed for you in the living room."

Sleep will be hard enough at Sebastian's place. "Thanks, but I'll be all right. You'll call if there's any issues?"

"Don't worry, I'm used to entertaining old people. If they can't sleep I can show them some magic! Er, by that I mean coin tricks and pulling my thumb off, of course." He laughs awkwardly. "Keep out of trouble tonight?"

You don't make that promise.

It's lonely in Sebastian's place without him.

To busy yourself, you tidy. Charming as the owner is, he's a terrible mess, and his attempts to clean since you were last here only mean the floor is free of empty bottles. You scrub the kitchen countertop, hoping each stain that peels away will relieve the anxiety storming through your gut.

It doesn't.

Even when you wash and dress and climb into his bed, breathing his familiar scent, your feet feel like they're filled with lightning, charged and restless and twitchy and taut. The clock ticks on Sebastian's wall. The pendulum swings. It passes midnight, then one, and you hear no sign, nothing that relieves you of this nightmarish cycle of waiting, hoping, praying, pleading.

Wait. Hope. Pray. Plead.

The later it gets, the worse your thoughts become. Harlow's grin. The place is flames. Sebastian struck down. Sebastian unmoving...

Everything you love is there. The building, the memories... him. If things go wrong, not only will you lose the place, but the person, too. He said to trust him – and you do, so much your soul aches at the thought of lying here, doing nothing, while he risks his life for you.

Maybe it's time to risk your life for him. Just this once. Just for love.

Without another breath, you're out of bed, dressing and snatching your coat and shoving your feet into boots. Fuck it. The most harm you can do is swing a punch with whatever muscle you've developed moving furniture and pouring beer, but if Sebastian's in trouble and there's any way you can help, even if it means acting as bait yourself, you'll seize it.

Outside, it doesn't take long to grasp your bearings, as the river cuts seamlessly through the city centre, but it's a bit of a walk, and the dark is no place for a lone woman. You keep to brightly lit areas and skirt strangers in wide arcs, channelling that fear into a determined pace.

When you near Ye Olde Hen House, a sharpness tickles the air.

It's not strong at first, but as you get closer the smell thickens and dries your tongue. Smoke. It tastes like Guy Fawkes' Night, fireworks and bonfires and effigies charred to cinders. You jog, then sprint, the last two streets until you can see the plume rising from the source.

In another life, the sight would be biblically divine. Devour the old to make way for the new. Sometimes you wished it, when the pipes burst or the carpet wore away or the damp crept through a leak in the ceiling, but watching the old building now, with its windows shattered and the great orange tongues churning through the wood like claws through flesh and bone, shoots an intense pang of grief up your chest. The place may be old, tired and decrepit, but it's yours.

This is dangerous. You shouldn't go further. But the thought of Sebastian burning within compels you to race forwards, faster than your limbs have ever taken you before. There's nothing you can do to save the place now, but if he dies as you stand here and watch, there wouldn't be a lifetime long enough to atone.

"Sebastian!" you screech. "Sebastian!"

Just as you come upon the entrance, the flames recede. You skid to a halt. Someone is inside. Him? Or Harlow? You hit the great double-door, expecting resistance – but the wood is soggy and you burst into the main hall, still aflame and wrecked so completely it's almost unrecognisable.

Harlow has his back to you, and the grief doesn't have time to bloom.

His clothes are singed, he's leaning heavily to one side and thick blood weeps from numerous injuries, including an enormous gash down the length of his back. Trembling and red with rage, he stands opposite a figure too obscured by both cloak and smoke to make out clearly.

"And after you're dead, I'll come for your whore. Tie her up, make her scream. Maybe find out what you find so sweet about her Muggle cunt." He bellows a hysterical laugh and raises something wooden in his hand. "Save a seat in hell for me."

No. You seize the first thing you can find: the cast-iron pan hanging on the rack. The handle makes your skin sizzle, but you clamp down on the agony – and jab the curve right into Harlow's exposed wound.

The screech he lets out could curdle blood, and he drops to his knees. You reel back. He only just turns around – eyes going wide – before you whack it against his head, and his body thumps to the ground, unconscious. Maybe dead. You drop the pan, palms red and raw and quivering with pain, and look over.

The figure steps back – but it's not Sebastian.

You snatch the details between the smoke. Familiarly curved, with fingers that sing of hardship, hair escaping its loose bundle and shoulders like the physical weight of responsibility has sheared them down to a perpetual slant, it's a body you know both intimately and don't understand, and love or despise depending on moods as errant as the wind. The person darts across the floor to the stock room for the back entrance, flicking the barest second of attention your way.

With eyes matching your own.

It's impossible. Impossible. How could someone wear every flaw on your skin, every follicle and pore, every old scar and callous like a garment to be discarded when they saw fit? The lookalike scampers away, and your feet jerk you forwards in chase, through the ruined doorway to the back alley.

You have to know. You have to.

"Wait!" you choke out. "Who are—?"

But when you turn the corner, the doppelgänger is gone.

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[melonsharks]

I literally love ur transfem dipper (makes me so happy) but I actually live in the firm belief that dipper is transmasc. Him needing to be a man so bad can honestly go either way, but I wanted to know ur thoughts of ftm dipper?

I love transmasc dipper! I always have. He was one of the first characters I ever headcanoned as transmasc, and it's a hc I still enjoy thoroughly. I think it's beautiful that other transmasc people can relate to the things he goes through in the show and it really does make so much sense for him. He struggles so much with being seen and I think that's really the beauty of any trans dipper hc. He really embodies the experience of being trans in so many different ways that people can relate to.

It's not my main headcanon anymore, but that's alright, I think! I still like it. I love seeing people talk about it and compare their own experiences to him. Projecting on characters is one of the best parts about liking something.

Being fully, fully honest, I feel like it's a headcanon I adopted from fandom without giving it much thought (Dipper isn't even my favorite gf character, funnily enough so I never gave Dipper as much thought as he maybe deserved in general. Not before, at least.) This doesn't happen anymore, but I've gotten comments or asks before that are implying or just outright saying I'm taking dipper away from transmascs, even though I am transmasc myself! Honestly... I didn't think about it a lot because I just never related to transmasc dipper. When I was a kid, I never overcompensated for masculinity like that. I was really repressed, so I was really stubbornly feminine because I was scared and unsure of myself all the time, even when it hurt ME to be that way. That's why transfem dipper means as much to me now as she does! I just understand her.

But it would be stupid of me to say anything definitively when everyone's experience with their gender is so vastly different from my own... so obviously how they read dipper is different too. reading essays or fics or whatever where dipper is transmasc (or even nonbinary) feels like peeking into an experience that's unlike my own. and I just think that's awesome. It's really, really awesome.

[pokckygamewithbatman]

Parental Figures in Arcane, and How S2 Both Maintains and Hurts this Aspect of The Show

The kinship that Zaunite "families" feel for each other is shown countless times throughout the show. Claggor and Mylo aren't Vander's kids either, but he loves them just as much as the girls, and the Zaunites who had been imprisoned and were rescued by Jinx in S2 immediately want closeness to her. When Jinx cares for Isha they never address or label their relationship to one another, or to us. They're all on the same side, and it doesn't matter if they're related or not, or even if they're close. They're all fighting and surviving together.

Arcane also made it clear how important parental figures are, but they didn't touch on the importance of titles in that relationship between a parent and their children because that was never important. There was always something more pressing happening. Only at the very end could someone admit their love and bestow a title as sacred and important as "dad" or "daughter".

So why do Vi and Jinx both call Vander their dad so easily in S2?

In broad, broad terms, the thing I don’t like about the lack of nuance of Vander as a father figure in S2 is because of the immense nuance in S1. In S1 Vander is never referred to by Vi or Powder/Jinx as “dad.” He is a guardian, definitely, but when they’re young they’re not yet ready to accept him as a father, which is probably in part because of the nature of Zaun; when you’re all trying to survive together and everyone’s bringing whatever they can to the table (almost as equals, even if some are literally children), parental figures and titles of that sort are lost, especially in this case when Vander and the girls aren’t blood related. They may still remember their biological father (though he's never mentioned) and aren't ready to replace that person in their life. They at most see him as a close uncle or family friend of their mother. And from this point up until he dies that doesn’t change. They never call him dad in S1, and that really helped the theme of "love transcends time and class" so why does he gain this title in S2 after they haven’t seen him for 10 years(?) and thought he’d been dead this whole time. No extra bonding happened between the girls and Vander, and there was never any indication that their relationship with him, and how they felt about it had changed from a beloved father figure and guardian, to "dad".

Sure, they miss him, and you could assume that in a flurry of emotion they spring the title onto him, but complexity, detail and subtly are where the show really shines, so why did they feel the need to straight up tell us how the girls feel about Vander instead of just showing their love and affection for him?

This happens in S1, Jinx feels a deep connection with Silco, but only shows it through her actions; helping him in his mission, hugs, cradling his face when he’s dying. And he in turn only refers to her as his daughter right before he dies, yk “you’re my daughter, I’d never forsake you”, which he says in conclusion to his decision that he'd never give her up, even for the freedom of Zaun. That line finally signifies to us that she is the most important thing in Silco's life. Before this scene the audience could still be on unsure whether he'd actually be willing to give her up for his dream. She's literally his new dream. Throughout the rest of the show he shows his love through his actions; he trusts her with administering his medicine even though he's fully capable of doing it himself, but he knew she needed to feel useful (and it's really cute that after a while he's incapable of doing it himself because he's let her do it for so long), he made her a big part of his plan to free Zaun because he had faith in her abilities and knew she wanted to help, he keeps the fact that Vi is alive from her in order to protect her (don't come at me with that "manipulator Silco" talk, he also thought Vi was dead, and when he found out he didn't tell Jinx because he saw how much it hurt her to even remember Vi and think about her. He reminds her of their goal and gives to a task to help keep her mind off the hurt she's feeling). Although we as the audience are like “mk they’re clearly father and daughter” it doesn’t feel like the writers are shoving it down our throats which is why it’s really impactful when Silco finally says it in the last episode.

After Jinx picks up Isha, or after Isha inserts herself into Jinx's life, a shift between "older sister/guardian" to "parent" happens after Jinx saves Isha from Stillwater. When they hug and Isha starts crying we see on Jinx's face the realization: "oh. She's the most important thing in the world to me" but the show never has to tell us that. Isha clearly has lost a parental figure already because of her insistence on keeping her miner's hat, and Jinx also recently lost her father figure, Silco, so they both know the meaning of losing someone they love, but don't need to label themselves as "mother" and "daughter" for the audience. And it evident that Isha meant as much as she did to Jinx because of how much her death crushed what was once an outgoing and confident Jinx. Once again, they never say it, Isha never calls Jinx mom (even in her own way (you could argue that she actually does in the prison scene before Jinx is attacked by Warwick, but even if she does that's a valid place to bestow that title: her guardian is in danger and Isha can't get to her, so out of desperation she calls her "mama", but this is never mentioned again so it's just as likely that Isha was just screaming)) and she doesn't need to.

While it doesn’t ruin the dynamic between Vander and the girls in S2 and they don’t say it a ton, it makes their relationship feel less deep. Instead of them not knowing who they are to each other, or not caring because they just love each other so much, they instead bestow a title that pinpoints their degree of love for Vander. They spell it out for us, ‘he is our father, and that’s why we love him. Period’ and I think that’s harmful to how we’re supposed to view these characters. Vi and Jinx aren't ones to give out such titles easily, Vi is hesitant to admit her love for Cait, and Jinx is hesitant to call Vi her sister, and yet this man who they haven't seen for so long, who initially tried to kill them, gains this title as though he's been guiding and protecting them the whole time?

This is not Vander slander, let me assure you, I believe just as fiercely as the next person that he is their dad, that man is a father, but the fact that they casually through the title around so easily is baffling to me.

Let me just put this picture in your minds: How impactful would it have been if the first time we get a glimpse of how much they truly love each other is when Vander gets his humanity back and the first thing he says is "don't touch my daughter". Remember that scene? Imagine how much more it would've hit if the audience and the girls were still unsure of how they wanted to call Vander and how he thought of them. If they only started calling him dad after getting like, confirmation that he felt the same about them and always had. Vi and Jinx, who are terrified of being wrong, and choosing wrong, should not have given Vander the title of "dad" when he was Warwick.

This is just a little nitpick of mine, and I've never seen anyone else talk about this, but I feel like it's small details like this that made the second season more... shallow?

[arsenicflame]

steddyhands modern au inspired by this post:

(1828 words, themes of kink but nothing explicit, established blackhands & gentlebeard-centric. Happy Pride!)

Stede picks up leatherworking in the wake of his divorce. He's not exactly sure how it ended up being such an important hobby for him, only that he had always admired the intricate designs on his horse's best bridles, and with little else to do with his time, he decides to give it a go.

It's rocky going at first, but he's having fun working with his hands for the first time in his life, and there's a sense of satisfaction in seeing the design come to life as he works. With practice, his skills improve, and he learns how to make things that are truly one of a kind.

He starts off posting his pieces online, as a way to reach fellow enthusiasts, but quickly finds himself with a rather large audience. Stede’s style is unique, and, after many requests from his followers, Lucius encourages him to make some more basic pieces he can sell. It's not about making money for Stede, but another way to meet new people who share his interests- as Lucius keeps telling him, it's sad that his personal assistant is the main person he talks to these days. 

So Stede sets out on a new adventure, and has quite the time designing a new range of patterns for the market. He makes purses, belts, bracelets, and, most importantly, dog collars- all still with his unique designs embossed into them, of course. He rents a booth at his towns monthly craft fair, and very quickly finds himself with a new group of friends in the other regulars- Pete, his usual neighbour, who sells an array of wooden figures he carves, Roach, who runs a stand for his bakery, and Frenchie, who isn't actually a stallholder, but is almost always busking near his friend Wee John’s stand of knitted goods, bringing life to the market even in the pouring rain. There's also Buttons, another regular at the market. Nobody is exactly sure what he does there- he doesn't sell things, or seem to buy anything either, but rain or shine, he's there with the birds.

Stede’s been doing this a few months by the time June rolls around. As he's setting up his stand, he notices that the area is much busier than it’d normally be at this time of morning. Lucius, who got roped into helping run Stede’s stall somewhere down the line (despite his protests that this is not what personal assistant means… But hey, he got a boyfriend out of it, at least), reminds him that there's the parade today, too- not realising that Stede had no clue there was a parade today, and especially not that it was pride. Stede immediately jumps to fretting about the amount of stock he’s brought, and Lucius takes the cue to escape, saying he’ll go and grab them coffee (but really, he's off to flirt with Pete)

Lucius is still missing when Ed stumbles across the little leather stall. Stede’s just ran back to his car to fetch his last boxes of inventory, and by the time he returns, Ed’s already begun to narrow down his choices. Stede greets him, starting to tell him that they're not actually open yet, but before he gets more than a couple of words out, Ed’s exclaiming “You're a Kiwi!!!”

The two of them smile at the shared recognition, and Stede says he’ll make an exception, just for Ed, and asks him what exactly he was interested in. Ed tells him that he's looking for a collar “for his boy”, and points out the particular design he was looking at. It happens to be one of Stede’s favourites from this latest run of work, a fact he mentions to Ed. It leads them into a discussion about Stede’s craft, and Ed’s Izzy, and then everything in between. Ed’s listening intently to the things Stede’s telling him, completely drawn in by the process, and by Stede himself. He watches as Stede stamps Izzy's name into the collar, and Stede even lets him have a go at one of the stamps. 

Lucius reappears sometime in the middle of this- only to immediately retreat again, seeing Stede engrossed with Ed. He sets up camp at Pete's booth opposite, watching this man flirt intensely with his boss- and Stede flirt back just as hard. Does Stede even realise he’s doing it? Lucius had known Stede was gay since before Stede even admitted it to himself, but this is on a whole other level.

The pair stand there so long that Izzy comes to look for Ed- the two of them are manning a float on the parade with their crew, and it's past time for them to get geared up. He's already worked up, frustrated to have been left to set up everything alone, when Ed had just gone to see if he could get them both coffee. So maybe he's a bit of a prick, approaching with a brash “where the fuck have you been, Edward”, to which Stede brings the same energy, giving a bitchy “Ed! Do you know this guy?” Izzy tenses, ready to snap, but then Ed cuts in, excitedly telling Stede that this is “his Izzy!” Which confuses the hell out of Stede. 

Forgetting his earlier attitude, he asks Ed if he “really named his dog after his friend”, only to be met with confusion right back from Ed at where the hell Stede got the idea he had a dog from. Stede gestures at the bag with the collar in it, to which Ed has to tell him, “oh, no, that's for him.” Ed tells Stede that they're here to run a float for their local leather society, and while Stede is certainly shocked by what Ed’s saying, he's not finding himself… uninterested. It's simply that he’s never even considered any of this before, especially not that people would use the things that he made for this, but Ed sounds so enthusiastic about it all. He tells him about how his friends would love to see Stede’s work, about how classic leather gear is always so fucking boring- but not Stede’s stuff, no, Stede’s stuff is “fresh” and “fascinating” and unlike anything Ed’s ever seen before. 

Ed's enthusiasm is incredibly infectious, so when he invites Stede to come back to see their float, he readily agrees. It’s a concept Izzy’s less than enthusiastic about. He doesn’t really want to bring this man who’s dressed like he just walked out of a HOA board meeting to their kinky little corner of the world, but he is having a lot of fun watching Stede squirm, so decides not to raise a protest. He does demand he gets his long-overdue coffee first, though (Stede pays for it- as “compensation for him distracting Ed from his job”, he says, not giving Izzy a second to process before he's tapping his card)

By the time they return to the float, Fang, Ivan & Jim are waiting for them, all already geared up. Stede is stunned silent at the sight for about 5 seconds, before he starts actually looking at the quality of Jim’s harness, and proceeds to go off about the poor quality of the craftsmanship, about how the hardware is tacky and completely the wrong choice with this leather, how his “ten year old daughter could do a better job!!!” 

There's complete silence from the group, until Izzy, of all people, bursts into laughter at Stede’s audacity (and, the fact he was staring at Jim's tits completely unabashedly, like he hadn't even noticed them in the first place). Izzy's laughter sets Ed off as he tells the group about Stede’s misunderstanding- “you didn't say he was a person!” “I mean, he's my dog”- and soon everyone's having a friendly giggle at Stede’s mistake.

It's somewhere in the middle of the retelling that Ed remembers that this whole thing happened because he was buying Izzy a gift. After a moments fumbling, he presents Izzy with the collar-  It's a rich, deep black, embossed with a rolling pattern that resembles waves. It’s made from a firm enough leather to take the tooling, and to remind Izzy that he’s owned while he’s wearing it, yet still soft enough for long term comfort. Izzy's eyes immediately lock on to it, an unreadable expression coming over his face, and Ed turns it; first so he can really see the design and Izzy’s name embossed into it, and then so he can see the small “Ed ♥” on the inside of the collar, right over his swallow tattoo. 

“I did the heart,” Ed says to him softly, intended only for Izzy’s ears. Izzy's eyes flick up to Ed’s, and he raises his chin to give Ed the room to put it on. Ed buckles the collar around his neck almost reverently, a test of the tightness turning into a caress of Izzy's neck. It's a perfect fit.

It's as though something comes over Izzy; so twitchy and abrasive earlier, now silent, staring at Ed with a look akin to worship in his eyes. He obediently tilts his head for a kiss as Ed's fingers move to his chin- It's a sight to behold, and one that has Stede intrigued. He wants to know more about this lifestyle, and these men in particular. He wants to be the one to put that expression on Izzy's face.

The moment breaks as Ed and Izzy pull apart, and Ed calls for the crew to finish the last bits of set up. Izzy shakes himself a little before running off to bark orders again, but even still, there remains a softness to him that wasn't there before. 

Ed turns back to Stede with an apologetic smile, already obvious that he has to get going. Before he can speak, however, Stede jumps in -“My business numbers on the card in the box… I'll be around all day”- Ed’s smile turns more genuine at that, promising to stop by if he gets a moment, and that he’ll send his friend's Stede’s way- “if he wants that kind of business.” Stede says that he does, actually- that he's seen a whole new world already today, and, while he was a little taken aback at first, he can feel the passion Ed and his friends have for this life. If there's one thing that's ever mattered to Stede, it's other people's enthusiasm. Maybe he doesn't completely understand yet, but he would like to try.

One year later, Stede’s back at the market on pride weekend again, far better stocked for the crowds this time around. Lucius is finally free to spend the day flirting with Fang & Pete to his heart's content, now that Stede’s roped his own boyfriends into helping him run the stall- and into modelling the merchandise. Ed loves that part, while Izzy needs a lot more convincing, but the puppy eyes Stede & Ed weaponise against him make a very good argument.

[blatantprinterpropaganda]

thame: po, i just wanted to tell you….. 🥺 goodbye. farewell. our ways must part. i hope you live a good and fulfilling life. may you be surrounded by 10 happy dogs and 100 loving grandchildren when you pass away peacefully in your sleep eighty years from now.

thame as he's walking away, while in the background po is spinning into a depression over this what-even-were-we-breakup: yay! :) i did a good job of conveying to the guy i like and want to keep seeing that he's super important to me and i want us to adopt a puppy together ASAP and i'm drafting a shortlist with baby names for when we start a family and i'll talk to him again tomorrow 🥰

pepper, with the patience of a saint: ... you might want to try "see ya" next time

[beastsovrevelation]

I like that Yellowjackets went the "actually, the supposed mental patient is, in fact, a prophet" route.

It's the true horror for Lottie, the Wilderness being real. It's something inside, yes, but it's also a mystical force. It's everywhere. It's the true God (well, Goddess). It's so poetic, I love it. I could write a litany about it. The show executes the "actually, insanity would have been a comfort" trope so well.

I think, the Wilderness is a Lovecraft-level eldritch primordial entity, but folktale instead of sci-fi.

[sherbet-demo]

Here’s another idea on why you’d also hate the straight Blossom situation:

EACH SITUATION SHE WAS PAIRED UP WITH A GUY YOU MENTIONED HAS HER CHARACTER BEING THIS “cute girl-who’s-the-nerdy-damsel-in-distress”

LIKE FUCK YOU MEAN BLOSSOM HAD TO BE SAVED MULTIPLE TIMES DURING THE PPGD COMIC?? (Bleedman - PPGD)

FUCK YOU MEAN SHE GETS “Shy” OVER A LANKY ASS SELF INSERT NERD GUY??? (2016)

In my eyes, Blossom is bisexual (with more of a preference for girls) but what people fuck up in the “dating boys” area is that they keep going back to the the “omg I like this boy but im too scared to say something” or “omg I like this boy but I’m too scared to make the first move”

They downplay and remove all the good qualities of Blossom the minute she gets a man because of the misogynistic ideals of shipping, because the fans think “awh Blossom being the damsel/girly girl sweetheart in the ship is so cute!”

Like no—ITS NOT CUTE AND YALL HAVE TO EXCEPT YOU FUCKED UP HER CHARACTER ENOUGH TO HAVE PEOPLE HATE STRAIGHT BLOSSOM.

Only person I remembered that did a straight Blossom ship RIGHT was an artist by the name of CrossoverGoddess, and it was fucking with Jack Spicer too!

(All art by Crossover-Goddess)

Funniest part is that I actually LOVED this ship as a kid. Not cause it was just funny, but also cause they had Blossom’s character AND her sisters’ character’s RIGHT.

I disliked the rest of the ships, because they didn’t do Blossom justice in the relationship. She was fully set on her goals, headstrong, and KNEW WHAT SHE WANTED IN THE END. Even in the relationship, once her and Jack got together, she’s still that headstrong devoted leader girl we all knew and loved well.

If I’m having a straight ship with Blossom, it is STRICTLY “malewife x girlboss”, because THATS HER CHARACTER.

She’s still the GIRLBOSS WE ALL KNOW AND LOVE EVEN WHEN SHE IS IN LOVE 👏👏👏

All in all, this is probably another reason why so many people want lesbian Blossom, because we DON’T WANT HER CHARACTER SNUFFED OUT in straight ships anymore. WE WANT THE REAL BLOSSOM.

Okay but still though, why is it always Blossom that gets a boyfriend that's only introduced to be so in newer PPG stuff? Jared, that one guy from the CW script, this new Han D. Some kiddo. I feel like there could be many more interesting ideas you could do for a PPG Valentines special tat involves the other girls. Like why not further explore the relationships between one of the girls and an already existing character? Why not explore Buttercup and Mitch's friendship more? (Buttercrush already was an episode that had Buttercup having a crush on someone.) Maybe have some more chemistry between Bubbles and Mike! (When the fuck was the last time they did anything with Mike? I think a Bubbles and Mike story would be a way cooler Valentines special now that I think about it, they had cute interactions in Imaginary Fiend.) But no, it's always Blossom that gets involved in these love stories with guys that were introduced just to be her crush/love interest, even in fan made stuff! in PPG 2016, Blossom has a crush on Jared, in PPGD, Blossom is in a relationship with Dexter, in the CW script, Blossom has a boyfriend that is... there. It's always Blossom! The other girls (ironically) don't get as much love in that regard, they always play the third wheel! I mean you could argue that Blossom fawning over a boy while Bubbles and Buttercup are homies and don't need no man is a good contrast, but personally I'm a single lesbian Blossom watching as her sisters get into relationships truther because I'm awesome and different so

Actually since I mentioned Mike, they don't just have to do a Bubbles and Mike story they should just do LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE WITH HIM LIKE HE JUST APPEARED IN ONE EPISODE LIKE ROBIN PLEASE DO SOMETHING WITH THE LAD- y'know what fuck it this is a Mike Believe appreciation post now idgaf subscribe for more Mike Believe content

[tittyinfinity]

contemplating deleting my blog soon I might make a new blog but idk

[itspileofgoodthings]

tags continued from prev post.

[buildingunderstanding]

Me, reading before bed: I don't think I know how to recognize what it feels like "put my heart into" things because I struggle to recognize most positive emotions since I dissociate so much by default and kind of just passively exist in life. Passivity is my default state and it blocks me from experiencing and feeling things.

Loki, fully aware of the dissociative disorder and trauma this all stems from because we've had this conversation before: Yup. Let's maybe hold onto the realization this time, shall we?

[entropyvoid]

There is a particular subgenre of post I keep seeing on this webbed site wherein people denigrate individualistic cultures but talk about collectivistic ones like they’re the absolute best thing to happen the world and have no flaws of any kind and I really have to wonder how many people making or reblogging those have actually had the opportunity to live in both