#and at that point there’s clearly a Conversation that has to be had

[botslayer]

"Clearly," Oprin rolled his eyes, the vertical pillar of three glancing off to the right.

"The atmosphere of your planet is mostly methane and chlorine, dude. Shut up." Tony shot back, pointing at him.

"... What does that mean?"

"It means you're constantly breathing things that would kill my people dead. I have to wear an oxygen mask on this ship for a damn reason," the human snarled. He'd had conversations like this a few times already. "I can think of fruits on your planet that have what my people consider neurotoxins in them. Why do I know about those? Because my people gave me an information pamphlet before I set foot on this god-forsaken cruiser!" He shouted.

Oprin backed away as his human transfer of ten weeks raved and raved. "Mr. Vargas. Please just calm down, I'm sorry--"

"Like hell you are!" The human shouted again, stomping indignantly. The entire engine room was staring as he tore the chief engineer, a creature one and a half times his height and size at large, a new waste hole. "How would you assholes feel if I just kept acting like you were the weird ones!? That guy's planet has an atmosphere made mostly of Neon!" He said, pointing to Creblah, who's facial tentacles flared in surprise at being dragged into it. "Isn't that cooky? Isn't that weird!? Does anyone else here breathe NEON!?"

"Anthony Vargas, you're relieved of duty until further notice!" Oprin finally found the footing to say.

"Fine by me!" He yelled for the last time before walking away in a huff, mumbling indistinguishably about where to "cram" or "blow" certain things and reference to people being equivalent to overly large genitalia among other things.

An apology, Oprin believed, was in order. He would happily wait for one.

“Let me get this straight about you Earthlings. You cannot drink water from the most abundant source on your planet because it is 3% salt, yet you can easily process various poisons like capsaicin, caffeine, and menthol, with no harm and even some benefits?” “The human body is weird, man.”

[niceonejames7]

dogs or deers? or rats?

sirius finds out your opinion on dogs, and safe to say, he is not happy.

words: 1.1k

genre: fluff

cw: swearing(?)

a/n: reader does not know about the furry little problem yet! this could honestly be poly! marauders or sirius black x reader. whatever you prefer.

.....

This dilemma of finishing your essay had been plaguing your mind while you scribbled mindlessly on your parchment when you heard the door unlock.

"Hello-" before the words could leave your mouth, a limp body has thrown itself at you with a thump on the bed.

"Sirius, what the hell?" The words leave your mouth, but your hands find themselves in his hair as usual, removing strands of them from his face to see him more clearly. He looks up from where he had buried his face and leans to press his lips to yours. He breaks it off for a second just to say, "I missed you so much, my sweetest angel," and kisses you again.

"Oi, let us see her face too." says James as he settles himself beside Remus on the couch after he had draped a blanket over Remus. He didn't look that bad, but the tired and weary expression on his face was unmistakable.

You were treading water as you looked at Remus and extended a hand to beckon him to you, but Sirius was quick to snatch it to himself and say,

"No, first me, then you can do whatever." Sirius says as he wraps himself around you even closer, but you only laugh and say,

"Your time never ends, Sirius."

He lets out a scuff of disbelief before resorting to kissing your neck, trailing down to your shoulders, no answer to your accusation.

"What happened?" You ask James and Remus, breaking them from their conversation.

James was quick to answer, "Oh our dear Moony got himself into a tussle with this giant dog. Scratched him up a bit." For some odd reason, Remus only laughed at this.

"Oh my god, are you alright? Are you hurt?" You ask, your voice incredulous, mostly because that sounds like something Sirius, or James would do, not Remus.

Worry and annoyance both flooded your brain, but the former took over and you made a movement to get up and go towards Remus, but that was hard to do when you had a whole human being draped around you.

"Sirius, get off of me." He whined in defense and only tightened his grip and responded, "Don't worry about him, he's fine."

"I'm alright, sweetheart." Remus assures you from his seat, "And I'd rather just stretch for a while." He stretches his shoulders back and a groan of relief escapes him.

You take that as a confirmation and settle down, still skeptical of his answer. The silence doesn't go on for too long before you speak up,

"See, this is why I don't like dogs."

To someone else, it would've seemed like this was the biggest breaking news ever because Sirius stopped his ministrations and immediately distanced himself from you. Remus' eyebrows were raised with an amused smile, and James was looking directly at Sirius with a somewhat pitiful face.

"What did you say?" He asks, his voice flabbergasted.

You looked as if a deer in headlights, dumbfounded by his dramatic question,

"I said I don't like dogs that much."

"Angel, how could you say that?" He asks, his eyes holding an expression of betrayal, a bit too dramatic.

You chuckle at his question, and say,

"I didn't know you had such dispositions for dogs." Your eyebrow raised in amusement as a smile adorned your lips.

James was pissing himself laughing on the couch, his hands clutching his chest to catch his breath. You looked at him, your expression amused and confused.

"How could you not like dogs? They're-" his hands fumble around as if to prove a point, "They're lovely!" You roll your eyes, having heard that argument, as if that's enough of an explanation.

"I'm not saying they're not lovely, they're just, you know," you shrug, "not for me."

Sirius' jaw hung open in disbelief and James was now on the half on the floor and half on the couch as his laugh got higher and higher.

"This is the funniest thing I will ever witness." He struggles to get out in between fits of laughter.

"What the hell is so funny?" You asked, feeling a bit out of the loop as to why this is such a big deal.

"It's just they're so clingy, and loud and obnoxious. I just want to come home and relax, and not have someone jumping through hoops for my attention." You continued to explain yourself, looking around for answers.

Now it was Remus' turn to release a bark of laughter as he joined James in his world. Tears had formed around Remus' eyes, his face red and James' glasses were nearly falling off, but he didn't seem to care. Remus could not get over how you had just described Sirius, just in a different form.

"Shut up, you two." Sirius barked at James and Remus which only caused their joy to increase. He turned to regard you,

"Angel, take it back, say you don't mean that."

Now even you were laughing at the situation.

"Don't you think you're taking this a bit too personally?"

James was now punching the sofa cushion as Remus' head fell back, his entire body shaking with laughter, "How else would he take it?" he says, to whom in particular you're not sure.

"Well, it's because they're lovely. Dogs are great." He defends himself, crossing his arms with a huff.

"Well I'm happy you've found your passion for animals, but dogs aren't my favourite. I'm sorry, okay?"

You extend your hand to touch his face, a form of apology, but he only pulls away,

"I can't believe you'd say that to my face, angel." He put his hands in in defense, "And fuck you two, too." He says to James and Remus. Remus was wiping his tears and James was adjusting his glasses, finally breaking their spell of laughter.

Sirius had refused your affections(which he regretted deeply now), because he now saw James take the opportunity and settle himself on your lap. He was still grinning like a maniac, much to Sirius' annoyance, when he suddenly asked,

"What do you think about deers, or stags?" You stopped running your hands through his hair as pure confusion filled your brain,

"What kind of question IS THAT?" Now it was Sirius' turn to laugh, he clapped his hands in delight,

"I'm just asking! I can't have your opinion?" He says, forcing your hands to comb through his hair again, but your mind couldn't figure out how the conversation goes from dogs to deers.

"I don't know James, I don't think about deers that often."

"You wound me, princess." says James dramatically, as he imitates being stabbed in his heart.

"What about rats?" You heard from the door, seeing Peter come in. He must have heard a little bit of their conversation.

His question only confused you further, if that was even possible.

"You went from dogs, to deers, and now rats." You raise your hands in defeat,

"I can't do this anymore"

Remus throws his head back laughing, his eyes crinkled, and you think that might be the only good thing to come out of the whole debacle.

[jaal-ama-daravv]

alright, I am dissecting the Emmrich graveyard scene below for how down bad they are for eachother

pls note I have attached screen caps

find my other post here

we begin -

"I would hate to lose you whilst I am still mortal"

this line is directly after Rook questioning all the flirting and what that means for them should he become a lich. which Emmrich responds witht he above. this is a tough one for me to break down as either way Emmrich retains his soul, emotions, and thoughts if he becomes a lich. I believe this line is tied to the fact of being afraid Rook will not want him anymore once he explains his desire to be a lich, as alluded to throughout the rest of the scene.

this one is kind of self explanatory. Emmrich states that nothing will change if he becomes a lich, apart form the no death thing, but would still consider Rook in the decision.

then we are met with a sigh - this is a sigh of desperation. 'how do i choose my words so carefully that Rook see's my desire and doesn't shun me for it' - hence Emmrich goes on to explain what being a lich would mean in hopes rook will still desire him. (this becomes a big factor throughout the rest of the lich romance - desire)

'considerations'

as above, and again now with considering rook. now the first conversation cuts out after this. it is my belief that these considerations are considering Rook and their perspective, whilst also including the fact that it is later revealed that Emmrich might die during the rite, therefore losing Rook whilst still mortal. I believe this line is both a statement of care for Rook, and his fear od death.

throughout the quest, Rook asks Emmrich a bunch of questions, more so just filler content so Rook can understand lichdom and the process.

then Emmrich shows you something that is probably the closest thing to his heart before Rook. his parents graves. keep in mind that Emmrich had these made, and he engraved 'they walk eternity hand in hand'. Then the next shot is Rook and Emmrich walking side by side to the shrine.

walking eternity hand in hand is also mentioned in the lich romance scene,"find you in another world" aka the fade. this man has believed in soulmates for decades.

subtle conversation tactic of, 'what would you want me to be, rook'. here you either say happy with someone who cares about him, or break up with him (i do nOT reccommend).

simple to the point, emmrich is looking for subtle validation here for rooks feelings

and the fact that there is only one correct option is wild too.

If you choose, "Whatever you want", you reply by saying Happy. which very close to the romance committment line of "Happy with someone who cares for you."

Emmrich is looking for that connection so so badly, hence why only one option

Emmrich's gaze towards Rook as he asks them what shes wants, and baring his soul to her.

after committing - Emmrich does not look away from rook once.

rook is fucked. rook is head over heels in love and smitten with this man. keep in mind that throughout the rest of the game, there are conversations with companions where Emmrich will straight up shut them down when pressed about them 'moving too fast' or 'do you know what you are doing'. Emmrich is very clearly defensive about these things, which is so hot.

in my playthrough, they are necromancers, well aware of how short life is, especially facing the apocolypse. ofc they are going all in.

this man is gonna go home and jump up and down on his bed

do i need to explain this? the shrine of passion and devotion, the ETERNAL SHRINE.

anyway im really, really down bad for this dynamic and them. im also in love with my rook so that doesnt help.

ill most likely do a break down of each scene

[tacthescribbler]

I really don't know how to approach my response, so I apologize for the chaotic mess that you're about to read.

I recall a post that talked about the discovery of a mended bone. One of the first indicators of people working together wasn't pottery, or tools, or cloth. It was a bone that had clearly been broken and reset. A bone that had healed. This means that someone had to not only set the bone, but take care of the injured individual until it was healed.

We are a species who has evolved to work together.

My default state of mind is: Everyone deserves basic human rights. Everyone deserves access to food, shelter, healthcare, and so on. I don't care what color your skin is, what country you hail from, whether you are disabled. You deserve to be cared for.

I engage with everyone from this mindset. I assume everyone who speaks to me also does so from this mindset until/unless they prove me wrong.

Whenever I get into my car, I drive out of consideration for everyone else on the street. When I do my job, I work to ensure that in all the places my job touches someone else's, I've made their job a little easier. I return my shopping carts not for the social karma, but because the employees at the grocery store deserve not to have their jobs made more difficult by laziness. When I vote, I vote for candidates/policies that I know will take care of as many people as possible.

Because the world isn't about me.

"It is well to remember that the entire universe, with one trifling exception, is composed of others." - John Holmes

For most of my life, I've struggled to grasp the idea that other people do not (or sometimes cannot) operate from this perspective.

Of course, that was before 2016. I was raised in a heavily-religious Christian home. My older sister was made to throw away a Pokemon toy from her Happy Meal because "Pokemon are not real animals created by God. They are evil." We were not allowed to read the Harry Potter books. (Not a big deal to me; I've never been interested in them. But my sister was.) The one time my introverted self wanted to do something social in high school, it was a D&D game with classmates. "Are you sure you want to engage with witchcraft," my mom asked me. I dropped it and didn't ask again.

It wasn't all bad, though. My parents showed me how to be kind and compassionate, and how to help others.

They voted for trump. And I watched as my parents turned into people I do not recognize.

I'm not sure how to tie all this up into a neat bow. The point is, if we as people (Left or Right) aren't working to improve as many lives as possible, then what's the point?

Do I expect Pacifism from people? No, of course not. I would never expect a person to forgive their rapist, the person who murdered their friend/family, the guy who flipped them off for taking too long to cross the street.

But I would like for people to have some fucking compassion. Give people the benefit of the doubt (where appropriate).

Look, I understand. I've just about had it with people voting to strip me of my bodily autonomy. To kill my non-binary sibling or throw them into conversion therapy. (To be quite honest, I've fucking had it with my parents' transphobic bullshit. "God made you a man and God doesn't make mistakes.") I'm at a point where I'm sick and fucking tired of trying to drag the rest of my nation with me down a path where they are cared for, fed, clothed, sheltered, and accepted for who they are.

And I also get the fact that there are some who cannot be convinced. I'm certain my parents are among them. After all, they have their bible. They don't have to think critically. Their holy book tells them what to think. It's part of why conversations with them are so unproductive. Because they don't introspect or regulate emotions when they have scripture to tell them how to respond to a thing.

But I've still also not called my parents to chew them out, because I know that won't help anything. It'll only further the divide that they don't even realize is between us. How will I convince them to stand with me if all they get from me is aggression.

Whether you're Left or Right, if your first instinct about someone is to treat them as an enemy, you are part of the problem. We move forward by being accepting and open-minded. For those of us who lean Left, that goes fucking double.

Don't be a pushover, but don't be a bully.

We can only move forward together.

There are obviously caveats to what I've said, as well as plenty I've left unsaid. I hope those who read this will take it in good faith and understand that I'm not asking for everyone to just drop their grievances or pretend that shit isn't bad. I just wanted to share a little of my perspective. We're all human beings and I think common ground can start there, if we let it.

I hope we can overcome ourselves and be better.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

[carefreecoffee]

❉ ╧╧╧╧ Birthday Revelations: Shigaraki x reader ╧╧╧╧ ❉

Word count: 1.9k, Gender-neutral

The LOV warehouse was quiet except for the sound of Shigaraki clicking away at something on one of the laptops on the bar. Sitting there in the dim light, he glanced up to see you entering through the large rickety door. "Where the hell have you been?" He asked in a gruff tone, raising an eyebrow at the bag in your hands.

“Out” You respond, walking to sit next to him at the bar.

Shigaraki watched you closely as you approached, eyeing the bag before turning his attention back to the computer. "And what's in the bag?" He asked, his curiosity piqued.

You set the bag on the table, moving it towards him. “It's for you”

Shigaraki looked at you with surprise before looking down at the bag. He was clearly taken aback by the gesture. "For me…?" He repeated, his voice betraying a hint of disbelief.

You nod with a small grin, “It's your birthday right?”

Shigaraki stiffened, caught off guard by your question. "How the hell do you know that?" He asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

You placed your hands in your lap, feeling a bit interrogated. “Kurogiri told me in a passing conversation”

Shigaraki let out a sigh, leaning back in his chair. He was silent for a moment before looking at the bag again. "That damn void…Hmph. So you got me a gift?" He said, a tinge of skepticism in his voice. You hummed, pushing it closer to him.

Shigaraki's eyes flicked from the bag to you, studying your face. He was clearly unsure how to react to the gesture. "You didn't have to get me anything, you know." He muttered, trying to sound indifferent.

“I know I know… but I wanted to do something nice for you so, happy birthday!” You gave him your best smile, not wanting to make him uncomfortable per the gesture.

Shigaraki rolled his eyes, the faintest tint to his pale paper-like skin. " Fine, whatever, I'll take it then." He said, reaching out for the bag. As he pulled it towards him, he glanced at you again. "You better not be playing some kind of prank on me…"

Shigaraki carefully opened the bag, his eyes widening a bit as he pulled out a boxed video game. "This is…?" He said, turning the box over in his hands to look at the cover.

“Yep! it's that new game you've been rambling about. It came out the other day, right?”

Shigaraki's eyes lit up, his face completely expressing his surprise. He looked from the game to you, then back to the game again. "You… got this for me?" He said slowly, as if he couldn't believe it.

You shrug, “Well yeah, it was either that or a new black hoodie. But i think you've got enough of those haha”

Shigaraki let out a small chuckle-like noise, a rare sound coming from him. "I do own a lot of hoodies…" He said, setting the game down on the table in front of him.

You clear your throat from the silence that surrounds you, pointing to the bag. “Yeah and um, there's a card in there for you”

Shigaraki raised an eyebrow, reaching back into the bag to pull out the card. He looked at it for a moment before looking at you again, clearly puzzled. "A card?"

“Yeah, like a birthday card, you know?” Shigaraki snorted, a smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. "I know what a birthday card is, smartass. I'm just not used to getting one." Shigaraki opened the card, his eyes scanning over the words printed inside. As he read, a mixture of surprise and embarrassment crept onto his face.

'Happy birthday Shigaraki! Hope you have a wonderful day and enjoy it to the fullest.

Enjoy the game, and please keep it down when you're playing. Signed, Y/N'

Shigaraki stared at the card for a moment, his mind racing. Nobody has ever done something like this for him before. All he had ever gotten for his birthday were cold glances, harsh words, or just nothing at all.

"You…" He said, struggling to find the right words. "You actually… wrote this?"

“Well yeah, wrote it, bought it, everything” You looked at him curiously, trying to gauge his reaction.

Shigaraki's eyes flicked from the card to you and back again. He was visibly struggling to process the situation, his mind still clouded with disbelief. He let out a long sigh, running a hand through his messy hair. "Why…?" He mumbled, more to himself than to you.

“Why?”

He looked back up at you, his eyes locking with yours. "Why did you do this? Why would you go through all this trouble for… me?" This took you back slightly. Did you need a reason? “I did it because i wanted to”

Shigaraki was speechless. He had never experienced such a simple yet genuine act of kindness before. It was foreign and strange to him, yet it made his chest tighten with a mixture of confusion and gratitude. For a moment, he just stared at you, his mind racing with thoughts.

"I… I don't know what to say," he admitted quietly.

“Oh i um, i'm sorry if it's too much or something” Your face heated up a bit from embarrassment, not sure on how to take his pretty serious reaction.

Shigaraki shook his head, his tone firm and sincere. "No, it's not that…" He said, his voice quiet. "It's just… nobody's ever given me a gift or a card. I've never been… celebrated before."

You let out an 'o' shape with my mouth. Your heart practically squeezes at the confession. “There's always room for change, right? Speaking of change, how do you afford these games!?”

Shigaraki dryly chuckled, the atmosphere lightening just a bit. He was thankful for the change in topic, as it gave him a moment to recompose himself. "How do I afford them?" He repeated his question with a smirk. "You seriously think I pay for them?"

“Oooohh, yeah I totally forgot about that.” He quirks a brow. “You actually paid for these?” You avert his gaze. That game certainly was pricey.. “Uh, at least you have something to look forward to later..?”

Shigaraki leaned back in the chair. The tension and awkwardness from earlier had mostly faded, replaced by a more relaxed expression. "Yeah. I guess I do." He glanced down at the card and the game on the table, the small gesture of kindness still bewildering him.

“So,” You scooch forward a bit in your seat. “How old are you now Shigi?”

Shigaraki raised an eyebrow at your question,"You don't even know my age? You're giving me a damn birthday gift and you don't know how old I am?"

You roll your eyes, leaning on the cold surface of the bar. “Well I mean it's not like I drilled Kurogiri about your age or something.”

Shigaraki shook his head slightly. "Fair enough." He leaned back in the chair, eyeing you for a moment before answering your question. "I'm 20."

You smiled softly, enjoying the ease of the conversation knowing him. “Then happy 20th birthday Shigi”

A small blush rose to Shigaraki's cheeks, his eyes widening slightly at your greeting. He wasn't used to such genuine well-wishes. He averted his gaze, trying to regain his composure. Clearing his throat, he spoke softly. "Thanks… Y/N."

You nod curtly before hopping off the stool, “Enjoy the game, kay?”

Shigaraki watched as you hopped off the stool, a hint of disappointment in his eyes. A part of him wanted you to stay a bit longer. He reached for the game on the table, holding it carefully between his fingertips.

"I… I will." He muttered. Your footsteps echoed but until you could make it out, Shigaraki suddenly spoke up again. "Hey… Y/N?"

“Yeah?”

He paused for a moment, his voice quiet and unsure. "Why… Why did you do this? All of it… the card, the gift." He held up the game box as he spoke, still trying to wrap his head around the unexpected act of kindness.

You watch as his hunched form moves the objects rather solemnly. You furrow your brows.” I care about you Shigi. Everyone deserves to be celebrated, especially on their birthday.” And you meant it. Nobody deserves to be left out of something so important as that.

Shigaraki's jaw went slack as he listened. The simple sincerity in your voice made his heart flutter in a way he wasn't used to. Nobody has ever told him they 'cared about him' before. He was quiet for a moment, the weight of your words sinking in. "I…" He said eventually, his voice barely above a whisper.

You walked forward, albeit rather hesitantly. Shigaraki's eyes flicked to your movements, noticing your sudden fidgeting. His expression softened slightly as he watched you, his mind still trying to process the situation. He put the game back down on the table, his eyes never leaving you. "Hey, come back here for a second…" He said, patting the stool next to him.

Getting an offer to be in his presence was rare. The ‘get away from me’ attitude is fizzling with each mere second. Shigaraki watched as you took a seat on the stool next to him. The closeness of your presence sent a shiver down his spine, his heart hammering in his chest.

He fidgeted with the game box for a moment, unsure of how to express the mixture of emotions swirling around in his head. After a few seconds, he finally spoke up. "You… do you really care about me? Like… actually?"

You nod, “Not to be too sappy and all but I've known you for a while and I know what you go through everyday whether you notice it or not. A birthday gift is just a small token of that gesture.” Shigaraki's lips tugged into a small, earnest smile. The realization that someone actually cared about him, even a little, felt alien to him. Nobody has ever treated him with such kindness before.

He was afraid, fearful that it would end horribly as all things did for him. He glanced at the card and the game on the table, his heart still fluttering in his chest. He looked back up at you, his eyes meeting yours. "You… you're the only person who's ever treated me like this. Like I actually matter."

You feel your chest tighten at his words. You had known somewhat of what he had gone through in his life but never thought it would affect him this much. “You do, you do matter to me, Shigi. So please just accept the gift.”

Shigaraki's breath hitched slightly as he heard the sincere tone in your voice. Those simple words, like 'you matter to me' and 'please accept the gift', meant so much to him. He couldn't help but feel a mix of emotions rushing through him. No one has ever been so genuine with him, so kind, so caring.

He took a deep breath before speaking again, his voice more stable than before. "Fine… I'll accept it. But only because it's from you."

You nod, feeling accomplished. “Good! Do you wanna go play it? You can show me how it works”

Shigaraki's eyes lit up at your suggestion. The idea of spending more time with you, sharing something he loved, made his heart skip a beat. "Yeah, uh… sure." He said, a hint of excitement in his voice. He hopped off the stool, grabbed the game, and gestured for you to follow him.

The rest of the night was just that. Hearing him explain the game, how it works. He was in his element for sure. To make him feel cared for and seen, was all you could ask for.

[a1ecmcdowell]

( AFTERCARE ) . . .ㅤㅤTHREE !!

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ─ ㅤㅤㅤㅤTHE new rock band in town has some nerve, causing mayhem in the venue next to your studio every night. but how do you stay MAD at the lead singer when he looks at you like that ?

PART TWO. half - past five !ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤMINORS DNI!! includes, fictional locations. fictional bandmates. weed mentions ( brief ). semi-public fingering. finger sucking. praise if u squint & minor degradation if u don't. jensen is wearing rings (that's it that's the whole warning and it's necessary). reminder that this is a slowburn!!

parts will get longer, probably, as relationship develops.

ㅤㅤㅤ─ word count: 3.6k

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤprev partㅤㅤㅤ.ㅤㅤㅤmasterlistㅤㅤㅤ.ㅤㅤㅤnext partㅤㅤㅤ.

ㅤㅤA/N. me calling it a slowburn vs them getting raunchy in chap 3 i am A LIARRRR. I STILL SAY IT'S A SLOWBURN ... IT'S NOT ALL SUNSHINE N RAINBOWS ... also what did i say huh. parts wld get longer! almost double last one! i got carried away aftercare!jensen is jus really sexy ok leave me alone.

mirrored glass shakes against the dance studio’s walls, making your reflection warble along with it. one of the mirrors is significantly looser where it’s pressed to the wall, and you just wait for it to fall, because it wants to, doesn’t it? why doesn’t it just give in? 

there’s some pent up frustration in you. clearly. the person —  well, the main one contributing to the literal and metaphorical walls in your life starting to crumble — responsible is just thirty or so steps away. and, of course you’d know that exactly, wouldn’t you? 

you’ve been pacing since you showed up. first outside of the building, when you saw the sunset blvd sign hung up and alight in one of the dingy windows of the venue. it was like a physical sign, really, that jensen was there to stay. much to your chagrin. 

even the instructor at the studio, lindsey, had something to say about your fidgeting. you’d gotten out of class early that day, and what better way to relieve your stress than to go over routines you knew in your sleep? 

except you couldn’t. at least one step in every song you tried to practice, you stumbled on, and with each song you tried again and again, you messed up more, like giving the thought of your failures any attention was exactly what they wanted to burrow in your bones. 

that’s when lindsey, who’d been cleaning off the mirrors in preparation for her upcoming class, said something. “laurel hit you with a hard routine?” 

“no,” you snap without meaning to, guilt washing itself over you the moment the words leave your mouth. she was innocent in your little problems. “just— thinking too much.” 

“i’d argue that the point of dancing is to stop you from thinking.” 

and she was so right that you could have cried. it was infuriating, knowing your problems and what was causing them, and being completely incapable of doing something to stop them. 

you didn’t answer her; nothing productive would come from this conversation when you were too in your head to see outside of your thick skull. instead, you snatched up your phone and clicked play on the sleeping beauty track you’d been working on. 

“why are the mirrors so loose?” lindsey asked, then, incredulity laced in her words, and that was what started your pacing. 

you’d take fifteen of the thirty seven steps from the inside of destiny dance to sunset blvd, and turn back. rinse, repeat. sometimes more than fifteen. most times less. it was so stupid, wanting to pick this fight, knowing it wouldn’t go anywhere. 

but you were at your wit’s end. and maybe, just maybe, you’d started to miss those piercing green eyes that watched you from outside of the venue next door while you practiced. 

masochism is a hell of a thing. 

you don’t even know what caused the breaking point to hit you, but it did, probably an hour into your relentless back and forth with yourself. and suddenly, you were pushing open the glass doors to sunset blvd.

for once, it’s dead silent. but you know that they’re all here, all four members of whatever-the-hell band, whatever-the-hell their names were. the parking lot had four cars in it.

it’s easier like this — empty stage, empty seats — to stomp your aggravated little ass up to the side of the stage. there’s a couple of steep steps leading up to the stage, and your steps echo on the hollow wood of each. 

your hand closes around the tall, dusty curtain leading backstage, when someone else shoves it back fiercely with all of the confidence of someone who thinks they’re alone. 

you jump, but the person screams. a high, piercing scream that echoes around the ( admittedly pretty good ) acoustics of the room.

it’s a guy — lanky and tall with long hair to his shoulders. he holds a hand over his chest, knuckles white from how tightly he’s gripping onto the ripped band t-shirt he wears. metallica. at least you’d heard of that one. 

“jesus christ,” he wheezes out, and you can’t help the way your eyes drop to the blunt in his fingers at his side. surely smoking weed wasn’t good for him. 

you keep that to yourself, though. you did just scare the life out of him, after all. “where is everyone?” 

he blinks a couple of times, and you visibly watch his eyes focus on your face. recognition flares in his deep brown eyes. “our local little dancer, here to grace us again.” 

you roll your eyes. “i have a name—” 

“yeah, yeah, but you never asked for mine, so i’m sure as shit not asking for yours.” he raises the blunt to his parted lips, sucking in a deep inhale. he says, around the exhale of smoke he releases, “reggie, by the way.” 

oh. this was reggie. the little pissant that tried to blow your eardrums when you first showed up here. last time you saw him, you didn’t pay much attention to him. 

you still weren’t going to, unfortunately for him and the way his mouth opens to keep talking to you. 

“guess we’re even.”

reggie grimaces and at least has the decency to look apologetic. you take a step forward to pull the curtain back again and step backstage when he speaks again.

“noa’s in the ladies room. steven’s in the men’s, with—” 

jensen. god, what the hell was wrong with you? there was no reason for your heart to stutter at the sheer thought of him. 

this was your problem, after all — the one buried beneath the ones that you tried to claim as your problems instead: you wanted to see him. he hadn’t been outside consistently, not even when you were leaving. there were a couple of days in that week where you didn’t see him, only knew he was there at all by the number of cars in the back parking lot. 

you say a quick thank you before you finally do step underneath the lifted edge of the heavy curtain, a puff of dust clouding in your lungs the moment you let go of it. 

you break into a ticklish cough as it coats your tongue and the inside of your mouth, too focused on trying to catch your breath again to pay attention to where you’re walking. 

“what, you take a hit of reggie’s blunt but not mine?” he says, his voice still as deep as you remember, smile just as chastising. “didn’t know you were into scrawny guys. never stood a chance, did i?” 

then, and only then, do you manage to shoot a glare up at him. and of course, jensen is smirking, dimples embedded in his cheeks, eyes practically glimmering with the taunt. 

no— they were really glimmering. the green was so much more pronounced today, with the whites of his eyes stained pink. oh, hell. 

“it’s dust.” 

jensen whistles lowly under his breath, leaning back in a mock gesture of surrender, before he settles back fully on his feet. “yyyeeah, reggie’s shit is shit.” 

“no—” your face flushes, both with a twinge of embarrassment and irritation. “i mean, it’s literally— like, it’s literally dust. this place is covered in dust.” 

jensen laughs, loudly and heartily, and it makes your toes curl in your pointe shoes. you really were a wreck; reduced to rubble by this man whose sole purpose, it seemed, was to get on your last nerves.

“s’what happens in abandoned places, princess,” he says slowly and drawn out, like he was talking to a toddler. you bristle at it, nose twitching, and that only makes him laugh a bit harder. “oh, come on. thought we were friends now.” 

your mouth closes, then opens, and closes all over again. friends. you certainly weren’t aware of when that happened, especially since— 

“you haven’t been outside in three days.” god, could your voice sound any smaller? your face flames with embarrassment, not having wanted that to be the thing you say to him in response, but what could you do now? 

jensen’s smile softens. softens! as if you could feel any less mortified. “my pretty princess is missing me, is she?” 

“oh, go to—” 

“hell?” he finishes, eyebrows shooting up as the word leaves his mouth. “only if you come on down with me.” 

you can’t even bristle again before he’s crowding your space. one step forward from him, and two steps back from you. it’s not a very wide hallway, though, and before you knew it, you were trapped.

trapped in the cage of his strong arms, back to the brick wall. this close, you can see the swirls of ink adorning his skin, black wisps of fire and symbols that you don’t know. his hands come up to properly cage you in; palms flat on the wall by your head. 

“you want to, don’t you?” he murmurs, his gaze dropped to your lips. everywhere his eyes land, your skin burns. he’s fire, and you’re ice, and you’re completely molten, melted at his feet. “c’mon, princess,” he says just as softly, “tell me what you want.” 

the words to leave are right there on your tongue. they’re right there, heavy and palpable, and yet they don’t leave the confines of your closed lips. 

jensen’s smile widens, becoming more devilish than sweet. his breath reeks of alcohol and weed this close, but there’s the faintest underlining of mint. your senses are turned up too high to handle this properly — and he can tell. “oh, i see,” his voice is so deep and rough that it makes your skin tremble, “my pretty girl wants me to show her, does she?” 

no, you try to say, but it’s stuck just like the rest of your protests, right there behind your teeth. if only you had the strength to lift your arms and tug your jaw open, to force the words out, because suddenly your head is nodding. 

“good girl,” he says, and one of his hands slips from the wall to your chin, index and thumb holding it between his fingers as he tilts it up to meet your eyes. “but i’m sure you’re used to hearing that, aren’t you?” 

his voice is soft and rough at once, like he’s sharing painful secrets right in her ear. his tone, though, is full of a venom that you don’t want to think about. shame is already so thick on your skin that it feels like paint; the last thing you want is to let his chastising words get to you just as much as your desire for him. 

“pretty,” jensen continues as his hand slips lower, running over the thin fabric of your leotard. it’s innocent at first, the backs of his fingers running down your shoulder. still, it lights you up as if he’d just kissed you. “good. innocent.” 

his hand slips further down, his ring-adorned knuckles tracing over your breasts. they peak beneath that little brush of a touch, nipples aching against the skin-tight of the leotard. 

“i was sure that even good girls get tired of being good,” he mumbles, his face inching closer to yours, nose to nose. “but then i met you, and you just can’t help it, can you? that incessant need to be good?”

jensen’s head drops into the crook of your neck, his facial hair on your sensitive skin making your breath hitch. his laugh is breathless in your ear, against your shoulder, as he presses his lips on the space above your collarbone. 

and his hand keeps moving. it outlines a straight line down the center of your breasts, down your sternum, and stops just below your navel. 

“or maybe…” he trails off, his other hand dropping from the wall and grasping at your skirt, tugging it up in one quick movement. it draws a shuddering gasp from your parted, dry lips, another thing that makes him chuckle. “maybe you do it because you like it. is that it, princess?” 

you can’t even bring yourself to answer him. your skin feels hot and alive, like electricity dances through your veins. livewires sparking beneath the surface of your skin. 

your hands, though, reach for the leather flaps of the jacket on his shoulders. you need something to touch to keep you from slipping too far into the abyss of this. 

his fingertips brush across the thin strap of fabric covering your throbbing, sensitive pussy, the heat in your lower stomach burning and crackling and tight. you can feel the edges of his fingertips grazing the edge of the inseam of the leotard. “yeah, i thought that was it,” he rasps, another of those breathless laughs pressing into your collarbone, “of course the good girl likes to be told she’s a good girl.” 

one of his hands still holds the edge of your skirt up, and the other sweeps the thin fabric away, letting cool air dance across your exposed, slick cunt. 

your mouth finally finds the words it wants to say, and they stumble out in a quick succession, an unintelligible sentence. “jensen— there… people—” 

“reg is off his ass,” he mutters, his mouth still grazing and nipping at the sensitive skin of your collarbone, “steven’s in the fuckin’ bathroom doin’ lines still, and noa’s probably in the bathroom doin’ him.” 

his eyes flick up to meet yours, the green now just a thin ring around the deep intensity of his pupils. “no people around, pretty princess,” he assures, his lips curling into that teasing smile of his — though now, it’s much softer. 

you barely get a chance to acknowledge any of his words before his calloused thumb slips between the slick folds of your pussy. you stutter out a gasp as the electricity of his touch travels your lower stomach and up, up, up, sending your heartrate fluttering quicker.

jensen massages the sensitive, swollen nub of your clit, his eyes locked onto yours, gauging your reaction to his painstakingly slow circles. his teeth hold his bottom lip captive between them. somehow, his eyes look even more blown now that your gazes are locked. 

you try, you do, and it’s an honorable effort, to keep any sound from slipping out of your lips in response to the tantalizing grazes of his hand between your legs. but a muffled whimper starts low in your throat and shudders out, and it’s enough to encourage him to keep going. 

“little louder, baby, i can’t hear you,” he whispers with his nose pressed against yours. he uncurls his fingers, letting you feel every brush of his fingertips as they drag across the expanse of your spread pussy. “i know it feels good, baby, can feel how fucking wet you are.” 

it’s cruel, the way he can touch you like this and say such things about it, while you’re completely spread out for him and at his mercy. “fuck you,” you seethe through your teeth, though it holds none of the malice you wish it did — instead coming out like a whimpering whine. 

“uh uh, not yet,” he laughs breathlessly across your face, and his long middle finger stops at the dip of your entrance, traces the wetness dripping from it, smears it further up your spread pussy. “you’re not ready for that yet, pretty girl. and i wanna make you feel good. don’t you want it to feel good? when you do get to have me?” 

he talks to you like you’re something innocent, something he’s more than happy to break and ruin. chastising and seductive all in the same breath. jensen doesn’t even give you the time to answer before he pushes that same finger inside of you. 

he’s wearing a ring. you didn’t even see the ring when you were talking to him — admittedly, you were only looking at his swollen lips, darkened eyes, sweaty hair hanging just below his ears. but you felt it now; his already thick finger stretches you out, and the ring adds to it the moment he’s deep enough inside of you. 

it’s a shockwave of pleasure all at once. you don’t even try to stifle the moan this time, your head falling forward to knock against his. “there she is,” he praises, his voice much deeper and raspier than it was moments before. “i knew you had it in you.” 

that’s when he starts to move. it’s still only that one finger pushed to the hilt of his hand inside of you, but the ring scrapes the edges of your walls with every thrust he pushes it into you. the pace is slow, deep, like he was making love to you with nothing but his hand. 

of course he wasn’t, though. jensen didn’t seem like the type to make love, and the point is proven when his fingers curl, and stars erupt in your vision. 

“god,” you choke on the word, gasping and panting on his face, your breaths mingling with how close you are. 

jensen grins. he’s always fucking grinning, like he knows exactly the effect he has on the people he touches. “mmm, close, but not my name.” 

“go — to hell.” 

he pumps his finger in and out of your soaked pussy, so hard that the sound of each wet movement punctuates each moan you loosen. “told you already,” he grunts, pulling his ringed finger out of you just enough to where you can only feel the tip of it teasing your stretched entrance. “not without you.” 

there’s never any warning with him, never any indication of what he’s going to do before he’s already knuckles deep into it. and he adds a second finger, another ring adorning it, and pumps the both of his fingers deep into your pussy. 

it’s too much all at once. the feeling of his fingers curling inside of you like quotation marks to each of his thrusts, the fact that there were three people scattered around the rest of the small building, potentially seconds from walking out into the hall and seeing the debauchery he was inflicting on you— 

you hook your leg up and curl it around his waist, giving him a better angle to keep fingerfucking you, and for you to be able to take him deeper, harder, faster—

the invitation isn’t lost on jensen, either. the hand that’d been holding your skirt up releases it and hooks under your thigh to keep it held there. “look at you,” he grunts between his clenched teeth, “bein’ so fucking good for me.” 

your throat feels raw from the effort of trying to keep your voice down, trying to keep every single noise clamped behind the barriers of your tight lips. and it’s too much. and you can’t even really think straight, not with the cool metal rings so tantalizing on your inner walls, with his thick fingers so deep you can feel the tips teasing your cervix. 

your lips part on a shuddering moan, finally uncaging the desperate, guttural sounds that’d been building since he started to touch you. the tightness in your lower stomach coils, tighter and tighter; a snake capturing its prey, a girl clenching tightly around the fingers that thrust into her. 

for once, jensen is dead silent, and you really wish he’d talk, even if it was just to continue teasing you, because all you can hear in this hallway is the gushing sound of his fingers in you and your crescendoing moans, and—

your head falls back against the brick wall behind it, the thud hardly registering in your mind as your leg tightens around his waist, as his fingers keep up there relentless pace, as you pulse around his knuckles and against his palm in tune to your heartbeat.

it’s overwhelming, how fast you fall apart right there in his hands. “fuck— jensen—” your body goes still and taut for a second before it goes completely boneless, your face burying in the smoky smelling leather of his jacket. even as your pussy throbs around him, even as you’re still so sensitive that your body is practically trembling, he doesn’t relent. 

not for another ten or so seconds. and you do count, because it starts to feel like a punishment instead of for pleasure, even as you grind your hips down to take him deeper. 

his fingers slip out of you, wet and glistening with your juices. his eyes are somehow more glazed than they were, still rimmed red and glimmery. “open up, princess,” he rasps, the smile on his face more lazy than the smirk he wore earlier. 

who are you to deny him anything right now? you barely know your name, your legs numb, your heart racing from the comedown. 

“good girl,” he praises lowly once your lips pop open again. jensen pushes his wet fingers inside your mouth, pushing down on your tongue to push your mouth open wider. 

tasting yourself around the salty smoke flavor of his fingers is almost enough to make your legs buckle. his eyes watch you intently, glancing between your eyes and your mouth. 

and maybe you are sick of being good. maybe he was right all along, with every word you deemed chastising and prodding. it only takes a blink for you to close your lips around his fingers and swirl your tongue around them in your mouth, around the rings. 

“goddamn,” he chuckles, breathless and exhaling. “maybe you are more fun than you let on.” 

you didn’t know, then, that this was the worst possible thing either of you could do. because now, you knew he’d let you in when you came around, and now he knew how easy you were to break.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤFEEDBACK & REBLOGS APPRECIATED!! < 3

tags! @happyladyduck, @casatoan, @mo0nwalker, @manicjk, @stereotypicalbarbie, @inpraise0fbacchus, @fitxgrld !

[a-mel0n]

Having “slept” (slept for 2 hour intervals the entire night because this episode made me feverish and gave me a constant urge to vomit) on it, I can firmly say that this is one of the stupidest fucking decisions 9-1-1 has ever made. This is on par with Hen spending a whole season studying to be a doctor only to drop it right at the finish line and The Lucy Kiss.

At the very least, you knew — you had a gut feeling — that they wouldn’t give up on Paramedic!Hen. You knew in your soul that Buck and Taylor were already doomed and the Lucy Kiss just broke the camel’s back.

But this?

Buck and Tommy were good. They were on track to say their “I love you”’s and have actually new storylines. During the breakup scene, at no point during or before the actual breakup did I think a breakup was even a possibility. While I was texting a friend during the episode, I said the following, which I think sums up most of our thoughts:

They had a whole new character set up, that had interesting dynamics with the existing cast and insecurities that could be proven wrong, especially by Buck. What was the point of bringing up Tommy’s “lack” of daddy issues? What was the point of the group chat scene and his yearning for a family if you’re not going to commit to it? Instead, they finally made Tommy a plot device, and they did it by putting out a scene that’s the equivalent of shooting someone with a sniper rifle from five miles away.

The worst part is: This breakup is fucking out of character. I’m aware that… certain people thought Tommy and Eddie were out of character last episode, but this is what an out of character interaction looks like.

Tommy, since being reintroduced, has been established as a fantastic communicator. The only reason he and Buck ever got together in the first place was because Tommy came to Buck’s loft to clear the air in 7x04. He makes it clear during the coffee date why he ended their first date. He’s the one who initiates the dinner conversation in 7x10 and gets Buck to open up about his fears of losing Bobby.

So. Why in the EVER LOVING FUCK was he silent about seeing their relationship as a short term one? Completely ignoring the Henren deleted scene where he says he’s going at Buck’s pace, that scene is now firmly non-canon, Season 7 Tommy would have NEVER led Buck on like that. Hell, 8x01 and 8x05 Tommy would have never led Buck on like that.

The Tommy shown in the final… what, seven minutes of 8x06? Wouldn’t have accepted Buck’s invitation to Madney’s wedding. His job was done! He got Buck to “discover his sexuality.”

This entire episode felt like a slap in the face to the people who are invested in this relationship, it feels like a slap in the face to Lou, who was excited about Tommy and this storyline, it feels like a slap in the face to the general audience, because there were no obvious indications that a breakup was ANYWHERE near Bucktommy’s future.

I very sincerely hope that this is either a temporary break up, or the reaction from the GA and fandom gives the team input that they massively fucked up here and they pivot the storyline over the course of the midseason break.

As for me? I don’t think I’ll be watching the series live anymore. I might catch up on the series once it goes on it’s midseason break, but right now? I just… I can’t. I can’t put any more energy into a show that clearly doesn’t care about progressing their character. (Seriously, what the fuck, Oliver?)

This week has been awful from start to finish.

[not-available-for-comment]

THANK YOU SO MUCH. The attempted rehabilitation of Mrs. Bennet by fandom drives me bananas. My own mother occasionally lacked the awareness to make things easy for me socially but she was NOT a horrible selfish grasping shrew. There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE. The text is clearly and explicitly portraying a bad mother, and showing how her own irresponsible choices make everything worse.

My own mother had a different kind of bad mother herself, so it has always bothered me the degree to which people want to make excuses for mothers specifically, as though bad fathers are the only kind of bad parent that exists. Mothers can also be bad parents and it’s ok and in fact important to acknowledge that. Yeah our parents (even at times our fathers!) have pressures on them that aren’t obvious to us as kids, and I’m extremely aware from personal experience of what those pressures can be. But even people who are making bad parenting decisions for understandable reasons are bad parents. In an IRL situation it is ok to say well clearly you were a bad parent during this period but as an adult I’ve decided to forgive you and continue having a relationship with you and that’s ok too! That’s allowed and is a rough approximation of how I’ve chosen to approach my relationship with my own most difficult parent.

But Mrs. Bennet is fictional. You’re not gonna hurt her feelings by failing to show up for Christmas dinner. She is trapped in amber during the period in her daughters’ lives when she was probably least nurturing and most difficult to deal with, and acknowledging that is honest and hurts no one. A lot of defenses of her boil down to “yeah she was awful but you have to understand that she was worried for her daughters’ future”. To which I have 2 things to say:

Clearly not fucking worried enough, since she chose living vicariously through Lydia and indulging her own tastes over her daughters’s material benefit with incredible consistency.

This argument makes my skin crawl due to how often I see it applied to similarly selfish mothers IRL. We have a wider culture of excusing unhealthy maternal behavior because “her heart’s in the right place”. You know what after a certain point the placement of your goddamn heart doesn’t matter anymore. If you’ve gotta fake good behavior then just do that and leave your hazy grasp of anatomy out of it.

I know this is ranty and less articulate than the posts above, but I think you could argue that this conversation highlights a maybe under appreciated way that Austen is still relevant in the modern era. Yeah there are a lot of differences in culture between her time and ours, and the process of looking for a partner is typically pretty different. But this book also asks the questions “what is a ‘good’ marriage, and what are ‘good’ parents in the context of looking for a spouse?” And provides a really interesting gallery of options in response to both questions. Is Darcy a good ‘parent’ to Georgiana? Who is a better parent to Lydia, Darcy or her own parents? Is Charlotte’s financially advantageous marriage a ‘good’ one? Should her parents have allowed it? What about Mr. and Mrs. Bennett’s? And while Charlotte’s choice is I think probably viewed a lot less sympathetically now than it would’ve been at the time, I’d be fascinated to know how this conversation compares to Mrs. Bennett’s reception at the time of publication. A good marriage looks different now, but good parents? Oh now that conversation is as old as the hills…

For the past several years (and perhaps longer) in the P&P fandom I've seen a lot of people who want to rehabilitate Mrs. Bennet: like, sure, she's uncouth and seems greedy, but it's because she cares so much about her daughters' futures; her situation is actually really stressful and uncertain and she's powerless to change it and her husband makes fun of her, and so it's natural that it would cause her to be anxious all the time; maybe she doesn't have the intelligence or social awareness to understand that her behaviour is actually harming her daughters' prospects, but at least her heart is in the right place.

I'm usually not the type of person who argues that fandom is actually being too nice to a female character, but in this case I don't buy the counter-narrative (which I think is popular enough at this point to be fanon / a narrative in itself) about Mrs. Bennet.

For one thing, she was never really powerless in this situation. These people are rich even for gentry. Mr. Bennet's income was always good, at 2,000 pounds per annum (even though I can't believe he isn't neglecting some practices that could raise it higher). Mrs. Bennet had 4,000 pounds from her parents and a further 1,000 from Mr. Bennet. Invested in the 4 per cents (for example), this is 200 pounds per year in pin money that Mrs. Bennet could spend without touching the principle of her dowry, and without affecting Mr. Bennet's income. This is more than some people's entire yearly incomes.

The picture of Mr. and Mrs. Bennet that we get in P&P is not of people who are helpless against their circumstances, but of people who are extraordinarily neglectful. We're told that:

Mr. Bennet had very often wished, before this period of his life, that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum, for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. [...] When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless; for, of course, they were to have a son. This son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy; and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.

We also know that the "continual presents in money which passed to [Lydia] through her mother’s hands," plus her allowance and food, amount to about 90 pounds per year. Rather than saving up from the beginning in case the entail is not broken, rather than beginning to save once it's clear a son will not arrive, rather than making Jane's dowry the full 5,000 from her mother (which would be something) and saving up for the younger girls' dowries thereafter—which is what would be typical, and that's why Lady Catherine was so shocked that all the girls were out at once—Mrs. Bennet's housekeeping, dress, the girls' allowance, presents of money over and above their allowance, plus whatever Mr. Bennet is spending money on (and other expenses relating to servants, carriages, maintenance &c. which are unavoidable), add up to their entire income. The only reason why Mrs. Bennet doesn't overspend even that is that that's where Mr. Bennet puts his foot down.

Mrs. Bennet is actively harming her daughters' prospects, not even of marriage, but of living respectably if they don't marry, because she doesn't have the temperance not to spend all of the income that is allotted to her. It is the role of the woman in a marriage to take charge of the housekeeping, servants, cooking, furniture, and all expenses relating thereto (plus certain attentions to her tenants and any living in genteel poverty in the area, though presumably this will depend on her income and whether there's a parish church with a parson's wife who's doing some of these things). She's an adult who should be competent to manage these things in a reasoned way without needing to be dictated to.

It is supposed to be the role of the woman in a marriage to take charge of her daughters' education—and yet Mrs. Bennet did not hire a governess, and Elizabeth says that she didn't spend much time teaching her daughters anything (it's not clear to what degree she's educated herself). Granted, the girls did have masters—but, from the sounds of things, that was only if they requested them. No one was required to learn much of anything, which will probably further harm the marriage prospects of the girls who "chose to be idle."

I think the "point" of Mrs. Bennet is that she is one half of one type of bad marriage which the novel illustrates, in contrast with the Gardiners' marriage. These marriages are two possible models for the Bennet daughters to look to. At one point, Elizabeth's prospective marriage is explicitly compared to her parents', with her in the role of her father: Mr. Bennet says "My child, let me not have the grief of seeing you unable to respect your partner in life" (emphasis original).

We might wonder whether Elizabeth saw herself potentially in the role of her father, in a marriage that was very intellectually unequal, when she rejected Mr. Collins; or whether she also saw herself in the role of her mother, married to a man who insults and doesn't respect her, when she rejected Mr. Darcy. Ultimately, she accepts Mr. Darcy after she realises that he is nothing like her father; that he is diligent in attending to his responsibilities, and that he does evidently respect her mind.

This isn't me defending Mr. Bennet, who is also a bad parent and a bad spouse. I do, however, find it a little disturbing when people suggest that Mr. Bennet is at fault for not controlling or curtailing his wife. His wife is a grown woman. Surely we don't actually believe that a situation where a man is legally in complete control over his wife, merely because he is a man and she is a woman, is in any way natural, moral, or just? (This also goes for people who suggest that Mr. Bingley needs to get his sister 'in line' 😬😬😬.)

Mrs. Bennet should be competent to manage her household and her daughters. Given that she's not, yes, Mr. Bennet, according to Georgian and Victorian ideas of the role of a man in a marriage, "should" have stepped in and started dictating to her. But I don't really think that's what Austen is suggesting went wrong here. The models of good marriages we have—the Gardiners, the Bingleys and Darcys after their weddings—are all ones in which the women were basically sensible people to begin with. In the latter two cases, we are told of particular ways in which the men stand to benefit from some mental quality of their future spouse (Elizabeth's good humour and ease in company; Jane's steadiness and determination).

The ideal which some Georgians had of a husband's role being to shape his wife's intellect doesn't seem to be what's being advocated here. If Mr. Bennet made a mistake, it was in marrying a silly, selfish, ill-tempered woman to begin with, not in failing to browbeat her into submission once he found out that she was silly, selfish, and ill-tempered. The idea is that you should choose your spouse carefully. But that message doesn't work if Mrs. Bennet is just a woman in a difficult situation who has her heart in the right place.

[elrielbaby]

What do you think of the Gwynriels being too confident in their ship? Are you sure Az has feelings for Gwyn and is always looking for her and stuff? And what are they matte?

I have tried, really really tried, to see where they’re coming from. I’ve re read the books multiple times to ensure I’m not missing any context, I’ve looked at it through every angle possible and I still cannot fathom why they are so confident.

I have a couple of theories as to why they’re so confident and I’m feeling a little spicy today, so I’ll share. I could go in to heavy detail, but I’ll try keep it brief anon.

1. They hate Elain and so are looking for any other option. Literally anyone. G*yn happens to be in the bonus chapter and so they go with that, without really thinking about it* (I will circle back to this).

2. They blindly follow the word of one or two people online.They don’t like Elain, or they love L*cien (and they totally miss all the clues that say L*cien doesn’t actually want Elain but that’s a whole other can of worms) and so they accept other people’s interpretations - which those people very intentionally present as fact, and use them as a jumping off point, so when they go back to the books they have that other persons narrative in their head that far better suits their ideals and so they’re looking, twisting, turning any and all of the narrative to fit that. They are gaslighting themselves, basically.

3. They don’t re read the books and they don’t open themselves up to any other possibility. I can say for myself that before I started posting online about elriel, I had heard about G*riel after reading the books and re read them to be sure. I’m nearly positive a lot of them don’t do that, and either never re read or re read as per the second point.

As to the second part of this question, I don’t believe he’s got feelings for G*yn, nor do I think he’s always looking for her - so, I’m very sure of that. If you meant Elain, it’s pretty obviously laid out in the text, without SJM having Azriel and Elain say ‘I’M IN LOVE WITH HIM/HER AND I DONT CARE WHO KNOWS IT’ - because how does that make any sense when they haven’t had their book? If they had, I’d be less sure of their endgame.

As for the last part, I’m going to assume you’re asking if I think either G*yn or Elain are mated to Azriel. I do not believe G*yn is Azriels mate. At all. There are a few signs that Az & Elain could be, but it truly doesn’t matter to me if they are or not. I think SJM has been metaphorically winking at us with some of the things she’s said about them but it could go a number of ways, in terms of wether they’re mates or not.

One things for certain though - they’re endgame ❤️

* to circle back to them not really thinking about it, as I didn’t want to bog down the main text with this, they don’t seem to consider a number of different things.

They don’t consider that it’s a limited bonus chapter that was only available for one specific book store. It is not available in the copies of ACOSF you can buy now, nor was it available in a huge number of copies you could buy at its initial release.

They don’t seem to consider that if you remove the bonus chapter, we still have four books that include build up for them. It literally makes no odds as to wether the bonus matters or not. For them though? Most of their argument relies on that bonus chapter.

They don’t seem to consider any other reason as to why G would be in that bonus chapter. None whatsoever. The Elain part was explicitly romantic and if you look at G’s part there is no romanticism in sight. The ‘spark’ happened after a conversation with Clotho, not even when G was present. Almost like G didn’t actually have anything to do with it at all. If you connect the dots to the main text, at least for my interpretation, you have Elain & Az, who very clearly have feelings for one another. You have G, who has a powerful affect on Nesta, and Clotho who also has, to a smaller extent, a powerful affect on Nesta.

And those are just the few things off the top of my head that I have the bandwidth to come up with right now. ❤️

[straightline-bow]

I know everyone is mostly joking with the whole ‘oh the GPDA should strike’ thing after their statement in instagram, but I really think we should be having a conversation about how actually, they can’t strike, and that lack of ability to use collective bargaining can be and may be incredibly dangerous.

The issue with the GPDA as a union is that it only covers the twenty current Formula 1 drivers. Now, many people see no issue with this - why would anyone else need coverage? - but this is what sort of hamstrings the GPDA as a union. Should the members go on strike, there would be backlash in the press, pressure on the FIA, FOM, Liberty and the teams - but there are other drivers, who have the super licences needed to drive an F1 car. And could you even blame them? We’ve seen how hard it can be for rookies to get a seat - Colapinto looks a lot like he may be able to get on the grid, either for next year or the year after, and that is a swansong MIRACLE that came out of nowhere for him. Lawson and Piastri had to wait on the sidelines, as did Doohan. The only Driver’s Academies that seem to be working are Ferrari’s (A Leclerc off to WEC, Bearman in Haas), Mercedes’ to an extent (They tossed Aron aside when he’s been doing fantastically, but Antonelli has a seat) and sort of Mclaren’s (Bortoleto was under them in F2, but he has now severed ties to sign for Audi.). And even then they CLEARLY have their failures. Can you truly blame young drivers for taking any and every opportunity handed to them when so few succeed at all?

A strike would be very easily defeated by the FIA and Co - and there would be no guarantee of contracts post strike, and although the WDCs and highest level drivers could probably weather the storm, there is no way the rookies and those from smaller teams would be able to, and they could likely lose their seats over it. Quite frankly, the only way for a strike to work in the drivers favour in this day and age would be for them to vote to include all drivers who have superlicences in the union, and then for all of them to strike together.

A reminder: every driver who has an official contract with a team entered into the F1 championship can apply for a superlicence, if they hold the other requirements (usually a certain number of points plus a driver’s licence pluse a competition licence plus a theory test on first sitting), which means drivers from IndyCar, WEC, lower formulas, Formula E and test drivers are all usually eligible, or can be. I think the official number is around 70ish drivers are eligible, plus any retired F1 drivers who keep up the fitness standard and 100km of practise across a year - so drivers such as Jacques Villneauve could potentially still have a valid superlicence, so long as he proved he did enough practise.

Aside from the sheer unlikelihood of the GPDA being allowed to vote to include all holders of valid superlicences - which could possibly lead to the core members facing severe consequences, possibly the same as striking on their own - there are a lot of drivers who would not strike for safety precautions, purely they don’t think they are necessary (Brundle on the halo) or because they know if they broke the line they could get a drive, and because the GPDA has so little political power it very rarely is able to intercede to set minimum wages etc the way other unions are able to, any drivers breaking the line would know they weren’t losing out on anything but a moral argument, and potential safety issues. Some people don’t think about safety until they need it.

The current state of affairs is just incredibly concerning, and I think that although it’s fun and fine to make jokes about it, we should definitely remember both the driver’s own lack of agency, and that even though some aren’t satisfied with the statement they put out, it is perhaps one of the only things they can do.

[sai4u]

★ — lipstick stains .ᐟ

⤷ leaving lip marks on your bf

⌗ ft .∿ dream hyung line (mark, renjun, jeno, haechan) x reader

⌗ genre + warnings .∿ fluff + no warnings :)

⌗ trini’s note .∿ don’t ask why haechan’s is a full fanfic, idk either man 🧍🏽‍♀️

⤹ ⊹ mark lee .ᐟ

✶ mark was leaving for dance practice and you both knew that would take the whole day. which, made you create a plan to leave a mark on him, not a hickey but more of a glossy mark on his cheek. you cleaned yourself up a bit and before mark left, you gave a kiss goodbye. the first didn’t stick out as much, thus you did more, you planted more until you can see that clearly someone’s been kissing him. mark teased you and thought you were being clingy, you were technically but that’s not his business. he giggled at your kisses and assured you that he’d be home soon, not to worry about being alone for a long time.

as mark entered the studio, the boys side-eye each other and made inside jokes pointing at each other’s cheeks. mark was confused but wasn’t phased by it until jaemin started making kissing noises. he asked around about the joke, chenle took a pic of his cheek and showed him. the boy’s cheek was glossyyyy and smelled a bit like rose oil. the boys clowned him for the rest of practice and he became shy at the kisses you planted. during break he facetime you and showed you his cheek to ask you about it. you giggled and smirked at him, being everything but apologetic for your kisses. you wanted to leave him a gift while he was gone, at least it looks cute on him <3

⤹ ⊹ huang renjun .ᐟ

✶ it was a quiet night, you and renjun were doing self-care together as music played in the background. not much conversation was made as you two focused on each other’s skin routine, some smiles here and there and a few “it tickles”. as you were focusing putting moisturizer on him, you noticed how cute his features looked in the darkened ambience. the low lighting of your bathroom and the candles to add a scent that wavered all around grew something in you, you didn’t know what until you got a satisfied look on renjun.

he kissed you back, you kissed him again, and that continued until you saw his face become shiny and look too much like your lip mask. he turned around to look himself in the mirror and became shy at his new appearance. he groaned and asked why didn’t you kiss him before self-care hour, he joked that knows he has to rewash his face. you playfully rolled your eyes and continued on with your nightly routine.

⤹ ⊹ lee jeno .ᐟ

✶ another concert for the dreamies, except this one landing on jeno’s birthday. it saddened you a bit since you won’t get to spend jeno’s day with him but you still get to support him for the show :). as the show is close to begin, nctzens fill up the arena and jeno becomes nervous as it gets closer to showtime. you noticed him doing a breathing exercise, you held his hand and reassured him that he will be okay and do just fine, more than fine actually. he shook his head to agree, you smiled and rubbed his hand with your thumb as he calmed himself down.

jeno looked at you again and asked for a kiss before the show started, you were more than happy to kiss him, giving him three. a birthday kiss, before the show kiss, and a “you’ll do great” kiss, however, that last kiss left a pinkish-rose colored mark on his cheeks. you noticed but couldn’t say anything cause the boys had to rush to the stage.

once jeno introduced himself to the crowd, the lights cast down on them making the kiss mark noticeable. the boys murmured to one another as he spoke, chenle came up to him and swiped a bit of the mark, showing it to jeno. jeno’s eyes grew and felt embarrassed to walk out the stage with lipstick stains on him. for the rest of the show, he performed with the cheek mark, slightly embarrassed yet bashful from knowing you left a kiss mark on him. it has him smiling and enjoying the show more than usual, and plotting how to get more kisses from you after the show.

⤹ ⊹ lee haechan .ᐟ

✶ as another album is announced to the dreamies, and czennies, schedules become packed and the break your boyfriend had with you is long gone. promo shoots, studio recordings, dance practices, and constant meetings for the album, it was a never-ending schedule for the boys. though, that didn’t stop you from being there for haechan, he appreciated and needed you in busy times like these.

another photo shoot for the album and thankfully, your schedule cleared so you can be at haechan’s side. you came in the middle of his solo shoots and were jaw-dropped at the concept. haechan discussed it with you before but to see it in real life made your heart stir and grow butterflies for your gorgeous boyfriend.

as pictures were taken, he noticed your reactions and smiled at you. he had this sort of look, a certain smile that gave you a signal and both of you knew what that signal meant. he stopped the photoshoot and walked up to the staff, talking in a low voice so you didn’t hear him well. he nodded towards you and the staff took a glance at you, the motion made you feel slightly uneasy until haechan came up to you and announced that you two are having a photoshoot. of course, it was his idea, haechan explained that these photos were just for the both of us and not to be shared with the public, he’ll cover the extra cost don’t worry.

you grew excited and fixed yourself in a nearby mirror for this photoshoot. you applied another layer of lipgloss, thanking yourself that you wore the one that haechan adores the most. you placed your belongings down in a nearby chair that was by haechan’s, you made your way towards the area and the lights slightly blinded you. you positioned yourself next to haechan and stood a bit awkward until instructions were given.

the photographer started the two of you off with some couple hugs, holding hands, directing haechan to look you in the eyes so lovingly, etc. etc. at some point, the awkwardness in you left and you became comfortable in front of the camera, especially with haechan’s touch keeping you flustered and not anxious. one pose had you two almost kissing, lips ghosting one another, his head around your neck, and foreheads touching. he peered into your eyes as you took a look at his features; his pretty moles that has shown through the makeup, his round face that that gives off youthfulness, and his eyes that either make him look like a menace or an angel in love. haechan being haechan, he goes for the latter and steal a kiss from you. it shocked you but you didn’t relish in that shock after he kiss you again, again, again, multiple kisses stolen from you until your lip gloss is gone and on his lips now.

his lips have a tint to it now, he feels the lipgloss placed so messy by his own doing. he swipes a tiny portion of it off, examining his finger, and only saying, “whoops.” he smiles at you with such playfulness and goes back to posing as if nothing happened, the lip gloss staining his lip makeup and is easily shown on camera. even after your private shoot, he kept it on and rejected the makeup artist’s idea to fix it.

౨ৎ hey….hey. praise God im not dead, just overwhelmed and tired from recent events (the election)

౨ৎ i do wanna write for 7dream but my creative juices wouldn’t allow me. imma try guy again guys, trust !

౨ৎ lemme know if you guys want the maknae line or a pt 2 to this :)

౨ৎ lemme know which is your fav <3

kisses to you all and God bless you 💗

© 𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟦 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝟦𝗎. 𝖺𝗅𝗅 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍𝗌 𝗋𝖾𝗌𝖾𝗋𝗏𝖾𝖽

[chaos-of-the-abyss]

1. i don’t think “correct” (in the moral sense, i assume that’s what you mean) is the right word to use here, so much as “common sense,” which is the perspective i approach it from. as i’ve already said, it would be absurd and forced for thingol -- or the iathrim in general, this is often left out in conversations but nobody in doriath except beleg and mablung actually wanted to participate in the union -- to ally with the sons of feanor, especially not after what celegorm and curufin did to luthien. and this isn’t just a matter of personal distaste, though that’s certainly there and certainly valid; the feanorians’ actions consistently show their disregard for the sindar. they participate in the first kinslaying against the falmari, who are closely associated with the sindar, hide it from the iathrim, and later, when found out, make no attempt at amends. caranthir derides thingol as a “dark-elf in his caves” which demonstrates a contemptuous perspective of him despite the fact that thingol was best friends with his grandfather and actually has seen the light of the two trees; if even thingol is looked down upon to such a degree, then that logically indicates an even lower view of the other iathrim. (it is fully possible that none of the iathrim heard about this since caranthir spoke in front of a council of noldorin lords -- albeit he did so in front of angrod, who was their intermediary with doriath at the time, so obviously he doesn’t care that much about being discreet -- but the general principle still stands: he’s clearly disdainful towards the sindar, and, furthermore, can’t even be bothered to hide it for diplomacy or pragmatism’s sake.) then later, the whole debacle with luthien goes down, for which, again, no attempt at reparations or even so much as acknowledgement is made. everyone in doriath has ample reason to believe that the sons of feanor see them and their lives as worthless -- murdering/trying to murder, kidnapping, and trying to rape telerin elves is seemingly acceptable by their standards, and not a transgression that is in any way worth addressing. fingon, while not as near-comically awful about it, isn’t exactly promising either; he too participated in the kinslaying of alqualonde. given all that, the iathrim are entirely reasonable in not only disliking, but, more crucially, not trusting the noldor enough to fight beside them. it wouldn’t be unlikely from where they’re standing that the noldor would use them as weapon fodder against morgoth’s forces when convenient. also, as has been pointed out, celegorm and curufin ousted finrod and had no apparent problem letting him die. much like their assault of luthien, they didn’t suffer any public consequences or rebuke from their brothers for this, which from the iathrim’s perspective would look like indifference at best, coordinated cooperation at worst. and if the sons of feanor can be so casual about finrod, a fellow noldorin lord, their cousin with whom they actually seemed to have a decent relationship with, and who took celegorm and curufin in after the fall of the pass of aglon, they certainly wouldn’t hesitate to sell out the iathrim, who they obviously look down on, if they felt it necessary. if, after all this, one still wants to say that thingol and the iathrim should have thrown all sense to the wind and gone ahead and fought against morgoth with people who consider them inconsequential, and only by doing so would they have been morally correct, then yeah, i suppose they aren’t correct for their refusal to join. but it’s a completely ridiculous expectation to have of a person, and definitely not an expectation that the feanorians -- for whose favor these points about the alleged unfairness of thingol and the iathrim are made, in my experience -- are held to.  

2. (My issue with the posed logic is that it would suggest Sirion also deserved to be ransacked because they withheld to Silmaril. In neither case do I think the punishment is just for the crime). -- i’m going to preface my response to the question by clarifying that i would hardly say sirion’s people keeping the silmaril is comparable to the feanorians’ murder, kidnapping, attempted rape, and attempted murder, so while i (think i) understand your line of reasoning here, sirion doesn’t strike me as a viable analogy for the situation. 

as for if the noldor deserved to lose the nirnaeth for the first kinslaying specifically: i personally am not sure, if we apply irl standards to the matter; they definitely deserved worse than what they got from the falmari for it, but i hesitate to say defeat at the hands of morgoth and his forces -- not justice at the hands of the people they actually slaughtered or whose kin they actually slaughtered -- is what i would call fair. but the narrative does posit the noldor’s loss in the nirnaeth as their comeuppance for the first kinslaying. the doom was a result of their actions at alqualonde and spills over into even those who didn’t take direct part for their complicity -- melian telling the arafinweans “yet the shadow of mandos lies on you also,” and finarfin’s sons sensing that “none of the noldor that followed after feanor could escape from the shadow that lay upon his house.” and as prophesied, the doom haunts all of the noldor’s efforts against morgoth throughout the first age. that’s not to say the text doesn’t treat noldor’s deterioration and eventual near-disintegration as a tragedy, but the doom is still canonically recompense against them for the first kinslaying. 

in the case of luthien’s situation i can give my personal opinion as it’s much more limited in scope: not all of the noldor deserve to suffer for the actions of celegorm, curufin, and whoever else helped them, though obviously at least celegorm and curufin themselves should and do (albeit not quite to the degree i personally would want based on irl standards; in that they deserved worse) get their comeuppance for their actions. 

3. i think it’s pretty clear that the nirnaeth was going to fail for the noldor. again, the doom dictates that they will “dwell in death’s shadow,” and that they will be slain “by weapon and by torment and by grief.” that said, imo it’s more that the noldor’s actions set them up to fail in the future. by swearing the oath, by committing the first kinslaying, by seeking beleriand with the intent to rule lands there, etc., etc., they preemptively position themselves for enmity with its inhabitants, including the iathrim, and with each other. there could have been a world where the noldor didn’t commit the first kinslaying or at least tried to make reparations for it; where they showed more respect and regard for the sindar; where celegorm and curufin didn’t betray finrod or kidnap and try to rape luthien; and so on and so forth. maybe then the iathrim would have trusted the noldor enough to willingly fight beside them, and/or maybe nargothrond would have been more open to sending aid. maybe the nirnaeth could have been a victory for the noldor then. so i don’t think it was a case of “there was never going to be any set of circumstances under which the noldor could have won, and no matter what they did from the start, morgoth would have defeated them in the end.” but as it is, the noldor sabotaged themselves. and i think that’s part of the whole point of the doom; “their oath shall drive them and yet betray them” and all that. and yes, i do think thingol and the iathrim were prudent in not joining. a part of that is as you’re implying -- before the dagor bragollach, thingol is stated to be “wise with the wisdom of melian” in his distrust of the noldor’s military ability to hold morgoth, and it’s reasonable that that carries over here -- but i think the greater part of it is that, as i’ve explained above, they don’t trust the noldor enough to consider fighting beside them a viable option, period.

if i was thingol i also wouldn't participate in an alliance organized by the people who only one year ago kidnapped my daughter, tried to force her to marry into their family, tried to kidnap her again, and then tried to KILL her. and don't come at me with "it was only celegorm and curufin," because 1). thingol has no way of ascertaining that they were acting alone, and 2). so what if it was only celegorm and curufin??? why should he want to be involved with anything and anyone remotely related to them? and people wonder why he said fuck that noise

[bucksboobs]

I would say it’s unrealistic to write a fic where Chris comes home after the summer only to find out Buck and Tommy have moved in but then I remembered Eddie canonically asked Marisol to move in within a week of Chris being out of town

[morganbritton132]

Thank you for feeding us with the Steve Has Older Siblings AU. God tier level of characterization I gotta say.

How do the older siblings handle the “Eddie Munson Problem”? I would imagine they actually do try to get rid of him at first given Eddie’s reputation but then realize he treats Steve better than any of them ever have.

Well, there is cash incentive.

Richard Harrington still has aspirations of going into local politics one days and he is not going let Al Munson’s son kill that dream. Or kill their son. Richard waves a dismissive hand in his wife’s direction because, “Of course. Of course. Or that.”

Whoever makes that boy disappear gets five thousand dollars.

(1.)

Claire takes a direct approach. She corners Steve and tells him that Eddie is a drug dealer and a drug user. She tells him about all the scary things that showed up on his toxicology report in the hospital and Steve replied flatly with, “Wow. Crazy. I had no idea.”

“I’m serious,” She says. “You could get hurt with someone like that. Do you know how that would make us feel if something happened to you?

“I fractured my ankle at a track meet once and Dad made me walk to the car afterwards,” Steve replies. “I think you guys will be fine.”

“I’m serious.”

“You know, Claire,” Steve nods to himself because, yeah. Sure. Let’s do it. “How have you felt the last three years? Or, I don’t know. The last two concussions? You have no idea what I’ve been dealing with for years now and – and you’ve never cared so why now? What’s Dad giving you to ruin my life because-“

He shakes his head, “This is not worth it. Like how picking up the phone when the mall caught on fire with me inside it wasn’t worth the effort. Tell Dad you tried really hard, but no. I’m not going to get rid of one of the few people in my life that actually like me.”

(2.)

Jason takes a different – dumber – approach. He goes in with no plan and no intentions, just took the opportunity when he saw Eddie’s van pulled off on the side of a backroad. He bangs his fist against the side and is delighted that he caught Eddie and Steve.

He threatens to beat Eddie up which is bold to say to an accused murderer in the woods, but okay.

Then he turns around and threatens Steve that he’s going to tell their dad that he was getting high in the woods if he doesn’t keep away from trailer trash, but Jason is fucking idiot because they were decidedly not getting high in the woods. He leaves with an eighth of marijuana and  no closer to five thousand dollars because Steve had just shrugged like, “Okay? Go ahead. Tell him.”

(3.)

Richie does not participate in this because he actually wants to improve his relationship with his little brother and he was the first person Steve went to after they got Eddie, barely breathing, to the hospital. He saw how shaken up he was and he also saw the bruising around Steve’s neck.

He knows what the bruising looks like. He knows how people gets bruises like that. And he knows that he’s a coward because he could not bring himself to ask a question he did not want the answer to. And he knows Eddie Munson.

Eddie is harmless.

All you have to do is have one conversation with the kid and you’ll see that he couldn't hurt a fly. Richie, however, had many conversations with him when Harrington & Associates took his case on pro bono so he knows just how harmless Eddie is.

He also knows that Eddie spends a lot of time trying to make Steve laugh. Richie has spent enough time in his life making his brother miserable. He's not doing anymore.

[clowwwnbytes]

slay the princess pristine cut spoilers etc

i was brainstorming with buddies on discord and started thinking about damsel ch3 having the blade with her, already pointed at her heart, then just started thinking about the blade as a tool.

i think about the blade so much. a cold reminder of your mission in this world, something so tiny that represents a huge wall between you, your ability to be willing to understand others, to understand yourself.

if you bring it with you you've chosen to take a defensive stance against something and someone you don't understand, but it's so comforting, it gives you options, it gives you control over any situation given you don't underestimate the person standing in front of you. even when you don't want it, when you think you don't need it, it will come back to you. a nagging feeling. you're given the option to be distrustful even when you don't literally have it in you, it's what you've been taught is safety, it hangs over your head and dangles above your heart at all times.

and in damsel ch3 it goes from a tool given weight by the role you're supposed to play, to the same thing but looming over her this time. the expectations of what you're supposed to want and what's best for the people around you and what keeps you grounded, the narrator sang the same tune before, and he hurt her and he hurt you. he hurt himself and his humanity in the process. and now he's taken the backseat and is forced to see how messed up that is by having the smitten be the one pulling the strings of the construct, someone with a perspective so different, but one that ends up hurting everyone all the same, even if he doesn't intend it to do so.

everyone is forced to look at themselves in the mirror.

carrying that blade is suffocating for anyone.

and now im thinking about mr. "let's throw it out the window" contrarian, the only voice you can bring to her heart along with the hero, someone that refused to engage with the narrative and someone that is well aware that his perspective is annoying and unneeded for its purposes.

and then he meets the whole of her, and she tells him about how his courage is beautiful. he's the part of the long quiet that knowingly or not, is more willing to throw aside any kind of logic in order to understand a situation in a way the rest don't want to, and he's *now* realizing that his existence is an important aspect to have.

[apoloadonisandnarcissus]

Welcome back to the debate! 

I feel you, you know my personal views on some scenes of the finale. I usually prefer to keep the negativity to myself because “Rings of Power” already has enough haters as it is. But yes, I do think they showed us Gil-galad's concerned expression for a reason, too. And it did remind me of Elrond in 1x08 (and the setup of his feud with Galadriel in Season 2).

Besides, we know Gil-galad also has visions of what’s to come (cortesy of Vilya); this was confirmed in 2x02, in his conversation with Galadriel, and the fandom even joked he saw dead fish, while Galadriel saw “Hot Sauron”. 

Perhaps Gil-galad had a vision we, the audience, are yet to find out about, and that's what explains his worried look.  

I know you didn’t mean the stabbing = punishment (alone), because I’m familiar with your views. However, I thought you might have thrown that idea in there because I’ve seen other fans speculating about this angle (without any other motivation, like blood binding): “Sauron stabbed Galadriel because he wanted to punish or straight-out kill her”. Usually the “killing” part; this is a very popular idea among the overall “Rings of Power” fandom, and even in the Haladriel fandom some seem to share this idea. 

I agree with you on the “turn the knife into the wound” and the “Galadriel, look at me” ideas. However, the part where Sauron gets more brutal, and if blood binding theory is correct, I think it’s because Sauron believes it’s not working and they are not binding, because Galadriel is clearly resisting and talking about his masterplan of world domination in negative terms.

And Sauron self-deceives himself, too, and has this picture perfect idea of what his plan looks like and the end result of it. Like he says to Celebrimbor, in 2x07: "I see the end, Celebrimbor. So clearly. I have seen it from the moment I awoke. But his end, it was different from mine. For what he wished to destroy, I wished... to perfect". And I think he definitely showed Galadriel this via their bond, to persuade her into joining him.

We can’t forget Sauron's motivations in healing and rebuilding Middle-earth are genuine, at this point of his character arc. He truly wants to accomplish this.

I think he did want to share his powers with Galadriel, yes. I already replied this to another fellow fan: Sauron talked about this in 1x08. “You bind me to the light, and I bind you to power.” This clearly implies he would transfer some of his power onto her during blood binding, because Adar told us in 1x05 “only blood can bind”, and Sauron was holding Finrod’s dagger in his first proposal scene:

The question here is: why on earth would Galadriel ever allow herself to be stabbed by that thing, voluntarily? Because that’s what Sauron wants, and why he carries Morgoth’s crown around, on his hand (and not on his head, for example). And he tells her “the door is still open” (for her to join him and bind herself to him).  

Yes, he was showing off his power and domination because he wanted Galadriel to see just how powerful he truly is, and how she’s no match for his power. I already talked about this here, and Charlie said something similar in one of his interviews, as well.  This was him being petty, yes, but also him saying “look at the power I could give you” or “you think you are powerful? Join me if you want true power.” 

By giving her his power, Sauron wanted to make “something” out of Galadriel. I already proposed this, but he might have wanted her to be some sort of Witch Queen not-of-Angmar; and this can either mean a leader or a follower. Except Galadriel is a natural born leader, and Sauron is natural born follower, so I don’t know how this dynamic would play out in the long term, because Sauron is not the dominant one on his dynamic with Galadriel (and I think he both loves and hates this).  

We can look at Saruman example: he joined Sauron because he was planning on taking the One ring for himself, and take Sauron’s place. Saruman is a Maia (formerly of Aulë. too). So while Saruman appeared to be a servant or a follower of Sauron, he actually wasn’t because he had hidden motives. I think this would be the same with Galadriel, and she would usurp Sauron’s place. This is pretty much the temptation the One offers her thousands of years later: In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. I know you don't want to talk about "what ifs", but I think this is revelant to what we are talking about.

I mean “blood binding” is synonymous of “blood oath” because it’s pretty much the same: two beings who are bound together by blood, and can’t act against each other, probably not even harm one another. It doesn’t necessary mean “servitude” per say, but, in a way, it is.

Blood binding and Sauron’s intentions

My pal @rey-jake-therapist and I were in one of our usual friendly discussions about this topic in one of her posts, but since the theme digresses so much from her original intent and I’m pretty much spamming her OG post by now, we decided to move the debate to here, and invite the fandom to join in.

As customary, Rey always presents good and challenging counter-arguments to mine. Because it's possible to disagree and keep it civil and friendly. This is good fandom etiquette, and this is the point of debates, after all: sharing different ideas and perspectives on the same topic. We usually end up agreeing on disagreeing and it’s all good in the end.

What were Sauron’s intentions and goals in stabbing Galadriel with Morgoth’s crown in 2x08? 

2x01 / 2x08 parallels: “Only blood can bind.” (Adar; 1x05)

1) Binding/Enslaving Galadriel to his Will

Rey made the case for Sauron’s intention of possessing and dominating Galadriel using Morgoth’s crown. And that we should focus on present intentions, and not lose yourselves in “what if” scenarios (with this I totally agree, so, let's focus on the present time).

This theory states that Sauron wanted to enslave Galadriel to his will, by having her handing over Nenya, in submission. This would explain why Galadriel seemed “bewitched” while removing Nenya from her finger, and almost surrendering it to him.  

This means Sauron has “outgrown” his intentions from 1x08, when he wanted to serve Galadriel (due to his Maia nature; he was created to be a servant to a Vala). Now, he wants full power, and he’s not willing to share it with anyone else (Galadriel included):

Sauron only wants to dominate/possess Galadriel now: she humiliated him when she refused him in 1x08, he developed an obsession for her, so he punished her with physical pain (the stabbing), and attempted to possess her so she would follow him.

And so, if blood binding theory is true, this would work like the Nine and the Nazgûl, with Galadriel not only being a servant, but a slave to Sauron. This theory can also imply she would have, indeed, become a Ringwraith herself, as her soul was entering the Unseen world (“Shadow realm”) when Gil-galad and Arondir found her.

This is a very strong theory, and I think many fellow fans share this view, as well. Would it pass Sauron to do something like this? Absolutely not, and it would not be OCC for him to have this intention, at all.

So what’s my problem, you might ask?

This facial expression right here:

Unless Charlie was having a case of fatigue eyes due to extensive use of contact lenses (speaking from personal experience), there’s no explanation for Sauron getting all teared up when he believed Galadriel was about to join him, if his intention was to enslave her to his will, and that’s what he was doing here.

And no, Galadriel can’t deceive him. This is underestimating Sauron’s power: he’s the “great deceiver”, and only he can deceive himself, really. And if they are, indeed, blood bound, Galadriel couldn’t possibly hide anything from him. And I already made the case for how Galadriel was about to join him, freely, in another post.

2) “You bind me to the light, I bind you to power”

Speaking of Sauron’s intentions, we need to remember the creator of this character and what he says about him. Tolkien tells us (in Letters 131, 153 and 183) that “Annatar” still has “fair motives”: he’s a reformer who, truly, wants to rebuild/heal Middle-earth, and he’s genuine in this endeavor (nevermind his methods, that’s why he’s a villain). Rey counter-argumented this does not translate in a desire to serve Galadriel, and she’s correct.

However, what was his intention in 1x08?  

And if Sauron still has a genuine concern in healing Middle-earth, what if his intention with Morgoth’s crown was giving Galadriel his power, while harvesting her light for himself, just like he wanted in 1x08? And if this was his intention, why would he keep her soul “trapped” in the Unseen world? What if he wanted to make her queen of the Seen and Unseen world? Not a mere queen of Middle-earth, but as nearly as possible to a literal Goddess he could serve?

Because Sauron/Mairon can’t escape his nature, he was created to be a servant, a Maia to a Vala. And, right now, he doesn’t want to serve Morgoth. Even though he does it, unconsciously, and perhaps he recognized this after he killed Celebrimbor in a rage fit (something that’s completely OCC for him, because that’s not who he is; Sauron is a control freak, a mastermind).

This scene with Galadriel happened after that; and Sauron cried because, when he looked up at Celebrimbor, all he could see was Morgoth’s bounds on him reaching the surface. And that chaotic destruction is Morgoth, not Sauron. And he doesn't want that at this point on his character arc in Tolkien lore. I think this is when Sauron makes the decision to bind himself to Galadriel, one way or the other.

I absolutely disagree with the idea that Sauron stabbed Galadriel to punish her or kill her: if that was his true intention he would have used Morgoth sword (he was already using it in his duel with Galadriel the entire time), not a powerful dark magic object infused with own blood (because Adar used it to destroy his previous physical form), nor he would have carried that thing around the entire time while mentioning "binding" twice (“I never believed I could be... Until today. Fighting at your side, I... I felt... If I could just hold on to that feeling, keep it with me always, bind it to my very being, then I...” (1x06); “The door is still open”).

“Binding” (usually connected with “blood oaths”) and “enslaving” are two different kinds of blood magic. Because the Nine rings of power are pieces of jewelry meant to be worn by ring-bearers, with a small dosage of Sauron’s blood (along with other specific spells). Morgoth’s crown not only has a lot of Sauron’s blood on it, but we also don’t know what kind of dark magic it actually contains: we only know it was made to hold the Silmarils and it can destroy Sauron’s physical form (implying that, maybe, Sauron doesn’t have much control over this object?).

Sauron accidentally sharing his power with Galadriel is nonsense to me, as well. He's ancient, has been around since before the world existed (he helped create that very world), has been a master in blood magic and every sort of sorcery for thousands of years, and he’s one of the most powerful Maia in existence, but isn’t aware he would be giving Galadriel some of his power by binding himself to her? When he clearly mentions this in 1x08? "I bind you to power". Because Galadriel appears to be seeing the world in a whole new way in 2x08 epilogue (and even her eyes look off):

Besides, Galadriel is suppose to be a powerful sorceress of her own right in Tolkien lore, mastering several powers. In the legendarium Galadriel own power was amplified by Nenya, yes, but this isn’t the case in “Rings of Power”, because we haven’t seen her displaying any magical powers in Season 1. She won’t have any other powers in the show (besides healing and foresight/visions), completely cutting off with Tolkien legendarium? If the show keeps it true to the lore on that bit, where did her powers (look into others’ hearts and minds, and communicate telepathically) come from? Will they “magically” appear out of nowhere? When and how? But, if these powers came from Sauron it’s because he wanted it to happen, and that was his intention. And if that was his intention, what was his purpose with this if not to serve her?

And Sauron does share power: he does share his power with those he wants to enslave; via the rings of power. That’s why Celebrimbor tells him he’s their prisoner, and not their master. However, these are two very different kinds and degrees of magic. Because with the rings ("enslave") he can control how he wants it to go; while sharing his actual power with another living being ("blood oath") is uncontrollable. He can’t possible know the end result of it.

I know there’s a popular theory that Adar was blood bound to Sauron, but I don’t think so. Adar not only doesn't have any magical powers, but he wouldn’t be able to kill Sauron himself, if that was true. Blood binding is a blood oath, and it’s forever, unbreakable, and it prevents beings from harming or acting against one another (physically) in any direct way. That’s why “Rings of Power” introduced the clue that Sauron might be blood bound to Morgoth in 1x03; and that’s the reason he could never leave nor forsake his master even when he came to resent him.

This means, that, in "Rings of Power", Sauron, most likely, only has Morgoth as a reference to blood oaths. And he probably thinks this will go the same way with Galadriel, and he’ll keep her light to himself, allowing him to keep Morgoth at bay. Only her “light” is merely aesthetic, really. The light that shines on her hair and eyes is the light of the Two Trees of Valinor, and it shines on every Elf that was born during the Years of the Trees (and not only her). Because Galadriel is a complex and nuanced character, and ticking bomb that can turn dark at any minute.