#and not something that literally just so happened to line up completely perfectly outside of her control - which is what happens

[vidavalor]

Hey, so...

Have you all noticed *how* Crowley and Aziraphale are drinking in 1941? And by this I mean... that they barely are? <wink>

Crowley has been drinking for millennia by this point. He gets drunk as Bildad the Shuite in 2500 B.C.. Aziraphale has been drinking since sometime prior to the scene in Rome, which is also when we see them drink together for the first time. *This* scene is 1941 so countless years and meet ups between Crowley and Aziraphale have taken place since and considering how these two drink together in other situations-- like how completely wasted they were in the "eleven years ago" scene in S1-- this one here in 1941 is *interesting.* Why?

Because friends, that is *one bottle of wine* on the table beside Aziraphale and I can still see wine in it above the label, which means what's currently in their glasses is less than the first half of the bottle... which means the glasses they are sharing now that Aziraphale just poured are their first drinks of the evening... and neither of them are really drinking much of it. That signals an intent not to drink very much at all-- the open bottle probably being plenty for the two of them. They're going slowly, without an intention to get drunk, but not really just to savor together a particularly interesting vintage. They don't seem to be noticing or tasting the wine at all. Aziraphale poured them both a good amount but not overkill but both of them so far in this scene just take cautious, *small* sips of the wine... and they don't need to conserve it, ok?

It's not the war. It's canon that Aziraphale has a case of Chateauneuf-de-Pape that he picked up in the 1920s sitting in the back of this shop at this very minute that he doesn't bust open until "Eleven Years Ago" in the future of S1 and Crowley is a bootlegger in this moment in history lol and also they're both literally magic. They could miracle wine from halfway around the world if they wanted to. There's wine to drink if they want to get drunk...

...and they both have silently agreed that they don't want to.

It is the *only* time that they drink together in a scene that we've seen where they have a mutual agreement to not drink that much. Even when Aziraphale *didn't drink*, he still got *food* drunk while Crowley was drinking in the Job minisode.

But when they're having a drink together in 1941, both of them are very clearly, by a kind of unspoken agreement from the vibes in the room, *not really drinking.* Just a little. A few sips that will lead to a glass or two a piece total, at most-- that bottle split between them would be a lot from the air of and the pace of them in this scene.

And I mean... forgetting for a moment that Aziraphale will get drunk without issue in other scenes, we all know Crowley, right? This Crowley...

In S1, part of *God's narration* lol includes that Crowley and Aziraphale had been drinking for six straight hours in the bookshop together in "Eleven Years Ago." Rome is one thing because they had just had just met up so we don't know how sloshed they got over oysters at Petronius' new restaurant (and would seem likely that they did) but in every other scene when they drink together, basically, they drink quite a bit and both of them usually wind up drunk, especially Crowley.

So why is 1941 different?

Because they're drinking like people who both want to mess around, that's why.

Yeah, people mess around while drunk and I'm sure the same can be said for any of the few Effort-curious angels and demons outside of these two but Crowley and Aziraphale are not a casual hookup to one another-- they're in love, they're best friends, and they haven't been together before after literal millennia of pining and yearning for it. It's not something that's happening while they're drunk. They want to be sober and for it to be special and the evening here in 1941 has really got everything lining up for a perfectly romantic night, if they want it to be. All the rescuing one another and little glances and now Aziraphale's asked Crowley back to the bookshop for a late night drink and they're both drinking like they want it to be tonight.

They're both silently telling one another they want something to happen by the fact that they're drinking with no intention to get drunk. They want to be present. They want to remember. They want each other's explicit consent so they're barely drinking the wine so that it's evident that if things get intimate, it's not because either or both of them are drunk, and no one has to stop over concern over that.

Aziraphale is looking at Crowley looking all dashing, unusually quiet for him, maybe a bit nervous and still hiding a little behind his glasses-- Hell's biggest lush taking the world's smallest, barely-there sip of that wine lol-- and is like how many more tiny sips do we need to take before I can crawl onto his lap...?

Aziraphale's like omg, the sex is going to be amazing... thank God I don't yet know in this moment that something-- like some Zombie Nazis, probably-- will stop us and we'll still be on trying to kiss one another 80 years from now...

[suzukiblu]

WIP excerpt for sakoku_decree, who gave me dealer's choice and therefore is getting "Krypton lives and Kara did not sign up to babysit". (( chrono || non-chrono ))

“What’s Task Force X?” she asks slowly. “And are you talking about the Thinkers who stole Kal’s DNA to make you?” She really doesn’t see why Thirteen would care about what happened to them, considering. 

“The Suicide Squad,” Match says, and doesn’t elaborate. Kara doesn’t want him to, she thinks. 

“I’m talking about my fucking friends!” Thirteen snarls, his fists clenching and eyes still wide with fury as he shifts into an aggressive stance. “I fucking had those, not that fucking–” he says a word in Earthling, which is completely incoherent and bizarre and sounds harshly, discordantly flat in the middle of the lyrical familiarity of Kryptonian, and then continues–“gave a fuck about that!” 

The aggression is one thing. Kara is military enough to be used to seeing unbecoming emotional behavior from people outside of her immediate family and closest friends, given literally everything about the entire nature of her career. So she’s used to being yelled at by people who are old enough to behave. 

But Thirteen is not, in fact, “old” enough to behave. And she’s also too military to know what to do with what is, effectively, an infant who’s this close to having a screaming tantrum at her. 

Lois Kal-El says something in Earthling, her voice just as flat and discordant as the word that Thirteen used, and Thirteen grits his teeth and trembles in fury, and Match’s expression somehow finds a way to go even blanker than before. 

“What did she say?” Kara asks, slanting her eyes towards Match. 

“None of your fucking business!” Thirteen shouts at her, stomping a foot against the kitchen floor. “Learn fucking–” another Earthling word, again, jarring and arrhythmic and grating–“if you wanna know so fuckin’ bad!” 

Kara needs to nip this behavior in the bud, obviously, but what’s she supposed to do? Deescalate, obviously, but does she cut him off like a disobedient subordinate or send him to his room like a misbehaving child or soothe him like an upset infant? Which of those things is he, and which of those things would he respond to being treated as, and are those answers contradictions? 

They’re probably contradictions, she can’t help but suspect. 

They’re absolutely contradictions, yes. 

It’s not helpful that Lois Kal-El isn’t physically present right now, and definitely not helpful that Kal isn’t. Not even slightly, actually. Kara literally met these two less than an hour ago and Lois Kal-El and Kal at least had the flight home and whatever time they spent with them on Earth, worst-named and most ridiculously-sunned planet of all. 

“I was talking to Match,” she says, hoping the minor correction will derail Thirteen enough to make him bite his tongue and rethink his impending temper tantrum, which turns out to be an immediate mistake. 

Match goes very, very still, his expression perfectly impassive and empty of anything, and Thirteen bristles. 

“I can fucking TALK if I wanna!” he roars at her, and the kitchen floor and walls all crack in violent lines all thrown out from where Thirteen’s standing, like rays of light flaring in all directions from a sun. 

. . . a little telekinetic, Kara thinks. Right. Sure. 

How godsdamned telekinetic were they before?

[verycharismaticdragon]

Y'know I'm not going to go and argue with people but I'm. kinda weirded out by the "Shen Yuan's family was actually neglectful/awful/abusive" takes? Because we have a story where:

a point is made about cycles of violence and how abuse creates more abuse (with Qiu Jianluo - Shen Jiu - Bing-ge sequence).

a point is made about how the person can turn out very differently depending on their environment growing up (with differences between Bing-ge and Bing-mei).

And like... how does one look at those two points, then at Shen Yuan saying he had a loving family, and forgoes the obvious conclusion - that growing up in a stable home is what sets him apart in the world of PIDW (including from literal author of the world who is a lonely and embittered child of the divorce!) and allows him to change it with the power of love & kindness & bonding with people - in favor of deciding that his family was ~actually~ horrible?..

In that case, what makes him capable of breaking the cycle? Some kind of innate goodness or kindness? That, for some reason, no other character happened to possess? Right. Nice going completely devaluing Shen Jiu's tragedy.

To explain the last point: we get a lot of backstory for Shen Jiu, and the obvious takeaway from it is that he was not born a scum villain. That he did have a desire to do (and be) good, but it just couldn't flourish - because of a combination of terrible circumstances of his youth, his personal flaws, and the demands of the meta-narrative.

Thing is... two of those problems, he shares with Shen Yuan. Shen Yuan has his own personal flaws aplenty, even if they differ from Shen Jiu's, and a literal manifestation of the meta-narrative haunting him. But, unlike Shen Jiu, he happened to have a good family. That is their fundamental difference.

If one argues that Shen Yuan's family situation actually wasn't good, then what allows him to be so different from Shen Jiu? Isn't that saying that Shen Yuan was just a good person from the start... and Shen Jiu was just a bad person from the start? you know, the exact sentiment that made Shen Jiu give up on himself? And isn't it flattening Shen Jiu's story from a tragedy of a person who was broken out of his desire to do good by his terrible circumstances, into just 'a bad guy doing bad things because he's bad'? like, exactly what Airplane did to him in PIDW...

---

But, some of you may ask, don't we have evidence that Shen Yuan wasn't actually very happy in his past life?

Thing is, I don't disagree with that! I just think it didn't necessarily have anything to do with the quality of his home life.

For starters, having a loving family is not everything. Like, even if you just look at Maslow's pyramid, "love and belonging" is actually in the middle of the thing. Shen Yuan could have a perfectly fine, caring family and still be unfulfilled on "esteem" (recognition and respect from other ppl + personal feelings of accomplishment) and "self-actualization" (becoming the best possible version of himself) levels.

And that's before we factor in that he's a(n obviously if you read between the lines) queer dude who grew up in a country that criminalizes queerness which is something I don't see brought up a lot in discussions of the strength of his internalized homophobia, and the possibility that he is an undiagnosed neurodivergent person (i personally hc him as having adhd-I, i know there are also ppl with autistic headcanons, could be both, etc etc), and the influence of his social circle outside his family (cishet dudes on the forums, from what he know, so not the most positive and uplifting bunch)...

---

Lastly, while I think the thematic evidence from the first half of this meta is more telling, there are also a few small in-text details that prove Shen Yuan's words about how close-knit his family was.

First, the way he compares Yue Qingyuan to his older brothers in the very beginning, at the time he is still finding his footing and YQY is the one person looking out for him. (On the subject of SY!SQQ and YQY, just read this post, I won't be able to put it better.) Shen Yuan is explicitly "feeling at home in the atmosphere of brotherly love".

Second, the fact that we know he read his younger sister's danmei novels. On Shen Yuan's side, literally how committed he had to be to supporting his sister's interests, when we know from being in his head how determined he is about playing ostrich with anything and everything gay. No shit he spoiled her, I believe that one hundred percent. And on his sister's side, the level of trust she has towards her brother? Having full confidence that she could make him read gay bdsm and he wouldnt love her any less?..

---

So yeah, I think all signs point to Shen family being as close-knit and loving as Shen Yuan says.

[vivitalks]

Last night I saw the Great Gatsby musical. Before I went, I reread the Great Gatsby book (for the first time since 11th grade!) to get a refresher on the source material and the original story. Having the book so fresh in my mind made seeing the musical really interesting, and now I am going to do something I never thought I'd do, which is post some lengthy meta about The Great Gatsby. If you haven't seen the musical, this post may still be interesting to read, but it does contain some mild spoilers, so I leave that up to you. If you also haven't read the book, godspeed lol.

There's a lot I could talk about here when it comes to the way the book was adapted for the stage. But there's one particular thing I want to zero in on in this post, and that's the "unreliable narrator" of it all.

In the book, Nick Carraway is our narrator. He's an unreliable narrator practically by default - the idea is that he's retelling events that occurred two years prior, from memory. But even knowing that Nick is probably not reporting all events and characters with complete accuracy, it's hard to know which parts exactly are wrong, or what might have happened in reality, because even though he's an unreliable narrator, he's still the only narrator and this is the only version of events we know. We're forced to take Nick as our surrogate and take him at his word. Until the musical.

(I wondered how the show was going to deal with the fact that the story of Great Gatsby is not only told by an unreliable narrator but also by an outside perspective - generally speaking the events of the Great Gatsby aren't happening to Nick, they're just kind of happening around him. Yet he's the voice of the story, so in that way he's central to it, and I was curious how they were going to balance that fact with the fact that Gatsby is functionally the main character.

I think they struck a really good balance in the end. Nick's beginning and ending lines, lifted verbatim from his book narration, frame him clearly as the anchor of the story - I think that's the best word for it; the audience jumps from scene to scene, many but not all of which contain Nick, but we know that Nick is always going to be where the action is, or that he will at least know about it. He may not be the main character, but he's an essential character. But I digress a little bit.)

The difference between the way the story is imparted to the audience in the book versus in the musical boils down to this: in the book, Nick "plays" every character, so all their dialogue and actions, their mannerisms and the way they're described and reported, it's all informed by the beliefs Nick holds about them. Whether he means to or not, his biases paint certain characters in certain lights, and because he is our eyes and ears to the story, we have no choice but to absorb those biases.

But in the musical, every character is literally played by a different actor. Nick can only speak for himself. Nick can only tell his own parts as they happened. He may be "telling" the story, but we're watching the story. We have the benefit of an unblemished perspective on things - we can watch the events the way they actually unfold, regardless of how Nick believes or remembers they went down.

This difference - between Nick as the narrator and Nick as merely his own voice - is crucial in how the musical develops each character, some of them fairly different from how Nick described them in the book. And there's one book-to-stage change - a fairly small one, all things considered - that, to me, illustrated this difference perfectly.

There's a line towards the end of the Gatsby book. Something Nick says in narration, after his final conversation with Tom Buchanan, talking about how Tom gave away Gatsby's name and location to George Wilson (which ultimately led to Gatsby's death). Nick writes:

"I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made…"

When I read this line in the book, I couldn't help vehemently agreeing. Screw those rich assholes! Money does corrupt! Tom and Daisy ARE careless wealthy people! It was easy to side with Nick, not only because he was the only perspective on the situation that I had, but also because he said this in internal response to a conversation with Tom, who, I think we can all agree, is a major jackass and a deeply unsympathetic character.

But in the musical, this line is spoken aloud by Nick. And he says it to Daisy, in her house, as she's packing up to skip town after Gatsby's death. In fact, he doesn't just say it; he shouts it, visibly and audibly outraged at her audacity to lead Gatsby on, ghost him, skip his funeral, and then move away to avoid the fallout. Nick is angry and highly critical of Daisy. But because we're no longer confined to his shoes, we also get to see Daisy's reaction - not as Nick remembers it, but as Daisy actually reacts. And because of that, we're able to really see, and confirm, that "Daisy is rich and careless" is not the full story.

I have to credit Eva Noblezada for a phenomenal performance (duh). Daisy in this scene is emotional, grieving, and it's clear she has been trying to contain these feelings for the sake of her husband and her own sanity. She's remorseful, not that Gatsby is gone necessarily, but that she allowed herself to entertain the fantasy of running away with him, only for it to be torn from her. She is trying to make the best of her unavoidable reality. And then Nick tears her a new one, calling her careless, accusing her of destroying things and being too rich to care.

And as I watched that scene, I was no longer wholly on Nick's side. I understood that this situation was so much more complex than Nick's chastisement acknowledged. Sure, Daisy wasn't innocent, but she also wasn't the callous rich girl Nick made her out to be. She did love Gatsby. And she also had a whole life with Tom. She had a daughter. She was a woman in the 1920s! That's a kind of life sentence even wealth can't erase.

The way Daisy responded may not quite have landed with Nick (if we consider the kind of fun possibility that the musical is the events as they happened and the book is Nick retelling those events as he remembers them two years later, then clearly Nick's disdain for Daisy's actions overtook whatever sympathy he felt for her), but the musical gave Daisy the opportunity to appeal to us. The audience. Having this omniscient perspective of things allowed us to draw our own conclusions, and I found myself a lot more sympathetic towards Daisy when I could both see and hear how she responded to Nick's verbal castigation.

In the book, Nick is the narrator. In the musical, Nick is a narrator. But he's no longer the sole arbiter of the story. The audience got to make our own judgements on the events as we witnessed them. Every one of us was a Nick - beholden to our own biases, maybe, but at least not beholden to his.

[cyberl33ch]

Excuse Me, Miss? Chapter 1

masterlist, part two, part three, part four

summary: Neighbor turned business partner, romantic or conflict of interest?

tw: angst, eventual smut, conflict of interest, alcohol consumption, & hopeless feeling.

pairing: Neighbor/BusinessPartner!Abby x NepoBaby!Reader

Graduating university for some people is freeing but for you it was just another thing on your checklist. Being a multi billionaire's daughter with a happy childhood doesn’t really leave you wanting anything but the newest Hermes or Birkin handbag. So as your fathers daughter you drown your issues at the local bar (which your dad happens to own).

You were perfectly fine talking to one of the random girls who had swarmed over to you as soon as you sat down at the bar. Starting to get sweaty and overwhelmed with all the chitter chatter around you, you walk outside for a quick smoke.

As you destress on one of the benches outside your phone starts vibrating in your pocket. Quickly taking it out of your pocket you identify the caller. “Ughhh” You slur out rolling your eyes, before picking up the phone. If there was one thing your father knew how to do it was kill a buzz immediately.

“Get in the car.” Your father says demanding. Standing up you take a look around the street and spot the white limo with the company logo spread across it. Picking up your purse off the bench you walk towards the limo and get inside.

Closing the door you look at the bane of your existence. “I need you to do something.” He says not even sparing a glance. “It better be worth it.” You sit back in the seat slowly relaxing. Your father knocks twice on the roof and the car starts to pull off.

“I hope those…” He pauses to squint at his computer ”5 shots of tequila were worth it.” Making you roll your eyes, it was typical of your father or anyone at the company to monitor you and your intake.

This is why you have always been hounded about who you date, never why because they already know. You’ve always said that if you had complete control over your life you would’ve never been in such a lose-lose situation with life.

“What do you want?” You say groaning out rubbing your temples. “You’re going to pick up Marissa's job for a month.” He blankly says following it with a sigh. “See that’s the thing you never make it an option- Wait, did you fire her?” You remark with a raised eyebrow. “Wouldn’t dream of that.” This is the first time he dares to lock eyes with you, even though he immediately looks back down at his computer.

“Your shift starts on Monday…see you there.” You step out of the limo in front of the lobby of your penthouse. Closing the door you walk through the doors of the lobby sighing in relief that the interaction ended. Walking past the front desk you choose the elevator with only one person in it, stepping in you go to click your floor button but see it’s already clicked.

Since you’ve only just passed the 12th floor you finally realize you’ve stepped into an elevator full of boxes. “Oh, are you moving?” You said stepping out of the way. “Yeah sorry, all the other elevators were full of people…my name’s Abby.” She extends her hand out to give yours a FIRM shake.

After getting through the casualties, somewhere along the line you ended up agreeing to help her move some boxes to her place. I mean it couldn’t hurt right she’s just across the hallway, literally your doors are peephole to peephole. What the hell, it's just a couple of boxes, they’re not gonna hurt anybody.

Putting down the box you exhaustingly wipe the sweat on your forehead plopping down on the stairs next to you. “You’re trying to kill me.” You mumble in between breaths, making Abby chuckle while putting a bigger box like a pillow. “Would you like something to drink? At Least my kitchen is put together.” She motions towards the bar stools in the kitchen getting something out of the fridge.

You take a seat on one of the barstools hoping that something cold might help you catch your breath. This is the first time you take in how warmly decorated Abby’s place is, in comparison to yours less marble more wood. Well you didn’t have control over the decorations in your condo, hell you didn’t even have control of where you lived.

Your thoughts are once again interrupted by Abby slipping a glass full of lemonade into your open hand. “You space out a lot.” Abby says truthfully. “I have a lot to think about.” You say while taking a sip from your cup, eyeing her physical response over the top of your cup.

You might’ve been a functioning alcoholic that night but if there was one thing that was for sure it was that Abby was quite the woman. Not just from a physical standpoint but from a personality one, you two had so much in common.

Same music taste, you guys both loved journaling, not to mention the most romantic of them all…you both love the exact same authors. But being the awkward person you were, you didn’t know if this meant that the energy you put out was getting reciprocated or even noticed at all.

After all it was a long night and your shift starts in a few days, and you really feel the urge to call and tell your father off. “Hey Abs I think I’m going to call it a night.” You speak to Abby who is seemingly in her own world as well. “Yeah, I’m getting a little tired myself.” Abby knows she's lying, her life was lonely, it was nice to have a new personality in her space, refreshing even.

After finishing your nightly routine you plop down on the bed with an exhausted sigh, you wish you could sulk over your life. But after years and years the tears stopped coming and the situation never got better so what was the point?

What was the point when you could just drown your sorrows in the nearest bar wishing you were drowning yourself instead.

Waking up in your bed that was clearly too big for just you is always comforting, like a big hug you’ve never had. You get up to take a shower and do your morning routine when you get a call from your dads secretary.

You don’t really have a problem with her, she's just always…there and that can get really annoying. “How can I help you Karla.” You say rubbing your temples. “You’re late.” You can hear her teeth grinding through the phone. “Jeez Kar don’t rip all your hair follicles out like last time.” You remark letting a chuckle slip.

Karla clears her throat regaining her composure before speaking “You're taking over Marissa’s shift right?” She questions. “Yes..” You respond vaguely, rushing to check the calendar on your fridge. “Wait…it’s Monday.” You screech audibly it was just like you to forget what day it was but for the hangover to get to you the next day. “I’ll be on my way.” You say briefly before ending the call and rushing to put on business attire. You know for a fact that Karla is on her way to laugh with your dad about your slip up.

Walking into the building with slightly messier hair than you would like, attracting unwanted glances before reaching your desk. Finally something you can hide behind, gosh don’t people know what hard times look like.

Before you have the chance to do anything someone taps you on the shoulder. “Yes?” You turn around with a raised eyebrow meeting gazes with a very sculpted facial structure.

“Hello I’m Kev, your assistant here to help you with anything you need during your time here.” He says robot like. “Well Kev I like your tie but you can relax around me.” You say slightly nudging his shoulder with your fist. Kev lets out a sigh and starts listing off the duties he’s going to help you with, this is going to be a very long month.

You have 30 minutes left of your shift meaning you weren’t even doing your work, you were watching youtube on your computer. Completely swallowed by the drama showing on the screen.

The office phone on your desk starts ringing, letting out the biggest exhale ever when you pick up the phone “Front Desk.” You say with fake enthusiasm. “Bring those papers you printed out to my office.” You hear your father on the other side.

Hanging up the phone without any further explanation you snatch the papers out of the printer and practically stomp towards the executive elevator. Getting out of the elevator you step into your fathers office to find it empty, you just leave the papers neatly on his desk before departing you see pictures of you when you were younger.

Of course they’re among his new wife but you’re just surprised he didn’t burn a hole in your mothers face. “Excuse me, Miss?” Your reminiscing is interrupted by a familiar voice. You turn around to lock eyes with none other than…Abby?

my masterlist

(tell me in my ask my anything's if you have a request!)

(divider by @gigittamic)

[bellewintersroe]

Max Verstappen X HornerDaughter!

Part 9 here’s the LINK to part 8. eeeeee I love drama, who’s ready for more?! Warnings: mentions of cursing, jealousy, cursing, arguments, Leni has a hard time admitting her feelings.

Max finds Carlos and Leni closer than ever, getting along like a house on fire. After a gruelling race in the Qatar heat and his win of the 2023 Grand Prix, he’s obviously hurt and confused when Leni barely congratulates him. When a few drinks are involved and there’s no escaping Max directly, he confronts her much to her dismay.

Taglist: @ironmaiden1313 @callsignwidow @fangirl125reader @norassimpingzone @roseseraj @eugene-emt-roe @copper-boom @its-elias-world @cassiopeiia24@larastark3107 @maxxiemoo @crashingwavesofeuphoria @18754389

“God it’s hot.” I fanned myself, complaining yet again to Carlos who sat besides me on the small couch, directly under the fans cold breeze.

“You are telling me.” The Spaniard shuffled in the chair. My gaze roamed up to the TV again, watching the race which was currently occurring just outside of this room. Carlos’s car faced technical difficulties which meant he couldn’t race today, not in this weather. I could see the effect it was having already on some of the drivers and I immediately began worrying about Max. The worry that consumed me was mixed with the sensation of my stomach that twisted and knotted every. Single. Time. I thought about Max. The past few weeks I’d avoided him completely, I didn’t attend Japan and now I was in Qatar I’d stayed out of his way completely.

We watched the whole race, occasionally jumping up and running outside. The sweat would cover my skin every time I went outside, so I figured it would be best just to stay inside. Already, Logan had retired from the race, there were incidents occurring left, right and centre. When the race did draw to a finish, I was on the edge of my seat, returning back to the Red Bull paddock perfectly in time for when Max crossed the finish line and became the Champion of the 2023 Grand Prix. My heart was in my throat, I cheered and celebrated for the driver like nothing had happened, I truly was happy for him, it was his third championship. I ensured I’d linger away from where Max was hugging everybody, I could be happy for him from a distance. It might’ve been the wrong move, but I just couldn’t bring myself to speak to him, not after we’d not talked since that night on the yacht. It wasn’t until I was heading out of the paddock did I come face to face with him. Nobody else, just Max. My heart tightened and I audibly gasped. He stared back to me, eyebrows slightly raised. He looked just as shocked as I did.

“Max!” I blinked, his lips pulled into a half smile, “ah- well done today, you deserved that win more than anybody.” I nodded surely. Max scanned over my face as though he was waiting for something else. “Thank you, Leni.” He sighed after a moment, sipping his water again. I forced a smile, before heading back past him, on my way. I heard him sigh once more as my face heated to a deep shade of red. I was mentally cursing to and at myself because of the longing I felt myself growing for him once again. That was seriously the most awkward thing I’d ever experienced. I was a horrible, stupid girl.

That even I tried not to go out. I’d decided it wouldn’t have been right if I was there, celebrating for Max when we hadn’t even spoke. Of course nobody knew of this but me and him, but somehow that made it all too worse. I’d talked to a few of my friends who thought I was literally crazy for just blanking him. Looking back in hindsight, they were right. Soon enough, I had both my dad and then Carlos begging me to come out. Carlos stated he was in a partying mood, which ‘wasn’t often these days’ so I’d have to come out. It turns out he had already been drinking in the hotel with Lando, which made perfect sense when they physically refused to move off my bed, feeding me alcohol until I got ready.

It’s fair to say I was absolutely steaming before I even got to the club. My inhibitions were lowered at a worrying rate, and I didn’t give two shits stumbling past paparazzi alongside two drivers, not from my fathers team. Besides, they didn’t give two shits about me anyway.

“Leni Horner, where is Max?!” One of them questioned. I snickered to myself, where was Max? Inside I presumed. Of course I wouldn’t know because I hadn’t spoken to him properly in weeks…

I’d like to have said the night was amazing, but I couldn’t remember the majority of it. That’s not me being dramatic or forgetful either, I was black out drunk, throwing up all the contents of alcohol before heading back to drink more. It wasn’t a good look on me. With some chewing gum and perfume, and a lovely girl who helped me in the girls bathrooms, I managed to freshen up, stumbling back out to where Carlos pulled me to get some air. He was flailing around, stumbling over his own two feet. I was laughing so hard that I collapsed onto my knees. The security didn’t like that so much and ushered us into a quieter part behind the outside area. In hindsight, considering the country we were in, we should’ve been a lot more careful. Thank god the security had kept an eye out on us because we were being dumb. Being so blindsided in amusement from Carlos, I completely failed to notice who else was sat in the outdoor area, watching our behaviour unfold.

“We have to act sober. Okay, one, two, three. Be sober.” I prepped up the Spaniard, hooking my arm around his. As if it was magic (or because it was Carlos Sainz) we were allowed back into the outdoor area. I pushed him onto a bench and sat besides him, giggling like a school girl whom had just been told off.

“Carlos- Carlos you’re too fucking funny!” I slurred out.

“Estoy tan jodidamente borracha, Leni. Oh no, esto no es bueno.” Whatever he was spewing in his native tongue, I felt my smile drop noticing who’d made their way over. Carlos fell backwards, into the wooden wall behind, sinking down. I didn’t have it in me to laugh, not when Max was the one who’d hurried over.

“Jesus Christ, man. What happened to you?” He began tugging on his friends arm. The nerves got the better of me, I began giggling uncontrollably. “Leni, help me sit him up.” Max spoke as I became borderline hysterical, trying to yank the man up off the floor. I don’t think I was much help, not when I slipped on the wooden floor myself and fumbled down with a harsh cry of laughter.

“Jesus.” Max muttered, not seeming too amused, especially when Carlos’s hand curled around my own, I shot him a glance to which he was staring directly at the contact. As soon as Carlos sat up, Max retrieved him a glass of water.

“You ok?” I asked the Spanish man. “Yeah.” He responded in the most monotone voice ever. “Leni, why did you stop racing?”

“Me? I just turned into a teenager.” Surprised by his question, I was honest in my response. “I should’ve kept doing it.”

“Yeah.” Carlos nodded as Max slid down across from us both, handing over two glasses of water, one for me, one for Carlos. Carlos gulped his down, whereas I sipped at mine awkwardly, thanking him without a glance in his direction.

“Max- did you know Leni used to race?” Carlos slurred out, water splashing from his glass, onto my bare leg. “Sorry.” He then proceeded to use his sleeve, wiping at my bare leg. “Carlos it’s fine.” I laughed, overly aware of how all this was looking, especially in front of Max.

“No, mate. I didn’t know that.” Max bluntly responded to which my gaze landed quickly on him. “I-I thought you knew.” I stammered, making direct eye contact with him. God, he looked angry, pissed off, I hated it- the worst thing was I made him feel this way.

“I must have forgot.” He then shrugged, reaching out and drinking from his glass of alcohol. My heart sunk and I completely turned away, tears pricking at my eyes pathetically. I had no reason to cry, absolutely none, but seeing him there hurt how badly I wanted him. I just couldn’t have him. How could he truly want me? Like it made no sense to me.

“I’m gonna go.” I stated, standing up on a whim. “I’ll come.” Carlos grumbled. “Oh, you’re going with him now are you?” Max scoffed in my direction, luckily, Carlos didn’t hear or catch on, but I could only stare back to Max with a horrified expression.

My mouth opened to respond something, but an overly excited Oscar came bounding over, giving us all big squeezes. “Hey guys!!” He greeted. Carlos seemed like the only person willing to match his temperament, I felt terrible, but when he took the Spaniard by the arm inside to dance some more, I decided that was the cue for my exit.

“Leni.” I heard Max sigh as I scurried away towards where drivers were already waiting for us. “You can’t go back alone.” Max huffed, pacing after me. I gripped my bag harshly, striding around the pathway around the back of the club to reach the exit.

“I wanna go, I don’t care.” I firmly spoke. “Look, I think we really need to have a talk.” He winced. My brows knotted as I stuck my tongue to the inner corner of my tongue. “I’m not- I can’t-” I began stumbling over my response. Max let out a sad scoff of laughter.

“Typical, running away from me again.”

My cheeks heated at his words, feeling an awkward sense of sickness bubble inside of me. I hated confrontation, especially with men, specifically those I liked. “Max I-”

“No, I get it. You regret what happened.” He outright spoke, I could barely look up at him, bothered by how truly wrong those words were. I never once regretted it in the sense of what happened, it was just weird for me.

“What?” I dumbly spoke, looking down to his shoes. “You know, you could’ve just told me. Rather than acting like I do not exist.” The Dutchman spoke, my teeth burrowed harsher into my bottom lip. “Why didn’t you just tell me, Leni?” He borderline pleaded, stepping a little closer. This time, I turned up to him again. He looked so hurt, so confused, I couldn’t believe I’d made him feel this way. I was selfish, so so selfish.

“Because…” I inhaled harshly. “Because?”

“You- you don’t get it Max.”

“No, I do. You don’t like me the same why I do to you!” He exclaimed, my heart tightened in a painful manner and I felt myself beginning to tear up.

“How can you? It’s so soon.” I gulped harshly, my gaze becoming blurry as I stared behind him, to whatever was happening in the distance.

“So soon for what?”

“You broke up with Kelly, what, a month ago?”

“Why does that matter?” His voice cracked, he seemed on the verge of more anger and when he pushed it once more, tears began falling from my eyes. “Leni that doesn’t dictate who-who I can like and when?!”

“Yes it does! I don’t want somebody who’s fresh out of a break up, thinking that they like me when they’re still hung up on their ex!”

“You knew how I felt about everything to do with that last relationship!” He harshly spoke. I shook my head, wiping my eyes.

“Like Jesus Christ, how much more clear could I have been?”

“You were clear enough when you told me all this whilst you were still together.” I blurted out, my emotions getting the better of me. Max stood back, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“What the fuck can I do, Leni?”

“For what?” “To make you feel normal about me again, to-to stop all these stupid games.”

“I do feel normal about you.” My bottom lip blubbered.

“You don’t have to lie. You were willing to go back with Carlos.” Oh, wow.

“Why the fuck would I leave with Carlos?!” Judging by his expression he knew he’d fucked up. “I’m sorry for ignoring you, I really am I know it was childish, Max, but it doesn’t mean that I want anybody else!” I admitted, feeling like a weight had been lifted off my chest, literally.

“Wha- so then why not speak to me?” He stammered.

“Can we just go now?” I attempted to turn around but he hooked a hand around my arm gently. “Please tell me.” He gently spoke. My tearful gaze met his, stomach knotting at the eye contact. I had two choices, be honest with him, or lie yet again.

“I just- I’m scared Max, of how soon it all is after your break up. Everything just happened so quickly.”

“You don’t have to be scared. I like you, Leni. Like, a lot more than you know.” My acrylic nail was now between my teeth, his confession was so beautiful, I just had this bothersome fear inside of me. “It’s too soon, Max.” I whispered, my guard slowly building itself back up.

“It’s not.”

“It is for me.” I felt his hand slip off my arm gently. The two of us didn’t speak for a few seconds, Max sighed, leaning forwards and beginning to use his thumb to wipe my tears away. “That’s ok.” Max lightly spoke. “I’m sorry, Max.” I whispered.

“It’s ok.” He hushed again, the proximity between us was so close, it was comfortable, but I was still slightly shell shocked from the whole confrontation between us.

“I don’t regret what happened on the yacht.” I then added on, calming down from my tearful state. Max’s larger hand remained on my cheek, just gazing down to me, creating the most intimate thing I’d ever experienced.

“Like… I want you so badly, Max.” I admitted, watching him gulp at my words. He looked so beautiful, he was so gentle with me, and his expression of his feelings towards me made me feel insane. “I want you.” He whispered back, my hand smoothing onto his chest.

“I just- we can’t- it’s so soon.” My head then dropped once more. Max shuffled forwards, arms wrapping around me as he embraced me in a gentle hug. “I will wait for you, Leni.” He spoke the most romantic words I’d ever heard. “If you want time then we can just go on as normal.” He hushed. I nodded, sinking deeper into his hold, hands flattening over his back. I was positive this would create the most gruelling tension between us both, but truth be told I was too wasted to even consider that.

“Just please, no more ignoring me…”

[thoughtsaboutbats]

When Tim first started seeing the harsh lines that form the boxes that now followed him around daily, he thought he was going crazy. They weren’t the first thing to make him think that of course, if they were the only sign he’d just think he needed to see an optometrist. No, the first thing to make him question his sanity was his conviction that Bruce was alive despite the literal corpse they had buried, just because of one painting that kinda looked like him.

The second sign was when he realized none of this was real. That one he had pushed hard against. Obviously the world was real, he was real, how else could he even be questioning his existence. He’s pretty sure that’s what Descartes was going on about (that’s the guy that said I think therefore I am, right? Tim wasn’t so sure. Philosophy wasn’t his thing).

This revelation had worried him so much he almost gave up his search for Bruce, and he had even been looking into antipsychotics when Ra’s ninjas found him in Paris. He didn’t tell them he thought their entire universe was fake of course, it wouldn’t do for Ra’s to know he was losing it, but he did lay out his evidence for Bruce being alive and lost in time, and they seemed convinced enough that it was possible, so he kept going. At least now he knew he wasn’t completely out of touch with reality. Probably. He didn’t think there was a reason Ra’s would have his people help Tim search for evidence that was all in his head but you never know with Ra’s.

The boxes had started appearing sometime between when Tim first encountered the ninjas and when he finally accepted their help. They were thin, practically non existent lines hovering in the air in seemingly random places. Sometimes they were big and distant, even going so far as looking like a strange line in the sky. Sometimes they were so close to him, they looked like someone was putting a frame around his face, or the person he was talking to’s.

He knew, instinctively that they were the reality of his fake world. The boxes he saw were the way people outside his reality saw what was happening. How they made it happen? He definitely didn’t have enough brain space to process that without actually going crazy. But he knew he wasn’t real, no one and nothing he knew was real. They were characters, playing their parts in the narrative.

Or he was going crazy.

But when he stumbled to his feet in that desert, blood pouring out of the hole in his abdomen where he had been stabbed through just a moment ago, surrounded by the corpses of the assassins he had befriended, Pru desperately trying to suck in air around the blood pour down her throat, he really didn’t care if he was crazy or not. They were hours out from the city at this point, and he had no clue where any nearer settlements were, let alone how to get to them without setting off any of the explosives buried in the sands. There was no hope of getting to the medical care they needed. Unless Tim wasn’t crazy, and he was actually seeing their hotel room, just a few short feet away though one of the boxes.

The decision to try to step through the box was easy. After some rudimentary first aid to slow the blood flow from both of their injuries, Tim pulled Pru up, looped her arm over his neck and dragged them both through the there-not there box.

What he saw as he traveled between boxes, between panels, was something he couldn’t describe properly if he tried. The closest he could get would be it was live stepping into a perfectly white room, no shadows anywhere, no way to tell where the floor became the wall. Except that one side of the room was full of windows that each showed snapshots of his life. He could see, just above his head, close enough he could reach into it if he tried, the moment that Widower had stabbed him. The words the widower had said in that moment floated there in neat little bubbles.

The other side of the room though, hurt to look at. Attempting to even look at it long enough to describe was like looking at the sun, except it was his brain that was overwhelmed rather than the photoreceptors of his eyes. He knew though, that that was where reality lay, and that trying to go over there would almost certainly destroy him.

Tim didn’t stop to stare at any of this though. His goal was to get Pru and himself into their hotel room and get help. In just a few short strides he was there. The angle this panel was at wasn’t nearly as convenient to step through as the first, as it was a downward shot of the room that left him with no choice but to basically jump down from the ceiling. He managed the jump without breaking a leg or dropping Pru though, and they both fell back onto the bed. He heard the door open and someone exclaim at the sight of them just before he passed out from blood loss.

[docholligay]

Yellowjackets S2 E3: Lottie and Nat

Hello! This is about up to Season 2, Episode 3 of Yellowjackets, and ONLY that of Yellowjackets. I have not seen beyond this spot, at all, and know NOTHING about this show. Please do not spoil it for me.  Things that are spoilery in nature, for me, include: saying things like  “Just wait!!” confirming or denying anything I put forward, outside information about the cast interviews or creator statements, leading questions like “Do you think “blank moment” means anything?” etc. Remember  that Y’ALL HAVE SEEN THE SHOW AND I HAVE NOT. This informs the way you  talk about things relating to the show. Just be really careful is all  I’m asking. Also: If there is LITERALLY any stance I  could take on this show or character that would make you upset, please  just fucking block the tag

If you WOULD like to discuss the show and my takes on it, the Discord is right here! I don’t go there, so it’s a great place to get every emotion out.

Please thank @sailorsunspot and @moonlight-frittata for backing this odd way of doing a liveblog, and remember my tip jar is always open

I’m going to combine the two because I only have a short amount to say about them individually, but I also wanted to a separate post, I don’t know. 

Nat spends a lot of this episode basically being a lens for Lottie’s organization, but one moment that I think is really good for her character is where Lisa is given the opportunity to hurt her back-- let’s not forget that Lottie essentially sics her on Nat--and you can see in Nat’s face that she assumes it will be done. THis is the only thing, even as an adult, that Nat understands, is that someone hurts you, and you hurt them back. 

Especially given that scene with Lisa and the chicken, which is meant to establish that she’s not soft and is perfectly capable of killing something. Also that she hates Nat. Which, I think given what Nat did, is fair enough. 

So the fact that she chooses NOT to hurt Nat, I think, and we’ll see if the writing feels the same way I do, rocks Nat. Because she can’t understand why you would have the opportunity to hurt someone who hurt you, and just fucking draw a line under it. It takes a lot. Nat is no longer in a position to hurt her, so she doesn’t have to take revenge. But she could. And she chooses not to. That takes some moral starch. Moral starch I’m not sure *I* have, but I would like to believe I do. Anyway, bewildering to Nat to drop that opportunity. 

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Nat at the end of it all, so this isn’t quite (yet) a criticism per se, but I will say I thought her killing herself would have been a really perfect narrative ending for her. I don’t think Nat can get back on the track. I think Natalie has spent a lot of time deciding that she’s a tragic fuckup, who cannot ever learn emotional vulnerability, and I think she’s posioning herself from the inside and I think she always will. 

I do not like Lottie, and in fairness, i think that’s a decision the show is completely happy with us making. Part of why I like this show so much is I think with every character, we are allowed to not like them or cheer for them. It’s a difficult thing to write, and I think by and large the show manages it well. Anyway, I don’t like or trust Lottie. 

Very interested however in this idea of ritual as a grounding force, that permeates Lottie’s character. Both in objectively woowoo ways, which both Taissa and I don’t really take to, but also in things like suggesting to hold a baby shower in the aftermath of eating Jackie. Baby showers are ritual! They aren’t religious, but social rituals are still rituals, and they ground us in difficult times. I perform rituals all the time, and sometimes I feel the religious element of it, but often as not the ritual itself, passed from generation to generation is sort of magic, and despite not liking Lottie I am fascinated with her inherent knowledge of this and how it comes to give her some level of power. 

The scene where she’s talking about the bees is so good. That when the first queen is born, she stings all the other queens to death, and that’s not brutality, that’s nature. Now, from that, if I didn’t know that she already survived I would assume Lottie got Taissa killed, though, Lottie being Lottie, I don’t think she would ever do it herself. Jackie is dead already. Were there other girls that were a threat to her rising power in the cabin, and that’s how they ended up running for their lives in a race they could not possibly win? It could very much be, “Oh, the forest demands that we sacrifice this girl who is a threat to me for reasons” but I could see it happening easily, and I could see Lottie justifying it to herself as nature. Same as with the bees keeping their queen warm--did the cabin almost come to exist for Lottie? I mean the girls, with a few exceptions rally around her, and Shauna’s blood on the symbol is rewarded with a bounty of dead birds. Lottie’s perservation of life is about violence. Her miracles are about blood. 

Which is an interesting--I’m going to use the word contrast here, but I don’t know if that’s quite what I mean--to the final scene with the bees and the blood. For all of this underwriting of violence as a natural act, when it comes to the death of the bees in the hive, Lottie is devastated. She feels out of control. 

Of course the bees are related to the girls: The name of the team is the fucking Yellowjackets for God’s sake, and I can pay at least that much attention. Important also is when Lottie refers to the hive as the original hive. We are about to have violence visited upon the survivors. Now, clearly L:ottie sees this presence as something from without, and it seems like the show is backing that play, though to what extent I’m never entirely sure. But when she was talking about the queen, stinging the other potential queens, she seemed to embrace that as natural, whereas she feels very much that this is not. 

And it isn’t! It’s another small moment in the “possibly Lottie is just nuts” pile, and it seems to be shaping up to be both, which I CAN really like we’ll see how it plays out. 

[apoptoses]

WHY did Anne not include Daniel and Thorne in Marius’ painting at the end of Blood Communion?? Did she just forget??

The fact that she didn’t include Tarquin Blackwood and Mona Mayfair I already expected, because it was plain she did not want to follow up on their story’s at all because she disregarded their characters completely in the first two prince Lestat books (while introducing 200 new characters who I personally didn’t care about)

But did she literally just forget Thorne and Daniel? Daniel!!! He was kind of the reason the VC came into existence, is he not? And Thorne! Who even has actual lines in last three books!?

I love Anne’s writing dearly but some choices she has made regarding these books are utterly incomprehensible to me. I’ll never understand.

Ah man, I hate it too but I feel like there were a lot of reasons. And idk if you wanted to mutually vent or wanted my Actual Thoughts but I always kinda look at it like-

Anne sucked at continuity lol Which happens if you're writing a series for over 40 years! Lestat's eyes have been blue and grey and violet, his age has mortal age changed, and he was her top blorbo so like you'd think she'd nail down the facts about him perfectly? But sometimes she goofed or changed stuff. Which is why I never sweat too hard about exact canon facts, if Anne herself didn't have perfect continuity and I can make up a reason for a little change that makes sense in my narrative idgaf I'm gonna do it.

I think Daniel was hard for her in the same way Louis was hard for her- they both are avatars of dark times in her life. Louis was her depression over her own daughter's death, Daniel she poured her struggles with alcoholism into. And I can get her side lining them both because of not wanting to revisit that headspace and those memories. Which sucks for fans of those characters but it is what it is.

I also get the impression that she didn't really know what to do with a mentally healthy vampire that doesn't have shitloads of baggage? Like when Daniel comes out of his rough years in PL he's really on top of things, and Anne's happy place is developing new tragic backstories so...for better or worse that's what she did lol

And re: the hundreds of new characters, there's a whole chapter in Conversations with Anne Rice where she talked about wanting to explore the stories of mature adults, specifically older men. The loss of her father weighed heavily on her and drew her to create characters like David Talbot, and to lean harder into the story of guys like Marius who was 40-something in mortal body but thousands of years old in spirit. So you really see that with her later books, outside of Benji and Sybelle (who also get sidelined) and Rose and Viktor (who...same) she zero'd in on older vampires because that's what held her interest.

NOT THAT I DON'T ALSO HATE IT, I mean, obviously Daniel is a top favorite of mine. So take all of that, add in the fact that she didn't really use an editor and thus did exactly what she wished for all her work, and I think the conclusion is that she just lost interest/couldn't get a story going for them and so she left them out of the mural.

But god do I feel your pain, my kingdom for more content about established characters like Daniel, Bianca, Riccardo, Thorne and less random characters that didn't have enough page time to really develop 😢

[kamenstranger]

Batman: Caped Crusader Review.

Well, I didn't expect to be reviewing another cartoon so soon but I forgot this was still happening and here we are. So much like X-men '97 I will be getting into spoilers, even some finale stuff. But it's nothing you probably wouldn't already know. Like is saying something along the lines of "Harvey becomes Two-Face" or "Selina becomes Catwoman" really a spoiler? Still, if you want to go in completely clean then I'll give short spoiler-free summary: It's fine. It's good, even very good. It has enough going on without being overly reliant on nostalgia, though a lot concepts and ideas that never made it into TAS are used; which is obvious in some episodes like 2 and 8 which honest to god feel like lost episodes (sans the obnoxious references in 8.) But even a number of other episodes feel like they could've fit right in.

Likewise, the animation is simply lovely and feels like an appropriate continuation of the DCAU while also working as a throw back to TAS with its use of shadows and art deco design. They even have a film grain effect that looks shockingly good; uplifting the show's late 30s early 40s aesthetic by adding some literal grit. I've seen numerous productions go overboard with adding grain in post, but Caped Crusader keeps it very subtle and is probably the best you're going to do with a modern production. Frederik Wiedmann's score also complements the atmosphere, adding that quintessential gothic noir vibe. The entire soundtrack is on youtube and is well worth listening in isolation.

If I had one compliant... it's that Batman is the weakest and most underwritten part of the show. Regardless, the show has enough quality elements to make it worth a watch.

However, if you're interested in leaning more about my thoughts, hit the jump.

Let's start with some background information. Contrary to how it seems, this isn't nor was it ever intended to be a prequel to TAS-- at least that's what they say. It was originally a sequel to The New Batman Adventures before transmogrifying into another 30s-ish setting and using abandoned episode concepts from TAS along with completely original works. A number of episodes at the very least feel like they were written with a prequel mindset, and the final shot of the series was absolutely conceptualized as lead-in to TAS and is begging for the Walker Theme to kick in. But despite how much this could work as a prequel with just a few tweaks, I think making it disconnected was the right call. For one thing, with Conroy gone I don't think you could ever make something that leads into that very specific version of Batman, it wouldn't feel right. Secondly, it allows the series to stand on it's own and not rely on TAS as a crutch; even if comparisons are inevitable with the period setting and Bruce Timm's designs. Additionally the tone of the series is right in line with The Animated Series, only slightly darker and never going overboard just to be considered "adult." Characters say damn, people die, sometimes there's blood, the occasional gruesome character design, some stories are super pulpy and even have a slower pace than what they would've done on network TV for Y7+. But otherwise this would've fit fine on Toonami back in the day and the option to go darker is there should the story demand it. I will admit I'm a bit of an easy mark for this, particularly the heavy pulp elements that remind of The Shadow and The Spider.

On that note, Cape Crusader is a bit more basic in terms of setting and scope. I'm using "basic" loosely because there are still some eccentricities like Gentleman Ghost showing up, but outside the one supernatural aspect-- and an umbrella cannon-- there's nothing too crazy. No Freeze guns, mutant plant ladies, robots, Lazarus pits, mind controlling cards, airships etc. Clayface might be the one other outlier, but even that's just a guy who can change his appearance, not a big clay monster who can form a mace hand. I'm perfectly fine with all of this. We've already had a vintage Batman series that did all that anyway, so why not do something a little different and keep it simple? In maintaining that simplicity, most of CC is episodic with a larger narrative sprinkled throughout: Ruport Thorne is slowly taking over Gotham and begins trying to leverage Harvey Dent who is running for Mayor. That's it, that's the main plot. The more nitty-gritty parts largely center on relatively self contained adventures around the trio of Lawyer Barbara Gordon, GCPD detective Renee Montoya, and Therapist Harleen Quinzel.

It's a decent compromise between how involved modern shows have become sprawling season long stories while still maintaining the appeal of a self contained case in any given episode.

Of the three, Barbara (Krystal Joy Brown) has the most active role throughout the entire run and is arguably the main character of the show. She's compassionate about people, her clients, criminals and their circumstances. She has a strong balance between someone who is optimistic yet not naive, although still young enough to not have the harsher experiences as her father. This allows a contrast between her and Gordon's world weary, almost Black and White POV. In fact, her willingness to hear people out and consider alternatives leads to her establishing a form of contact with Batman before her father.

Renee Montoya (Michelle C. Bonilla) is about on par with Barbara in playing an active role in the series, albeit almost always work related for obvious reasons. She's a consummate professional, brilliant detective and the only trustworthy cop outside Gordon. That last part is particularly note worthy since it actually gives Gordon a reliable subordinate and not just Bullock. She has solid chemistry with Barbara and there's a lot of untapped potential with her and Harley. And hey, nice to get little bit of the two dating and smooching. Speaking of, Harley (Jamie Chung) is surprisingly prominent in the first half and I love how they handle her. She's legit intelligent and even knows there's something up with the public perception of Bruce. She's quirky without rehashing the whole bubbly blonde routine, she's delightfully flirty with Renee and she's also fucking demented. Oh yes, Harley is already cracked, but in a curious way where she's not exactly insane but clearly has a dark side she indulges. Honestly? Really neat to see a version of a character not influenced by Joker. She's still a Harlequin, of course, but much more traditional and I love that we don't waste time going through an origin. She just uses her therapist profession as a means to hash out her idea of justice against clients she can't reach, often mind breaking rich jackasses who refuse to better themselves. Harley assigns them personalities and forces repetitive tasks or absurd tortures. In a cute little meta nod she's responsible for creating the persona of King Tut, a character originally created for the '66 show, just as she was a creation for TAS.

I also have to mention Chung's voice acting, which the VA in the show is great all around, of course. But villain roles always get to stick out, and this is a prime example. The shift between that very intelligent caring quirky woman to… what I can only call an analytical seductive manipulator and abuser, well it's just wonderful. We've had so much of bubbly Quinn and silly crass Quinn that this version is so refreshing and one of the most pleasant surprises out of the show.

There are other characters outside the trio, but I simply don't have much to say about Gordan, Flass, or Bullock. The VA is impeccable, as previously mentioned; I love Eric Morgan's Gordon, Gary Anthony Williams' Flass and John DiMaggio's Bullock. Perfect casting. But character wise they simply serve a role and I don't have much to say about them. Gordon is, well, Gordon trying his best among a corrupt department full of people like Flass and Bullock. Flass himself is brilliantly sly and Bullock is a slob who does all the dirty work. I will say that even if I don't have much to go into with them, I do appreciate how much Flass and Bullock are featured and how effectively they're utilized.

The only major reoccurring character left to go in-depth on, outside Batman, is Harvey Dent; ironically voiced by Brave and the Bold Batman, Diedrich Bader. Harvey is… odd in this series. He's a dick headed "tough on crime" sleazy DA who is self interested in becoming Mayor, no matter who he has to steamroll to get there. On one hand it is an interesting angle; a man of once upstanding morals slowing eroding them to gain political favor with the ultimate goal of proper reform-- assuming he even has any left by the end of it. There is an inkling of a great idea in the political process of Gotham grinding you down, bringing out your worst, makes you compromise too much. The system changes you, not the other way around.

The issue is the tragedy of a good if flawed man giving into his worse impulses doesn't entirely work due to the simple fact we hardly see a good side to Harvey. No signs of a different better person underneath or who he used to be before DA. The show only gives Harvey one very minor scene of empathy and moral upstanding before his disfigurement, so he kinda goes from jaded cynical asshat to homicidal asshat. To give the show credit, that is in part the intent. We don't like Harvey all that much but still feel bad when we see how sad and broken he is, all because he finally did something good and he's punished for it. The episode dealing with the aftermath of the acid attack is really solid at showcasing his slip into insanity and drawing forth pathos. In a bubble it works beautifully; A man who was already breaking, even if they didn't know, now thinks everyone is out to get him. Almost every invasive thought is acted upon. They also don't make Two-Face the default or more common of the personas, it's a lot of back and forth. Harvey is relatively calm one moment but suddenly becomes violent the next. Hell, he even has moments of clarity and great remorse not only for his actions as Two-Face but as DA. The episode is handled very well and Bader is selling the hell out of it. I just wish there was more before that change, a little more to like about Harvey Dent. Bruce was friends with this guy and from an audience perspective it's kinda hard to see why, Harvey is a shit head, an absolute knob. I dunno, Batman is kind of dick in this so maybe there's something to be said there? But even so, his dynamic with Barbara is FAR more engaging and nuanced than with Bruce because Barbara has more impactful scenes and is the direct opposite of the same coin. I kinda wonder if the stuff with Bruce was something shoved in at the last minute because they felt they had to. Which I guess that finally bring me to Batman, who you may have noticed I've talked very little about in this Batman show up until now.

Batman is a boring wet white rice motherfucker with barely a character arc and almost no connections to the main cast.

Oh sure, every episode has Batman doing things that move the plot along, provides some very minor characterization or some plain 'ol detective work which is fun to see. But even when he does investigating, finds a clue, confronts a villain etc. it feels lacking because his interactions with the rest of the cast are severely limited and sporadic.

Batman himself is integral to the show, but he's more like an anchor for the rest of the cast who have far more captivating screen time and better defined relationships. Babs is friends with Harley and Renee, Harley and Renee are dating, Renee works for Gordon, Barbara is of course Gordon's daughter, Harley has a brief stint as a consultant for the GCPD, and Harvey works opposite Barbara. These people flow into each others stories, converse, have opposing or similar ideologies to make stories around. Batman lock picks and punches things. I mean, Christ, he doesn't have a friendship with Gordon because this is long before that, he treats Alfred like a valuable tool rather than family and he has more empathy for Nocturna in a one off episode than Harvey over the entire season. I'm serious when I say I think the friendship was tacked on, because there's a line in ep 6 about Dent's biggest donors pulling out of his campaign, implying Bruce never gave any money. Maybe they could've made an entire subplot about the Batman aspect taking so much priority that he ignored Dent's troubles until it was too late. Have Batman learn a lesson about balancing the personas and how Bruce Wayne can be equally useful in aiding Gotham-- and the consequences of forgetting that. Maybe even intersperse flashbacks to a younger Bruce and more optimistic and likeable Dent to show why and how they became friends. This could've been done in a two-parter just like how Robin was handled in TAS.

For the instances the show does put a spotlight on just Batman it's simply going through the motions. The best we get is Bruce Wayne attending therapy sessions with Quinn, which is a great concept ultimately wasted on flashbacks of Bruce's childhood I've seen a dozen times over and maybe should've been used to explore his relationship with Dent.

Another reason why this Batman is so bland is because there are almost no sympathetic villains, which you've probably gathered by now. Harvey in the last episode and Nocturna in ep. 8 are the only two that fit the criteria (And frankly Barbara does more to help Harvey.) But everyone else? No tragic backstory, no victim of circumstance, no injustice, and no chance to showcase Batman's greatest attribute. On paper I understand what they were going for; this is an early Batman attempting (and sometimes failing) to be emotionally walled off. He's in the background, he needs to learn to open up and temper his anger. Midway into the season have something drastic happen to shake his resolve (endangering Alfred, of course)

By the end of the series he begins casually referring to him as Alfred rather than "Pennyworth" and he's established connections with Barbara, Jim and Renee. I don't dislike this slow burn, I enjoy seeing Batman's humanity slowly seep through. The series has a lot of great little moments where we see that happening, like Batman chastising Barbara for being reckless right after she saved his ass and a friend of hers is assumed dead. She's going through a lot and Batman clearly doesn't know how to processes the situation, he doesn't know how to be comforting.

There's also a great scene in the finale that I'm pretty sure was a giant middle finger to a certain director. The problem is the entire season is doing things like that. Sure we get growth for the character, but that's grueling for a 10 episode season. Maybe it's just me, but I'd kinda like to be more invested in the title character before the season finale. But as is so often the case with streaming we're limited to just 10 episodes per season. It's... so tiresome spending an entire run getting Batman to a state where we can actually tie him in with the rest of the ensemble cast and show some goddamn empathy. I realize rushing through this could result in the opposite problem, but this once again leads to me pointing out, as always, the stories writers want to tell are too big for these gimped 6-10 episode season the modern streaming has pushed on all of us. You know the first season of The Animated Series was a whopping 65 episodes? I probably wouldn't be talking about this problem if we even had a quarter of that.

I do want to stress this is no fault of the performance, which I know is going to be on everyone's mind. This is a problem with writing, the limited episode count, and possibly Zaslav not seeing enough blood in his stool before dumping this production onto Amazon. Conroy alone wouldn't have been enough to elevate the more shallow aspects of Batman's character, it just wouldn't. The writing for Batman specifically is very by the numbers at best. If this was material that fell flat because of Conroy's absence that would be one thing, but it's just bland characterization from the get go and no amount of nostalgia, art style, or iconic voice work will cover that up. It's kind of funny because the show is enjoyable by in large, but the title character is the weakest part. I wouldn't be surprised if a great deal of the mixed reception was because of that. "Batman is the worst part of a Batman show" is a perfectly valid and damning criticism.

That said, I do want to praise Hamish Linklater, the poor guy's got his work cut out for him, being in the Shadow of the Bat, as it were, and he does a fine job. I can tell it's not Conroy, obviously, and sometimes it sounds like a mix of Brave and the Bold with New Frontier Batman where I'm not sure if he's trying to do an impression or not. But midway through the series it starts to get really close, there are even moments that remind me of Conroy's performance in TAS' Two-Face two parter, glimpses where Linklater almost has the softer tones down pat. And his Bruce is damn near spot on. I hope he stays on as a voice for Batman and gets more opportunities as the character, he could potentially become to Conroy's Batman what Matthew Lillard is to Casey Kasem's Shaggy; It's not the same, but goddamn do they do a fine job capturing the tone and vibe while being a fine performer in their own right.

But they have GOT to give him better material because this Batman is sorely lacking in the things I love most about the character.

Speaking of, I don't want to spend too long discussing the second season (Which it is getting) but I have concerns there. The big one for me is foreshadowing that Alfred is keeping a secret about the night the Waynes were shot. I HATE when they over complicate the murder and try to make it something more like a targeted hit, or the court of owls or some other stupid shit. That's the one major thing I hate in The Batman movie is them muddying the waters with a perfectly good victim of circumstance story-- although it's kinda worse there because they wouldn't even fully commit. But I digress. I do not want the shit with the Waynes more complicated than it needs to be. If Alfred suggested a shortcut and he feels responsible for their deaths, sure, whatever. That's simple enough to add some character drama without going overboard. But it's probably gonna be the big overarching story next season with secret twists and- blegh. Honestly, I think I'd rather just have stand alone episodes without a running narrative thread; just have the characters and their dynamics developing and that be it. The show is clearly better when it's just that. But alas, modern streaming.

But with all that said, I still liked the season well enough. As I said at the beginning, the series is good to very good. I love the atmosphere, I enjoy most of the character and the cast, the self contained stories are solid and there's plenty of potential. But next season I need Batman and the villains to be more interesting, let Linklater give a sympathetic performance for fucks sake. If Season 2 is just more of the same, I'll clock out.

Still, I guess anything is better than say Harley assaulting Nightwing... Or the Killing Joke. You know what, there's a blurb of recommendation for Caped Crusader: "No weirdo awkwardly shoved their fetishes into the story." So check it out.

[bellesque]

Midnight's Mischief

A Loki x Reader fic

AO3

Part 3

Word Count: 2265

A/N: all the things i want to say to preface can easily be summed up by saying: i'm rusty, please forgive me

***

“Steady now, princess.”

Easy for him to say—he’s managed to keep his posture perfectly pristine as the light around you dissipates and its last bright streaks glow behind your eyelids. You’re a little dizzy and disoriented—like you’ve just stepped off a rollercoaster and still can’t come to terms with the fact the ground is solid and unmoving. You straighten on shaky knees, and Prince Loki places a hand on the small of your back.

His lips quirk in amusement. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I think—for the most part, at least.”

Loki nods at you, then at the figure standing atop the golden platform that sits at the middle of the circular chamber you’ve somehow found yourself in. “Heimdall,” he greets.

“Prince Loki.”

Loki notices your puzzled expression. “He sees all,” he provides simply.

It doesn’t clarify things at all, but you nod once as if you understand. “Ah.”

“This is his observatory. We’ve traveled through the Bifrost.”

You look up at Loki, the only familiar presence in this strange, bright room. It feels like… you shouldn’t be here. You’re an outsider, a foreigner—he looks like you, but it’s clear, in this golden observatory, that he is from another world.

Literally.

“Your father is waiting,” Heimdall cuts through your spiraling thoughts. “You must not keep him.”

Loki exhales air from his nostrils, his chest heaving slowly, before he faces you with a small smile. “Right. Well. Off we go then, princess. Perhaps the Norns will hear your prayers if you ask that Odin’s in a good mood.”

“You brought her back?!”

The aged man with a single eye booms on the golden dais in front of you, causing you to startle and shrink behind Loki’s tall form. He, on the other hand, seems unperturbed.

“I couldn’t just leave her on Midgard,” he says. If he’s nervous, he doesn’t seem to show it.

“You should have.”

The man on the throne must be Odin.

You’re not very sure he’s fond of you.

Although it’s your first time meeting him, you mentally mark that you’re not too fond of him either.

You’d say something, bark out an acidic reply, but instinct tells you to hold your tongue. Only if you were being honest and paid close attention to the holes in Loki’s story, you’d be questioning his credibility. He told you Odin helped him find you—so why does it seem like he’s completely enraged by your presence?

Odin squeezes his eye shut. You imagine if he had two, to somehow lighten the weight of confusion and fear in your bloodstream.

It doesn’t help.

As if answering your silent question, he speaks after a measured exhale. “I helped you find her only to establish that you’ve made a mistake—a dire one at that—to keep you accountable.”

The comment stings. A mistake. But Odin goes on, not paying an ounce of attention to you, and furthers—

“She is a liability to you.”

“My responsibility,” Loki corrects swiftly.

“Asgard’s liability.”

Odin’s mouth flattens into a thin line. “You should have left her, Loki,” he repeats, barely controlling his tone.

You watch Loki’s head tip skyward from where you stand. “And if she’d died because of me?” he demands.

Something in you lurches at his words. Whatever danger Loki put you in, you didn’t expect your life to be on the line.

Oh, mercy. You haven’t even crossed off bungee jumping from your bucket list. Even that sounds tame in comparison to…

As if sensing your reaction to his words, Loki takes a step back to place a hand on your back. “I couldn’t let that happen,” he says in a softer tone.

Odin, however, hasn’t changed in mien. “Then it would have been a lesson for you. Not to dalliance on Midgard and put innocent people in harm’s way in favor of your recklessness!”

“It was a just a ring, by the gods!”

“It may be perceived as an act of war!” Odin roars.

The hall grows quiet. Even Loki is stunned.

Odin exhales again, clearly trying to regain composure. “Did you put it back?” he asks.

The prince doesn’t answer. Odin bangs a fist.

“Loki, did you put it back?”

He has the sense not to look up at his father. “Well, there’s a ring,” he mumbles vaguely.

Odin’s eyes narrow. You don’t completely understand how everything ties together—you, the ring, a possible war—and now is definitely not the time to ask.

“Is it with her?” He looks pointedly at you.

“What? No. Of course not.”

“Do not lie to me to protect—”

“I’m not lying!” Loki bristles as he steps forward and once again, shields you from his father’s wrath with his tall frame.

Odin regards you with a guarded eye. “The ring’s magic. It’s on her.”

Aaaand your mind stops. There’s magic on you? But you’ve felt fine all this time. Sure, you were a little disappointed when you didn’t hear from Loki, but you wouldn’t chalk that up to magic. It wasn’t like you were being mind-controlled or puppeteered by anything.

To your knowledge, at least.

You squash down any other thought before it forms.

“That, ah…” Loki coughs, lets out a single chuckle, as though to ease the tension. Odin’s eyebrow rises. Loki clears his throat.

“Might be because I may have kissed her.”

Your cheeks flame. Loki glances at you, offering you a charming albeit weak smile.

“That explains why it’s a very faint pulse,” Odin mutters. He seems unfazed by the knowledge that you and Loki shared a kiss. “A small relief.”

“Though still enough to track her, yes?”

Nothing in this conversation has made a lick of sense to you, but you’ve been trying to hang onto every word nonetheless… until that.

“I believe so.”

Tracked. It triggers something stored in the deeper recesses of your brain with the speed of a switch being flicked on. The notion that you’ve been tracked since the night of the costume ball makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Despite your best efforts not to show just how rattled you are, instinctively your hand rushes to fist the back of Loki’s tunic.

Your heartbeat pounds in your ears, making your head throb; at the same time, you feel yourself go lightheaded—then, cold and hot at the same time. It doesn’t make any sense.

It’s like you’re doused in ice cold water. The bite of reality is harsh.

None of this makes any sense—where you are, what’s happening, the implications of a possibly stolen ring that could possibly start a war with who-knows-where, and what you might possibly have to do with all of this. Panic starts to mount, building from your belly and spidering throughout your veins.

“—never mind the Midgardian girl—”

Breathe. You have to consciously remind yourself to breathe as it finally sinks in that you are somewhere else that isn’t Earth, there’s a possible war and oh shit that word alone pingpongs in your brain. Magic? Tracking? Possible death? All things that are apparently, very real.

“—you must return the ring to Vanaheim—”

Maybe this is some very bizarre dream. Maybe… maybe you fell asleep on the couch, thinking about Prince Loki, and somehow started lucid dreaming that he came into your apartment to whisk you away into a fantasy world. Yes—that seems like a rational, logical explanation.

You pinch yourself—and wince.

Your mind starts to reel while the pounding of your blood gets more intense.

Breathe, you take a shuddering breath, and close your eyes—

You don’t have the energy to stop yourself from crumpling to the floor behind Loki in this strange room.

My presence is strong, and the Norns know they must have been tracking you as well.

Though still enough to track her, yes?

It could have been perceived as an act of war!

They float in and out of your unconscious mind. Yes, a dream, that’s what this is—another one of those hyperactive REM cycles where your brain conjures up things your cognizant self could never think of on its own.

Coolness ripples over your skin as a woman gently commands, “Wake.”

Your eyes fly open, vision blurry as you adjust to the white and golden ceiling of…

Definitely not your apartment. Your heart sinks. Not a dream.

“There. All fine. Satisfied, Loki? You could have done it yourself, you know.”

“There’s much I’ve yet to learn from you, Mother, and observing you is most effective.”

There’s a smile in her voice. “You mustn’t lie to your own mother, dearest.” Fondness.

“But it’s true.”

“I taught you this simple spell when you were but a boy.”

“So it seems I’ve forgotten it in the long years I haven’t had the need to use it.”

“Hmm.” There’s amusement in her tone now.

A woman bent over you comes into focus, her motherly aura overpowering the other first impression that fights for a place in your mind. Regal—if not her posture, her bronzy gown and shiny jewels decorating the crown of her head are a dead giveaway.

“Welcome back to the waking world, princess,” Prince Loki grins, pushing off the wall he was leaning against to approach you. “Next time you decide to faint, please do so in front of me. That’s where my eyes are, you see, not the back of my head. I’ll be better equipped to catch you then.”

As you sit up, you note that Loki’s lost some of his serious air here—not that he was severely serious to begin with. Given the nature of the conversation before you blacked out—war, liabilities, kingdoms at stake probably—of course it would have been unwise for him to have the kind of playful, teasing glint his eyes currently assess you with.

“You’re in the infirmary,” the woman tells you, ignoring Loki like she’s used to his antics. “My name is Frigga.”

“My mother,” Loki supplies.

You nod once, slowly, your chin bowing for a cycle of breath. “I take it I’m still…” You raise your head, hesitating, not wanting to verbalize the end of your sentence.

“Still on Asgard?” The corners of Frigga’s mouth pull upward in quiet understanding.

Your heart manages to sink a second time. You nod.

“This is all real?”

“Which part of it, my dear?”

All of it. Being tracked. Magic. A world that isn’t Earth. You stare at Frigga, hoping she can comprehend what your eyes try to convey.

The compassion in her eyes says enough.

Would it be embarrassing to cry right now?

Oh, go right ahead. You’ve already fainted in front of Loki’s dad within 10 minutes of meeting him—well, sort of meeting—let’s cry in front of his mom and bring the record of embarrassing yourself in front of Loki’s parents down to 2 minutes.

“I’m sure this must all be very overwhelming, but time does happen to be of the essence in this certain situation,” Frigga says delicately.

“I did bring you here without even sparing you a moment to change out of your… er…” Loki puzzles over your outfit: a worn sweater and leggings.

“Pajamas.”

“Right.”

“And overwhelmed is definitely an understatement.” You bite your lip, fisting the linen sheet draped over your body. How is the ceiling so impossibly high? Why does the scenery outside the arched window across your bed look so familiar and yet so foreign? It’s green: plantation. You have that on Earth. If you tried hard enough, you could convince yourself that you’re still there.

But you aren’t.

“I’d like to go home,” you say, meeting Loki’s and Frigga’s eyes. But as soon as the words are out of your mouth, you remember why you’re here in the first place.

Loki looks at you, seriousness making a brief appearance once more. “Can’t have you going where you’re likely to be found. Like I told you on Midgard, you are safer here. Under my protection.”

Frigga hides her snort of laughter behind a fist. “Well, this surely is a first from you, my son.”

Loki turns to his mother with raised eyebrows. Frigga’s eyes twinkle with mirth; she stands and kisses his cheek, and then turns to you.

“Before you make your decision…” You fidget under her intense motherly gaze. “You should know the predicament you’re in. I trust my son to be forthcoming with you.” She looks pointedly at Loki.

“I’m anything but.”

“Forthcoming and honest, Loki.”

“Yes, mother.”

She turns on her heel, and it seems both you and Loki wait until the sound of her footsteps fade from earshot. With a wave of his hand and wisps of green shimmers, a chair materializes next to your bed. Your jaw drops.

Loki seems pleased with your reaction, settling into the tufted chair with a grin on his face.

“So, princess.” He sobers ever so slightly. “Shall I start with the good or the bad?”

“Uh.” You huff out a disbelieving, nervous chuckle. “Maybe let’s start with why I’m here before we touch on why there are good and bad things.”

A thoughtful look crosses Loki’s face. “Fair.”

“So?” You glance at the greenery outside the window, and when your eyes meet Loki’s, you notice that they bear a striking similarity. Vibrant, rich.

Loki is quiet for a moment. He doesn’t look away, but holds your gaze; it reminds you suddenly of the waltz you shared. It feels like forever ago.

“So,” Loki begins lightly, “there may or may not be a corpse involved.”

[squarebracketsmileyface]

do u still want songs bc.. don't blame me by james marriott is kina a sorry its locked song

I'm always in need of songs, and oh my GOD how did I not already put this one in the playlist holy shit. It's so fucking perfect, like wtf how did I not think of it myself, you're a genius.

And now I begin a too long analysis of the lyrics in relation to Sorry It's Locked, because I can't help myself and it's the only way I can explain how perfect this song is for Jay and Alex in that damn fic.

You touch me too softly And I know what that means That you don't really love me As morose as it seems

Jay knows, deep down, that Alex being all sweet to him, kissing him on the cheek and the top of the head and cuddling him and all that, doesn't actually mean that Alex loves him. He's hopeful, he wants to believe it, but he knows deep down that Alex doesn't really love him and that it's all either to make him feel better, or to build him up so that Alex can tear him down all over again.

Alex rarely ever touches him softly, that's not their thing, so the sudden change (outside of, like, aftercare after scenes) is super noticeable and instead of being like "Oh maybe he likes me" it just highlights to Jay how Alex doesn't really love him.

When I leave I'll pull on the last of our strings And you'll see That there's always the next thing There's always the next thing

This bit feels more like Alex's thoughts about the whole thing, he's pulling on all the strings of Jay's love and affection so that he can break his heart and "save him" from everything by making him hate him enough to finally actually leave for good and stop trying to help. "There's always the next thing" is Alex trying to force Jay to move on. Obviously that doesn't happen, Jay's completely infatuated and no matter how badly Alex hurts him he'll always want to come back and help him.

From Alex's perspective he's doing something good, breaking Jay's heart by getting his hopes up and then dashing them is for the greater good, it's to save Jay from the Operator. He's giving Jay the chance to live, to move on and find "the next thing".

I'm cutting our ties That's all I can do (Don't blame me) Don't act surprised It's only for you (Don't blame me)

This bit is very Sorry It's Locked, like, this perfectly explains Alex's fucked up thought process about everything he's doing (literally, this explains it better than I did in the Alex pov fic I wrote to try and explain Alex's thinking lmao (in my defence tho, I wrote it to try and fix my procrastination so it was never gonna be great))

The best of our times were the worst of your life Tell me who you're lying to Cover your eyes but peer through the lines 'Cause when I cry, it's only for you

Ouch "The best of our times were the worst of your life" literally just the perfect explanation of Jay and Alex's relationship. Jay's lying only to himself when he tries to act like there was anything good about that relationship and like it wasn't something they both should have called off way before they did (or shouldn't have started in the first place)

All I did was agree To mask all the missteps for our chemistry Was it all you had dreamed? Was I all you hate but you knew that I'd be

This whole bit honestly feels like they'd be sung by both of them (why is this suddenly a duet? Why are they suddenly in a musical? God knows, it's the only way I can explain how this song fits them lol) Like, they both hid how their relationship wasn't healthy, mostly by just not talking about it and acting like they were just friends when they were with their other friends.

"Was it all you had dreamed?" Again, both of them. They knew neither of them were going to change. Jay realised early on that he wasn't going to get anything real with Alex, but he stayed anyway and that kinda made him hate Alex (just in a way that even Jay himself doesn't really realise it's resentment). Alex realised too late that Jay wasn't going to change, that he wasn't going to hate him no matter how much he tries, but he keeps trying to make him hate him anyway.

They were both exactly what they knew they'd be to each other, and they hated it but there was nothing they could do to change it.

I'm cutting our ties That's all I can do (Don't blame me) Don't act surprised It's only for you (Don't blame me)

The best of our times were the worst of your life Tell me who you're lying to Cover your eyes but peer through the lines 'Cause when I cry, it's only for you

Same as above.

No, this path never stops And I'm already sick of the next mountain top No, this high couldn't last In a moment it'll move on and stay in the past

Jay. JAY.

Even back in uni he was so sick of the way his not-relationship with Alex made him feel. They fucked -> he felt amazing -> they went their separate ways -> Jay felt like absolute shit because he knew it'd never mean to Alex what it meant to him. He was just on a constant rollercoaster of the highest highs plummeting into the lowest lows, but the adrenaline of the climb and the drop was so exhilarating (and all that he knew) that it just kept him on the rollercoaster indefinitely.

Then Alex moved away, and uni ended, and for Jay everything was finally gonna be in the past and he could move on. Except he didn't move on because he was unfortunately still infatuated with Alex, hence why all the relationships he tried to have after Alex just didn't work and were only ever about sex.

I have now decided that Jay never kissed any of the people he had relationships with after Alex.

We were never in love So when we were fucking who were you thinking of? No, I'm never enough And I'll fall from your hands straight into your gloves

Again. JAY.

They were never in love and he knew and knows that, but god if he doesn't wish that wasn't true.

Second line... ow. We know exactly who Alex was supposedly thinking of: Amy. (he wasn't thinking of Amy, he just said that to hurt Jay. Dude practically forgot that Amy existed once he had Jay back)

"No, I'm never enough" Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay Jay J

My poor baby and his absolutely dogshit self confidence.

No, this path never stops And I'm already sick of the next mountain top No, this high couldn't last In a moment it'll move on and stay in the past

We were never in love So when we were fucking who were you thinking of? No, I'm never enough And I'll fall from your hands straight into your gloves

Same as above :]

[izzysarchivedblogs]

BEING DRUNK WOULD NOT HELP UNDERSTAND THAT ANY BETTER.

Nor does knowing Machine Man was involved. Clint's had faced Nyx the Greek Goddess, and than joined up with the Avengers for a whole world ending event again, and the Carnage symbiote, and yet he still felt like he was out of the loop. Which was the case, he had been and coming back to a Fisk ran city. Machine Man being involved did not help the ai rights thing. Actually he could understand the rights thing, but it sounded like it was a whole ai war situation. TOO MANY DAMN WARS.

Yeah, he was definitely finding himself out of touch, a split duality between wanting to further detach himself and find his way back with everything, with everyone. Clint had ended up on one end of that, further pushing himself from everyone else, spinning out of control, but continuing to do this hero thing solo. He didn't know anything else; Captain America never handed him a manual that said once you do the superheroics once you were in it for life.

Too bad for Clint, his foot was already in the grave of never having a life outside of the extremes, outside of being THE BOWMAN. So being detached, feeling this far out from who he once was and his connection to the superhero community as a whole? All Clint's got is the gallows humor to cope with a lot of revelations coming as he starts with rebuilding himself, and that started with recovery and addressing his alcoholism.

BREAKFAST WAS NICE. That's an addition to tipping the scale towards it being an okay day, he had to started to look at days and judging them by imagining a literal scale the kind with two sides. It was a balancing act, a lot of good things and silver linings tipped it over to a good day and the reverse could be true. There could be neutral days, but thinking of things as a scale led to the thought that no day was permanent good or bad or neutral; it was all about what was adding up. THIS WAS A WEIGHT TO THE GOOD.

❝ Your eggs were like the goldilocks without the just right part. Both overcooked like mama bear and undercooked like papa bear. ❞ HE STILL DOESN'T GET HOW HAPPENS. Yet than he remembers that Tony made grill cheese sandwiches by microwaving them. So suddenly that thought made things make sense.

GOD DAMN IT CLINT. He'll take that as a massive compliment, biting into his own breakfast with a smirk. Yeah, he knew he was good. How do you think his marriage with Bobbi worked out? The woman could only boil water in a lab, someone had to be the one to cook for date nights. ❝ It's the milk with the egg and perfectly cooked bacon. ❞ He thinks he's gotten his omelet recipe down is what he was saying.

Okay, I'm gonna say this in a completely no pressure way. FUCK, TOO LATE FOR THAT. Clint braces himself for Tony is about to say, trying not to feel the pressure that statement immediately triggers. THIS COULD BE BAD.

So I've cleared my schedule. THAT'S TOO MUCH. It's putting into perspective that this was something important and major, which it was and proving the point that IT WAS. Asking for help had been tough, rehab had been tough, and now he's trying to figure out where he molds into life again; how to be sober and how to find himself, like himself again. Having help that he asked for, having this matter to him and matter to his friend, that Tony saw this as a priority.

❝ You didn't have to do that. ❞ He honestly won't mind when Brandy is here, watching a baby would be something to distract and do; a reason to really control himself and do better. A motivator to stick with what he's started.

Put me where you want me to be and I'll be there. SHIT. HE'S GOTTA DO SOMETHING. Clint already feels indebted. It's a feeling he's always struggled with, felt like he owned his life and lot things to Captain America, to Steve Rogers. He wouldn't have been the man he once liked without him. He wants to be that guy again.

❝ Uh, yeah; you can, I don't know. Be in your lab or something? I'll try to start calling about... setting myself up some appointments. ❞ Doctor about the cast and looking for a therapist, he's not doing it daily or even weekly; maybe therapy every two weeks just to help himself stay on track with this. ❝ I don't know, you can treat me just like a roommate or like how we were when we'd live together like the avengers and west coast too. ❞

He actually hadn't thought about how this would work, but he did want someone in close proximity when he had those really bad days since the important thing that his therapist Lynette at rehab had drilled in his head, that this was a not a linear path; it was not a straight path, there would be really bad days and good days, and sometimes the good would last long and sometimes the bad could drag on for days. It all came down to work, making it work and taking it by the day like a balancing scale. Don't let the bad outweigh everything. Or the potential for bad.

Tony lets the joke slide, neither laughing or admonishing him for it. He got gallows humor and it was Clint's neck in the gallows. If he can't joke about being drunk, who could? "Well let me tell you, I don't think it'll help. Just know that Machine Man was involved and that might explain it for you."

He enjoys helping Clint make breakfast. He knows he's not helping cook exactly, but it's still nice to be doing it together. Its a level of domesticity that Tony has been craving for a long time. He wants this in his life. He's always wanted this. It was something he'd only ever really had with Jarvis around and on the West Coast team and he missed it.

They take a seat with the omelets and fresh cups of coffee and Tony grabs his fork. "For you maybe," he said as he cuts some of the eggs with the edge of his fork. "Do you forget the eggs I cooked. You wouldn't even eat half of them because you were worried about getting salmonella."

He takes a bite and smiles. It's kind of unfair that Clint can just cook something so simple and it come out so delicious. "God damn it, Clint," he says and shakes his head. "It's an omelet! You have no right to make it so good."

He takes another bite and sits back in the chair looking at Clint. "Okay, I'm just gonna say this in a completely no pressure way. So I'm here because you don't want to be alone. So I've cleared my schedule. I'm here for you. Brandy might be here, I'm emailing back and forth with the Caps, but she's not going to be here today. If you need space or just to do your own thing without me breathing down your neck, that's fine, I'll go down to the lab and get some work done. If you want to sit around watching movies together, that's cool too. I'm not gonna bug you about what you need to be doing. Think of me as your puppet. Put me where you want me to be and I'll be there."

[thrillorarc]

misconceptions regarding judaism and jewish characters that i’ve seen perpetuated through the rpc over the years:

“ judiasm , as an organized religion doesn’t allow you to ask questions ” this is fundamentally antithetical to judaism. we as jews are encouraged to ask questions and interpret our texts. in fact , one of our most important texts is literally a bunch of old rabbis arguing about everything in the torah. while different sects of judaism may interpret and follow the word of g-d strictly , there isn’t one right way to be jewish and by enforcing the fundamentalism of christianity onto jewish characters , you are showing you completely misunderstand the ethn-oreligion of your muse. ALSO !!! AND THIS IS IMPORTANT !!! RELIGIONS ARE NOT INTERCHANGEABLE !! BECAUSE YOU GREW UP IN ONE RELIGION DOES NOT MEAN YOU CAN SPEAK FOR THE LIVED EXPERIENCES OF FOLKS FROM OTHER RELIGIONS !!!

“ lilith is a pagan figures and therefore okay for non-jews to write ” lilith is actually specific to judaism , which is a closed practice. it’s one thing to write a character who is jewish while not being jewish , we all write characters whose identities don’t align perfectly ( or at all ) with our own , but lilith is a figure in judaism and therefore is not up for the interpretation of gentiles. period.

“ all jews are ashkenazim ” whether or not you know what ashkenazi is , this is a super common theme i’ve found throughout the rpc. judaism is a diasporic ethno-religion and as such different communities of jews have grown and cultivated their own unique cultural practices. for example , not every jew has a connection to yiddish. ladino and judeo-arabic are two other languages that immediately come to mind for me personally , but there are so many. this also affects traditions during holidays , food , and even styles of worship. diasporic judaism is beautiful , and as a mizrahi jew , i implore you all to do your research. additionally , as a diasporic group , we are also racially diverse and have communities all over the world.

“ judaism is a sector of christianity ” i wish i was lying , i really do. i wish this isn’t something i’ve seen and had to correct when folks were writing jewish characters. alas... here we are. firstly , judaism pre-dates christianity. secondly , christianity has tried to eradicate judaism for nearly as long as it has existed through both cultural and literal genocide. to believe judaism is a branch of christianity is a form of violence. we also aren’t “ basically christians who just don’t believe jesus was the messiah. ” our interpretations of our texts and our traditions surrounding them , are all unique to us. the “ same ” line in the torah and the old testament are always going to be different due to the vastly different lens through which judaism and christianity function. also , if i see one more person relate a crucifix to a jewish character , i’m going to mcfreakin lose it.

“ so-and-so is a canonically jewish character who i write as gay , so i’m going to make their parents violently homophobic to them ” i’m not here to invalidate the lived experiences of any of my fellow jews who have had to deal with homophobia at home. i know it happens , we live in a violently homophobic society and my heart aches for you. but the truth is , jewish communities outside of the ultra-orthedox are historically more progressive towards gay members of their community than christians. starting in the 1960s , jewish organizations began to campaign for the decriminalization of homosexuality in the united states. when gentiles write this trope of homophobic parents , it is almost always coming through a lens of christianity. you say “ah , this character has a Religion , this must mean that Religion hates gays. ” to make this assumption is supersessionist and antisemitic. again , this isn’t to say this doesn’t happen , but i’ve seen this enough for it to be an alarming trend that doesn’t align with the actual history of jewish support for the LGBTQIA+ community.

“ at this point , christmas is a secular holiday so it’s okay if my jewish character celebrates it. ” there are jews who love christmas. there are jews who come from interfaith homes and celebrate christmas every year. there are also jews who hate christmas. christmas can be an isolating time for some jews , a time where we feel excluded or dismissed. there’s an excellent quote that goes “ two jews , three opinions. ” we tend to argue about everything , even -- or especially , amongst ourselves. that being said , christmas is a christian holiday. be cautious and mindful of the way you have your character engage with it. even if i personally despise christmas , i don’t speak for all jews. just be mindful. also , as is a common theme here , don’t just put chanukah under the umbrella of christmas if you decide during the “holiday season” to shift towards it. make an effort to learn about it as a holiday separate from christmas and not just the “jewish equivilant.” that being said , if you incorporate chanukah into your interpretation of a jewish muse , but not any other jewish holiday , you are doing a major disservice to the character and your jewish followers. we have so many holidays that are important in shaping our lives. do your research.

“ conspiracy theories are fun and harmless to incorporate into roleplaying. ” listen we all love a good ‘ trudeau is actually castro’s son ’ moment , but there is a long history of conspiracy theories that are linked back to centuries of antisemitic propoganda: lizard people , flat earth , the illuminati just to name a few. if you’re someone who likes a good conspiracy theory and wants to weave it into your writing , please please please make sure it isn’t just n*zi propaganda that’s been disguised to look like something else.

honestly , there is more that i could say , but i’ll leave it here. if any other jews would like to add on , please do ! and remember , like with anything else , please do your research when writing a character that doesn’t share your same identity , be mindful of your own assumptions and biases , and when in doubt: google is your best friend.*

*everything mentioned above can be easily googled. i even googled things myself to make sure i wasn’t just speaking out of my own ass.

[salazarslytherin]

winner, loser. (j.p x y/n)

summary: james is determined to prove he is anything but a loser (ft. brother’s best friend james, the hockey player 😁)

🃛 masterlist

cw/tw: smut, oral (female receiving), fingering, overstimulation, slight dumbification

word count: 2.5k

a/n: inspired by me and @acosmis-t's convo about the best friend's brother/brother's best friend trope. also i literally NEVER proof read so please do not roast me if there are mistakes <3 reblog to boost please xxx

tag list at the bottom ☯︎ join tag list here

“Imagine losing a game when you’re only a point off. Not a very good goalie, are we, James?”

“You suck, loser.”

Famous last words, huh.

That simple teasing quip spiralled into your brother’s best friend angrily rebuking you in the middle of their hockey team’s afterparty.

Your brother had long left the pair of you, instead, gone to play beer pong with a couple of the others. None of their friends was able to dissuade James from his chastising.

“…I’m an excellent goalie by the way! It’s just not my fault that Snape is a cheater…”

The bespectacled boy could tell that nothing he said was convincing you. You leaned on the kitchen counters smiling at him, almost mockingly. With every upturn of your lips, the brunet’s eye seemed to twitch. With every exhale of near-laughter, his fists clenched.

James Potter was anything but a loser.

And he was determined to prove it.

⚔︎.

You weren’t sure how it ended up this way, from James angrily gesturing and yelling about hockey plays, splashes of his scotch and soda spilling onto you with each exaggerated movement, to you sitting atop the granite counter in the guest bathroom, the hockey player tucked between your legs, devouring your lips as music thrummed throughout your house.

Calloused fingers pushed your t-shirt up, exploring your torso carelessly as he pushed his tongue into your mouth, teeth clashing against teeth, but the boy didn’t care.

Anger fuels tonight’s expedition.

James’s lips detach from yours for a brief moment, muttering a slightly breathless “take it off” as he lets go of your shirt.

His own came off in return, your eyes scanning his chest as he did yours, both of you reaching out to feel the other.

Muscles like detailing in a sculpture, the boy was David in glasses, only, his marbling was littered with specks of scars, left behind from games and fights with opposing teams.

Your bra fell from your shoulders, James tossing it haphazardly behind him as the padded cotton was replaced with warmth, his large hands cupping your bosom instantly. A moan echoed off the walls as his lips latched onto your collarbone, biting down hard as he squeezed your tits. It’s like you were made for each other — the flesh perfectly encapsulated in the goalie’s large hands.

Swarmed with nips and growls along your shoulders and beyond, there was no way you were wearing anything more revealing than a t-shirt for a few days, your hands found their way to James’s jeans, hooking your fingers into the belt loops as you pulled at them, trying to undo the denim.

In an instant, all contact was lost, James’s toned body pulling away from you as you whimpered, suddenly feeling the cold from the granite and the aircon seeping through the cracks under the door tenfold.

The thumping bass from the music was the only indication of time passing as you and James simply watched each other, memorising the way the hazel swirled in those irises.

Warmth returned as a hand landed on your thigh, squeezing it slightly as the hockey player hooked his other hand into your shorts, eyebrow raising as he awaited any protest. Finding a lack of any seeming disagreement, his hand moved from your thigh to your ass, pushing up slightly as you followed suit, lifting your hips so he could pull your bottoms off.

Sinking down onto his knees, James gripped your thighs tight, the calluses on his palms rubbing your inner thighs as he spread you open. You blushed as he saw you, all of you, the cold air in the room shocking your nipples juxtaposed by the warm air of James’s breath on your cunt.

You could feel yourself getting wet at the feeling, turning impossibly red as James chuckled, teeth grazing your inner thigh. Fingers caressed your lower lips, and you scrambled for the edges of the counter in shock as the goalie’s tongue darted out, the tip dragging along your slit. Gasping as James’s tongue dragged up to your clit, your fingers fumbled along the smooth surface to find something, anything, to hold onto. Sucking on your clit, the bespectacled boy hummed along to the song playing outside, his forefinger slipping inside of you.

Your hips bucked as James fucked you with his finger, your walls somehow already stretching around the long appendage. His lips detached from your clit as he removed his finger, feeling your slick flowing out of you as you whined at the loss of contact.

“Relax, princess.” The goalie’s tone was mocking, but you found yourself growing wet at the hypocorism, pouting at the tall boy as he grinned at you.

“Now, pay close attention.”

What the fuck is he talking about-

Oh my fucking god.

James’s lips landed back on your cunt, his tongue landing flat on your lips as he licked a wide stripe upwards, sucking tightly on your clit with a slurping sound so loud you were certain that people would have heard it if the music were just a tad softer. The appendage quickly began flicking at your clit, seemingly drawing shapes on the bundle of nerves. With each flick and each movement, your hips bucked upwards uncontrollably, hands unable to find a grip on the counter and threading the fingers in the boy’s hair instead.

In the midst of your lust-filled daze, you realised that James wasn’t just tracing aimless circles on your cunt.

Instead, he seemed to be drawing something.

Maybe this was what he wanted you to pay attention to.

You tried your best to figure out what exactly James was doing, but three strokes in you were gone. Your eyes shut close as you threw your head back, hitting the wall slightly but you couldn’t care less.

James Potter’s head was between your legs right now. You highly doubted you’d care even if the house collapsed on your heads right now.

Actually, you would. Because that meant you wouldn’t feel James on you anymore.

Your legs began to shake as your walls fluttered around nothing, faintly registering James drawing something like a snake on your cunt. Blubbering incoherently, your thighs closed around James’s head, fingers gripping the hairs as you pulled on the strands, orgasm rippling throughout your body.

Licking his lips, James pulled away from your cunt, a brow raised at you.

“I was barely halfway through.”

Your chest heaved as you recuperated from your orgasm, head leaning against the ornate mirror frame as you felt each and every thump of the heavy bass ring out through the house.

“Do you know what I told you to pay attention to?”

In the midst of a post-orgasmic fog, you barely caught onto the words that James had said. Instead, you noticed the way the boy’s lips glistened with your slick, nodding despite yourself.

“Well then princess, what was it?”

The question caught you off guard, your eyes blinking rapidly as you tried to figure out what James had been doing.

“Um, were you drawing something?”

Your voice was timid, clearly uncertain of your answer, aware that it was either wrong or not what he wanted you to say.

The goalie cooed mockingly, his hand coming to tilt your chin and face him, a kiss landing on your lips, smearing you with the taste of your own nectar.

“All shy now, princess? What happened to the smart girl telling me how ‘m a bad player earlier? Dumb girl can barely take my tongue without falling apart, hmm?”

You whined as James’s hand travelled down to your tit again, squeezing it as he kissed the sweet spot behind your ear, sucking gently. Satisfied with his handiwork, James pulled away, nibbling on your earlobe before whispering,

“Pay better attention this time.”

Fingers trailed from your bosom down to your cunt, rubbing against it as his lips traced a path down the valley of your breasts, your slick drawing a line down your front as your hips bucked, James’s finger pushing inside of you once more.

The feeling of his tongue back against your clit made your back arch, all thoughts in your head evaporating at the contact. Your eyes fluttered shut as James went back to drawing, no, writing?, the inane puzzle he so desperately wanted you to unravel.

A second finger joined the first and you squealed, unintentionally joining the music outside in harmony as your hands flew to grip onto James’s hair once more, the stretch in your walls a welcomed stranger.

You could feel the rim of his glasses grazing your pelvis, the cold metal a jolting reminder that this was James, your brother’s best friend here in all his glory.

Flesh and blood, his heat became yours with every movement.

Your cunt was already sensitive from your first orgasm, and the goalie’s fervent movements didn’t help at all.

His fingers pumped in and out of you relentlessly, curling at the boy’s leisure as you let out a scream with each movement. His tongue flicked at your nub, each stroke reminding you that you had a ‘task’ at hand, but the pleasure rendered you incapable of completing it.

The boy was right. He really had fucked you dumb already.

Your walls clenched around James’s fingers as your orgasm peaked, his tongue moving inhumanely fast as every move taunted you. Your legs shook as James pulled his fingers out of you, gripping your thighs as his canvas enlarged, writing whatever he had to say all over your cunt as you rode out your orgasm.

Your eyelids felt heavy as your legs twitched around James’s slowly retreating body. In your blurred vision, you could see his handsome face nearing you, tongue skimming his bottom lip as your nectar dripped off his chin.

Your heart beat in rhythm with the bass rumbling under your body, James’s brow lifting, almost as if he was bored of the whole ordeal.

“So, what was it? I almost finished this time, I’m sure a smart girl like you can figure it out.”

Your mouth ran dry as your fog riddled mind scrambled to come up with an answer, opening and closing as you fought to expel some sort of coherent thought.

“Um, you were, um, writing something?”

The hockey player huffed in amusement, fingers swiping at his chin as he collected your slick on them, one hand cupping your jaw as the other prodded at your lips. Your mouth fell open at the slight contact, too far gone to even consider what James was doing.

You’d take anything he gave you at this point.

The boy cooed as you welcomed his fingers into your mouth, sucking on them amenably.

“Princess is taking my fingers so well, hmm? But poor dumb Y/N can’t even figure out what I was writing.”

James’s grip around your chin tightened at his words, making your jaw fall open.

“Guess you need to feel it again. And pay even better attention.”

The words made your hooded eyes snap open, whining around his fingers as you shook your head, the thought of a third orgasm making you shudder.

“N-no, James no more. Can’t take it, please.”

A calloused thumb rubbed circles on your jaw, the boy’s eyebrow raising and the corner of his mouth turning upwards at the sound of your pleading.

“Need to prove to you I’m not a loser though, princess. You were so adamant that I suck, gotta prove to you that I don’t, hmm?”

His hands traced down your body once more, settling on your thighs as he spread them, ready to prove himself to you. But you kept your thighs together as best you could, shaking your head beseechingly.

“Please, I-I’m sorry James, I didn’t mean it, I was wrong. You don’t suck. Y-you’re, um, you’re a winner. Not a loser. A winner.”

James’s eyes glinted from behind the dark frames, his hands stopping their prying at your frantic words.

“Say that again.”

Your thighs slackened, looking into the brunet’s eyes.

“You’re a winner.”

A smirk grew on James’s lips, pink tongue darting outwards to wet his lips, not that they weren’t already drenched in your nectar.

“That’s it, princess.”

His face moved back closer towards yours, breath ghosting your lips as his body hovered over yours, one hand moving to the band of his pants.

“James Potter is a winner.”

The taste of the goalie’s lips was addictive, maybe the fact that he was covered in your arousal made him more desirable, but you were entranced by it. Your hands came to cup the sides of his face as his pulled at his pants, unbuttoning the jeans and pulling them down to his midthigh. James’s tongue slotted deep within your mouth, swallowing your moans as his hands tucked under your knees, gripping tightly as he pulled you flush against him.

“D’you think you can take one more, princess?”

You whined at the brief loss of contact, pulling the goalie’s lips back against your own, the older boy chuckling at your desperation. James’s hand pumped at his shaft as he kissed you back, lip teasing your bottom lip as his tip did your lower lips.

You gasped around James’s tongue as he pushed into you fully, your cunt unbelievably sensitive from your previous two orgasms. The goalie bottomed out as his hand came back to catch your thigh, your legs wrapped around the hockey player’s toned waist. You bit down on James’s bottom lip as he pulled out of you slowly, his arms holding the bulk of your body weight, the veins in his arms protruding like strokes on a canvas.

As James thrust in and out of you with steady strokes, you could distinctly feel the cold granite digging into your lower back, a bruise definitely to be left behind in the morning. But you couldn’t care less, your mind only occupied with the feeling of James’s cock inside of you.

With each thrust, all James could hear was the sound of blades against the ice, sticks hitting sticks, spurring him to move his hips quicker.

James Potter was a winner.

And no one was allowed to say otherwise.

Your walls tightened around James’s cock, unable to hold out even a second longer, the overstimulation quickly pushing you closer and closer to the edge. Your nails dug into the boy’s shoulders, his digging into your thighs as your walls fluttered, eyes rolling back as you came on James’s cock.

You collapsed around the boy, his hips still thrusting as your arms slung around his neck, head lulling as you felt him groan, cock twitching inside of you as he spilt his seed. Your eyes remained half-closed as James shifted you to sit properly on the counter, pulling out from inside of you.

⚔︎.

“Now that’s what we call a hat trick. Three goals in one game, pretty impressive, wouldn’t you say?”

A laugh bubbled out of your mouth, proper judgement escaping your fog-riddled mind.

“You’re such a loser.”

A hand gripped your chin tightly, tilting your face up to face his.

“I’m a winner, do you need me to prove it again?”

You shook your head at the boy, spluttering and speechless at the thought of anything more.

“You’re a winner, I’m sorry.”

James let go of your chin, petting your jaw lightly.

“Good girl. Now, do you think you can go back to the party, or do you want me to carry you to your room, princess?”

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[sentimental-darkness]

You make a good point but as you've noticed, people largely don't care - once something turns political (or more strictly: "pro-justice" "anti-colonialism" and other "trendy" sentiments of those smart people behind their keyboards), all is forgotten, there is only The Cause, no matter the cost, regardless of original atrocity... only advocating for the current "trendy" cause matters. People are hypocrites like that, plus easily manipulated. No doubt Hamas and other such groups had their hand in the info campaign as well, to make use of that.

Regarding atrocities and intentional strikes at civilians, I'm going to be a little bit pessimistic here and say I'm afraid it's a natural state of things, to a degree (especially historically, since the beginning of time). Sure, there will be regimes with militaries where purposeful strikes at civilians may be somewhat encouraged amongst officers but even at the level of the foot soldiers - looting, rape and revenge/supremacy kills have always been integral part of every bloody conflict. In war these lines are easily blurred and when someone is lying in the mud waiting for the drone to blow him to pieces... well, the morals easily become forgotten, especially after a certain threshold is crossed. As you've said, everyone committed some atrocities to some extent, even the Allies (and there may be a lot of examples - like simple foot soldiers' actions - that we simply don't know about and will never know). Naturally, the allowance for greater violence and killing of innocents is only accelerated by rough regimes, but observing what's happening (and what was already happening outside of the "Western theatre") I believe The Geneva Conventions are a pipe dream, a house of cards, in name only. It's only as strong as alliances/strong interests between those who honor it and can easily fall apart as two parties come to blows and the hatred between them (or racial, religious and other tensions humanity is unable to stand above) increase. And then, there is a loop of revenge acts and revenge thinking, but also there is the fact in conflict there will always be those who approach it "rough" with loosened sense of morals, so acting completely goody-shoes-I-can-do-no-wrong would be a literal equivalent of a fool/giving up/letting them go away with everything or even loosing. That's where Izrael is right now, except yeah, they were not goody-goody and didn't just let it go. To be honest, nobody would, in a real world scenario.

I don't exactly search for that kind of info but makes me wonder how does it look like on the Ukrainian side. If they're still so considerate of all their prisoners and perfectly humane in all things, then I guess it might be motivated by propaganda needs. Plus, naturally, the West needs to think highly of them, so big incidents of bloody revenge acts are very undesirable, simply from strategic position. And it's not like they're pushing it to Russian cities of course, so there is that. But even then, if a random Western dude on Facebook can rant about Russians deserving death and misery coming towards them and it was already possible to find videos of Ukrainians violently bloodily lynching their own (looters or traitors) at the beginning of this war, am I to believe there are no violent/undignified incidents committed by Ukrainian side against Russians, mainly prisoners and defenseless undersupplied resigned (or sick) divisions of lowly recruits? Getting intel out of some? Torture? Makes me wonder. But I can only wonder, because even if there were instances, it's not like we would hear of it. They can't afford letting something like this slip up. And you can't exactly take any of the Russian stories at face value either.

"Deliberately targeting civilians is wrong" is remarkably good praxis for understanding state and interstate violence.

I'm not talking about attacks that miss their target, that have disproportionate collateral damage, or even have mistaken military strategic value (although all of these are also bad and should be avoided). All of these things are bad (because warfare is bad), although people can and will argue about the relative necessity of any given action.

But in modern times, "trying to hurt civilians specifically to make the state surrender" is not even arguable. We have decided that this is one of those acts of warfare that we should not allow, which is why we have collectively classified it as a war crime.

What Hamas has just done is flat-out terrorism. It went after civilians at a festival and committed horrible atrocities against people who had no means of defending themselves. It is doing that to terrorize the people into changing the policies of their government. Israel is by no means innocent of violating "targeting civilians is wrong"; what Israel has done in the past (and even in the present) is often reprehensible. But right now, it is Hamas targeting civilians to punish the entire state of Israel for its politics, and that is a thing that shouldn't be tolerated.

If Hamas had launched a surprise attack on an Israeli military establishment, or even the Israeli government, I would be saying something different right now. And if Israel retaliates in a way designed to hurt civilians in Gaza, I will call their actions wrong as well. "Two wrongs don't make a right" is especially true for war crimes.

It was wrong when the Axis murdered and pillaged their way across their conquered territories. It was wrong when the Allies firebombed cities of zero strategic importance. It is wrong when the Russians launch missiles at theaters and apartments in Ukraine. It is wrong that Assad is killing women and children specifically so the Syrian rebels surrender. It is wrong when Israel targets civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. And it is wrong that Hamas deliberately targeted, killed, and tortured Israeli civilians in their attack on Saturday.

Deliberately targeting civilians is wrong.