#he was never ugly! he was never a bad character!! I don’t fuck with that line of thinking!!

[sad-endings-suck]

this man!! this man right here…

got fifty times hotter, when his life fell apart

[gyllenhaalstuff]

^ྀིMissed out -

Donnie Darko

~

Summary: You and your best friend share a joint. Turns out all you needed was some extra courage.

Warnings: Actually kinda cute, weed, asshole ex, subby!Donnie, he really likes your tits, oral (m and f receiving), fingering, piv sex, protected sex.

Word count: 2177

Notes: This isn’t proofread cause it’s almost 5am and I’m tired. This a bit filthy, like always. And all characters aged up to 18+.

────୨ৎ────

“C’mon I wanna try” Donnie whined. You blew out the smoke away from his face, looking at him with a questioning face. “I thought mixing weed with your meds was bad” you pointed out. Your window was open, but the room was still foggy with smoke. Your parents weren’t home for the rest of the week, so why not have a joint in bed? And why not invite your best friend? You hung out all the time anyway, or at least used to.

“You just want it to yourself i guess” Donnie said, faking a frown to make you give in. You took a drag and looked at him and sighed. “Oh fine, since you’re so annoying” you responded and passed the joint. Donnie accepted it and placed the joint to his lips, inhaling and holding it. 1, 2, 3. Before blowing it out and watching it fade away.

Donnie took another drag and relaxed into the pillows beneath him. He looked over at you, already looking a bit droopy. “How haven’t I done this before” He said and laughed, his eyes squinting into thin lines. You laughed back and took the joint from him. “You’re already off your fucking head” you said and smiled lazily as you smoked. “Well, probably cause there is more smoke than air in here” Donnie joked, looking up at the foggy ceiling. You two finished the joint before stomping it out in your ashtray.

“Can I tell you something?” He asked suddenly, probably because he finally had the courage to. You nodded in response. “I feel like you’re always ditching me for other people” he confessed. His eyes were still heavy from his high and his face turned to yours. “Well, now I have more time for you.” you paused before continuing, “I broke things off with Blake.” Your ex took up a lot of your time, a lot of time you could’ve spent with Donnie. “I’m sorry about that”, Donnie responded. He sat up against the bed frame, stretched his neck and looked down on you. “Nah it’s fine. He was an asshole” You said and sat up as well. “Why?” Donnie asked, furrowing his brows as he did. You laughed as you thought back on your ex. “Do you want me to be honest?” You asked raising your brows at your friend. “Why would I want you to lie?” He asked and you shrugged. “The sex was really bad” You said quietly before laughing at yourself and the memories.

Donnie swallowed. “Ohh, yeah.” He said and seemed to get lost in his own thoughts for a second. You looked over and saw Donnie’s gaze drift off. “Oh fuck off, you’re imagining it” you jokingly accused him. “Oh I’m not!” He defended himself, but he still looked flustered to you. You kept quiet, to keep him talking. Curious about how he would try to save the situation. “Okay, maybe I did. But only cause you mentioned it!” He said raising his arms as if he was being held at gunpoint. “Was it a nice view?” You teased him while snickering at him, watching his face turn maroon. “Oh! Who wants to imagine Blake naked?” He said with a disgusted look, eyebrows knit together and his nose scrunched. “And what? The rest of the view was good?” You said still joking and laughing about. But Donnie’s eyes widened slightly, “Uh no-“ he stammered, “I mean you’re not ugly. Or I don’t think you are. Or I mean I don’t know what you look like-“ He got cut off by you. “Hey, it’s alright. I’m not accusing you of anything it’s all a joke” but when Donnie didn’t respond, you understood that it wasn’t all a joke.

You had never thought about it. All your boyfriends had been certified assholes, but Donnie was actually really sweet. You always knew he looked good, but it never went further than that. Those thoughts always got pushed to the side. But they always resurfaced, night after night.

The high surging through Donnie was making him brave. “I’ve thought about it a lot. Not you and Blake of course, just you” he confessed while fidgeting with his nails. You caught yourself smiling but couldn’t make it go away. “I won’t resist anything” you said, feeling like it was the easiest way to say ‘me too’, without actually saying it.

You sat up against the bed frame, looking at Donnie. Then, he leaned in and kissed you. It was shy at first, soft as he entered new territory. You were the one who licked against his bottom lip, trying to deepen the kiss. And he complied. His hand came up to cup your cheek and his tongue entered your mouth. You moaned against him and his other hand clawed against his jeans, trying to remain unaffected by you.

His breathing got heavier and you couldn’t watch him suffer, watch him try to hold back. “You can touch me” you whispered to him. You grabbed one of his hand and placed on one of your tits. He watched his hand holding it, groping it. “Do you wanna take it off?” You asked, inching up the hem of your short. Donnie nodded and swallowed. He had never been this scared or turned on ever in his life.

You took your t-shirt off, leaving you in your bra. You sat up next to Donnie and looked at him as his other hand made its way to your tits too, groping you once again. He looked up at you, “can we take this off too?” he asked nervously. “yeah” you said with a smile, leaned down to kiss him and unclasped you bra. When you sat back up you let the straps fall off your shoulders before removing your bra completely.

Donnie looked up at you, wanting to make sure that you weren’t uncomfortable. But when you smiled down at him all flustered, he felt more confident. “Come closer” he said, still sounding a bit nervous, but more needy than anything. You climbed over his lap and sat on top of him. His callused thumbs went over your nipples, and you inhaled sharply as they did. “You’re so pretty” He said, still looking at your tits, before leaning in and putting his mouth around one of your nipples. You hissed as his teeth grazed it, nipped at it and his hand pinched the other. You hummed at the stimulation and ground down against him. He moaned against your skin and his hand seemed to squeeze your breast harder.

You grabbed Donnie’s hair, tilted his face up and kissed his swollen lips. You laid him down before kissing and biting at his neck, which made him buck his hips against yours. As you reached his collarbones your hands grabbed the hem of his shirt and pulled it off. Your hands grazed his pale skin and you leaned down to kiss down his stomach. Occasionally looking up at him to see him struggle, his mouth agape and eyelids heavy, looking down at you. When your mouth reached his happy trail your hands began to fiddle with his belt. “Yeah?” you asked him, holding eye contact. “Yeah” he confirmed and bucked against you.

You smiled, unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants. He raised his hips and you pulled his pants and underwear off, throwing them somewhere on the floor. You hummed as you saw his leaking cock against his stomach. You wrapped your hand around it and Donnie’s breath turned shaky. You stroked him, lingering at his tip each time. His thighs tensed as you ran your thumb over his tip, smearing his precum around.

You looked up at him as you laid your tongue flat against his head, licking over his tip. A low moan escaped his lips as your mouth enveloped him. You hollowed your cheeks as you lowered yourself down on him, grabbing onto his thighs to help yourself from gagging. Donnie breathed in whimpers as your tongue massaged his dick. His hand grabbed your hair and pulled you off of him. “Don’t wanna cum like this” he panted. A string of saliva connected your mouth to his tip and his cock couldn’t help but twitch when he noticed.

“You wanna fuck me instead?” you asked, still hovering above his crotch. “Don’t you want anything?” Donnie asked, cocking his head. You sat up and looked confused. “I could go down on you?” Donnie continued. “You want to?” You asked, surprised at his proposal. “Blake didn’t?” He asked back. You avoided the question. “Do what you want” you shrugged. Donnie pat the spot behind him, telling you to lay down. You obeyed and laid your head on one of the pillows. Now you were the nervous one. “Can I?” Donnie asked, hovering his hands above the button of your jeans. You nodded and he quickly undid them and pulled them down with your underwear.

Donnie perched himself on one of his elbows, letting his other hand graze your wet folds. His fingers found your clit and rubbed light circles on it as his mouth went to your thighs. His kisses started making their way up, occasionally stopping to bite down and then kiss it better. When he reached your cunt he removed his fingers and licked a slow, long stripe from your slit to the abandoned bundle of nerves. “He fucking missed out” He mumbled against your clit, making you grind against his face. His arms sneaked around your thighs before he placed his tongue back on your clit. Your hands tugged at his hair as the tip of his tongue flicked at you. Your thighs hugged the sides of his face, but he didn’t seem to mind. Instead, his tongue went and dipped into your hole. He moaned as he did, which flattered you more than he could imagine. His tongue fucked into you while his nose nudged at your clit. Your head spun as you writhed beneath Donnie. You never knew it could feel this good.

Donnie removed his tongue, placing it back onto your clit and pushed two fingers inside you. You hissed at the intrusion, but then he curled his fingers and began to move them in and out of you. The feeling made you shake like a leaf and you cried out with each flick of his tongue. “Gonna cum” you warned him, not wanting to catch him off guard. He mumbled a “please” against your clit, before sucking harshly on it. Your legs clamped down on him and you grabbed onto your sheets as the pressure threatened to spill over. And when it did, you moaned loudly and ground against Donnie’s mouth.

When he raised his head, his chin was covered in slick. He crawled up to your face and kissed you deeply, letting you taste yourself on his tongue. “You don’t know how fucking hard that made me” he whispered between deep breaths. You blushed at his words. “I’ve never came from that before” You responded making him moan and kiss you again.

Donnie rutted against your thigh as you made out. “Please” he whimpered in between two kisses, “wanna be inside you.” You kissed him one last time before reaching over to open the drawer beside your bed. You grabbed a condom and ripped it open. Donnie stood up on his knees, offering you to put it on. You rolled the condom onto him before he pushed you back against the covers.

He lined himself up, looked at you for confirmation and when you nodded he slowly pushed himself into you, holding hard onto your waist as he did. He groaned as he bottomed out. “Can I move?” he asked once he felt you relax, desperate to finally cum. “Go on” you answered and wrapped your legs around him.

He started slowly, not wanting to cum within three seconds. With each thrust he brushed against your g-spot, making you dig your nails into his shoulders. When he got more comfortable, he started moving faster. He placed his arms on either side of you, holding himself up as he fucked you. Your hand grabbed the nape of his neck and pulled him in for an open-mouthed kiss. Your tongues collided and feverishly explored each other. As your breaths ran out, Donnie pulled away and laid his forehead against yours, breathing heavily. His thrusts were getting sloppy as he neared his climax. “Touch me” you breathed out and Donnie’s hand sneaked between your bodies, finding your clit with ease.

He sat back on his heels, now fucking up into you, making him slam against your g-spot every time. He twitched inside you as he watched himself fuck you, his cock covered in your wetness. You both were getting close, both encouraged by the other’s moans and whimpers. Donnie didn’t last much longer before he stalled and dug his nails into your hip as he came. You followed soon after, pulsing around him. His fingers slowed down against your sensitive clit.

Donnie laid down on top of you while catching his breath. “You can’t keep dating assholes” he pointed out, “you’re too good for that.” You smiled at his words, kissed his cheek and responded “I won’t.”

[futuremrscameron]

foxy!reader

content warnings: micro aggressions, mention of poverty, grief, drug abuse, sexual harassment, threats of violence, morally grey characters, sexual tension, guilt, manipulation (up to interpretation), daddy issues, implied stalking, misogyny, classism

foxy!reader is a prodigy. the first of her family to “make it out” feeds her ambition and drive to keep thriving so she can make her family proud and prove all her doubters wrong

no nonsense girl that is constantly on top of shit; it’s why ward hired her fresh out of law school

started as his intern, then became his personal assistant and finally his lawyer after she gave him better advice than his lawyer on how to handle a potential lawsuit with a client

her relationship with ward is the topic of many discussions and arguments in the cameron house. rose believes they’re too close and suspects that she’s trying to seduce ward, and rafe is jealous. of her or his father, no one knows

“i don’t want her knowing every single thing about the business.”

“she’s my lawyer, rose; it’s her job.”

“is it her job to cling to you like a stray cat?"

"she's a good kid, you know she's had a rough life. she didn't grow up with her father."

"i don't think it's a father she wants."

"i won't entertain your insecurities rose. drop it."

rafe’s constantly flirting with her, ignoring her blatant disinterest/annoyance that borders on disgust and loathing

he stops in his tracks, confusing kelce and topper before they follow his line of sight. “well, what have we here?” she’s on the patio, typing away on a laptop, most likely completing a task for his father.

topper shakes his head softly, “come on, man, leave her alone; she looks busy.”

“why don’t you focus on making sure your girlfriend doesn't get herself killed?” rafe waves him off as he confidently walks over to his prey.

he shuts her laptop. “hey foxy.”

she looks up from her laptop and glares, “fuck off, cameron.”

he smirks as she stomps away, laptop in hand. he confidently saunters back over to his friends. “she wants me so bad.” kelce chuckles, and topper shakes his head, fighting an amused smile.

rafe came up with the nickname foxy mostly because of her looks but her soft but raspy voice and sly tricks she uses to get ward (and his family) out of trouble plays a large role

isn’t afraid to tell rafe off even if he is her boss’s son not because she doesn’t care for her job but because she hates men like rafe and refuses to let him walk all over her. it’s the why he’s so enamored with her

foxy!reader is a thorn in the pogues’ side because she’s always three steps ahead of them. pope and her intellectually spar via chess when they’re not busy finding loopholes in the justice system or treasure hunting

has a mentor/mentee relationship with ward; he thinks she has a promising future and she wants to be a charismatic yet cutthroat professional like him, it’s why he anonymously paid for her schooling when she decided to get her master’s

she was livid when she found out and debated quitting, believing that her success was now tainted by blood money and wasn’t fully her own. it’s a whole thing that never truly gets resolved because ward dies

she’s crushed when ward dies, pissed that he’s just gone after literally changing her life for better and worse

tries to get ward’s affairs in order, as mentioned in his will, which rose finds suspicious, believing that she's trying to take their money or the gold for herself

rose has never liked foxy!reader, not in any stage of her time with ward. she’s supposed to believe that this pretty young thing hasn’t been squirming her way into her husband’s life? it doesn’t help that he seems to trust her with more information

rose paces back and forth as she rants, “i don’t like how she looks at him, and did you see the way she clung to his arm?”

“green is an ugly color on you, rose.” he mumbles into his third drink, poorly hiding his smirk.

very perceptive. the first one to realize ward’s faked his death after finding his first clue in his video will to his family

“how many times are you gonna watch that shit?” rafe’s slurred words snap her out of her daze. he’s poured himself another drink, you note.

she pauses the video to give him a once-over before turning back to her notes, “how many drinks have you had?”

“only five mom.” he giggles at his crass joke and swallows down the rest of his whiskey.

“i’m surprised you haven’t started nursing the bottle.”

he frowns. “oh my bad is- is my grief not very convenient for you? huh?” he pokes at her face.

she slaps his hand away and stands up. “you’re pathetic. your father is dead, and you’re acting like a child.”

“and how should i be acting? huh? like you!?” he drunkenly points at the computer screen, “looking for proof of life? searching for clues? huh, nancy drew!?” she doesn’t answer, just glares.

he scoffs, “and i’m pathetic. okay.” he shoulder-checks her on his way out, most likely headed back to the wine cellar, she notes.

foxy!reader quit smoking before the events of season 1 and eats a lot of gun and sweets to satiate her cravings. she picks it up again when ward fakes his death due to a combination of stress, grief, and hopelessness

she had considered the repercussions of falling back into the comforting arms of her former vice. truly. lungs deterioration, increased anxiety, all the hard work she put into ruined in a second, all the progress they made down the drain.

they? there’s no ‘they’ anymore, just her.

“sorry, ward.” she clicks the lighter, and like one last practical joke from the big man, nothing comes out.

she tries again; there’s barely a spark.

again. nothing.

again. still nothing

again and again and again and again and- “fuck!”

“thought you quit smoking.”

she doesn’t even have to turn around to know he’s sporting his signature lopsided smirk. “yeah.”

rafe raises an eyebrow, shocked and amused at her muted reaction. “yeah? that’s it? no snide remark or telling me to fuck off?”

“wouldn’t be very gauche of me to in your time of grief.”

he looks at her for a beat, searching for what she doesn't know. he sighs defeatedly and begins to dig around in his pockets. he stops after a couple seconds and pulls out a lighter cased in gold with a familiar engraving, 'W.C.' it makes her naseous.

"already staking your claims?" he follows her line of sight and chuckles, "the only thing of his that fits me."

he stares down at her beckoning her closer with his eyes. she complies and he lights her cigarette.

"thanks."

he shrugs, "you looked like you needed it."

everything comes to a head when she follows rose to the shipyard, where she finds ward hiding out. confronts him for lying to her and making her solve riddles just to find out he’s alive

rose whips her head around to see what’s soured ward’s expression. she glares when she finds the source, “did you follow me!?”

the younger woman's slow claps only infuriate her. “wow, beauty and brains.”

ward holds his hand up, stopping his wife from continuing the exchange, his eyes never once leaving the young girl. “please. just let me explain.”

“what’s there to explain? it was a 'need to know basis' and i didn’t need to know. i’m not family, right?” she hates how her voice breaks on the last word, giving the man a window into her emotional state.

his gaze softens, “that’s not true. i left clues i knew you would fine and you're here so i'm guessing you found them."

"oh of course, how could i forget the great case of the exploding millionaire." she dryly chuckles, "don't act like you did that for me. you just wanted me to get your shity ready for your third act reveal."

he says nothing, avoiding her eyes like a cheating parent caught in the act by their child. it's worse than a slap in the face. rage boils up in her stomach; how could she be so blind? so stupid? he doesn't owe her anything.

"rafe was right." this makes him look up. "you don't care about anyone but yourself."

"what are you gonna do?" it's so quiet she almost thinks she imagined it. it's so pathetic, so unlike him.

"you mean am i going to report you?" she catches rose's glare but behind the fury in her eyes there's fear. "don't worry i won't break up this happy home. i'll get your shit in order but after that i'm done."

"wait-"

"no. i'm done, i mean it."

"okay."

after quitting and creates a private practice and uses the money she gets from kooks to finance her pro-bono work for pogues. she helps out the pogues sometimes by giving them legal advice or acting as their lawyer when they’re arrested because she feels bad for the part she’s played in fucking them over

is less than thrilled when rafe returns to obx and wants nothing to do with him. rafe tells her she owes his father for everything he’s done for her which leads to a fight where he calls her a ‘traitor’ and she calls him an 'insecure little bitch' which angers him and

foxy!reader says she’s only helping rafe out because she owes his father but rafe’s not buying it

“tell yourself whatever you want.”

“you’re unbearable.”

“let’s be honest, you’re not doing this out of some imaginary debt to my dad. you wanna help me.”

“you think i’m doing this out of the kindness of my heart?”

“something like that.” he smirks. “come on, foxy, admit it, you like me.”

“do you actually have a business proposition, or did you invite me out here just so no one can hear my screams?”

he chuckles, “there's that charm i missed so much."

rejects rafe's business proposition because stealing form his own father is "the stupidest idea he's ever had after framing john b"

safe to say she's surprised when barry is actually able to steal the cross. and impressed that his plan worked but she would never tell him that

refuses to help rafe burn the cross of saint domingo and tells him she will never help him again if he does

rafe moves past her as he adds more covering to their makeshift furnace. “you know this high and mighty act of yours is getting real fucking old.” he gives her two piece suit a once-over, "you look good though. but next time i wouldn't wear that to this shithole, it screams "mug me."

"don't remember asking for fashion advice." she looks over his shoulder, meeting barry's eyes, "you okay with this?"

he raises his hands defensively, "i'm just tryna get paid."

“oh i'm sure. and let me guess you don't give a fuck who you hurt in the process?"

rafe grunts as he sets down another large scrap of metal. "you don't have to answer that barry."

"wasn't gonna." she looks between the two men appalled at their lack of care.

“i actually thought you changed.”

“so did i, but you're the same frigid bitch that walked around tanneyhill like it was yours".

barry frowns, "come on man."

"no she needs to hear this." he closes the distance, almost making her trip in her 4-inch pumps as she backs up. "still ungreatful, even after everything we’ve done for you."

"we? there was no 'we' rafe, it was all your father. he's the only one i owe anything to."

"yeah except you don't." he closes the distance between them. "still can't be honest even after months. can't say i'm surprised, the best lawyers can convince themselves of anything."

"tell me, when did you pick up this moral code was it before or after you quit? climb off that high horse of yours and be honest with yourself for once. you’re doing this for that pogue aren't you?”

there's a tingling sensation down her spine at the mention of pope. she knew. she knew that something was off all those times she gave those ragtag group of kids legal advice while in town. the feeling of eyes watching her that she dismissed as general anxiety from being in a public space, the sounds of camera clicks she reasoned as people taking picture of their surroundings, some sligthly moved office items she decided her assitant had forgot to move abck after using them. his total disregard for her privacy boils her blood.

"you've been fucking following me!?"

barry stands up from his seat. “woah."

rafe doesn't even look at her. "you think helping them out is gonna make them forgive you? forget everything you've done? you're the smartest person i know, don't be an idiot.”

her throat feels tight, as she wills herself not to cry over this stupid boy. “if you do this, we’re done.”

he stares her down, “there's no 'we'. remember?" he throws the lit match, setting the gold and its surorundings ablaze.

she doesn't stick around to watch his face glow under the fire's light.

tries her best to avoid rafe on the island and besides a few incidents she does. until ward's death which makes them find comfort in each other (as friends) and reconsider a business partnership

[mochinomnoms]

Hiii! For the Hanahaki event can I request Vil (romantic) with prompt #7? A gender neutral reader would be appreciated, thanks!!

Also if youre up for it maybe prompt #12 with Ace (Platonic) with the reader’s object of affection still being Vil? This prompt with Ace is too funny for me to ignore I just HAVE to sneak him in 😭😭

vil schoenheit, platonic!ace trappola x gn!reader [tags] – fluff, humor, semi enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, sickenly sweet [wc} – 3,458 prompt 7: “I've heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve, but wearing petals in your hair is a whole new level of fashion statement.” prompt 12: "No, I haven't been growing marigolds out of my ass. Why would you even ask that?!” note - writing this was surprisingly hard. but i got it and i think it's very cute, i just hope Vil is mostly in character :skull: also i don't know german so idk if the nickname is an accurate translation! comments loved and appreciated! a floral inconvenience

Marigold: often used during festivals like Diwali and Navratri, marigolds symbolize purity, auspiciousness, and the divine.

You were going to murder him. 

“Heyyyyyy Prefect!” Ace gave you a cheeky grin as he held your glass bottle of very expensive salicylic acid serum, balancing it precariously between his fingers. “What about this? Can I take this—whoops!”

“ACE!”

You shrieked as the bottle slipped from his fingers, only to be caught by his other hand, an infuriating grin still on his hand. 

“Hehe, relax! I’m just messing around—oh shit!” The bottle slipped again from his fingers as a now panicked Ace scrambled to capture it. “Oop. Got it. It’s fine.”

“Oh my gooooooooood, Ace, I’m going to fucking kill you, give that back!” You snatched the bottle from his hands, giving him a good kick behind the knees as you walked past him. 

“Owwwww, Prefect, why are you so mean to me?” Ace pouted as you put your serum back on your desk with the rest of the skincare Vil had gifted everyone at the start of the SDC training. Ace continued whining as he packed his bags to go back to Heartslabyul, being left behind by Deuce who went to get snacks from Sam’s with Epel. 

He felt bad that all the food you had was cursed by Vil at the beginning. 

“It’s almost like you want me out of your dorm, kinda rude, you know.”

“You know what’s rude?” You smacked down the pillow Ace threw your way as you huffed, “Your face. Ugly ass, you know you had a room next door, how’d all your stuff end up in my room?”

Ace shrugged as he shoved his wrapped up sweater into the now bulky backpack he’d brought over, throwing himself onto your bed and grunting as he bounced on the squeaky frame. 

“I don’t know, how’d you burn the Queen of Hearts’s statue—”

“That was you—”

“—the world will never know.” 

You rolled you eyes as you laid on your stomach next to him, hugging a spare pillow to your face. Closing your eyes, you sighed as the events of the last few weeks replayed in your head. Between acting as manager for the SDC group, to barely keeping up with classes, to Vil’s overblot, you were utterly exhausted. Speaking of Vil…

“Ah, that’s right, I should check on Vil before he leaves. I wonder if he’s doing okay?”

“With you at his beck and call? Perfectly fine, I guarantee you.” Ace yelped as you smacked his side, giving him a red-faced glare. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ace turned on his side with a teasing smirk. The kind of smirk he gave you whenever he wanted to fluster and embarrass you in front of your friends and teachers. 

“It means whatever you want it to mean. Maybe someone should consider not acting like a little kid with a crush whenever they’re around Vil—owowowowowow—stop hitting me!”

You pounded your fists onto Ace’s sides and back as he tried to roll away from your reach, arms cradling his head in meek protection. He managed to roll off the bed, turning over to look at you briefly to stick his tongue out and politely flip you off. Ace let out a small shriek as you launched off the bed after him, running out of the room into the hall and turning into a goosechase. You could practically hear the yakety sax song playing in your head as the two of you pushed past Jamil and Kalim, the former crying out at you in annoyance. 

“Watch it!”

Ace practically threw himself down the stairs, jumping past four whole steps, using the banister to whip him around into the main hallway where he ran into the living room. Finally catching up to him, Ace positioned the coffee table between you two as he continued egging you on. 

“Ayeeeeeee, embarrassed Prefect? Gonna throw a fit?” Ace let out a low cackle as you both shifted around the table. 

“Gonna throw your ass into the fucking sun, little bitch ass! You got something to say then fucking say it!” 

Ace snorted as he pointed behind you. “You’re one to talk, you wanna talk about the marigolds coming from behind you? It’s like you’re growing a garden out of your ass, wanna talk about that?”

“The fuck? I haven't been growing marigolds out of my ass. The hell you’re talking about,” You turned your head to look behind you, still growling at him now with confusion. “Why would you even ask that—WHAT THE FUCK!?”

You hissed as you jumped backwards into the table, the edges jamming into your skin. Behind you had been a long trail of beautiful, shimmering orange flowers. Upon closer inspection, you were pretty sure they were marigolds. 

“...Ace, this is your fault.” 

“What! Nuh-uh, I’m not the only with flower sickness—”

“The fuck is flower sickness?”

“You know, hanahaki? The love disease? How do you not know what flower sickness is, it’s like basic 8th grade bio—”

“I didn’t go to school here, dumbass!”

Ace’s mouth formed an ‘oh’ shape as he remembered. “Oooooh yeah, I forgot.”

“Forgot what? You little potatoes are acting awfully rowdy so early in the morning.”

You looked up to see Vil standing in the hallway, a bemused Rook behind him inspecting the flowers on the ground. Vil briefly made eye contact with you, both of your sharing a small smile before an irritating, itchy feeling made its way in your throat. 

You felt a hand pack your back as you started roughly coughing up several bunches of marigolds into your hands as Ace grimaced. 

“I forgot that they’re not from here, so they got no clue about hanahaki…or any other illness…huh it’s kinda a miracle they haven’t gotten sick from something else yet.” Ace hummed, as he leaned down to look at your face. 

You made eye contact with your peripheral vision, motioning Ace to lean closer into you and horasely whispered, “Come… closer…”

Confused, Ace obliged, ear up to your lips, giving you the perfect opportunity to sock him straight in the gut. Your dear, beloved friend gagged from the pressure, hands cradling his stomach as he fell to his knees, groaning in pain. 

“Y/N…” Vil sighed in exasperation, walking over to give you a gentle flick in your forehead as he chastised you. 

“It’s unbecoming of a friend of mine to be so belligerent, do you really have to be so crass with all your friends?”

You clicked your tongue, licking the spit from your lips. “I’m not with you, besides Ace deserves it, you know how he is.”

“Mm-hmm, and how long have you been coughing out the flowers, meine Süße?”

A pleasant warmth flooded your cheeks at the nickname. You choose to ignore the tickling sensation of marigolds growing from the tops of your head, which instead formed into sneezing fits. 

“I've heard of wearing your heart on your sleeve, but wearing petals in your hair is a whole new level of fashion statement.” He remarked, leaning down to observe the blooms. “Now, answer my question, meine Süße.”

“Achooo! Ugh,” You sniffled as you replied, “Um, not that long—achoo!—ago, ugh. Just today—”

“Ah! The little trickster started expelling the belles fleurs approximately a month and a half ago!” Rook chirped, a little too happily for your tastes. “Two weeks after we began training for the SDC.” 

Vil let out another sigh as you whipped your head to glare at Rook, hissing out, “What. The. Fuck.”

“Excuse me?! Language Y/N!” Vil barked at you, making you flinch and burst into another coughing fit. Noticing this, he softened his voice, though the blonde still sounded angry.

“That’s nearly two months with the flower sickness, have you been taking potions to help with the symptoms?” 

You shook your head, clearing your throat. “Ahem, no, uh. I didn’t know that there was medicine for this kinda thing, haaaaa I just figured I was being pranked by someone.”

You heard a snort behind you as Ace stood back up, grumbling, “Of course you would, dumbass.” 

“I will actually kill you—”

“You will actually not.” Vil placed a gentle hand on your upper back, guiding you to the front door. “Rook, ensure everyone packs up and cleans their mess by the time we get back, I believe Kalim may still need help packing up.”

“Oui! How kind of you Vil to escort our lovely Trickster to get them a remedy for their affliction!” 

Rolling your eyes, you let Vil guide you out of the dorm, calling out to Ace, “Don’t forget to grab the rest of your stuff, it’s still in my room!” 

“Okayyy!” 

With that, the door shut behind you two as you began a pleasant walk over to what you assumed would be Sam’s shop. A pregnant silence fell over you two as you walked down the pathway leading to main street, having to maneuver past the alchemy building and botanical gardens. You were hyper conscious about his hand that remained on your back, which is when you started another coughing fit. 

“Oh you poor dear, did you really have no clue what was going on all this time?” Vil spoke to you in that soft tone that he’d been reserving for you since you first became friends, a few months ago. You’d gone into the Film Research Club interested in working as a stagehand, plus you had a good working knowledge costume design and general clothes repair, which was sorely needed. 

It’d been an incredibly rocky acquaintanceship at first, as Vil made subtle, snide remarks on your disheveled appearance, while you shot back with loud, brass comments on his ‘Regina George wannabe’ act. Now, he didn’t know who Regina George was back then, but took offense that a ‘dirty, lumpy potato would have the audacity to insult him’. 

He only kept you on in the club because no one ever willingly signed up for backstage work, and you only requested free access to spare cloth and sewing materials to fix your clothes. Vil was also more than happy to point out how scruffy the patches all over your uniforms made you look: 

“You certainly fix the part of the ramshackle Prefect, now don’t you?”

Though, looking back on it now, you’re pretty sure he wasn’t aware that everything of yours was either found in Ramshackle’s attic or bought with the meager allowance Crowley gave you. Shortly before finals, Vil found you crying in an isolated part of backstage because another first-year permanently bleached your only jacket during a botched potions class.

“What’s going on back here, practice your scenes upfront with the rest of us, I don’t care how ugly you look crying—Prefect?”

You jumped, scrambling to get back up from the dusty corner you’d shoved yourself into. You awkwardly wiped the tears from your face, wrapping your arms around yourself as you gave Vil a feeble glare.

“What do you want Vil, I already told the others that their costumes wouldn’t be ready yet, if you want me to get stuff done, you gotta stop annoying me—”

“You’ve been crying.” His simple statement shut you up, as he approached you with a firm look on his face.

“…Yeah, stating the obvious much?” you muttered back, finding the scuff marks on the ground very interesting. Vil let out a sigh, reaching into his jacket to take out an off-white, embroidered handkerchief.

“I’m trying to be sympathetic. Ugh, you’re all red and puffy, let me see.” Vil tipped your chin up with his fingertips, gently patting at the tear streaks on your cheeks. “You look worse than normal…is the red bleach stain on your uniform meant to be a fashion statement?”

Pausing at the stuttering breath you took, sniffling, you answered, “No, some dumba—”

“Language”

“—Some jerk,” you drawled, “from my last class messed up his potion, and it got all over me. Stained my only jacket, right when it starts snowing, too.”

Vil raised a brow at you, leaning back once he was satisfied with your dried cheek.

“Only one? Even Ruggie has a few spare uniform jackets from Leona, did you seriously not think ahead to purchase a spare?”

You half-laughed, half-scoffed at his statement.

“You think Crowley gives me enough money to buy another jacket for his bougie ass—I mean, fancy, school? I barely have enough to feed myself and Grim between the roof caving in and the water pipes breaking. The bathroom flooded again last week.”

You sighed, rubbing your temples as you felt a migraine coming in, unaware of Vil’s growing horror.

“I was lucky enough to find my uniform in the attic, it waaay too big and makes me look homeless, but at least it keeps me warm…now it just looks even more like shit.”

You finally looked up at the blonde, expecting him to lecture you on your foul language. Instead, you were surprised to see Vil’s horrified expression.

“What do you mean, you barely have enough for food?”

It was then that you discovered that no one outside your group of friends were really aware that you were stuck on campus, victim to Crowley’s whims and needs. You know the others in Heartslabyul were faintly aware of your predicament, being from another world and stuck until Crowley found you a way home. Ace and Deuce did their best to help repair things around the dorm, but could only do so much. Savanaclaw and Octavinelle knew of the disarray of your dorm, but based on comments from Leona and Floyd, weren’t aware of just how much you were struggling just to eat and sleep. 

Ruggie definitely was, seeing as he occasionally slipped you a spare meat bun or snack that he happened to buy extra of when running errands for Leona. Ruggie was a real one, as long as you didn’t point it out. 

Since that day, Vil had sort of taken you under his wing, along with Epel who you hadn’t met yet at the time. You had to give him credit, he wasn’t the villain you’d made him out to be in your head. And Vil admitted, he enjoyed that you were quick on your feet and enjoyed your banter, as long as it was unique to him. 

He spared you his previous uniforms that he’d grown out of his freshman and sophomore year, minus the band and vest, watching as you mended the waist and ends to fix your stature. More often than not, especially after hearing that you’d be stuck by yourself during winter break, Vil was sending you care packages with personal hygiene products from brand deals he never took. He’d send fabrics and sewing supplies with sewing patterns. Vil even started buying you breakfast and lunch once back to school, though you refrained from joining him for dinner in Pomefiore. 

In exchange, you managed to replicate, with his help, some of the scripts for the more famous musicals from your world. You even told him who Regina George was! He still wasn't fond of the comparison, but did find the musical intriguing. Vil was fascinated by the works of art your world produced, and just slightly enamored in the way you described them with glee and fondness. Still, the exchanges still felt a bit uneven.

You’d once made the joke that he was practically a sugar daddy, just without the sugar. He snapped back, “Well, I’m not stopping you, now am I? I’ve never had a sweet tooth, but you’re more than welcome to give me thanks, meine Süße.” 

(You spent that night screaming into your pillow with a red-hot blush while Grim looked on with concern.)

Truly, you two had developed an unlikely friendship, one where you both spoke your minds to the other with no hesitation or fear. Which is why the lack of conversation at the moment was slowly driving you insane. 

You sneaked a peek at Vil, taking a sharp breath as your eyes met his own. It seemed that he was watching you with his very lovely, sharp purple eyes. The thought sent a hot flash through you as you sneezed a flurry of petals and pollen. 

“Ooof, ugh, this is gonna make my allergies go haywire.”

“Sam will have some potions that will help with the symptoms, though you will have to confront the root of the cause.” Vil slid his hand down to rest in your mid-back, rubbing his thumb against you in a soothing motion, though it cause you to shiver and flush. 

“Yeah, okay.” you managed to squeak out, groaning as you felt the tickle of glowing marigolds pop up on your skin and in your hair. “Ummmm, so how do you get rid of, uh, Ace called it hanahaki?”

Vil nodded and opened his mouth to speak before being interrupted by the faint screaming of your name. Both of you looked down the path, where you saw Deuce running over to you two, followed by a confused Epel chasing after him. 

“PREFECT! PREFECTPREFECTPREFECTPREFECT—” 

Yelping as Deuce skidded to a half and grabbed you by your arms, shaking you with intense concern, you managed to reply a stuttered, “W-w-what?” 

Deuce paused his shaking to give you a concerned lecture, “You didn’t tell us you had the flower sickness!? Why didn’t you say something, you’ve been running around for SDC all this time—”

“You too—”

“But I’m not sick!” Deuce dug through the paperbag you’d just notice he was holding and shoved a pale pink potion in your hands. “Here! Take this!”

Before you could even touch the bottle, Vil plucked it from a confused Deuce’s hands, studying it with scrutiny. 

“Hmm…This is an average allergy relief potion for hay fever, did you actually ask Sam for a hanahaki symptom relief potion, or did you just grab the first thing you saw off the shelf?”

Deuce visibly deflated, opening his mouth to sheepishly reply before Epel interrupted him with a harsh, “I told him to ask, but he got all riled up and started yammerin’—I mean, uh, talking about getting the Prefect help immediately.”

Vil sighed, handing Deuce the potion back and shooed the two away with a wave of his hand. 

“Just go back, I’ll handle it, just make sure your messes are all cleaned up before we get back.”

The two replied, “Yes sir!” and continued on their path, waving goodbye to you. Though you could hear Epel mumble to Deuce, “Those are marigolds, right? I think Vil’s favorite flowers are those, you don’t think…”

You slowed down to ponder Epel’s words, remembering what Ace initially called the illness. 

“Vil…Ace called it a love sickness…would these flowers related toooo, I don’t know, a hypothetical crush somehow?” 

Vil briefly opened his mouth, closing it as he hesitated to speak. You think you could make out a soft blush on his cheeks. 

“Yes. Your hypothetical crush must favor marigolds. Can’t say I blame him, I’m fond of them myself…” 

The two of you made eye contact, a knowing look in his eye and tone making your heart skip a beat and you look down in embarrassment. 

“Oh…I see…” You coughed awkwardly, a few petals flying from your mouth. “So you said there was a way to get to the root cause?”

Vil hummed, stopping at the entrance of Sam’s shop to turn to you with an unreadable expression. 

“Yes, as an illness based on love, appropriately the cure is to confess your feelings to the one you’ve found yourself fancying.”

A cold flash went through your body as your stomach dropped. Again. “Oh.” The thought of confessing to Vil made you sick, like you could puke at a drop of a coin at any moment.

“I wish you’d mentioned something sooner, I could’ve helped you…ease into it.” Vil murmured,  his hand moving to cradle your cheek. He squished your cheek with a fond look in his eye. 

“I know it’s a daunting task…I won’t rush you into it.” Vil moved his hand to brush your hair away, leaning down to place a soft kiss on your forehead. “When you’re ready to say something, just let me know.”

Leaning back, VIl covered his mouth to hide his amused smirk. Your face was a blazing red as the marigolds grew a trail down your neck and chest. He motioned for you to follow him into the shop, holding the door open as he held a hand out to you. At the moment, you’re having a hard time imagining why he’d only ever been typecast in villain roles, he looked more like an enchanting love interest catered for you specifically. 

“For now, I’ll be by your side. I will wait for you, meine Süße.”

[maxwell-grant]

The Penguin Episode 4: Cent'anni Breakdown

She goes through all these different levels of all these different personas: excellent daughter, overachiever, and this horrific feral state in Arkham. And it's not until the yellow dress that she finds the one that fits.

Kind of like sharks can't stop moving or they sink. It's that relentless pursuit of justice.

This changes her forever. She never comes back. Something so much bigger than her takes over in order to survive - Cristin Milioti

This was pointed out to me by my friend and, show of hands everyone, who else thinks it's unbelievably fucking sick that it is Sofia who gets to show up at the Falcone dinner table, wearing a thematically appropriate embodiment of her childhood trauma, and do a "None of you are safe" speech?

(Episode 1) (Episode 2) (Episode 3) (Episode 5) (Episode 6) (Episode 7) (Episode 8)

It probably felt odd to spend time with Sofia when we’re in a show called The Penguin. But I think it’s just as important so you can understand Oz psychologically. Even though I don’t view Oz as a hero or a villain, he is a greater villain in the show than anyone else. And for you to feel that way, I think you have to understand his primary antagonist more. And that’s Sofia.” - Lauren LeFranc

I gotta say I'm generally not enthusiastic about Penguin being depicted as overtly disgusting, like drooling and eating raw fish and all that Burton stuff (actually I do think the black bile is cool, but only so far as as that version goes), but for that opening scene, that was a spectacularly well-placed bit of grossness. Like this sheer craven animalistic ugliness of DeVito's Penguin descending for a second to show us how Sofia sees Oz, and even how right she is to do so at the moment because holy shit hahahahahaha

From what we can see of Sofia's pre-Arkham life, she was basically the Meadow Soprano of the family: The smart, overachieving golden child, whose social standing and eligitibility for leadership wouldn't even be up for debate if she was born a man like her loser brother (love AJ, relate uncomfortably to AJ, he's not at all morally comparable to Alberto, but he is very much a loser). Socially conscious and sticking up for victims but only if you don't poke too closely at her victim-generating family business, aware of some things but willfully blind to her own hypocrisy and insistent that daddy is still in average a good man who isn't as bad as people around her may say he is. I'd even say that the Sofia we see here is a more moral person than Meadow, although obviously being the daughter of Carmine Falcone is a much scarier, more isolating and horrific prospect than growing up the daughter of Tony Soprano (the ways in which the two Sopranos kids diverged and majorly prefigured American socio-political developments that kicked off after the show is a topic for another post).

(Also, I don't really want to bring up Sopranos comparisons because the shows are similar, they're really not, but I finished The Sopranos yesterday so they're gonna come up still)

I think Mark Strong does a really good job here filling in for John Turturro's role, even if he's not quite as good in it as Turturro. I think he plays the character differently in a way that works really well for this being a past version of Carmine, filtered through Sofia's vision. He is imposing and quiet and mighty, a lone titan of unquestionable power over the entire world, not even remotely someone to be defied or displeased. Turturro's Falcone was charismatic and affable and oozing with unspeakable yet casual cruelty, and I would have liked that here, but I like the idea that we're seeing a Carmine from before he was invincible, when he still needed Sofia to help him get Congressman Hill on the phone and still worried about the future of the family at Alberto's hands, a Carmine from when the Maronis were still around and he wasn't the sole ruling power in Gotham, who could still possibly lose even without vigilante intervention.

He is larger, more imposing, a stern and stoic father who had little use for pleasantries, and with no mirth to be had at the expense of the little people who think they can do anything against him that matters, even if he is getting there. I think the difference here adds a nice little arc to Carmine: there was a time where he needed to keep up appearences, there was a time where he raised his voice above a whisper to get things done, and there was a time where he wasn't the real mayor of Gotham. There was a time where he was a "proper" Don, when he acted like his comics counterpart, and none of that really became necessary over the following decade, when he grew more and more invincible and isolated and comfortable in this nightmare he made the city into.

They also confirm here that apparently the Iceberg Lounge/44 Below existed way back when Oz was just Sofia's driver, and it was already Carmine's prostitute slaughterhouse even then and Alberto knew about it. Possibly explains why Oz was handed the club in the first place, because the Falcones already called him Sofia's penguin and putting The Penguin in charge of the Iceberg Lounge would fit their idea of a laugh (and given how much Oz hates being called Penguin, he would hardly come up with the name himself)

Lmao, those dog comparisons I keep making really don't stop justifying themselves.

Credit again to Mike Marino and the prosthetics team for this younger Oz make-up, he strikes a very nice middleground between current Oz and the one we see as a kid.

Really like what we see of Sofia and Oz's dynamic here, again reinforcing that for all intents and purposes he was the sidekick in her HBO protagonist life. We see how Sofia likes his company and how she even kinda defends him from the family, but she really cannot bring herself to respect him very much and disdains him from the same very upper-class perspective the rest of the family does, she's just nicer about it. And in turn we see parts of where Oz's resentment to her comes from, and also the extent to which Oz was always lying in wait for an opportunity to get ahead regardless of her, his justified grievances as well as him being a conniving fuck. The really thin line this treads though, is that it establishes that neither of them were lying about how they meant something to each other, even if it doesn't help.

Sofia did have her life ruined partially because of Oz, she did endure horrific things while he got a promotion because he ratted her out to Carmine, and he very much did in part because he wanted to get ahead and saw an opportunity to do so. But also, Oz genuinely had no idea that this is what Carmine would do, and I think in large part this was also about keeping himself safe. It's not even that unbelievable that he was genuinely looking out for her, because holy shit you do not talk to the press about Carmine Falcone, daughter or not, and he tried warning her in the car before she rebuffed him and insulted him pretty deep for good measure. If Sofia talked to the press and would not stop talking (since he didn't know in the car that she rebuffed Gleeson) and shit started happening because of her snooping around, he would have absolutely gotten punished/murdered for it, it is not at all a stretch to assume that Carmine would have done something to Oz as punishment to Sofia.

Oz didn't plan any kind of misfortune, at no point did he mastermind her admission into Arkham (or even help keep her there with the letters, like the rest of the family), he just told Carmine something he shouldn't have, and neither of them expected anything too terrible was gonna come out of it. They both wildly underestimated what a complete scumbag Carmine is, but with Carmine (and the others) gone, there's nobody else to turn those grievances to.

Even if Oz could claim deniability for the Arkham thing, which he kinda can't but Sofia even tried to grant him anyway, he sure as shit can't for everything else he does in the opening minutes.

Oh hey it's Mr Mustache With The Broken Nose.

A thing that came to mind when I was watching the episode was the story of Rosemary Kennedy, JFK's sister whose father arranged for her to be institutionalized and lobotomized at age 23 as a reponse to "difficult" behavior. I'm not recounting it in more detail here because the rest of it is just too horrific, look it up yourself if you're curious. I remembered it because reading about Rosemary Kennedy ruined my fucking day and it still pumps up the breaks in my train of thought every now and then, so it came to mind watching this story about a young woman horrifically institutionalized and butchered for the sake of her wealthy family's image. Later I heard the podcast, and turns out that actually was exactly what Lauren LeFranc based Sofia's story on, which was nice. I'm glad it also fucks Lauren LeFranc up and that we both agree she should have gotten to wreak revenge on the entire family over it, thank you Penguin Show that continues to be made for me, this was nice.

Oh hey, Magpie. Just the name, yeah, but that was another nice surprise. I used to have a bit of a soft spot for Magpie, occasionally I thought there was something to get out of her and Penguin together, so a part of me likes that they put Magpie in The Penguin show even if just in name. Yes, she only exists to be annoying and die, but that's what she already tends to do anyway. And y'know, much as I may like her, she is still a John Byrne character, so she doesn't really deserve much more than that

Jesus Christ this episode gets uncomfortable.

I like that this establishes that Julian Rush kinda did make an effort to help her and kinda felt bad about it, but not nearly enough, and that he is very much a complicit contemptible creep who has it coming as much as any of the people who put Sofia in there.

Cannot state enough how much I appreciate that they didn't put any actual named Batman villains in the Arkham Asylum episode, guarantee a lot of creators would not resist the temptation. I mean okay I guess there is a Ventris already in Batman but, come on, you know who I mean. This did not need any references to like, Jeremiah Arkham or Jonathan Crane or Hugo Strange or any of that, and that's not a diss on any of those guys, it's just that unlike pretty much every other Batman story, this episode does not undercut it's point about the horrific institutional horrors dehumanizing and destroying Sofia by pinning it on a chief boogeyman supervillain that Batman is going to fight later. Dr. Ventris is not responsible for the systemic rot that got her there nor is he the sole orchestrator/perpetrator of the abuse it's inmates suffer, he simply answers to those, and thus perpetuates them, by doing his job in a mental institution.

I am still haunted by the inmate committing suicide with a fork. It is so fucked up that Sofia was tortured and goaded by the doctors into murdering another inmate, and when that failed, they tortured her again and again and again until she snapped. The whole point was to push Sofia beyond the breaking point to justify further incarceration. The doctors just standing there letting her kill Magpie.

I want Dr.Rush to die.

I have more thoughts on Arkham, but I'd call this the most horrific take on Arkham so far, because it is the most honest take on Arkham so far. Even at it's most run-down and monstrous, it is usually never at all into question that Arkham Asylum is necessary, because if it wasn't there, all the crazies would run rampant in Gotham. Over the years, it's monstrousness has always been tied directly and specifically to it's inmates, and whenever people have pointed out the shoddy conditions and inhospitable environment of Arkham as a factor for repeat offenders, it's pretty much always as a fandom joke outside of Batman stories proper, and if there is anything wrong with the way the Asylum works, it is always the fault of particularly evil villains attached. A Lock-Up, a Jeremiah Arkham, a Hugo Strange, etc. Arkham Asylum is in general a Batman concept that's raised a lot of discussions and calls for revision over the years, and a lot of the issues with it tie into larger issues around superhero depictions of the carceral system, that @artbyblastweave went into here.

Here, in large part because this is a realistic world and a Gotham without a rampaging supervillain contingent of repeat offenders who can magically break out constantly, it is never into question that the patients are the victims of this system, and if they are being turned into potential supervillains, it is because of Arkham inflicting this on them. This is an Arkham Asylum that remains a nightmarish, horrific force in this world, but not because it's Castle Dracula where all the crazy villains hang out, not even just because the rest of Gotham is hopelessly rotten and corrupt, but because it's a mental institution and depicted accordingly. It gets to dig into the real life horrors mental institutions inflict on it's patients without having to justify those measures as benign or necessary to keep crazy crimes from happening. Frankly, this take on Arkham Asylum has been long overdue.

In every form of Batman media, just about the worst thing that can happen at any given moment is Arkham Asylum falling and it's inmates escaping into the streets, that's generally what happens when Batman needs to deal with apocalyptic stakes (which is why of course it happens all the fucking time now). Here, that scenario would be regarded with cheer, because the worst thing that can happen in this universe is being sent to Arkham Asylum. It isn't just Batman's unofficial personal prison / punching gallery, if anything it massively raises the stakes on this Batman's next adventures, because now we know this is what's waiting for him if he gets caught and unmasked.

I like that Sofia and Oz are both trying to save/protect those they see as younger versions of themselves, while inflicting on them the kinds of tragedies that ultimately created them

Oz reached out to this poor disabled kid from the streets and is showing him the ropes, while also belittling him as a nobody and distorting his worldview and dragging him into life or death cornered scrapdog situations chipping away at his morals. Sofia saves her little niece who laughs at bad table manners and doesn't quite do what her family says, gently lulling her to sleep so she can kill her mom and her entire family.

Extremely important that Sofia Falcone makes her formal arrival as a villain by showing up dressed in a sexy yet fitting extension of her trauma / cultural reference (The Yellow Wallpaper / the walls in her mother's bedroom), before putting on a mask and enacting Gotham's first Mass Casualty Gas Attack, we love to see it.

I was frankly already calling Sofia one of my favorite Bat-villains even before this episode, I'm just glad everyone seems to be on the same page with me now. I'm seeing a lot of posts on Twitter and Instagram talking about how they're rooting for Sofia instead of Oz, that she deserves to win this war, and good, fucking amazing that they're doing this, again, this show is hitting home runs I could not have foreseen.

It is incredible what a character they've made out of Sofia, and the fact that we now see Oz as her antagonist as much as we see Sofia as his, and the fact that if Penguin wins, he will win this as a villain. He will steal a victory he does not deserve and rub it in your face and he will make the children of the world cry for it as any villain worth his name should be doing, and it frankly wouldn't be much of a fight if Sofia wasn't every bit the complicated, engaging protagonist he is. Lauren LeFranc claimed that she sees Sofia is the closest the show has to a hero even if she is not, and this is the episode that sold everyone on it.

Halfway through the show and it's only gotten better and better, can't wait for what's coming next.

[whatdoeseverybodywant]

Rebuild & Restore - Chapter 6

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Series Masterlist

Saturday Afternoon..

“This is so fucking stupid.” Joe mumbled to himself  as he drove down I-95. After another one of his text messages sent to Kiyana went unanswered. He was down bad. He just didn’t understand. Kiyana and Josh were divorced now, so there was nothing standing in the way of him and Kiyana being together now. The stupid part wasn’t even that he was driving to Pensacola because he could just play it off as wanting to see his parents, it’s that fact that this impromptu trip only took place because Kiyana was active on social media but not responding to his text messages.

6 hours down, 3 hours and 30 minutes to go.. 

“How did Josh take the news?” Samara asked as she and Kiyana walked around the mall looking for stores to go in. Samara narrowed her eyes at Kiyana when she didn't respond back.  “Kiyana Marie…” 

“I didn’t tell him yet.” Kiyana muttered as they walked into a store. She could feel the heat of Samara’s stare as she picked up a dress from the rack and held it up to her body. 

“That’s ugly, put it down.” Kiyana rolled her eyes and put the dress back. “Why the hell not?” Kiyana huffed as she started looking through another rack of dresses.

 “I just don’t wanna spring it on him Sam,” Kiyana huffed out. “We’ve only been divorced for like what? 2 weeks is that not too soon?” It took everything in Samara to not knock her best friend upside her head. 

“Key, y’all were married and he was sleeping with that girl, it’s no such thing as too soon when it comes to y’all.  You don’t owe him anything..”  Kiyana sucked her teeth, but she knew Samara was right, she didn’t owe Josh anything. “Fuck Josh.” 

“You’re right,” Kiyana muttered as her heart started to ache in her chest. She knew she needed to move on.. She had to move on for her own sanity. Josh had proven to her that he wasn’t the man she thought he was, it was time for her to move on. 

“I wasn’t expecting you back for another hour or two.” Josh stated as Kiyana walked into her living room. She eyed him, frowning her face up as he looked a little too comfortable in her living room, sprawled out on her couch. The boys weren’t used to him not being in the house yet, so he had been spending his days off at the house instead of his apartment. 

“I just wanted to pick a couple of things up from the mall.” She said and Josh nodded, his eyes peeking over at her bags, eyes narrowing as one of the names stuck out to him. 

“Damn, you got a date or something?” He jokingly asked, trying to peek into the lingerie store bag.  Now or never 

“Yeah,” She said, “I actually wanted to talk to you about that. I need you to take the boys tonight.” 

“Wait.” Josh chuckled, sitting up and grabbing the remote, turning the t.v off. “What the fuck is you telling me right now?” He asked, feeling his stomach tighten and his heart start to pound faster. A date? Nah, he must’ve heard her wrong. 

“You’re not seriously mad right now are you?” She asked and he scoffed 

“What the fuck - of course i’m mad Kiyana. I’m your husband -” 

“Ex-husband!” She cut him off. “You’re my ex-husband who decided that he no longer wanted to be faithful. ” 

Suddenly, Josh couldn’t breathe. He drowned out whatever else Kiyana was saying and just stared at her pretty face. This can not be happening right now. The thought of Kiyana being with someone else made him sick to his stomach. “I’m gonna go.” He said, not looking at her as he put his shoes on and started walking towards the door. 

“What about the boys? Can you take them tonight?” Josh scoffed and shook his head. 

“Nah, not tonight.” 

“Josh!” She called out, leaping up from the couch and following him out of the house. “You being deadass?” 

“You think imma sit in the fucking house, filled with memories of us while you out on a date? You got me fucked up.” Kiyana threw her hands up and let out a long sigh. 

“So don’t stay here. Go to your place.”   Oh this bitch, Josh thought, knowing better than to call her that out loud. 

“Bye Kiyana.” Her jaw dropped open as she turned his back to her and stomped towards his car. 

“Fuck you Josh!” She yelled at him, not caring about the neighbors, flipping  him off as he got in his car and drove away. 

Joe let out a sigh as he pulled up to his destination. Making sure he had his phone and wallet he exited his car and walked up to the front door, knocking three times. 

“Oh shit, big Uce! Whatchu’ doing here?” Jon said as he dapped up his older cousin. 

Joe smiled. “Just decided to take a drive and clear my head.” Joe lied and Jon furrowed his eyebrows. 

“From Miami?” He asked, moving to the side and letting Joe into his home. 

“Nah, I've been in town for a couple days.” He lied again. “Wanted to see my folks.”  Joe stated as he sat on the couch with Jon. “Decided to come and see what my favorite cousin has been up to.” 

“Now I know ya’ ass is lying.” Jon laughed. “Whatchu’ really doing here Uce?"

“Alright, Alright.” Joe muttered, wiping his hands on his gray sweatpants. “I know Josh is your brother and all but fuck, i’m here to see Kiyana.” Trinity, who just entered the living room, shared a look with her husband. “No. Don’t look at eachother like that. I just want to make sure she’s good. She hasn’t been answering my text or phone calls.” 

“I mean, can you blame her?” Trinity spoke up. “I’m pretty sure she is only still in contact with Josh because of their kids. Look,” Trinity sighed, sitting down next to Joe. “Josh is already making it hard for her, she doesn’t need you popping up and making it worse.” 

“How can I make it worse by checking up on my friend Trinity?”

“Y’all are not friends anymore Joe. The second y’all had sex, y’all stopped being friends.”  Joe opened his mouth to argue, but the sound of the front door opening and slamming caught their attention. 

“A fuckin' date! Divorced for 2 weeks and she has a fucking date!” Josh ranted as he stomped into the living room, stopping short at the sight of Joe sitting on the couch. Josh immediately jumped to conclusions, Kiyana had a date and Joe just so happened to be in Pensacola. “Imma kill you.” Josh muttered before lunging towards Joe. 

Luckily, Jon was quick and grabbed Josh before he could land a punch.  “Of fuck off!” Joe snorted standing up. “It was six months ago and y’all are divorced now. Get over it.” 

“Get over it?! You’re going on a date with my wife and you’re telling me to get over it!”

Oh my god.” Trinity muttered, rolling her eyes. “She’s not going on a date with Joe dummy. And even if she was, she’s a single woman now. You want her to be single the rest of her life? It’s stupid as hell. She’s allowed to move on Josh.” Josh sucked his teeth and pushed Jon off of him. 

“Whatever.” He muttered, throwing a glare at Joe  before stomping his way back out of the house, slamming the door behind him. 

“STOP SLAMMING MY DAMN DOOR!” 

Kiyana stared at herself in her bedroom mirror. “You can do this.” She whispered as she took a deep breath, smoothing down her dress. She was beyond nervous for her date with Eli. This was her first date with another guy in twenty-three years. Her stomach was already in knots. 

 Walking into the living room, she rolled her eyes as Samara catcalled at her. After Josh’s little tantrum earlier, Kiyana called her best friend who was more than happy to spend the evening with her nephews. 

“Good, it looks easy to take off.” Kiyana rolled her eyes again with a chuckle. 

“I’m not having sex with him.” 

“Booo!” Samara threw a couch pillow at Kiyana. “Why the hell not? Just get it over with.” 

“Because it’s our first date Samara.” Kiyana laughed as she walked over to the bar cart to pour herself a shot of Hennessy. “I don’t want him to think I'm easy.” 

Before Samara could respond there was a knock on her front door, causing the both of them to look at each other in confusion. 

“I thought you said eight.” Samara said, looking at the clock on her phone. 

“He’s early,” Kiyana responded, before walking over to the font door and opening it, her heart rate picking up when she saw who was standing on the other side. 

“Joe?” Kiyana whispered, shocked that he was standing in front of her. 

“JOE?!” She heard Samara yell out. 

“What are you doing here?” 

Joe shrugged and placed his hands in the pockets of his gray sweats, “I came to see if you were alright. You haven’t been responding to my texts.” 

“I’ve been busy.” Was all Kiyana said and Joe narrowed his eyes at her. 

“Kiyana -”  He was cut off by the sound of someone’s car tires screeching to a stop in front of her house. 

“You can’t go on the date.” Joe called out as he exited his car and made his way up to the house, standing right next to Joe. Kiyana looked between the two men with wide eyes. 

“Excuse me?” She asked and by now Samara had made her way to the foyer and was watching the mess unfold. 

“Uh, Is everything okay Kiyana?”  Oh what the fuck Kiyana thought as Joe and Josh turned to look at Eli who was walking up to them holding a bouquet of red roses. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Joe and Josh asked at the same time. 

“Elijah, who the fuck are y’all?”  Kiyana turned to glare at Samara when she started laughing. 

“I can’t do this.” Kiyana muttered, as she started to rub her temples.  This could not be happening to her right now. What were the odds of all three of them showing up at the same time tonight?!

LMAO. I would probably just turn around and go back in the house if I was Kiyana 😭

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[youareatragedy]

hello— this has been nagging at me for a while but why does feyre suck at being a high lady? i get that sjm probably did it to make it some sort of feminist power move— but she really only handles surface level stuff. she may be powerful and have small drops of each high lord but does she do well enough in running an entire court and overseeing their entire lives? she’s only in her twenties and is in charge of everyone. i’m ngl i’d be hella pissed if i was living in velaris and had to watch a young woman who is illiterate be crowned as MY high lady? after all that she’s done? or *after the shit she’s pulled?* yeah, she broke the curse and saved everyone in prythian— but girly your actions after that are questionable🤨 destroying of the spring court, stealing the book of breathings from tarquin which i’m pretty sure was a very important artefact— like they couldn’t have just asked him instead? and then she’s giving HIM orders, in HIS house? and then her overgrown bat of a husband claims “she’s the high lady of the night court, she can do what she wishes” mr riceman, this isn’t the fucking night court. i swear feyre is such a wack narrator— because all she cares about is rhys and the IC. never mind the people dying around them as she did what she did in the tent, or never mind the women suffering in illyria of having their wings clipped as they watch as she flies around, *or* when they decided to have s*x in the sky. where the poor citizens of velaris could have seen that. like how inconsiderate can you even be atp— smh. it’s so funny— she’s titled the high lady of the night court yet she can barely read or has any experience in running a court💀💀💀 i wonder if she knows her precious inner circle will only heed rhys’ orders and not hers and if they do follow her orders it’s because they don’t want to suffer the wrath of rhys😭💀

feyre is… a questionable character. i liked her more in the first book. but when she became high fae— girl wtf happened to you😭😭 she became riceman’s trophy wife. i just know that sjm will make them high queen and high king (totally undeserved btw) and everyone will eat it up.

i’m sorry for this rant btw— i sound like such a feyre hater. 😭😭 nesta’s book slays as always, because at least we get a perspective on someone that isn’t so biased.

Anon, let me hug you. I think you answered your own question lol. But I'd like to add that she sucks at a job that is just a fake title anyway, so I bet all of Prythian knows no one should rely on her to do anything important and still asks Rhys for serious matters. And I think they do, because after ACOWAR, what she did as a High Lady was write correspondence (maybe Rhys gave her that task so she could practice what must be her ugly penmanship), visibly look uncomfortable when visiting a dive bar (she already forgot she lived in a hovel a year ago), and create an art studio that she will use anyway but in the name of "look at this thing you will all benefit from but it will be mine to do as I please."

Most of all, I think it's selfish for both her and Rhys to have a death pact. It's not romantic it's stupid as all fuck to do that when they're supposed to govern. The chaos that would ensue if NC lost both their highest ranked leaders in the same minute? Feysand do not care about their court. Assuming Nyx would be the next HL, what would happen to him if he's only four years old when his parents die (because remember there's still a war coming soon)? Who will take care of him and the NC for him when he's still a toddler? How is that fair for the caretaker? And not to mention how easy it would be for someone like Keir to just kill Nyx. There might be a coup. Chaos. Death.

So Feysand are just bad leaders and bad parents because they selfishly think they can fuck, breed, and orphan their child because they're entitled and assume someone will step up and be Nyx's parents. And the thing is, they did it without agreement from anyone in the IC (the people who will have to take care and protect Nyx).

So Feyre is a bad High Lady, Rhys is a bad High Lord who thinks it's fine to let his wife believe she's in charge when she's actually a tradwife who will not have time to use all that power she has anymore because she's too busy being a mom and painter, and I'm sure there are things we've missed regarding how bad she is as a High Lady. But everything you said is the answer. I would not want a war criminal to lead me, but I guess her stans think it's cute that a barely literate female who doesn’t understand fae and fae laws at all can be a girlboss "first High Lady ever" (again.. fake High Lady), as long as they can have fanart of her wearing gowns, tiara and cool tattoos.

[bomberqueen17]

liveblogging the aubreyad 1: Master & Commander

ok so. i'm going to liveblog my reread of the Patrick O'Brian Jack Aubrey series of books, in potentially more or less detail, because it's something to do and it's funny. Starting with book 1, Master & Commander, copyright date 1969, which I definitely first read in like 1991 when I was waaaaay too young to understand approximately half the references. There will be spoilers. There may or may not be an accurate representation of the entire contents of the series. We'll see how long I keep this up. I wish I could write it in the entertaining style of my Wee Precious Flower Prince Geralt Witcher 3 playthroughs of yore but those were written under 1) quarantine confinement, 2) incredible amounts of gin, 3) after collaborative sessions, and I just can't make that happen solo.

But I will do my poor, reduced, older and more sedate best. I promise that while these books are not quite as dramatically crack-addled as Witcher 3, they are weirder than you think, which is critical.

OK so. We start off swinging with the meet-ugly. In fair Port Mahon we lay our scene, in the year 1800 (or 1801?? we also start off swinging with never quite having the tiny details quite laid down), we meet our fair hero Jack Aubrey, a six-foot, well-built, yellow-haired lieutenant in the Royal Navy, a cheerful high-spirited cove who immediately pisses off the unpleasant little man sitting next to him at this chamber music concert by singing along to the music. Relatable reaction by the unpleasant little man, to be sure. Aubrey is having a bad time, though— he has not been promoted and he doesn’t have a ship so he has nothing to do but get in trouble, and his spirits are too low to get into a fight with the unpleasant little man, though he briefly considers it. We soon find out that the sole bright spot in Jack's life is that he's fucking his boss’s wife, which seems like a bad idea but who are we to judge. But lo! He gets back to the inn where he’s staying only to find a letter informing him that he has been promoted! He is now the master and commander of his very own ship, which we are informed is a sloop. Also throwing us into the deep end of Listen Baby It’s Just Vibes. The nautical language and technical shit comes fast and thick and if you just sort of roll with it you figure it out. Don’t Worry About It. There Will Be Context Clues.

Now that Jack is professionally fulfilled he is happy, and so the next morning when he happens to see his unpleasant little man from the previous night, he shows his true colors: he immediately bounds across the street and wholeheartedly, unreservedly apologizes for being a dipshit, like the golden retriever he really is at heart. The unpleasant little man is so shocked by this that he loses all his unpleasantness, has a really nice conversation with Jack, and immediately gets distracted by the sighting of a rare bird. Stephen Maturin is now successfully introduced, exactly as he means to go on as well. He is a physician, but his patient died and he's stuck without money to get home, literally sleeping rough because no one will answer his letters and he's out of cash. Jack meanwhile has a ship with no surgeon on it, and a vacancy, and they like one another, so it seems a simple solution. And so Stephen shall go to sea.

I suppose, really, that’s the genius of this series. The characters are round, complicated creatures, with obvious and consistent surface qualities but also equally consistent, apparently-contradictory, deeper qualities. Even minor characters sometimes possess this level of depth. Even the cartoony-awful little shit Harte (sometime captain, then admiral, the boss whose wife Jack has been fucking but in Jack's defense so is everybody else) has depths. Unpleasant depths, but he's got reasons and motivations and you do really believe in him; this pays off in book 8 in particular.

We meet Jack's first command, the Sophie, the loveliest tiniest little ship ever, staffed by a pack of utter weirdos. TOM PULLINGS makes his first appearance (he is my favorite supporting character throughout the series, so he will be capitalized henceforth) along with his delightful henchman (the other senior midshipman) Mowett who is James in his first and last appearances and most of the others but for some reason becomes William for a while in the middle, most notably in book 8, and has thus passed into the movie as William. Those are our master's mates, or senior midshipmen. In O'Brian's typical fashion we don't get really concrete physical descriptions of them in the normal sense, but instead get really evocative but nonspecific ones. TOM PULLINGS is "a big shy master's mate", elsewhere specified to be sort of gangly, long and thin, young, with a country accent and foremast-jack antecedents (i.e. started out as a regular sailor and was promoted, instead of the more normal approach where a family of means sends a son to sea as a midshipman), who absolutely blossoms under Jack Aubrey's leadership-by-enthusiastic-example, and we will see him through most of the rest of the series continuing on this trajectory with great competence and charming humbleness.

James Mowett gets a great introduction. He's had a few lines prior to this, mostly repetitively described as (and shown to be) cheerful and generally enthusiastic about things, running around and getting to be the one to fetch Stephen from the shore, and later we find out that he is a prolific writer of somewhat-terrible poetry, which we'll get plenty of excerpts of over the course of the series. But his first real description is:

“James Mowett was a tubular young man, getting on for twenty; he was dressed in old sailcoth trousers and a striped Guernsey shirt, a knitted garment that gave him very much the look of a caterpillar."

There are also the youngsters. Meet my beloved son William Babbington, a miniature midshipman of between eleven and thirteen who has every venereal disease and gets drunk a lot. He also cries and swears a whole lot, mostly while sober. I love him immoderately and we will see him in several more of the books. He never gets much taller or less obsessed with womanizing. Adolescence was hard in the Georgian era. (Yes, this is the Georgian era; the Victorian era does not begin for another thirty years.)

“'I suppose you grow used to living here,' [Stephen] observed, rising cautiously to his feet. 'At first it must seem a little confined.' 'Oh, sir,' said Mowett, 'think not meanly of this humble seat, Whence spring the guardians 'of the British fleet! Revere the sacred spot, however low, Which formed to martial acts an Hawke! An Howe !' 'Pay no attention to him, sir,' cried Babbington, anxiously. 'He means no disrespect, I do assure you, sir. It is only his disgusting way.”

Throughout this series, O'Brian so so so vividly shows and describes the many phases of awkwardness that young men go through especially in military settings. It's incredibly vivid; the breaking voices, the smells, the idiotic capers, the weeping, the complete lack of foresight, the incredible cruelty and also loyalty and bravery, the sheer adolescent enthusiasm coupled with shocking laziness.

We also get some insight into contemporary social mores through the introduction of Marshall, the sailing master (a warrant officer)-- 1) he's gay and 2) Jack Aubrey is extremely his type. Different people's different attitudes toward this unspool throughout various points of the book, but the critical point is that Jack Aubrey himself has absolutely zero gaydar and while he has heard the rumor about Marshall's tendencies, he doesn't care about that stuff, studiously avoids enforcing any of the regulations against it, and he absolutely never at any point relates this to himself, and never ever realizes why the man is so driven to excel at his job. Not even when an injury to his head and face gives Jack a horrible haircut and worse appearance, and Marshall is horrified and dispirited about it; Jack never twigs just what's amiss.

To be fair to Jack, many many many of the men aboard also respond to him in a similar, though crucially different, way. This is a common thing in this kind of cooped-up little setting; you have a guy who's in charge and gives you positive feedback and like, immediately you'll die for that guy, which is kind of how the military works because you may in fact have to literally die for that guy and it's easier if you're intrinsically motivated in some way. And Jack is very, very good at this in most cases, at taking the measure of the people under his command and getting them to respond to him.

(We can return to Mowett for an explicit example: “'You may light up the sloop, Mr Mowett, and show her our force: I don't want her to do anything foolish, such as firing a gun - perhaps hurting some of our people. Let me know when you have laid her aboard.' With this [Jack] retired, calling for a light and something hot to drink; and from his cabin he heard Mowett's voice, cracked and squeaking with the excitement of this prodigious command (he would happily have died for Jack), as under his orders the Sophie bore up and spread her wings.”)

Anyway so back to the plot summary: a very good side plot throughout is that the ship's first lieutenant, James Dillon, is an Irishman, and he and Stephen Maturin were both involved in the Irish rebellion in 1798. When they meet, James recognizes Stephen, and cautiously sounds him out about having met before, and Stephen very coolly replies we've never met but you must be thinking of my cousin who looks just like me but uglier, *so* ugly, he has the face of an informer, and everyone hates an informer and james is like Ah. You Are Absolutely Correct Sir We Have Never Met. This subplot develops into a delicious meditation on divided loyalties and the agony of staying true to oneself while doing what one must do. Highly recommended, A++. Begins to give us some insight into the various depths of Stephen, who doesn't understand tides or wind and hasn't the sense to come in out of the rain but has a deep and complicated history and identity and above all an incredible capacity for ruthlessness, absolutely none of which Jack understands.

Stephen and James in dialogue when they're finally in privacy enough to discuss it (Stephen is the first speaker, James the second):

“I speak only for myself, mind - it is my own truth alone - but man as part of a movement or a crowd is indifferent to me. He is inhuman. And I have nothing to do with nations, or nationalism. The only feelings I have -for what they are - are for men as individuals; my loyalties, such as they may be, are to private persons alone.'' "Patriotism will not do?'' "My dear creature, I have done with all debate. But you know as well as I, patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile." ''Yet you stopped Captain Aubrey playing Croppies Lie Down the other day.” "Oh, I am not consistent, of course; particularly in little things. Who is? He did not know the meaning of the tune, you know. He has never been in Ireland at all, and he was in the West Indies at the time of the rising. [...] But as for that song, I acted as I did partly because it is disagreeable to me to listen to it and partly because there were several Irish sailors within hearing, and not one of them an Orangeman; and it would be a pity to have them hate him when nothing in the manner of insult was within his mind's reach.”

uhhhhhhh but meanwhile: Jack Aubrey and the Sophies wreak havoc in the Mediterranean and make a lot of money and enemies, to the point that the local merchants band together to commission a fairly serious ship expressly to fuck them up. They meet this ship unsuspectingly, manage just in time to disguise themselves, and Stephen hails the ship and asks them in bad Spanish if they know anything about treating the plague, could they send a doctor over, could they spare any medicine. This scares them off and they go away. But now the Sophies know what this ship looks like and what armament it has. So the next time they meet it, they fight it, and so the tiny 14-gun Sophie with 82 men and boys aboard manages to capture the 32-gun Cacafuego with 319 men aboard, and it's very gallant and dashing and probably should not have worked, but it does.

And a little later, the Sophie accidentally meets a pair of very powerful French ships and gets taken in return despite doing some really heroic evasive manoevers.

The French are super nice to them, and we meet a French ship captain named Christy-Palliere who becomes a recurring character, who has English cousins and speaks great English and is both charming and nice, saying things like gather ye rose pods while ye may and being generally gallant. Until some even more powerful English ships heave into view, and the tables turn, but even then Christy-Palliere remains gallant and well-behaved.

We end the book with the court-martial. Any officer who loses his ship for any reason has to go before a court of sea captains to ascertain whether he did everything in his power to avoid losing his ship. So all the officers of the Sophie, including the midshipmen, including the surgeon, have to testify about this. (I feel like the other warrant officers should also have had to testify? but they weren't there and i'm not sure why. TOM PULLINGS is also not mentioned in the scene which he absolutely should be present for, so it's possible that they were just omitted for time.)

“They had each received an official notification the day before, and for some reason each had brought it with him, folded or rolled. After a while Babbington and Ricketts took to changing all the words they could into obscenities, secretly in a corner, while Mowett wrote and scratched out on the back of his, counting syllables on his fingers and silently mouthing. Lucock stared straight ahead of him into vacancy.”

Spoiler: the jury decides that there's not really anything more a 14-gun sloop could have done against two French ships of the line, so they exonerate Captain Aubrey for the loss of his sloop, and thus ends the book.

[admirationandromantics]

I would really like to read headcanons on the until dawn characters' behavior in a situation where the reader says something like "I don't feel pretty today..." I think each of them would react differently, and yet it would be very supportive, sweet and touching! ^⁠_⁠^

Ohhh, they would all be different, I agree. I tried to make them diverse, but you can be the judge of that. Hope you like it anyhow! <3

Sam: If you’re making a self-depriving comment, she’s by your side in seconds. Her powers are her words, continuously explaining why you’re not and trying to make you see yourself from her perspective. “You don’t get it, Sam, it’s just…” “Just what? You’re gorgeous, ever thought about that?” She smiles, pulling hair from your face and capturing your lips in a sweet kiss. 

Jess: She would definitely be the one who tries to “fix the problem”. “What do you mean? It’s probably the lighting trying to play tricks on you”. She adores you, and figures that if you believe an outside factor is the cause of your insecurity, you’ll put a little less pressure on yourself. 

Ashley: This is literally your personal therapist, and gaslighter. “Why do you feel like that?” “Have you eaten today?” “No?” “Then that’s the reason your vision is impaired, let’s get some food”. A bad therapist maybe, but she basically gaslights you into believing her. If she can’t see it, then you can’t either, lol. 

Emily: “Yes, you look like a mess today” “Gee, thanks Em” “Oh, but honey, you’re my mess” Casual, but sweet. She’s not the talking or touchy type in this kind of situation, but will give a small comment here and there, acknowledging your feelings but proving her affection. 

Josh: His head pops up when you say it, disbelief and confusion covers his eyes. “What do you mean?” “Maybe today is just… not my day” “Every day is your day” “You have to say that, you’re my boyfriend” “What, want me to prove it to you?” And he fucks you shitless because in front of a mirror to prove it.

Matt: “What, why?” “I don’t know, something’s just off today” “I don’t understand, you look beautiful” He comes over, hands in yours, caressing your hair and embracing you. His hands wander all over you, neck, waist, hips, just touching and taking you in, feeling every inch of you. 

Chris: Honestly, he would laugh. At first, he thinks it’s a joke, because how can you feel like that when you’re drop dead gorgeous? When he realises that you mean what you’re saying, and actually believe it, he’ll stop what he’s doing, starting to kiss you all over. “Want me to kiss every beautiful part of you, huh? This’ll take all day” 

Mike: “I don’t believe you” “What?” “You’re lying” “Mike-” “No one that pretty has the right to stand there, telling themselves they’re not” He gives you a funny look, trying to lighten your mood with stupidly funny comments and compliments. “I would never date someone ugly, that’s a fact”

Hannah: She gives a small chuckle, walking over and kissing your nose. "How can you say that?" "It's just one of those days..." And she'll keep your attention on other stuff, going out, eating, watching a movie, making you forget about it.

Beth: "You know there are people with actual problems out there?" "Damn, okay, just trying to share my feelings with you" "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that, but you're grasping at straws for my attention now. Not feeling pretty? Have you seen yourself? You're drop dead gorgeous, and if you don't believe it, then I'm going to make you stare at your flustered self until you're drowning in your own embarrassment for saying that"

[wolfertinger]

I have been really thinking a lot about everything as all of this Wis stuff is going down. And I’m just perplexed by her inclination at every move to demonize Sawyer when Sawyer has always been simply REACTING to Wis’s outbursts and the situations in front of them. However Mari would always project her insecurities onto Wis, Sawyer calling her out on this as seen in a screenshot posted here. Even with this Wis insists on protecting her, a literal rapist.

I am coming as a former friend of Mari, we had became friends in 2023 if I remember correctly Via Sawyer. Me and Sawyer have been friends for YEARS(2017) I know them very well, we lost contact for a bit but gladly able to find eachother again.

Something about Mari that simply Wis chooses to ignore is the fact she’s a HUGE Salem / Puppychan orbiter and has been for years. And she constantly tried to get Sawyer and Salem to be friends acting as if she were a peacemaker. By doing this it constantly undermined Sawyer’s comfortability and problems with Salem for keeping contact with Torin and LYING.

Mari by forcing a friendship between the three of them in itself shows you her character. To be quite frank, I don’t care if my gf’s ex is someone I had idolized, just the fact they’re broken up and have good reason to not talk to their ex anymore is ENOUGH for me. But Mari doesn’t hold much consideration for anyone but herself.

As Mari continuously did this making Sawyer uncomfortable, she held no regard to anyone but herself. She wanted to befriend Salem, She didn’t want to loose Salem, even if it made her partner upset. Even calling Salem cutting contact with her “almost like a breakup”. This was said during a call we had that night as she messaged me but was very rude to me for some reason because I was saying things she did not like??? Keep in mind I was at work closing a drive thru by myself, she was aware of this too.

I’m not sure why Wis has this narrative that Sawyer bad Sawyer evil Sawyer stalker when I’ve only ever seen her tweak on the internet about them. Mari was the one concerned about Salem, even making an alt to comment on a vent he made on cohost because she wanted to be friends with him still.

Mari has always been the one concerned with Salem and always was watching even going to him and Wis after the breakup crying wolf. Why is that your first thought, to plead sympathy from an ex of ur current ex and their current partner. Who you said you thought was so ugly bla bla bla, projecting your internalized transphobia on how a trans person should look onto her.

That is more in line with stalker behavior than anything Sawyer has ever done. And to be really honest as I write this it’s almost funny how Wis has like this self importance in the narrative. Mari never wanted to really be friends with Wis, only Salem. Cat had no concrete opinion on Wis, the issue lied between Sawyer and Salem. Wis really has nothing to do with any of this, yea protect your partner but you have insane self importance if you think you’re the one anyone is worried about let alone stalking ??

Yet Wis has her own narrative of events, kinda admire her ability to lie so much and pretend she hasn’t admitted and posted herself scrolling on Sawyer’s page. It’s really weird how much she deflects simply because she just really wants Sawyer to be a bad guy in this situation.

It’s just really bizarre, and reading everything on this page made me really see an extreme version of Mari on Wis. They both love to deflect things they have done onto their enemy of the week. They claim to take accountability but when nobody gives them easy forgiveness it’s “FUCK YOU, YOU ARE EVIL YOU HURT ME”. They parallel each other extremely. I don’t understand how you can live life like this not wanting to change for yourself or the better, instead

I can go on about how Mari was not a good friend to have, as there were many situations she had expected me to be emotionally available for her despite me going through a really hard time in my life as me and current gf were having one of the worst years of our lives and had split for a very long time. Mari knew this too, this was no secret.

Sawyer has always been a very blunt and honest person. I never understood why Wis is on this tirade of how they are dishonest. As no matter what Sawyer has kept it real with me, never hiding anything from me. They don’t expect me to formulate an opinion that aligns with them, they give me the facts and I bounce off what I see. We have a very open and honest friendship, there is nothing I wouldn’t say to them I don’t fear anything.

Apologies for the literal novel, I just feel like I needed to say my piece as I have a perceptive that hasn’t been brought up. I don’t engage in stuff like this often, I have nothing to gain from this at all as my online presence is kinda dead as I work and go to school full time.

i have some screens I attached validating the aggressiveness from Mari and harping over Salem cutting her off not worried about her partner being upset and hurt by this only what she felt about it. Most of what she told me was during calls.

.

[katyspersonal]

Hi there, I hope you don’t mind the random question but in your mind which fanbase would you say is worse, Elden Ring or Bloodborne in terms of annoying fans. I used to think Bloodborne fans could be bad but holy shit ER fans are something else when it comes to lore discussions. As someone who is pretty active in lore talk with both games do you find one side to be more exhausting to deal with than the other? Obviously feel free not to answer this if you think it might start drama

Honestly? I can't hate Bloodborne fandom enough.

Bloodborne was my first Fromsoft game and one keeping me hostage in terms of fixation for over three years, like I said! And yes, it has incredibly bad, toxic people in it - Maria fans who kept slandering Gehrman despite all the info against their takes, honestly believed there is anything problematic with Gehrmaria, had mental breakdown if anyone dared to see Maria as bi or straight despite her not having canon sexuality, believed that the whole story is either about man bad woman good OR was incredibly misogynist, no between. Close minded, toxic people who would deliberately bait anger and pain with placing their hate in the tags and then play victims when those hurt fans snapped back. Oh, I hate them, and revealing that Gehrman's "creepiness" and "misogyny" was completely and fully translation mistake, as well as pointing out how comes why nothing is wrong with how Doll is dressed with facts, is forever my most valid contribution to the fandom. More so than my ugly childlike fanart or convoluted theories could ever be. But, not THIS is why Bloodborne fandom is worse in my opinion.

Elden Ring fandom introduced not one but SEVERAL annoying and exhausting topics to deal with! I "affectionately" titled especially rabid Malenia and Miquella fans 'Twin Cultists' because this is exactly what their behavior is and have always been! Funny enough, a person who got mad at me for this one was someone who got alienated on Discord server for Miquella fans because owners started to insist that only their headcanons are valid AND admitted to me on feeling unsafe for not shipping Finlenia. I am dead serious! Malenia fans are strikingly similar to Maria pseudofeminist fans in toxicity, Miquella fans are like if you removed all likeable traits of Leda and replaced them with even MORE of undying vitriol for anyone who dares to interpret him as anything but perfect pure radiant sunshine. Mohg triggered a pretty awful discourse between those who insisted he was rapist molester whatever and if you interpret it differently you are insensitive and media-illiterate victimblamer and people who defended him "becoming the very thing they sworn to destroy" as well as also exhibiting cult-like thought control in their circles (they know who they are -_-).

But the DLC has changed things a bit, right? Some Twin Cultists are still spilling vitriol, except now they also claim that writers are bad, not only fans that disagree with them! Still, blessed, deserved vindication finally arrived! But what about others, whose situation never changed? Vitriol towards Godrick is ABSURD. You know how common fandoms L is that they judge and hate female character for something, but when male character did the exact same thing it is humored or justified? Godrick is this, minus the gender difference, yet everyone who points out his actual characteristics and the hypocrisy of his haters gets ridiculed. You thought that his fans would flock together to support each others? No, turns out that pocket are loosers who think people who don't headcanon him as trans are childish and ridiculous and loathe cishet Elden Ring fans in general. Fia and D are caught in the weird discourse loop where one is always simplified and idealized and another is demonized to Hell and beyond, when they both are strongly caught in religious brainwashing of sorts but also are sympathetic in their own right. Ranni's fans and haters both do not know the term of Machiavellian (aka "Ends justify the means" philosophy). She is the worst most evil character in the setting over what crimes she committed in order to protect the world from the problem of potentially anyone being able to grab the laws of nature itself and shape them according to their bigotries and preferences, OR she is a perfect innocent fighter against oppression and people who dislike her Just Hate Women TM. And of course we cannot forget the one above them all! The radiant, omnipresent, eternal!...

Marika truly brings out the worst of discussions! She has been before SOTE, but you YEARN for pre-SOTE times if you hate OR love her! Not because things changed, but because now discussion can't be avoided. She is THE Elden Ring character who is only ever demonized and idealized. Before SOTE, she was only ever just a tyrant who loves genocide OR simply a puppet of Greater Will (or rather Two Fingers claiming to speak for it as it turned out) who never meant to do that shit and finally heroically rebelled. After SOTE... hahaha, oh boy... we started to deal with the issue of excusing genocide. Her fans will claim into essays and more essays why Hornsent are all fundamentally dangerous race and Marika is merely trying to rid the world of filth that ruins it by sending Messmer. However, demonization didn't quite go away either, and her haters are so angry at writers humanizing her a bit more that they say WRITERS are pro-fascist!

So, why? I've described such horrid discourse, when Bloodborne fandom sounds like it simply has a few bad apples in comparison! What can be worse than Elden Ring fandom, after a description like this? Yeah, you see... Elden Ring fandom is thorn by awful arguments and discourse, it is hostile and dangerous for your mental health if you are invested into fandom beyond just "consuming content" and advertising your art for sale. Yet, it lives. It lives in the same sense as a land torn by earthquakes lives. It lives in the same sense a volcano that won't stop smoking lives. It lives in the same sense sea lives during the storm. But it LIVES.

Bloodborne fandom is a fucking Caelid.

If you question whether I'd be scared of "drama", I assume you are new here and don't know my epic lore. I am not afraid of anything because society made itself clear on what I am for it. In the most condenced way possible, one OF those toxic Maria fans didn't like me thinking for myself too much so they went out of their way to slander me for various -ists and -phobias. Their ableist friend that doesn't take racism seriously joined in. I was a victim of stalking, harassment, slander, witch-hunting and cult-like shunning for over a year, and so was every kind fool who treated me like a human - friend or mutual. I can NOT speak of Bloodborne fandom experience from personal standpoint because obviously it is not an objective experience (though someone who also got unfairly slandered by Maria fans too contacted me, so I question whether it IS a trend..?). Still, it isn't about me or my friends, we are an oddity. Bloodborne fandom for me was just a bunch of gullible, weak sheep who are okay with witch-hunt because letting just a few people get harassed is not worth souring their fandom experience. And I do not wish to turn back or even try to mend anything. I caught my stalker and exposed their crimes, I made everyone who believed they were innocent feel stupid and ashamed, it was all I wanted. I don't wish to "befriend" the fandom afterwards.

YEAH YEAH "THINGS ONCE BROKEN" WHATEVER

But I was still posting and drawing and playing and talking and writing, right? I was still present. So, I was at least observing what was going on. And what truly soured Bloodborne fandom was actually happening afterwards, what was not involving me or any friend or enemy I knew. The worst thing happened, worse for fandom than any amount of discourse. I call it "centralization", for lack of better term.

Bloodborne is a niche fandom, yet it had a sudden zoomers burst. And that led to dynamics of "fandom leaders", and stupid fucking Discord community that are akin to elite club in which if you are not invited you might as well not exist. It ALL became about stupid "web of mutuals" nonsense. It ALL became about some cool kids deciding what will be the ship or the take of the week/month, and soon you'd see NOTHING but this thing posted. Always through the exact same lense, too. Only to then be forgotten, because it was just a trend. Rom x Caryll comes to mind as a FAD of similar vibe. Micolaurence too.

I just hate this. The fandom stopped LIVING. I saw genuinely absurd things happen! Like someone drawing Mariadeline, one of the most popular ships in the fandom, yet they get completely ignored because they've failed to grab a beer at the bar with "leaders" of this ship who "hold" the distribution of that approval and love. Even worse; over a year ago, a very talented, fun, energetic and creative fan of Mensis Trio and Byrgenwerth squad showed up! They were SPAMMING art and writing, and all of that was good! So good that..... all of that barely got over 20 notes, maybe 30. Why? Because, again, you can't just post about blorbos and expect to be liked and approached. You have to get on the "good side" of "holders" of love for characters like Micolash, Laurence and Rom, or else they'll just side-eye you! But imagine this with literally everything else. I have been watching it happen all the time, to people that were not even targets for cult-like shunning by Alfred, Eugene or Anna for associating with me. You keep to yourself, you are shy, you are not on Discord with them, your headcanons are a bit different? Too bad, you may rot, because it is not about you! People look up to a few popular artists with shallow takes and so much creative liberties they might as well make OCs to know whether this or that person should be liked and reblogged, instead of JUST liking and reblogging them!

THIS is why Bloodborne fandom is Caelid. Not for toxicity, but because it is rotten. It used to be far less "organized" when I joined in. There were no trends to define fandomry for next few weeks decided on a party where ignored creators were not invited to. There was not hegemony of certain ships, designs and headcanons. There was no "web of mutuals" and pressure to either assert yourself by the good side or vanish. Everyone were doing their things and coexisting, nobody could determine who flourishes and who rots, diversity of headcanons and interpretations were celebrated. Oh, what's a matter? You really dislike that popular artist who infantilizes Marika and stripes her out of any agency over her actions? Well, so do like 500000 other people! Every popular take is ALSO popular to hate on in Elden Ring fandom! But if you dislike a popular take in Bloodborne then sucks to be you, because diversity of interpretations, opinions, preferences and takes just doesn't exist in it. Not anymore. Unless you "asserted" your novel idea to the "court" on some stupid Discord server and was "approved", of course.

Look. Elden Ring discourse annoys me to no end. I always get my headcanons and interpretations "corrected" in the worst condescending fashion. My friend posted a very well made lore post and got harped on because his take contradicted someone's idol's headcanons (with that idol approving of that harping) and I am still mad. I don't want to post my GEQ takes to be reminded that "aktualy" she is Melina. I dislike seeing claims of Miquella's nonexistent character assassination or Radahn hated just because some sexist Redditors were using him as a mascot. Nonetheless, deep down, I am THANKFUL. Because even really annoying debates end up being entertaining. Because people here TALK about things, REVISIT things, ARGUE about things, CARE about things, HAVE OPINIONS on things. They will annoy you in the comments or reblogs, but they SPEAK to you. No take is so popular that it defines all art and fanfics because every popular take is also popular to hate on. Things are disorganized. No fandom leaders, no elite club ignored blog wasn't invited to, no "web of mutuals" that should get sucked into a vacuum cleaner and never be seen again. Elden Ring fandom is a battlefield, but also free market minus the money.

To be honest, Bloodborne fandom was done for me when based people started to vanish. Fishbowlcarnage deactivated everywhere, Cuddlefish mysteriously disappeared and I worry whether they are even alive to this day, user Molluscock got bullied away... It felt like a bad omen, it happened before my drama, and I've never seen users like this before. Except I have been, but they all are now ignored because of this stupid high school dynamic taking over. Had Elden Ring hyperfixation not happened, I'd probably just end up blocking many Bloodborne accounts and never care for trying to make connections again, just post art and vanish to draw the next one. I did end up blocking some Bloodborne mutuals, after all. After it hit me, what was bothering me so much. Appreciate Elden Ring fandom and it's earthquakes, because shaking earth can't be bigger evil than stagnation. Bloodborne fandom no longer breathes, they are champions of not feeding the sparkles that were meant to become fire hoping they die down, and I hate every looser that benefits from that "system". In Elden Ring, ALL things flourish, whether graceful or malign.

[faetima]

i absolutely love your hanahaki fics 😭

if you dont mind, can i request a hanahaki fic with xiao? he's my fav character and haven't seen any hanahaki fics with him in it 🥹🥹

thank you soooo much 🫶🫶🫶

𝐫𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐧𝐨𝐰. .

. .you don’t care about him, do you?

// tws ; little blood :3 ; gn reader ; modern & hanahaki au

a/n: i’m sorry this took so long </3 i hope you like it though!! i apologize for the lack of posts lately 💗

you didn’t care about last summer.

you didn’t care.

you had to keep reminding yourself that you. did. not. care.

after all, how would xiao getting together with someone affect you? you didn’t even like him! you just found him cute! he was probably a jerk anyways! why should you care?

but, if you didn’t care, why were you lying on the floor, coughing out bitter lavenders?

fuck. you would be lying if you said you didn’t like him. it was time to just face the truth already.

you loved him so, so much.

so much to the point your lungs were filled with lavender flowers.

they were dainty and soft.

they were ugly, they were so fucking stupid.

you wheezed out another batch of the stupid purple flowers, coughing. clumped pieces of lavender flopped onto your newly polished floor (you had just cleaned it yesterday!), leaving a trail of blood and mucus in their wake. they laid there lifelessly, resembling what you would be like in a year.

or month.

or week.

who knew how long the disease would take in taking over your lungs, filling them to the brim with lavender?

at this point, the only thing you knew was that your demise would come soon.

you gagged, the scent of lavender overwhelming you. you used to love lavenders, but of course this goddamn disease had to ruin everything for you, even your favorite fucking flowers.

as if ruining your life wasn’t enough.

you dry-heaved, flowers stuck in your throat. sobbing, you collapsed, breaths shallow and rapid.

why couldn’t this just end? why did you have to like xiao of all people?

you couldn’t find another if you wanted to. you had tried, yet nothing worked. your heart would always belong to him.

just being in his presence made you short-circuit. just looking at his silky, teal hair, at his amber eyes, at his porcelain skin, which could only be as delicate as which it were described as. just smelling the soft, sweet scent of almonds which came from him whenever you were close enough for it to waft your way.

god, you were pathetic. 

even if you were brave enough to go up to him, you would and could never be with him.

he already had a girlfriend. 

—

you hated her, and you didn’t even know why.

lumine was sweet to everyone. she had everything. she was kind, outgoing, hardworking, attractive, everything you wanted to be.

so why would you hate her for no reason?

maybe it was your jealousy talking, maybe it was because you were envious.

how could you not be? she was happy and healthy, she had already found the love of her life.

the love of your life.

fuck, you hated her.

—

maybe if the timing had been right, you could’ve been with xiao.

maybe you could’ve woken up to his voice every morning, could’ve been the one to run your fingers through his hair, been the one to kiss him, been the one to laugh at him getting flustered.

too bad you weren’t.

—

you didn’t want to close the door behind you.

you laid there on the cold, hard wooden tiles of your house’s floor, taking shallow and shaky inhales.

a pile of lavenders, clumped together by mucus and blood, laid besides you.

you coughed another batch, the flowers leaving a bitter aftertaste in your mouth.

you collapsed, heaving out more flowers.

you could barely breathe, lungs overflowing with lavender flowers.

maybe you should’ve cared about last summer?

[ineffablelara]

Series Loki, Avengers Loki and the "real Loki"

Okay so, I've been wanting to write about this for a while now, I always see people talking about how much they love series Loki because that's where he's most comfortable with himself— and I agree, I love him too and I think it's great that he learned to accept more some aspects of himself and got more comfortable with showing vulnerability to others as well as allowing himself to make meaningful connections with the people around him

BUT

Saying that Avengers Loki is not the real Loki just tells me you don't really understand Loki as a character at all

I'm part of the few people who don't entirely buy into the headcanon that Loki was brutally tortured by Thanos in the 1 year gap between Thor and Avengers, I think he did went to very bad places but it doesn't make sense to me that Thanos would break physically and mentally the man he was sending to lead an army on a different planet to get him an infinity stone, I believe he had to fight for his life after his fall and Thanos probably submitted him to a very rigorous training like he did with his daughters (yes, one could argue that that was tortue but let's be fr, it's on a whole different level)

Anyway, my point is: Loki didn't attack Earth against his will, he was angry and hurt, feeling betrayed by his family and dealing with an identity crisis, he was livid, he went through hell after his fall and now he had a chance to cause some trouble for Thor and Odin and he was going to take it

I don't believe Loki really cared about Thanos' philosophy and the whole "freedom is a lie" thing, he was parroting what Thanos told him to cause some dramatic effect but I don't believe, not even for a second that he gave two fucks about it, again, he wanted to make trouble and to cause damage, he wanted to hurt Thor and Odin bc he felt hurt, he didn't care that innocent people were going to die, he didn't even think about them, he just wanted to channel his anger and to piss off his family, and ykw?

That's the real Loki

Because Loki is not some perfect little angel who was forced to do bad things against his will in order to survive, Loki is a vengeful God, a being of chaos, a master of magic and sometimes... an asshole

Sorry, he's not the little baby we all like to pretend he is sometimes, yes there's lots of pain and shame and sadness inside his heart but that doesn't erase the fact that there's some ugly parts in his personality, that's what makes him so complex in my opinion, he's not necessarily evil but he's also not necessarily an innocent baby either, he said it himself:

Believe it or not, that applies to him too!

Avengers' Loki shows us the "ugly" parts of himself—parts many would prefer to ignore. But sorry to break it to you: that was the real Loki too.

Some might argue that the whole "God of Mischief" persona was merely a facade to hide his vulnerable, weak self, but I disagree. I believe Loki did use his title to build walls around himself and keep others at a distance to some extent. However, things aren’t just black and white—Loki is the God of Mischief, whether people like it or not and that means he thrives in chaos sometimes

I mean, he even tells Mobius, "Sometimes our emotions get the better of us," when talking about the New York attack. I know some people don't like that scene because it contradicts their headcanon of Loki being tortured and forced to go to Earth, but personally, I love it. I never liked the idea of Loki having so little agency in Avengers. And yes, I know the Mind Stone was influencing him, but that’s the key—it was influencing, not controlling

I think what I’m trying to say is this: some people don’t truly understand who Loki is. They’ve created a version of him in their minds and reject anything that contradicts it. Refusing to acknowledge the darkness within him only proves that you don’t fully appreciate him. You can love series Loki and say that it's the more mentally healthy version of the character, but please don’t claim that Avengers Loki is his worst version—or that it’s not the real him.

Maybe I'm being annoying but it just hurts every time I see posts trashing him and saying that he's the worst Loki ever, to me that's one of the most fascinating depictions of him precisely because we see how malicious, cunning and calculating he can be, he has so much range and I genuinely feel sorry for all the people who can't appreciate that

[sydneys-adamu]

the bear

the bear episode

the bear episode 2

the bear episode 2 of season 2

the bear episode 2 of season two is so chalk full of important references and motifs and symbolization for sydcarmy’s relationship as well as their individual character arcs from sydney’s conversation with her dad to carmy meeting claire again (and giving her the wrong number) and this wall that’s built up between them this way. LOL u thought that was it no you also have the chef whites conversation, the introduction to the I’m sorry sign and sydney volunteering new information about sheridan to carm AND him attempting to ask about her dad before she cuts him off. it’s funny right that carmy asks about her dad and her dad asks about carmy and neither person gets a clear answer from syd? it seems so deliberate that these two don’t meet this season anyways-

and then this isn’t episode two but shut up you have the tearing down the wall motif and how unsettled sydney is about the fact that carmen does that without her and what “tearing down walls” usually symbolizes is immense bc she wanted to be there ! she wanted to be there with him ! and he did it without her bc he wanted it to be done when she got there ! he thought she would be happy with a finished product instead so he did the ugly process it takes to get there. he wants it to be perfect for her so much so that he leaves her out of a say in that. he thinks she wants things she actually doesn’t. she cares about this restaurant in every way it is, ugly, broken down, health hazard and all.

aaaaand what else does carmen consider a work in progress damn near a lost cause? himself! so does he think that she doesn’t deserve to have to stick around and watch while he figures himself out while he “fixes” himself up? does he not think she can handle it? does he want to be perfect for her even though that’s not what she wants?

but no “this is what you wanted and it’s what I’m giving you” because it’s gone over his head at this point that there’s love in the process. there is an understanding in the process, there is a merging of souls in this process of building a literal restaurant from the ground up. carmen focuses so much on making everything perfect for sydney that he forgets that’s never something she asked for. not perfect just *better*

and under that table, less than an hour before opening he finally fucking understands how to slow time down. if the food’s bad they’ll work on it. if no one comes then no one comes. it’s okay. it’s okay if it’s not perfect because we’re doing this together and that’s what matters. what matters is this moment where I get to tell you I’ll be here for you. where I get to tell you I care about you every way you are, full stop.

[deliciousbasementtrash]

Playing Nurse for the Batfam

Artist: Donna Floyd

Summary: you are a nurse working for Gotham General Hospital. Batman has offered you a job. You are now a nurse for the entire Batfamily. There has been an emergency and you have been called into the line of fire. How will the Fam react?

Pairing: Slowburn Jason Todd x Female!reader

Warning: Adult language, creepy perv man, gunshots, violence, killing

Word Count: 1.4k

Masterlist

Note: These characters are not my own they belong to DC. The only character that is 'mine' is the reader. I am going to be as nondescript as possible for the reader as well for physical attributes. This is a continuation series; I’m not sure how long it will be. Also for some reason, my replies to comments are not showing up. I’m not ignoring your comments Tumblr won’t let me respond :( But please, please comment I live for it

Part 8: Pizza Joe's

Once again, days passed without seeing Jason. Embarrassment flared inside me at the thought of our last interaction. I wasn’t one that enjoyed crying in front of people. And I hadn’t just cried, I had wailed, and choked, with spit and most likely snot leaking from my face. It wasn’t a cute poetic actress single tear sniffle. It was ugly and loud. Whatever. It’s not like I want a relationship. I’ve worked hard to obtain my peace. I don’t want a man to come in and disrupt the life I’ve worked hard to build. 

I grabbed gauze packets and shoved them into my chart, trying to distract my thoughts. I had completely run through them when Duke came in with several lacerations and broken ribs from the Black Mask. I shivered when Duke told me the details. The mob boss was sadistic and cruel, Duke had barely gotten away. I couldn’t meet Duke’s eyes after that. I’ve healed the Black Mask countless times. Guilt gnawed at my bones. Duke was injured because I kept that monster alive. And how many others? That line of delightful thinking always leads me straight into a downward spiral. Quickly, I grabbed more 16 gages and refilled those as well. 

This past week has been relentlessly busy. It felt like it was a full moon every night with the amount of insanity that happened. Even for Gotham. It felt like every one of Gotham’s plentiful villains had some sort of scheme, disastrous plan, or some way to ‘conquer the world.’ It made both my jobs a living hell. 

I was a walking zombie. I would sleep at my workstation and be woken up by the Batmobile screeching in with more injuries that needed to be healed. Bruce was almost always back and forth anywhere from 4-10 times a night. It sometimes felt like he was more reckless with me around. Throwing himself into danger more than he did in the beginning. Or maybe I was just overthinking it. 

A chime on my phone interrupted my thoughts. 

[Bruce has seven gunshot wounds. He isn’t stable enough to travel. We are on 717 Street behind Pizza Joe's. Be careful the shoot-out is still happening.]

The bright screen burned my tired eyes. The second the words sank in I grabbed the emergency kit and my keys and ran. I never treated them outside of the Batcave. They had always come to me. It must be bad. 

I drove like a maniac and got there in record time. 8 minutes. 8 minutes of Bruce bleeding out. 8 minutes of more shooting and how many more injuries. A fucking lot can happen in just 8 minutes. Panic rose in my chest, but I swallowed it down. Countless gunshots popped around me, lucky enough for me, none were aiming for my car. 

I got out quickly, grabbed my gear, and ran toward the back of the shittiest pizza in Gotham. The blue on Dick’s suit stood out like a beacon as he motioned me over. My black scrubs and dark zip-up hoody instantly got soaked through with rain. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about the rain or gunshots that rang out around me like popcorn kernels on the stove. I cared about the physical state of Bruce Wayne. 

It was bad. With the rain puddle around him, it was hard to determine the amount of blood loss. I got to work instantly. I threw my bag to Dick and put my hands on Bruce. 

“I need you to stuff his wounds with gauze. I’m going to replenish his blood and then I need you to take the gauze out one by one, so when I heal him they aren’t inside him. Understand?” I asked as I let my powers take over. 

“I understand,” Dick said and got to work just as quickly as I did. That was before more shots rang out. Hitting the brick wall just above my head. 

“Fuck!” Dick yelled, grabbing his batoons. “They are closer now!”

I felt my body start to shake as I forced it to heal Bruce faster, “Who the fuck is ‘they?’’

“Black Mask’s men. They are shooting to kill,” Dick said, standing up and blocking me and Bruce from the new onset of bullets.

“Get down or I’ll have to heal you both!” I hissed at him. 

“I need to get them away from you guys,” and without a second word, Dick ran toward the bullets. 

“Dick! Don’t–” I knew he couldn’t hear my begging screams. My best bet was to heal Bruce as fast as possible, we both help Dick, and escape via my shitty car. 

I was close too. Bruce’s blood was replenished, and five out of his seven gunshot wounds were closed Albiet the work was sloppy, but he would live. 

That was before I felt the unmistakable coolness against the back of my head. My blood ran cold, and I pushed harder to heal Bruce faster. 

“Stop whatever it is you’re doing or I’m going to blow your brains out,” a man said. His voice was oddly distorted. 

I didn’t listen. I kept healing Bruce. Any minute now. Please. Please. He pressed the gun parallel to my cheek and fired. It burned hot against my face. I tasted metal and gunpowder. My ear was ringing louder than church bells. Hesitantly, I raised my hands. 

“That’s it. Be a good bitch and stand up,” He said, digging the barrel harder into the back of my skull. Fear spiked inside me. I knew he would recognize me, but what choice did I have? 

Slowly, I stood. 

“Turn around,” the brute ordered. 

Slowly, I turned. 

A low, mocking laugh escaped from his skull mask. “My, my. Little Miss Y/f/n? Everyone was wondering where you had run off to! Turns out your the Bats personal whore!” I saw his eyes trail me up and down. Disgusting oily unease filled inside me. “You have a woman’s body now.”

Anger surged, making my blood feel like it was boiling. I slowly unzipped my hoody. The fool's eyes were transfixed on the sight. So much so that he didn’t realize that I was grabbing my medical scissors from my back pocket. 

In one fluid motion, I grabbed the scissors, and the next I had them stabbed into Black Mask’s throat. Before he could react I withdrew the scissors, resulting in blood being sprayed across my body and face. 

The Black Mask didn’t seem to care about his spurting neck. He reached out and gripped my throat, hard. He ruthlessly squeezed until it felt like my lungs would pop and my eyes would pop out of their sockets. Weakly, I tried to kick and scratch him. He merely laughed in my face, spraying more blood all over me. 

From his pocket, he grabbed a knife. “You know how long I’ve wanted to play with you? Your father would never let me. But Daddy isn’t here, is he?” With a practiced grace, he sliced my forearm open. Earning a weak hissing breath of pain. 

He trailed the knife over my chest, slowly adding more and more pressure. 

I tried screaming for Dick, but he was too far away fighting with everything he had. Bruce was still unconscious. 

I reached for this throat, trying to scratch him. I dug my index finger into his stab wound making him cry out in pain and anger and release the pressure he held against my neck. Air was a sweet joy in my lungs. 

Pain flashed across my head as the Black Mask whipped me with the back of his gun. He pushed the gun into my mouth, and for the second time that night, I tasted gunpowder. 

A loud shot rang out. Two shots. Three. Four. Five. 

And the pressure was off me. The Black Mask fell backward. Taking his gun with him. Panicked I looked around for the source. 

There, standing above Bruce, was the Red Hood. The rain was tinking against the metal. His chest heaved harshly up and down. And in his hands, he held two smoking guns. His expression was carved in a permanent scowl, but everything about him radiated vengeance. 

The Black Mask groaned in pain. Without taking his eyes off me Jason shot until both magazines ran out. 

I was frozen in place. Jason walked over Bruce’s unconscious body toward me. 

“Why the fuck are you here?” He growled, taking me into his arms.

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If I missed anyone please let me know <3

Author's note: sorry for the late update guys, I wasn't feeling very confident in myself or my writing. I will try to update more frequently! thank you all for your support it means so much.

Hashbrown Cam!

[adickaboutspoons]

Oh boy. Okay. Here we go

A totes calm and measured response to this post over here by @themetabridge. Forgiveness for the whole new post. I had too much to say to fit into what Tumblr apparently thinks is an appropriate length for a re-blog.

First? I mean. Text just means the words and actions as they are said and shown in a given piece of media being analyzed. Which is what I’m here to do with my meta – textual analysis. That’s why I insist on textual support for any argument interpreting the media in question. Naked assertions do nothing to explain how you arrived at your conclusion. Vibes aren’t good enough. Show me what IN THE TEXT made you think what you think, and I will do you the courtesy of the same. Otherwise, I don’t see how we could possibly have much to say to one another.

The fundamental breakdown we are having is that you have failed to provide a textual basis for why you think Ed is a bad person. While I respect your assertion that a person’s essential goodness is predicated on the actions that they perform, I cannot respect the corollary supposition that there are actions that are either “good” or “bad” in a vacuum, as this completely ignores circumstance and motivation. WHY someone does something is AT LEAST as important as WHAT they did.

For example - Stede killed Ned Lowe in cold blood. Does it matter that he did it because Ned “shit-talked [his] friend and damaged [his] ship,” and “fucked Calypso’s birthday”? Does it matter that Ed, the person whom Ned’s shit-talk actually impacted, told Stede not to do it? Twice? Does it matter that Ned was a subdued enemy combatant, and as such could have just as easily been gagged like Hornberry and the overtly racist Wellington, who survived imprisonment and went on to watch Ed and Stede sign the Act of Grace? Do we compare Ned to the French Captain who got flayed for his racist rhetoric, though Ned’s comment was, strictly speaking, about Ed’s class rather than his race? How far are we going to go to disentangle class and race when one absolutely informs the other?

How about a more straight-forward example; Stede set an unnamed man on fire and quipped about it like some asshole 80's action hero. Does it matter that he threatened Stede’s life? How about if, when he did so, he was twenty feet away, armed only with the bottle he had just broken over his head, and there were half-a dozen pirates between him and Stede who all thought Stede was hot shit, and so Stede was in no immediate danger? What if Stede has a long history of people making attempts on his life, and being unsure that he even deserves to live, and this is meant to show that, now that he has something to live for, he’s done with the part of his life where he lets anyone try to take that away from him?

This is what I mean when I say that the show is careful to never outright condemn the use of violence. The narrative tells us clearly that, within the context of the show, some things are more important than an unnamed or one-off character’s life – preservation of one’s own life or the lives of one’s loved ones, dignity in the face of racially-based persecution, resistance to colonial oppressors. The reasons for and direction of violence matters. Context matters.

And speaking of context, you misunderstand me when you suppose that only what literally appears before our eyes counts can be “read into the text”. I refuse to give extra-textual sources of information (such as the historical reality of sergeant recruiters and being pressed into service or the historical Golden Age of Piracy) any weight unless they can be validated by in-text support, because the show itself cares fuck-all about historical accuracy. But extrapolations about the in-show universe based on in-text support are fine.

So, considering that the very first thing we hear in the show is Frenchie’s little ditty about the violent reality of a pirate’s life, and considering Jack’s comment at brekkie about how pirating is an "ugly profession”, and considering what we see of the raids in 1x5 and 2x2, we can reasonably conclude that pirate culture is steeped in toxic masculinity where the expectation of performing violence is de rigueur. Because Ed has carved out a successful reputation as Blackbeard, and because we see the ease with which he can go from being casually conversant with Stede to “giving it some oomph” to scare the location of the treasure out of the French captain in 1x5 with the THREAT of violence, we can reasonably conclude that he can successfully perform the required violent displays of piratical society (or at least, given that we know by his bathtub confession that he has not personally killed anyone since his father, he can adopt a convincing enough posturing that no one would doubt he COULD). From his interactions with Jack and familiarity with “yardies” and “whippies”, and his ruminations about “the old days” of “drinking all day and biting the heads off turtles or making some poor bloke eat his own toes for a laugh”, and Fang’s assertion that Ed made him kill his dog, we can reasonably assume that Ed has a history with casual violence for the sake of fun and cruelty for cruelty’s sake.

However.

I think “the old days” is an important qualifier there. Season 1 Izzy may be frustrated that Ed is not performing Blackbeard sufficiently well to suit him (on that point we can agree), but even by his own deathbed confession “for YEARS I egged [him] on, even though I knew [Ed] had outgrown [the Blackbeard persona]” (emphasis mine, and pin in that for a moment). In 2x1, Fang is crying into his cake saying “I’ve never seen Blackbeard like this” - indicating that the conditions of the Kraken era are NOT the norm. The slivers of Ed we see in 1x3 before the Spanish raid are marked by him speaking calmly and rationally to Izzy (in stark contradiction to Izzy’s insistence that he’s half-mad) never even raising his voice much less using threats or any actual violence to get Izzy to do what he wants. In fact, it is Izzy who suggests a course of action involving very normative piratical violence (“Do we open fire? Or would you rather we just attack them, kill them, throw them out to the sharks, sir?”), which Ed counters with a genteel proposition - inviting (not even ordering!) Stede aboard for a face-to-face meeting. Izzy being comfortable enough to push back against orders (“Oh, Edward, can’t I just send the boys?”) even suggests that he feels no threat from Ed at all. Every indication is that by the time we meet Ed, well before he ever meets Stede, he’s already well past done with violence for violence sake.

When Ed does meet with Stede, before he’d fallen in love (Even though the are the U-Hauliest, I would argue “fascination” with a possible side of “infatuation”, but certainly not yet love), one of the early conversations they have is about the depiction of Blackbeard in Stede’s book of pirates. Ed expresses revulsion and anger that the persona that he���s worked so hard to cultivate has been twisted into a hyper-violent parody - a “Vampire Viking Clown” that’s barely even human, with a head of smoke and overladen with weapons and hardly bears any resemblance to the real man. We’re meant to understand that this is not a valid or accurate representation of who he is. Violence is a normative part of pirate life, but he has “one knife, and one gun JUST LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE” (emphasis mine, again) - he doesn’t shirk from using the tools of violence when it’s necessary, but he is NOT excessively or wantonly violent. 

And we SEE the evidence of this because of how Stede reacts to the way Ed acts around Jack. Jack keeps Ed drunk all day, decoupling his inhibitions from his decision-making processes and, in spite of Ed explicitly saying that he’s mellowed out, Jack eggs him into the kind of hyper-violent Jackassery that is excessive even for pirate society if the nervous reactions of Stede’s crew are any indication. Of course, this is all part of Jack’s plan - to manipulate both Ed and Stede and force them apart - and the reason that it works is because the way Ed acts around Jack is NOT the way he chooses to act under his own volition, hence Stede’s frustration and disappointment.

While I agree that piratical violence is not political praxis, I would argue that, considering that every raid we have witnessed Ed participate in has been against a representative of colonial power and, more often than not, specifically the enforcing arm thereof, it’s not unfair to conclude that Ed’s reasoning goes that if piratical violence is to be done, better against someone who deserves it than not - i.e. those who perpetuate the violence of colonialism. Regarding instances of violence outside the context of raids, here’s where we take that pin out of Izzy. Izzy and Ed are locked in a cycle of abuse over the first season, wherein Izzy decides that Ed is not Blackbearding hard enough, and, because he feels entitled to controlling Ed’s actions, bullies and harasses him into capitulating  - typically in the form of performing violence. Afterwards, Izzy performs some form of deference - apologizing and/or acting as though he’s going to leave, which Ed “talks him down from” and mercifully allows him to stay. It’s why, when Ed sees Izzy packing up a dinghy (lol. With what? It’s not like he’s on his own ship or would have brought his things with him, or sacked plunder from the Revenge. Clearly he was just stalling until Ed noticed him and swooped in to do his part of the cycle) he tells Stede he “should deal with this,” as though it’s tedious, but normal occurrence. I think an important part of this cycle as the season progresses, though, is how Izzy keeps upping the stakes.

So by the time we get to the end of the season, when the last iteration of the cycle starts up again (when Ed is once more insufficiently Blackbearding by being emotionally vulnerable and open with the crew following his return to the Revenge and his stint in the pillow fort (note that Izzy is apparently FINE with Ed not being Peak Pirate, just as long as he hides it away from everyone), and Izzy once more bullies and threatens Ed) this time it is especially cruel - Izzy is a thumb in the wound, attacking Ed at his most vulnerable and saying it would be better if Ed was DEAD than “pining for his boyfriend.” This iteration now also brings with it a history of escalation (first in Izzy bringing Fang and Ivan in to force Ed's hand about killing Stede, lest he look "weakened by the love of a pet" before his crew, and therefore in danger of mutiny, and then by bringing in the British Navy to force Ed to take Izzy back - or rather, to force Izzy back into Ed's life because the terms of the agreement see Ed remanded into Izzy's custody as though he is property to be distributed at the will of the Brits) - an established pattern of the lengths to which Izzy will go to get what he wants, and so a very real threat implicit in Izzy’s warning that “Ed had better watch his step” as Izzy serves only Blackbeard. So Ed gives him what he wants. He Blackbeards it up just like Izzy insisted, and lets Izzy know in no uncertain terms that the insubordination is done. It’s not a "frat boy prank" when he cuts off Izzy’s toe and feeds it to him, or even something from which he's deriving pleasure as he might have in the old days; it’s a calculated, proportional response, done under duress and against his own inclinations, but exactly the tool required to get the message across clearly.

As to the question of why it matters if Ed is bad, first and foremost, because saying that he is bad requires you to explicitly read contrary to the text. If you’re not going to engage with the text on its own terms, I don’t see how you can do any analysis of what story it’s trying to tell. I already discussed the ways in which the narrative is specifically about how Ed is NOT bad, even when he himself thinks he is. I have also discussed how, while “violence is never the answer” may be broadly understood to be the correct way of comporting oneself in real life, the show never condemns violence across the board. The show condemns cruelty, both on an interpersonal and societal level, but positions the use of violence as an acceptable and reasonable response thereunto. It treats circumstance and motivation with nuance and weight. Living within this context, Ed’s use of violence by the time we meet him is well within the normative acceptable application thereof. Judging him by standards outside the context of the story within which he exists makes as much sense as judging the Stede from the show for being a slave owner because that’s historical fact - that’s just not applicable to who he is in THIS story.

But more importantly, it matters because Ed is a POC character. Describing him as “cruel and perverse” for utilizing violence, particularly when the violence he uses is NOT excessive or impulsive, perpetuates negative race-based stereotypes about hyper-violent men of color. Characterizing him as “bad” for his use of violence when other (white) characters, such as Stede, use violence in similar ways, or are cruel or petty, but can still be considered, on balance, “good” means that Ed is being held to a different, higher standard than those white characters, and perpetuates the frankly racist criteria of expecting POC exceptionalism for POCs to be considered for the base-line assumptions of acceptability that are afforded to their white counterparts. Saying that Stede’s love is what changed Ed’s behavior from cruelty to wholesale abandoning piratical principles is not only antithetical to what actually happens in the show, but suggests a read that POC Ed needs a good white man to show him how to behave, a real white knight to tame his savage heart. That’s some real White Man’s Burden shit there, bro. I highly recommend you put it down.