#i am probably just gonna channel all this rage that has nowhere to go

[aerodaltonimperial]

Okay, I'm absolutely gonna lose my shit this is so so upsetting, but at least we have wrestling. Like, no matter what happens, we will still have the blorbos. And we can still create things. Joyful things! We can still carve out our own happiness in our hobbies, even if the world ends up burning. We can still fight for some semblance of peace, even if everything is terrible. We still have this place, and fandom, and each other. And I promise that I will do what I can to keep doing what I have been doing and write some silly fics that might bring you a little tiny bit of an escape, if you like them. Maybe a little snippet of time where you don't have to think about all this other shit. I'll do what I can (provided my legal immigrant spouse doesn't end up deported anyway) to help add to the tiny bubble of joy we have here. We have to fucking hold onto this. I cannot describe how important it is to hold onto the parts of happiness that you can find.

[the-big-nope]

While I’m certainly nowhere near ready for the story of the Mighty Nein to come to an end, I am also a D&D nerd and there’s a new sourcebook coming out soon with a bunch of new subclasses in it. By the time Campaign 3 of Critical Role gets underway, that book will be published, leaving a wealth of new options for the cast members to choose from, so why not entertain myself by making barely justified predictions of what the cast is most likely to pick for their next characters! (Disclaimer: Some of the new subclasses have been confirmed and some haven’t, so for a few of these picks I’m just going off of what I think is going to be in the book).

Travis

Cleric (Tempest Domain): Travis has been playing lowkey EMT since campaign one, and Laura’s already confirmed that Travis almost went cleric for campaign two. Between Grog with his barb-boosted movement speed to get around the battlefield so he could shove healing potions into his squishier teammates, and Fjord multiclassing into paladin and lovingly tapping his friends with single hit points to get them back up, it would be delightful to see him fully jump in and embrace the classical healer role. Of course, this is Travis, so I don’t see him picking a cleric domain that doesn’t allow for at least some whoop-ass, and Tempest Domain brings plenty of it. You get proficiency with all armor and weapons, Divine Strike at level 8 for boosted melee damage, you can use a reaction to inflict lightning or thunder damage against any enemy within melee range that’s hit you. And if you climb up high enough in levels, you gain a flying speed equal to your walking one whenever you’re outdoors. Pretty nifty, and makes for a fitting subclass for a guy that’s voiced Thor on multiple occasions.

Blood Hunter (Order of the Lycan): I mean, come on. The only reason it isn’t number one is that it was already widely assumed this would be Travis’s pick for campaign two, and I wouldn’t put it past him to surprise us again. But still, we saw him get a taste in Liam’s one shot and he was clearly having the time of his life. Besides, we lost Molly far too early to really see the blood hunter’s potential come to life; it would be damn cool to see someone else take a crack at it, and Travis is enough of a D&D gambler to not shy away from the class’s riskier features.

Artificer (Armorer): Speaking of Marvel connections, if Travis doesn’t lean toward fantasy Thor, then fantasy Iron Man might catch his attention instead. Artificer is an official class now, and since it’ll be reprinted in TCoE by the time campaign 3 gets underway, it’ll be a lot more visible as an option. The Armorer sits in almost a perfect middle ground of what Travis has done before: tanky and a frontliner, but also still has spells and tricks to help the party. Plus, you get a badass suit of power armor out of it. What’s not to like?

Marisha

Bard (College of Creation): After Hazel Copperpot, we all saw the pure magic that was Marisha Ray playing a bard. I know she implied that Hazel was supposed to be her campaign two backup character, but I hope this doesn’t discourage her from making another one. There are quite a few bard subclasses, a number of which I could see her being drawn to (Lore, Glamour, maybe even Swords), but I really vibe with the idea of Creation. I can’t exactly say why; maybe the idea of the ‘dancing object’ feature in Marisha’s hands is very funny to me (remember Keyleth’s adorable “Be Our Guest” moment? That, but this time it’s a walking wardrobe beating the shit out of the enemy).

Paladin (Oath of Vengeance/Conquest): As of yet, no one on Critical Role has ever played a paladin from the start, only multiclassed later down the line. I think this would be a cool departure for Marisha. Both campaigns she’s played characters that were either suspicious or at least indifferent to faith and the gods. Paladins are typically associated with deities, but they’re not tied quite so closely to them as clerics are. It would be fascinating to see what she did with it. As for the subclass, I just think Marisha’s earned her turn on the Goth Character Carousel, and while I know Conquest paladin is very unlikely given its moral grayness by default which might cause undue conflict and that Vengeance is a much more likely and acceptable pick, I just think it would be a sexy character choice. 

Wizard (Bladesinger/Graviturgist): This is a much more pie-in-the-sky, wishful thinking pick on my end, but not impossible imo. Marisha has experience with heavy spellcasting already, so she probably wouldn’t shy away from a wizard, but like Travis I suspect she likes a bit of oomph to her characters, and probably wouldn’t play as support heavy as Caleb does. To that end, Bladesingers get a bit more survivability and some modicum of physical prowess alongside their spells, while Graviturgists are definitely on the more aggressive side of the spectrum for wizard subclasses, with unique dunamancy spells to boot. I’m not sure how restrictive Matt would be about Xhorhassian characters in the next campaign if it takes place on another continent, but hey, you never know. Plus, she picked one of Matt’s homebrew subclasses for the current campaign; it would be cute if it happened again.

Liam

Druid (Circle of the Shepherd): At some point before Critical Role comes to end (hopefully far in the future), I know Liam’s gonna play a druid, I can feel it in my bones. He's too big of a Kiki fan not to. However, while Circle of the Moon might feel obvious given the potential for homage and how much he likes turning into animals, I feel like he might regard it as getting too close to old territory (also, I don’t know if Circle of the Moon is like an exclusive thing to the Ashari tribes, and if it is that would be rather restrictive for building a backstory). If that’s the case, Circle of the Shepherd feels like the next best bet. It has some great support options via the totems you can put down, and rather than becoming badass animals, you instead just get really good at summoning a fuck ton of them. It’s like Frumpkin, but ten of him. And they’re bears. (Honorable mention: If Circle of the Moon would feel like treading old territory then I’m certain Circle of Wildfire would too, but I’d bet my dice collection it would at least be tempting). 

Cleric (Unity Domain): Listen. The pure sap potential that would be at Mr. O’Brien’s fingertips with this subclass is incredible. The domain all about strengthening and protecting the bonds between friends and loved ones?? The domain with the Channel Divinity that can spread damage taken by one creature across the party however the cleric chooses to distribute it to lessen the blow to the individual??? The domain that used to be called the Love Domain???? I’m practically gagging on the soft moments and unspoken devotion conveyed through spellcasting already.

Fighter (Rune Knight/Psi Knight): Liam has yet to play a tank in a long-term campaign, and while I’m more enamored with the potential of the above classes, it would be novel to see him play a character with an actually respectable amount of hit points. However, I feel like if he was gonna commit to a straight frontliner, he’d probably want something a little more unique than a Champion or Battle Master (especially since he’s played those already for one-shots). Rune Knight has some fun options and built-in flavor, and with Psi Knight you can basically be a Jedi. Not bad options at all if you ask me.

Taliesin

Warlock (Fiend): Yeah, it might be expected, or Percy might have been too close to warlock anyway to feel like there’s new ground to cover, but hear me out. Both Percy (who, let’s face it, was a warlock multiclass in all but the actual mechanics) and Fjord were the classic reluctants. They got in over their heads without really knowing what was going on, and once they did they wanted out, cutting ties with their patrons and getting clear with only the scars remaining. I want to see Taliesin commit to a warlock in a way I imagine only he could manage to pull off. How fun would that balancing act be, to have a character that has no intentions of breaking their pact, who’s here for the powers, and is willing to work that delicate balancing act between keeping what he’s got and not letting his contract holder get the better of him? Give it to meeeeee.

Sorcerer (Psionic Soul): Psionic Soul has a bit of that eldritch flavor that vibes with Taliesin so much, with the added interest of introducing a brand new feature to 5E, the Psi Die (with this subclass, using them can do things like letting a sorcerer learn a spell they don’t already know for a few hours, allow you to cast spells without needing verbal, somatic, or material components, and can give you telepathy). Taking both Percy and Molly into account, it seems Tal likes to lean into those unique additional mechanics, and while Psi Die aren’t as risk-heavy as Gunslinger or Bloodhunter, they do add a layer of variability and unpredictability that seems to match his style.

Rogue (Swashbuckler): We only got a little bit of time with Molly, and so missed out on the opportunity to see Tal play a more cavalier character this time around. If he feels like leaning away from spells next time and back toward martial, I think a high-charisma, high-swinging swashbuckler from Tal would be a delight to watch.

Laura

Barbarian (Path of the Ancestral Guardian): Laura deserves to hit things, okay? Yes, spellcasting is great and comes in clutch frequently and Jester’s amazing, but you can tell Laura misses doing fat stacks of damage to the enemy in a single round. I personally think it would be amazing to watch her just cut loose and go full rage machine. As for the subclass, I’m not glued to the idea, but Ancestral Guardians are pretty kickass, have decent support capabilities for a barb without detracting from their DPS at all, and it doesn’t tread on any previous characters’ toes or their aesthetics.

Rogue (Scout/Soulknife): Laura deserves to play her favorite class at last, okay? She’s been class poached two campaigns in a row, and though that resulted in both Vex and Jester and I wouldn’t trade them for the world, Laura has earned first pick. Seeing as she already dipped into Assassin as Vex and Sam took Arcane Trickster, I could see Scout being a viable subclass choice. It’s in the classic sneaky vein, relatively simple in concept, but comes with features that grant easy-to-understand benefits that you can never turn your nose up at (boosts to movement, advantage on initiative, giving advantage against a target to everyone else in the party, etc.). If she’s looking for something a bit flashier, Soulknife has the benefit of retroactively dunking on Vax by taking the basic knife-rogue and making it better, with psionic knives that you can manifest with a thought, that can teleport you around Whisper style, and cranking up that stealth to ridiculous levels by just being able to turn invisible for ten minutes, no concentration or spell needed. The psionic die mechanics are a little funky of course, but I don’t imagine it’s any trickier than learning to manage all those cleric spells.

Monk (Way of the Open Hand): Between Beau just being super cool and her brief stint as Farriwen Breeze, monk wouldn’t be a surprising pick from Laura. An Open Hand monk might be the definitive version everyone knows, but you can’t deny it’s a solid subclass, and between previous overlap and the concepts of the other subclasses just not seeming to fit, I could see the classic being what she went with. But hey, it’s Laura Bailey. She could surprise us with Way of the Drunken Master or something.

Sam

Ranger (Monster Slayer): Let’s be real, I don’t think this would be his actual first pick for a Campaign 3 character, but the amount of shit-stirring he could achieve by making a character with the aim of pissing off Laura Bailey specifically would be hilarious (and since Matt isn’t completely opposed to UA and acknowledges that PHB ranger has a lot of issues, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went Revised Ranger this time).

Warlock (Genie): Actual first pick here, Pact of the Genie Warlock is confirmed by now, and the potential of a warlock in the hands of Sam Riegel is pretty vast (for some reason I’m imagining he would go the ‘spoiled sugar baby’ route). The subclass doesn’t matter as much, but the Genie one is nice in that, depending on the type of genie patron you pick, you can get a wide variety of extra spells, you get a container like a classic lamp or lantern that you can bamf into for short rests, and you get a limited Wish ability for your capstone, all features I feel like would especially appeal to Sam.

Barbarian (Path of the Wild Soul): I want to see Sam play a fairy barbarian. ‘Nough said.

Ashley

Fighter (Eldritch/Echo Knight): Ashley really seems to vibe with the crushing power of martial classes (she does love her brutal kill descriptions), so I could see her sticking with it rather than going back to full caster. However, I do see her picking one of the magical subclasses for some variety after Yasha. Eldritch Knight is a classic and reasonably easy to manage, but tbh I’d LOVE for it to be Echo Knight. And think, if my wishful thinking came true, with Ashley picking an Echo Knight and Marisha playing a Graviturgist wizard, they could link up their backstories and be a traveling Kryn battle duo that left their homeland behind to explore the world!

Sorcerer (Draconic): If she does want to go back to full-time casting, Sorcerer doesn’t require near as much bookkeeping as a cleric, druid, or wizard while still having decent variety, and the Draconic subclass is a bit beefier than the other subclasses. Also, it would be the third campaign in a row where Ashley Johnson’s character eventually got wings, soooo...

And tbh I have no idea what a third pick might be for Ashley, so I’m just gonna throw a dart or two at the board and say either College of Whispers Bard or Way of Mercy Monk *Shrug* We can only wait and see!

[tellywoodtrash]

immj2 02.11.20 lb

this fucking episode my dudes. i just went through it like...

business maharani is doing some more bitchification of bhaabi, ki dekho phir nikal gayi aapke peeche. even used the same lameass mandir excuse, the idiot, instead of coming up with something new.  

hubs like riddhima is a major pain in the ass, but she's MY PAIN IN THE ASS, where isss sheeee, why isn't she back yet???????? is she ok????????????

ishani getting a call about someone in the hospital and......

bitch, it's her friend who's in the hospital. why the fuck would anyone call ISHANI of all people if riddhima was in the hospital????

lo aa gayi.

gujarat registration gaadi waale bhaiyya was a careful driver. unlike literally everyone else on tellywood. good for him.

concern!maxxxxxxxxxxx about her haalat.

asks about her bleeding hand and she's like i'll tell you if you tell me about how YOUR hand got hurt. noice.

again, rrahul's not putting on the vansh voice in this scene and it's 300% more watchable. for the love of god stop directing him in a way that impedes his performance!!!!!!! LET THE MAN MOVE HIS FACE AND TALK IN HIS NORMAL VOICE!!!!!!!!!!!

cliche dialogue about “shareer ke ghaav jaldi bhar jaate hain par dil ke ghaav..........”

this asshole is like yeah who would know that better than me???? BITCH WHAT IS THIS, THE TRAUMA OLYMPICS???

she's thinking ki yeah, i'm not gonna fall for your fakeass parwaah anymore. good. i like. she needed this stupidass illusion of her's broken longggggggggg back.

ohohohohoho ib waala mangalsutra breaking and slipping off trope idhar bhi hai.

“tooti hui cheezein kabhi kabhi dobara nahi judti.”

dialogue maarke chali gayi, lol.

but notice she's the one who caught it anyway. which makes me think she's gonna choose him/this relationship YET AGAIN. *deeeeeeeepest sigh in the world that sucks up all the oxygen in the atmosphere*

“jaise mera dil.”

OHOHOHOHOHOHOHOHOH.

“lekin ab waqt aa gaya hai bohut se cheezon ko sahi karne ka.”

again, he looks menacing and all, but is probably just talking about making sure all the paperwork is up to date for upcoming end of year audits. he's a very rich accountant, remember???

ragini's medical reports have come.

lol being married to ishani is taking yearssssssss off angre's lifespan. roz naya tension, naya drama.

also, angre refers to vansh as "vansh bhai" when talking about him to ishani, but calls him "boss" when referring directly. interesting. veryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy interesting. you guys need to sort out that relationship, my dudes. it's the only stable, healthy one in this whole damn show.

ishani is like you're his right hand, what the hell are you doing about riddhima spying on him and getting all up in his business???????? dang, this might be the first conversation they're having about their only common interest: vansh's well being.

also i notice ki shivaay ke saare shirts angre ko diye gaye hain. huh, the shirts must have a kanji eyed wearer clause in their contract.

“mujhe shakti dijiye ke main apne emotions se upar uthke sahi ke saath khadi rahoon.”

damn, first time i've had a lil respect for riddhima. i mean, i know ultimately it's all gonna go to shit, but she's trying.

lmao a dhaarmik aarti version of the title track is playing. a version for every situation!

“main ragini ko bacha ke rahoongi. yeh mera aapse, ragini se, aur apne aap se vaada hai.”

YESSSSSSSSSSS BITCH, SISTERS OVER MURDEROUS MISTERS!!!!!!!!!!!

OMG WHY WON'T Y'ALL JUST DRESS HIM LIKE THIS, LIKE ARNAV, WITH THE SHIRT AND SWEATER COMBOOOOOOOOOOOOO. PLS GODDDDDDDDDDDD STOP DRESSING HIM WITH THAT STUPID SCARF WAALA BLAZERRRRRRRRRRRRR I BEG OF YOUUUUUUUUUU

he's talking to some shadow (def a woman) about how they're his humraaz about the whole ragini issue and nothing is hidden from them and how everything is going as they planned and the story will end soon.

it might be siya but omg i hope to goddddddddddddd it's ishani. i really really reallly want it to be ishani and see the hot demon siblings do some scheming and planning together. the sibs that conspire together, stay together!!!!!!!!!

menacing growling about riddhima and how he needs shadow chick's help in "handling" her, so that she doesn’t leave the house.

“chaahe VR mansion uske liye jail bann jaaye, i don't care.” cool, real healthy. also copied from this week's naagin 5. i'm telling you, these two shows be copying their homework off each other.

vansh leaning real hard on how he trusting shadow chick. hmmmm. reallyyyy hope it's ishani. though can’t say i wouldn’t be delighted if siya also turns out to be just as fucking twisted as him.

ofc ms. snoopy here has come to snoop. SIS TUM THAK NAHI JAATI KYA ISS SAB SE. MUJHE TOH DEKHTE HI THAKAAN HO GAYI HAI AND I NEEDS ME SOME GLUCON D.

“ragini riddhima se jeete-jee milna toh door, usse dekh bhi na sake.”

uh a little too late for that my man, lol. your girls already had a catchup session this afternoon. they're going for brunch and manis next weekend!

oh ho, she knows that angre's gone out. so this is def someone else in the house. DAMN, I'M REALLY INVESTED IN THIS SHADOW NOW.

yaaar, kya haalat bana rakhi hai shivaay ke room ki. best room hota tha iss set ka, aur isko bas ek random space banaa rakha hai.

ASLKFJSLDKJFLSDKJFLDKSF

this fucker crazyyyyy. like fulllll on flipping cray cray!!!!!!!!!!!!!

wow ok he's shaking from rage. more unhinged than i've ever seen him. which is really something. something scary as fuckkkkkkkk.

kudos to riddhima for just being like same old, same old, instead of being scared. i'm really liking i-give-no-fucks-riddhima.

DUDE. THIS FUCKER HAS COMPLETELY LOST IT.

also knife play copied from shivaay. this dude like a much much worse version of shivaay. never thought that would be possible, but never say never with ITV and the year 2020.

ok i don't like this angry version of him that's outta control, all shaking and growling and panting. not only is it really bad acting, it's hard to take seriously as menacing. ppl are always scarier when they're ice fucking cool with their anger.

blah blah blah some more growled warnings and riddhima and i are just here like............. “ok and????”

she's not even allowed to leave the room.

oooooh brave sis questioning him back and provokingggggggggg himmmmmmmmmm. got a death wish, this one, but i like her like this. i was sick of her just collapsing all over the place weeping. thaaaaaank god she found her longlost backbone.

“tum jaise haiwaan ki baat kabhi nahi maanungi.”

sarcastic slow clapping and slightly turned on by this show of dheentness.

“chalo aaj tumhari bahaaduri ko celebrate karte hain.”

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

“piyo, zeher nahi milaaya hai ismein.”

OK NOW THAT YOU SAID THAT I'M DEFINITELY THINKING THAT YOU HAVE.

omg ridhhimaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa you idiottttttt.

ok he's def put something in it. his face almost looking pitying as he takes the glass back.

“jaao. jahaan jaana hai jaao. nahi rokunga tumhe.”

ohhhhhhhhhh boy.

dslkfjsdlfkjdslkfjdslkjflkd her legs don't work no moreeeeeeeee.

THIS FUCKERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. JESUS CHRIST THIS CRAZY ASS FUCKING D;SLFKJ;SLDKFJ;LDSKJF;LDKJ

EVEN THE CHANNEL PUTTING BIG BOLD DISCLAIMER OVER THE SCENE LIKE THIS SHIT IS SERIOUSLY UNHINGED AND FICTIONAL THE CHANNEL ABSOLUTELY DOES NOT CONDONE THIS FUCKING MADNESSSSSSSSS

I CANNOT STOP SCREAMING THIS FUCKERRRRRRR IS OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT THE EVER LOVING FUCK IS THIS THIS SHIT IS MAKING 4 LIONS MEN LOOK LIKE SOFT CUDDLY LIL SOFTBOIS I AM LITERALLY GOING OUTTA MY MIND WITH RAGE AND ANGUISH WHAT THE FUCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK

i need a break. i seriously need a break to go cuddle my cat coz my god this deranged fucking showwwwwwwwwww.

ok cuddle break done. i’m not feeling any better but at least the tears of blood have stopped flowing from my eyes?

all i gots to say at this point is that CHEELANSHU SINGHANIA FROM NAAGIN 5 WOULD NEVER DO THIS. ONCE AGAIN SANKIIII CHEEL BOY >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> HUMAN MEN.

“haiwaan hoon main. rakshas hoon. aur rakshas kuch bhi kar sakta hai.”

electric chair for you, dude. ELECTRIC FUCKING CHAIR, GREEN MILE STYLE.

he literally gave her a paralytic.

“isse ek luxury relaxing spa treatment ki tarah enjoy karna.”

OMG I WISH I HAD SOMEONE MAKE ME SLIP INTO A PARALYTIC COMAAAAAAAAAA WHAT ELSE COULD A GIRL WANT FROM PRINCE CHARMING UWU TRUE WUVVVVVVVVV

omg inn paplu taplu ka chip waala naatak abhi bhi chal raha hai BIGGER THINGS HAVE HAPPENED IN THE HOUSE YOU IDIOTS KEEP THE FUCK UP LITERALLY NO ONE CARES ABOUT YOUR SADAA HUA MEMORY CARD ANYMOREEEEEEEEEE

anyway they decide to put it in the bank locker. omg why though, under the mattress was suchhhhhhh a safe and secure spot!!! badal kyun rahe ho tum log?!?!?!!?!?

“good morning.”

sis, lower half is paralysed. haath abhi bhi kaam kar rahein haina??? PICK UP WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU CAN GET YOUR HANDS ON AND HURL IT AT HIS FUCKING HEADDDDDDDDDDD

“don't worry, bas kuch der ki baat hai. uske baad tum apne pairon pe khadi ho sakti ho. main tumhari help kar deta hoon.”

TELLL HIM SIS. TELL HIM TO STAY THE FUCK AWAY AND NEVER EVER COME WITHIN A 3 DISTRICT RADIUS OF YOU. 

“phir se zidd. tumhara naam riddhima nahi, ziddhima hona chahiye tha.”

ok can't deny i lol'd at that.

OK NO BACK TO HATING HIM. PUNS WILL GET YOU NOWHERE WITH ME, YOU BLOODY PSYCHOPATH.

“abhi toh bas ek chota dose diya hai jiska asar sirf 10 ghante rehta hai.”

oh how sweet. such a considerate husband. Star Parivaar Pati of The Year you are. haan behen, aur rakho aise pati ke liye karwachauth.

“agar baat nahi maaani, toh agla dose double hoga.”

seriously though, where can i get one of these? all i want is to be put in a coma so that i don't have to be conscious anymore. esp with the USA election today............ give me a 5x dose, daddy.

YEAH RIGHT LIKE SHE'S EVER GONNA CONSUME ANYTHING YOU OFFER HER EVER AGAIN LOL

“tum chaahe kitni bhi koshish karlo vansh, main tumhe ragini ko nuksaan pohunchaane nahi dungi.”

determination toh behen ka top classssssssssssss hai. where do ppl get such mental will from? i face the slightest inconvenience and i need a 6 hour nap to cope.

LMAO VANSH YOU DUMBASS YOU LEFT HER WITH HER PHONEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. YOU KNOW SHE'S A SPY AND HAS SOMEONE ON THE OUTSIDE. YOU WANTED HER NOT TO GET TO RAGINI BUT NOW SHE CAN JUST CALL WHOEVER SHE’S WORKING WITH TO GET RAGINI THE HELP. GOD, BEWAKOOFON KI TOLI HAI YEH SHOWWWWWWWW.

ab yaad aayi kabir ki. my god, he seems like such a mellow weirdo now compared to vansh, just into some casual costume-changing and quasi fratricide. almost a tolerable level of deranged compared to this other fucking madman.

sent a voice note to him.

SHE HEARD SOMEONE COMING AND FLUNG THE PHONE ACROSS THE ROOM INTO A PILE OF CLOTHES. OH HO WHYYYYYYYYYYYY, YOU COULD HAVE LITERALLY JUST HID IT BACK UNDER THE PILLOWS WHERE YOU FOUND IT!?!?!??!?!?!?

“hi riddhima! tumhe iss haal mein dekh kar, dil ko bohut sukoon mil raha hai.”

asldkfsjflkjdslfkjdl i honestly love her the most. she's so fucking petty and hilarious.

ishani is like thank god bhai has seen fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinally seen your real face.

“sirf vansh ne hi nahi, inn sab mein maine bhi vansh ka asli chehra dekh liya hai.”

“kya matlab hai tumhara?!?!!”

ok, i'm thinking ishani is shadow girl. from day 1, she’s wanted riddhima to see vansh in a certain way; as someone dangerous, the way he projects himself. (as opposed to dadi and siya who want her to see his soft side.) this statement from riddhima makes her wary that did she get close to the actual truth. INTERESTING. VERYYYYYYYYY INTERESTINGGGGG.

she's now grumbling about how vansh treats her much better than she actually deserves. I REALLY WANT MORE INSIGHT INTO THIS BROTHER SISTER RELATIONSHIP THEY HAVE IT'S SO INTRIGUINGGGGGGGG

le, kapde chale gaye laundry. phone ke saath.

———————————————————————

precap: kabir listened to the voice note and now him and mummy are in panic about ragini disclosing the truth about 3 years ago. RE DEVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA. OFC THESE TWO WERE INVOLVED IN THAT KAAND TOO. LITERALLY EVERY ONE IN THIS SHOW IS A DERANGED MENACE TO SOCIETY.

kabir coming to meet riddhima.

but ofc.

ugh she turned back saying “K.........” and he's like there's literally no one in this house whose name starts with K.

*facepalms for allllll eternity till my godforsaken face itself falls off.*

i think i’ll go watch s2 of mirzapur now. i need something ~~~light and fluffffffffffy~~~ to take my mind off whatever the FUCK this was.

[uncoordinated-house-cat]

pls rant about nicholas ii 👀

dude i am so glad u asked. i mean, u didn’t ask for the entire rant about both russian revolutions, but here u are anyway. (but also im a teenager history student so this is very biased and i checked most of my facts but not all of them so don’t quote me and if a history person who actually knows what they’re doing finds a mistake don’t @ me) ok so nicholas ii was an absolute ********** and had an iq of -1000 and he was still super convinced that he could run all of russia, which is like a freaking huge country with millions of people who are super poor (peasants made up 85% of the population in 1905 when the first revolution happened, the number of people below the poverty line was probably way higher when the actual revolution happened and he got overthrown but bitch had it cOMING) 

so here’s the thing. nick, a spoiled child who let’s say is twelve years old when his dad alexander dies of assassination (omg i googled the dates and HE WAS TWELVE I WAS RIGHT FHDSJKLAFHSD) has been told, since he was a tiny but no less annoying baby, that he was amazing and very smart and was absolutely entitled to rule all of russia and he was like ‘hell yeah bro this is my divine right wahoo guess i don’t have to pay attention in my ‘how to be a good leader’ lessons cos god chose me to be the tsar so i already am one #thuglife’ 

so he met this girl named alix, who was princess of somewhere irrelevant and incredibly religious (and also deluded but that becomes important later) and he falls in love with her and they get married, which is nice but probably not a good long-term decision because through her friend, nick meets rasputin (and i love the ra ra rasputin song but rasputin was very very problematic) and that’s one of the many, many, many stupid things he does that makes literally every single person in russia (again, lots of people) mad at him. but nick is in love, and he marries alix, and this is all very nice if russia was a substantially smaller and easier country to run and nick was actually a competent leader then maybe there wouldn’t have been a revolution! but alas, this was not the case. 

so as we all know, russia is fucking enormous. for people who have never looked at a map in their entire life, this is russia

and it has more landmass than several continents put together. chonky boi. and the capital city where the royal family lives? well, you’d assume it’s somewhere in the middle ish, since russia’s such a huge country and you kinda need to be in the middle in order to have literally any idea what’s going on and stop your people from revolting under your freaking nose, so put it in the middle. 

but nOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. they put the capital in st. petersburg, a place that’s like five minutes drive from finland, estona, latvia, ukraine (although that would probably take a while but u get the point) and LITERALLY NOWHERE NEAR ANYWHERE IN RUSSIA. ARGH. 

i’m pretty sure the reasoning for this was ‘it’s been there since forever and everything was fine then so we don’t need to change it’ cos back when russia was actually a country-sized country instead of the mammoth it is now (we’re talking 1539, and by country-sized country it was still bigger than most of western europe put together), the country was all the way over to the left, where st. petersburg is, so they probably had the capital there foreeeeeeever. even after they expanded and became mcfreaking enormous bc sOmEoNe (not naming names *cough cough* ivan the terrible *cough cough*) decided it would be an awesome idea to have some expansionist policy, yay, and now we’ve ended up with this monstrosity. and while you might think that having a big country is great, it’s not. here’s why:

- so many people. soooo many people

- how u gonna keep track of all of them?? it takes like 8 years to get from one side of this bad boy to the other

- since nobody can control russia cos of all the land and all the people, the culture just goes absolutely backward. the peasants are too poor to afford food, let alone an education, and it’s not as if nicky is gonna build free public schools or raise wages or anything, lol, so the collective russian mindset is a bit of a dumpsterfire

- if, say, a revolution were to happen, which of course it can’t hahaha everybody know’s nick’s the divine ruler and overthrowing him wouldn’t be possible cos everyone’s so thrilled with their life in a very cold place with no food, awful policies, terrible wages and working conditions and a tsar who cares more about hanging out with his family than actually doing his duty as leader of the biggest country in the world?? then the tsar wOULDN’T KNOW THE REVOLUTION WAS HAPPENING UNTIL IT WAS ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AND SOMEONE WAS HOLDING A GUN TO HIS STUPID TINY PEABRAIN HEAD

and nick did not do a lot to help the russian people to live unproblematic, non-poverty-stricken lives. in the early 1900s, there was a big move to the cities cos everyone was moving to the cities which meant there were more educated people getting jobs or going to university and going ‘hey, our wages are shit, nobody has any food and it seems like the tsar is doing a really bad job and just living in the lap of luxury while his entire country suffers?? should we do something about this??’

but he did do something. oh, boy. nicky, looking at all his ancestors going ‘bro aren’t u gonna expand the country that’s literally the one thing russia is good at u can’t break our streak’ went and conquered siberia. then he built a railway, cos he needed a water outlet for trade and stuff. he called it the trans-siberian railway. he wanted to make it really big, and cross over into manchuria, so he had a bit of a war with china which he won and then he built the railway in manchuria. 

meanwhile, japan has been practising their war tactics a lot recently and while they don’t have much of a reputation in the west (like at all, nobody takes them seriously) and they also want to expand and flex their fighting skills a bit, they cross into manchuria and are like ‘i want this land. gimme’ and nick is like ‘nah fam i’m good’ and japan is like ‘>:( one last warning’ and nick is like ‘lol ur country is tiny and my country is huge have u seen all these buff russian soldiers i have guarding the railway i could crush u with my boot’ and then the japanese launch a surprise attack! on the russian squadron at port arthur. nick made the pikachu face, then the russo-japanese war started. 

uh oh, bad decision! looks like the russians are losing and even tho there’s lots of them there are more japanese and they have better battle tactics, so nick sends more soldiers. thing is, everyone in russia is already super poor so they can’t afford to have the [relatively] healthy, working men go off to war and die, cos that’s not practical at all and now they have even less money and food. fast forward, russia loses the war, nick makes the pikachu face again, stays in his nice mansion while the rest of russia starts going ‘grrr’ as well as ‘brrrr’.

and then this dude called gapon who’s a nice priest guy goes to petition the tsar to have better working conditions, fairer wages, a bunch of other stuff but they’re all very fair and reasonable. nick is like ‘nooooo!!’ and his uncle is like ‘nOoOoO!!!!!!1!!!’ and orders the army to shoot the peaceful protesters, so it gets called bloody sunday. this makes everyone really unhappy again, and it’s called the russian revolution of 1905 cos there are a lot of strikes and even while nick is like ‘haha this isn't happening’ they don’t reeeally accomplish much bc nick stays on the throne, and the russians are very mad but not mad or coordinated enough to overthrow the autocracy. there was this new parliament thingo called the duma, because nick’s only competent political adviser, count witte, was like ‘bro u literally have no choice but to form a new democratic government’ and nick was like ‘oh ok what if i made a government but it’s not really democratic or effective bc they have very limited power’ and witte was like ‘nick nO’ and nick was like ‘hehe nick yes’ and the duma was formed

--fast forward to 1917-- *time vworp noises*

so russia is poor. again. everyone is mad. again. all the men have been sent off to war. again. this time, it’s because of world war 1! 

and yikes, the russian army have it bad. like seriously, those dude were suffering lots and lots. very ouchy, no food, too cold, everyone is dying. it wasn’t great.

nick was like ‘hmm this war seems to be going well anyway look at my children aren’t they cute one of them broke an expensive vase today that’s so funny!!!’ (i made that up but he really didn’t care much and spent a lot of money u get the gist)

lots of strikes are happening. nobody is happy, and this time there are actually some organised people who can channel the rage into a revolution that might actually get something done this time. 

by the way, rasputin has turned up!! *cue the ra ras*

so rasputin introduces himself to some lady who’s a friend of alix, and alix, being super religious and super deluded and also having a sick son -

oh yeah, she had like five kids (was it five? not sure it was a lot) and the first four of them were girls and she was like ‘oh my god who’s gonna rule the country i have to have a boy’ and then she finally had a boy and his name was alexei and everything was great until they discovered that he had haemophilia, which is a hereditary illness that means ur skin is super weak or smth and whenever u, like, bump a table and u would normally get a little bruise, instead u start bleeding like you’ve been shot and yeah it was super problematic and it meant alexei was constantly sick and bleeding

- and so alix said to rasputin, who proclaimed to heal people like he was basically jesus, ‘yo dude can u pls heal my son it’s pretty urgent ngl’ and rasputin was like ‘uh huh lemme just take a look at him’ and he had a check up with alexei who somehow healed?? i don’t know how, he just sorta did, (he still had the haemophilia but alix was convinced it was gone for good) and so she turned into rasputin’s Number One Fan and started spouting all his very false religious conspiracy theories and made him a very important member of politics which was Not Good

and then count witte, the sensible one, was like ‘hmm this rasputin fellow seems kinda shady also he has thousands of STIs i don’t think it’s a good look if ur wife is hanging out with him all the time bc there are lots of rumours and he just seems super sketchy i reckon we should get rid of him’ and nick was like ‘no U’

he just uno reverse-carded him. witte tried to investigate rasputin and then nick was like ‘hmm i guess i’ll dissolve the duma cos ur being annoying’ and witte resigned like two days later. fair. if i had to deal with nick on a daily basis, there would probably be a lot of punching (of him, by me, in case u couldn’t tell bc im full of rage)

and there were a lot of rumours going around about alix & rasputin (which was kinda fair, because they hung out all the time and rasputin was a very sus person) so alix’s credibility was questioned and she was accused of selling secrets to the enemy, which was a bit dramatic (im pretty sure it was because she came from germany, and she was called ‘the german woman’ by a lot of the public)

--- also this isn’t very relevant to nick but i thought it was incredibly funny how rasputin died and it was time for a break from all that serious stuff so ~INTERLUDE~ --- 

note: start listen to rasputin by boney m cos this is where it gets hilarious (and the song also narrates his assassination lol)

so nobody liked rasputin. he had a lot of sex with pretty much everyone, he was very religious but also spouted a lot of nonsense, he was involved in some very dubious stuff and he was in favour of a lot of policies that the general public did not want at all. so a lot of people tried to murder him. and nearly all of them failed!! turns out, rasputin is really difficult to assassinate. there were a bunch of attempts on his life, all failed, before this one dude was like ‘bro i gotta put a stop to this’ so he invited rasputin to his house cos he was rsaputin’s bud (his name was yusupov btw)

dude gave him some cakes. they were laced with cyanide (poison) and rasputin was like cronch cronch, nom nom. did not die. ate a lot of cake. 

yusupov was like ?????????????

gave him some wine. wine was also poisoned. rasputin was like ‘dude this wine is good where can i get some more’ and he drank three glasses of it. the wine was poisoned with cyanide as well, btw. and the doctors who had helped plan this had carefully put enough cyanide in each glass to kill SEVERAL MEN. still not dead somehow???? 

so yusupov went ‘ok time for plan c’ and shot him. rasputin was like ‘ow’ and fell over. yusupov checked his pulse, there was now, he was like ‘ok good job’

and then while they were discussing their cover story upstairs, yusupov went back down to check on rasputin’s body and dude was sTILL ALIVE.

so they shot him again, tied him up, shot him one more time for good measure (and they shot him in the forehead at some point but apparently he was still alive???) and then they threw him into a frozen river. where he died of hypothermia, after having consumed enough cyanide to kill dozens of men and being shot three times, one of which was literally in his head. hhhh.

*sigh of relief* he finally died. fINALLY. the dudes who assassinated him got exiled but nothing worse than that because everyone in russia was like ‘well someone had to do it’

~~END OF INTERLUDE~~

now shit is getting rEAL. i mean, not for nick, obviously. but everyone else is like ‘ohmygosh rasputin is dead we actually got something done yay!!!’ 

so it’s february 1917 in petrograd. nick is on holiday with his family 800km away with literally no idea what’s going on. 15 million russians were away at war, and 1.7 million had died. lots of strikes and protests are happening. bIG protests. people were breaking into stores to get food, because of the awful food shortages, and it was very very cold so everyone was slightly extra mad. the police shot at some of the people who had gotten up onto the rooftops, so they protests turned into riots. all the people who were on strike from work joined the riots, and the women workers who had come out for international women’s day marched around the nearby factories and got another 50,000 people (including students and teachers) to join the riots (which was A Lot) and by the 25th of february the riots had gotten so big that pretty much every business in petrograd was shut down. literally everyone was rioting. 

the tsar was like ‘hmm that doesn’t look good’ and ordered his army to shut the riots down. there were about 180k troops in the city, but only about 12k were actually able to fight bc the rest of them were all injured from the war. they didn’t want to suppress the riots by force bc a lot of women were in the crowds (guess chivalry isn’t dead?) so when the tsar was like ‘no u gotta do it’ the troops were like ‘fuck u’ and either joined the riots or yeeted outta there. hooray!! 

the tsar was like ‘ok everything is under control’ (partly bc his official informant gave him the wrong info rip) and didn’t accede to any of the rioter’s demandsor do anything for a while. and here’s the thing. the tsar’s cabinet sent a telegram to nick saying ‘bro u gotta resign, we’re literally on the verge of revolution’ and nick read it, wrote ‘lol’ in his diary and refused to answer. 

the next day, there was another telegram saying ‘bro, u GOTTA resign. the revolution is happening now. if u don’t resign, the entire monarchy will be overthrown and ur reign will be o-v-e-r’ 

and nick wrote an entry in his diary saying ‘what nonsense is this? i can’t believe they’re sending me telegrams about this rubbish, as if i’m going to do anything’ (and im paraphrasing bc i don’t have my book w me but he definitely used the word “nonsense” and wrote a bunch of awful stuff about it) 

the next day, nick got another telegram that basically said ‘welp. country’s over. good while it lasted, revolution is happening now and it’s too late for you to do anything about it bc u didn’t listen to my numerous warnings to resign’ and nick was like ‘wait should i... do something about this??? hmm... yeah!! i’ll go up to petrograd and show ‘em who’s boss!! can’t defeat the absolute power of the tsar, huzzah!!’ 

and he went up to petrograd and got arrested. he had no choice but to abdicate, adn then he and the rest of his family were put under house arrest. there was a bit of an argument about whether they should be exiled to some western country, but all the western europeans were like ‘we don’t want nick u can keep him’ so they put him under house arrest in one of his palaces, where nick pretty much just chilled out with his family until they were all executed because everyone in russia was still very mad at them. 

(and in 1981 nick and his family were recognised as ‘martyred saints’, which is fine for the rest of them but nick absolutely did not deserve it)

thus concludes my very, very long rant. i spent way too long writing this, but my history teacher would be proud of me.

[calamity-callie]

New Beginnings ~ Wiztober Day 1

Edited by @spiralcompendium

“So.” The single, stern word broke a heavy silence that had been present since their private airship left the port in Hamamitsu. “How was your first year at the Imperial City Dragon Academy?” Alia flinched. They had been hoping and praying that this question would never come but knew it was inevitable. ‘Why did it have to be this soon though?’ they cried internally, cursing themself for not already having a full speech prepared for this. “Well?” their mother snipped impatiently, interrupting Alia’s thought process. Under pressure to deliver positive results, they opened their mouth to reply and a flood of words poured out.

“Dragon Academy? Oh, it was great!!! The Imperial City is such a cool place, and I loved seeing the inside of the Imperial Palace - did you know it contains 75 bedrooms?! 75!!! Also -”

“Alia,” came the first interruption.

“Also it turns out I have a natural talent for gardening! See I joined the gardening club and I was the only first year in the history of the school to actually raise a maelstrom snap dragon to elder! A Maelstrom! Snap! Dragon! That’s senior level stuff!!! Oh oh also -”

“Alia…” their mother interrupted again, this time with slightly more insistence.

“- alsoalsoalso it turns out I’m real good at alchemy, too! So much so that a potions vendor in the city took me as an apprentice! My first job, and something I love too! Can you believe it?!?!? Also also oh oh also also also -”

“ALIA!” The third interruption came as a full on yell. They gasped, taken aback by the intensity. “You know exactly what I mean. I don’t care about your extracurricular activities, your clubs, or how many bedrooms the palace has. Your grades. Let me see them.”

“Well, I got one A, uhhhh...” Alia trailed off, panicking. Their off-the-cuff plan hadn’t turned out quite how they hoped. As they desperately tried to brainstorm ways to stall for more time though, their mother, growing ever more impatient, demanded yet again, “Show me your grades. Now.”

Defeated, a crestfallen Alia opened up their bag, pulled out an official looking envelope, and handed it off without a word. The seconds felt like hours as their mother peeled off the wax seal, opened the top flap, and pulled out the parchment inside. Her face morphed from concentration, to confusion, to rage. She opened her mouth as if to yell, but at the last second changed her mind. Putting the sheet back into the envelope, she simply said, “We will discuss this with your father when we get home.” Not a single word was uttered for the rest of the flight.

Some hours later, the two arrived at their home in Kembaalung. Their father initially greeted them with a smile and open arms, but their mother quickly trotted over to him and they began talking in hushed tones. After a moment their father turned with a grim face and said, “Alia. Go to your room. We will call you when we are ready to talk.” 

“Talk. Great. They want to Talk.” Alia laid on their bed, speaking their thoughts aloud, thankful for the magical soundproofing their parents tended to use during their private conversations. Looking over at the bookshelf on the opposite wall, they contemplated how things ever got to this point. The shelf was full of thick tomes on dragon magic: grimoires they could remember being forced to read and memorize for hours at a time, beginning as soon as they learned to read. They had every word of every thick volume on that shelf memorized, but not a single line made any sense. This collection of facts served them well enough to pass the entrance exam though, and they held out hope that maybe actual teaching would be the missing link; maybe seeing these incomprehensible concepts in action would be all it took to help them finally understand this strange breed of magic. Unfortunately as the school year wore on, they only found themself falling farther and farther behind, and though they aced every written test, they never managed to cast a single spell.

“I really just am a failure aren’t I,” they muttered, burying their face in a pillow. Their mind began to race with all sorts of possibilities. “I’m going to get lectured, I’m gonna be confined to the indoors for the whole season reading these awful books again and again, I’m gonna be kicked out, they’re never going to want to talk to me again, I’m a disappointment to the whole family…” Their thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a loud knock. Jolted out of their downward spiral, Alia slowly crawled out of bed and opened the door. Their parents, stiff and stern as ever, marched in as Alia sat back down on their bed. The silence was thick with tension when their father opened his mouth to speak.

“We are… disappointed in you, Alia. You failed every class.” The lecture began in a smooth yet stern tone, but Alia wasn’t fooled. The escalation was imminent. “I just… I just can’t believe you failed every class!” A thick lump began to form in their throat as his speech heated up. “You studied those books every day! You had everything memorized and aced the entrance exam! All of our hopes were riding ON YOU, ALIA!” As the lecture finally escalated to full on yelling, they felt tears begin to well up but tried their best to force them down as the lecture continued. “Have you forgotten that we are the oldest clan of warrior monks in all of Mooshu??? And now thanks to THIS-” he held up the parchment, displaying all seven failing marks, and the single passing grade “- OUR TRADITION IS OVER!! OVER!! DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH YOU HAVE FAILED US??? WHERE DID WE GO WRONG!?!?!?!”

Alia stood up and burst into tears. “I don’t know what more you want from me okay??? I read your stupid books, I memorized your stupid facts, I did everything you wanted me to do, but you never even cared about what I WANT!” Her father prepared to yell in response, but before he could Alia shouted again, “I never wanted to be a STUPID FUCKING WARRIOR MONK ANYWAY! I HATE YOU!!! I HATE YOU!!!!!” With that, they stormed out of the house, leaving a deafening silence behind.

Dusk began to fall as Alia sat on a bench next to a frozen lake. Though it was the middle of summer, Kembaalung was always cold and snowy, and this night was no exception. They huddled in a blanket and began to sob uncontrollably. How had their life come to this? Through the frozen tears their mind began to wander into dark places again. “Where will I spend the night? Nobody here will take me in, they’re all monks… I don’t even have any friends… Does anyone even really care? I could just sit here on the bench and freeze…” 

Their thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a splash of green in their peripheral vision. They turned to look and, despite the freezing temperatures, a single young plant had sprouted out of the snow. Alia got up, walked over to it, then kneeled down, cupping their hands around the base. “You understand what it’s like, don’t you?” they muttered. With a pang of empathy, they cupped their hands closer and started softly singing. The snow around the plant began to melt as a single sunbeam materialized, piercing the night seemingly from nowhere. Alia sang louder and closed their eyes, truly becoming engulfed in their song, letting the melody flow through their entire body. As if channeling power from old Bartleby himself, the sprout grew, slowly at first but then quite rapidly. When the song came to an end, Alia, feeling calm and peaceful for the first time all day, opened their eyes. Before them was a now tall, proud sunflower towering in defiance over the whole cold landscape. They stared in awe for a short time, but were again snapped out of it upon hearing footsteps in the snow from behind.

“So it seems you do have a knack for gardening then.” The sharp voice instantly brought Alia back to reality. They turned their head and saw their mother standing there, arms folded. “I’ve come to collect you. Now, come.” Alia began to protest but realized that they didn’t have much choice. They grudgingly began following her back to the family home. 

The next morning, Alia trudged downstairs, awaiting the fallout of yesterday’s scene. As expected, both parents were seated and silently gestured for Alia to join them. As they sat down, their father began speaking. “Your mother told me of everything that happened at the lake last night. You channeled the Song of Creation, didn’t you?” Alia gasped, but before they could speak, their father continued. “We have decided you will enroll in Ravenwood, effective immediately. You are free to choose your own path from there.” Alia’s face lightened up for a moment as her father continued. “But there will be conditions. You may no longer associate yourself with our family. You no longer share our last name, you no longer share our lineage. You will be welcome here for short visits until you come of age, at which point you will be expected to find your own way. Do you accept this arrangement?”

 Alia sat, dumbstruck at what had just laid out before them. Leaving their home forever was a terrifying proposition, but after only a single minute of thought, they confidently said, “Yes. I accept.”

For the first time in their life, Alia saw shock on their parent’s faces. It was soon wiped off and replaced by the typical stony looks, but it was unmistakable. “V-very well,” their father stammered as the shock wore off. “We depart immediately. Your first day is tomorrow.”

------ One Week Later ------

Alia sat alone at a table in one of the many Wizard City student dining facilities, again deep in thought. “Was it even worth coming here?” they asked themself. “Classes are fine I guess, but I haven’t met any friends here, I don’t know anyone who lives here at all, my parents will probably never want to see me again… Oh, what have I gotten myself into this time… Maybe they’ll take me back if I ask -” 

“Mind if I sit here?”

The voice snapped them out of their spiral of thoughts as a girl who looked to be about the same age as them sat down. “First week’s rough, huh? I struggled to adjust at first too, but don’t worry, it’s gonna be great! Heyyyy, now that I think of it, I’ve seen you in some of my classes, haven’t I? You’re Alia, right?”

“Yeah, that’s me,” Alia responded somewhat hesitantly, holding out their hand to shake.

“My name’s Keira,” she said as she ignored the hand and went in for a full hug. “And I can already tell we’re gonna be best friends!”

[keelywolfe]

FIC: With Brotherly LV (baon)

Summary: Edge's LV is troubling him. Red helps, if you can call anything Red does helping.

Notes:  I do love Edge and Red's relationship, all tension strained over caring. Bad, bad, Fellboys, who honestly love each other. They just have a funny way of showing it.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Angst, Violence, LV Issues, Mentions of an Unknown Monster Dusting, Brotherly Bonding

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

For the first brief moment that marrow hits snow, it steams, body-warm and bright against the whiteness, splattering like a splayed hand. His brother is speaking but he can’t hear the words because someone is screaming and he can’t see why. He can’t see through the crimson filling his sockets, not magic but blinding fluid, he’s bleeding, his brother is bleeding, and someone is screaming.

He's screaming.

Screaming as it settles into his soul, like swallowing a hot coal, burning inside him as the Monster at his feet collapsed into dust—

Edge woke with the phantom taste of dust in his mouth. His soul was throbbing, agitated, the LV within it burning. He rolled to his side on the sweat-dampened sheets, curling up in a vain attempt to tamp it down.

Mostly it didn’t trouble him, not so often as it had in the past. In Underfell, the low throb had never quite stopped, numbness shadowed in aching heat. These days, he didn’t often even think about it.

But tonight, with the memory of dust fresh in his mind, it pulsed sharply. Like clawed fingers digging into his soul, gouging out fiery strips. He tried to breathe through it, focused on control with a slippery grip, refusing to allow it freedom.

It resisted. He couldn’t silence it, like a voice of its own, those oily phantom whispers that spoke of violence, coaxing slyly through the underside of his thoughts.

Behind him, oblivious to his struggle, Stretch slept on, even snoring faintly. Exhausted probably from spending the day walking around at the fair and if he woke now, would he know, would he understand—

(liar, he was a liar, hiding things, wasn’t he, begging for forgiveness instead of honesty, lies, how many lies)

No.

As carefully as he could, Edge slipped out of bed, almost stumbling to the closet. He snatched some clothes without looking at them and went downstairs, carefully skipping the creaky third step. In the darkened living room, he dressed quickly, grabbing his keys and wallet and shoving his feet into a pair of shoes.

Even at this hour the air was humid and clinging, the temperatures only a little lower than it had been during the day. He kept the roof up on his car and turned the air conditioner to full blast.

The radio was off, and Edge kept his focus on the road, counting beneath his breath.

One, two, he was calm, breathing evenly, three, four, he was in control, not his LV, five six, calm. Calm. Calm calm calmcalmcalm—

The night guard at the Embassy entrance looked up at him curiously, but without alarm. Edge gave him a curt nod and swiped his badge. He went to the elevator the same one he went to every day, only now he pressed the button for the basement.

In the cooler lower levels was what were generally considered fitness rooms. Several held treadmills and weightlifting equipment, and a few had signup sheets for yoga classes or pilates. The rooms that interested Edge were at the very end of the hallway. Soundproof walls lined with thick mats, and along the back wall were rows of practice dummies, heavily enchanted to be capable of taking even vicious attacks.

He wasn’t the only Monster living with LV in New New Home, although his was higher than most he’d seen. There were others who had survived the war, not many but enough.

Asgore for one. Most probably assumed his LV was from that. A few knew otherwise.

Outside the door was a narrow set of lockers and Edge chose one, setting his keys and phone inside along with his shoes.

He was summoning his first attack before the door closed behind him.

A wave of jagged bones washed over the dummies, bouncing away and fading. He summoned another, a mesh of crimson and blue to bounce off the padded bodies, their blank faces holding no judgement.

He began to summon another, and the glimpse of a shadow made him pause, extinguishing the half-formed attack in a shower of sparks.

“always did have great control, boss. not doing you much good now though, is it. this shit's not gonna help if you can’t let go a little.”

“Go away,” Edge said curtly. A lazy chuckle answered that, and he turned to see his brother leaning against the closed door, hands tucked into his pockets.

“nah, think i’ll stay and watch. might be a good show.” He sucked loudly on his teeth and the smirk on his face made the burning in Edge’s LV soar. He lashed out, the bones fairly dripping with intent and Red was gone before he’d even completed the motion.

From behind, an attack sent Edge to his knees, knocking several points from his HP. He threw up a hasty defense and kept low, crouching and looking warily around but Red was not in sight.

“you missed, little brother.” That disembodied voice seemed to come from nowhere. Everywhere. “eh, but you were never as quick as me, were ya? s’why you have lv. me, i was always outta there before it could catch up.”

“I have LV because I protected us,” Edge snarled.

“sure you did, never said you didn’t.” His focused narrowed and he turned in time to see Red step sideways out of nowhere. “protectin’, that’s your gig.”

Edge flung out a hand towards him, channeling that rage into a narrow line of bones. Even through his blinding rage he knew the attack would never land, but watching his brother lazily sidestep it only fanned the flames in his soul.

“that what has you up tonight?” Red cocked his head to the side. “throwin' a tantrum because you didn’t get to ‘protect’ your liabilities.”

“You lied to me.” Lies, lies, lies.

“have to do better than that, bro, i always lie to you. which one has your panties in a twist tonight.” His sockets narrowed, his teeth parting in a silent ‘ah’. “we’re talking about the honey bun, aren’t we. confessin' his sins while you were praying to the porcelain god. dunno if you can call that a lie, little brother, we never said a word.”

It was true and it was all the more infuriating for it. “You knew! You knew and you helped him keep it from me!”

Red laughed, laughed, picking at his gold tooth with one needle-sharp fingertip. “helped? fuck, i told him to. didn’t want to listen to you cry and bitch about it so—“

He vanished before the bones could strike him, his voice carrying again from behind. “yeah, you go ahead, little bro.”

Edge spun around and Red’s eye lights were glittering with the sardonic amusement he knew all too well. “be pissed at me, i can take it. you’ve been having a hard time with all your pets lately, haven’t ya.”

“Shut up!”

“nah, don’t think i will. stretch losing hp and you didn’t even notice. andy gettin' himself stabbed and bleeding out on the sidewalk.”

“Stop it!” The bones he hurled jammed into the wall, tearing raggedly through the padding into the plaster beneath it, sending a scattering of drywall to the floor and his soul was throbbing.

“no. cause see, none of that was your fault. the honey bun getting sick, the kid gettin' stabbed. i saw the recordings, you know. kid ran ahead and none of ya had any reason to think those assholes would hurt another human. even if you’d sensed their intent you were too far away to stop it. for the kid, anyway. you weren’t watchin' him so close, but i’d bet my ass by the time stretch got to ‘em, you would have been paying attention.”

“I am going to tear your head off!”

“catch me first. yeah, that’s what has you pent up, ain’t it. thinkin' about the honey bun getting dusted on your watch.”

He swung towards that voice—and directly into a row of bones, knocking him clean off his feet to the floor. He was up in an instant, shaking off the HP drain, only to roll hastily away from another attack. Another, another, coming at him relentlessly from every angle and even his endurance could only carry him for so long.

Eventually, he raised a hand to concede, unable to voice it as he sagged to the padded floor, gasping for breath.

A dirty pair of red sneakers stepped into view. Edge kept his eye light on them, refusing to look up into his brother’s smirking face. A useless defiance, Red only crouched next to him, head cocked as he asked with mocking solicitousness, “feel better?”

“No,” Edge said sullenly. But he was the liar this time. That mean little voice was growing more distant by the second and the exhaustion leftover was satisfying in its own way.

Red only chuckled and sank down to sit cross-legged next to him. He ignored Edge’s scowl and pulled out a cigar, lighting a match with a sharp flick of his thumb.

The end kindled as he touched the flame to it, then shook it out. He took a long puff and that he didn’t blow the smoke directly into Edge’s face was likely Red’s version of kindness. That he nudged a toe rudely into Edge’s ribs simply meant his brother was himself.

“you just had to go get yourself another liability.”

The implication of that was enough for Edge to struggle up on his elbows, glaring at his brother as he sputtered, “It’s not like that!”

Red held up a hand and Edge grudgingly subsided. “nah, it’s not, i know that, not like it is with the honey bun which is good because picturin' your ocd ass trying to fuck a human is enough for me to scrub my skull out with bleach, thanks. think they’re a little too juicy for your tastes, bro.”

“Is there a point to this or are you trying to discover new ways to make me vomit?”

“never google yourself, you’d need a set of buckets.” Red murmured, then louder, “what i mean is, you like the kid. fuck, we all like the kid, you kiddin’. he’s just the type to dig right into our psyche and make hisself at home, ain’t he. the kind of trouble beggin' for someone to take care of him, fuck, you saw how fast blue snapped him up.”

“Blue was being practical,” Edge said, shortly. “Even I agreed he would be the best person to watch over Jeff while he recovers.”

The toes pressing against his ribs shifted, unerringly finding a sore place to push with vicious force until Edge grunted and shifted out of reach. “you’re in a piss-ass mood, bro. someone hurt your people and you can’t do much about it. it’s gonna rile your lv for a while, ain’t no question.”

“It’s wonderful that you feel qualified to lecture me about this with no LV of your own.”

“want me to hand you your ass again, kid?” Razor-edged warning that Red’s amusement was growing thin, and Edge knew from past experience that Red would. He was going to ache for days as it was, the threat of another round was enough for him to subside with a sullen glare.

Red sat as still as a gargoyle, his gaze measuring and finally he nodded slowly. “like i was sayin'. next time you need to blow off steam, gimmie a call. this ‘verse’s undyne can’t handle it and those dummies ain’t gonna be enough and you know it.”

“I can handle it.” I don’t want to hurt you.

“so can i.” you ain’t gonna, brat. won’t let ya.

Grudgingly, Edge nodded.

“great!” Red said cheerily. He slapped one knee and rolled to his feet with a groan, joints popping. “fuck, you gave me a good workout, paps.” He scratched his pelvis absently, then tossed out, “oh, and text the honey bun before he sends out a search party. he’s been blowin' up your phone for half an hour.”

Red was gone again before that registered and the moment it did, Edge cursed and hobbled out to check his phone.

He didn’t bother scrolling through the increasingly frantic texts, bypassing it for his contact list. It barely rang once before it picked up.

“babe?”

The relief in his voice cut and Edge closed his sockets. That coaxing whisper in his soul that tried to whisper grim defiance was easy to force back, muffled beneath the love that welled at the sound of Stretch’s voice.

“I’m sorry,” Edge said, softly. He leaned against the wall, let his skull drop back against it with a thud. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“no, it’s okay. red called me.”

He knew, Edge realized. He knew why Edge left their bed in the middle of the night, knew that he was struggling to control the burn of LV in his soul.

Knew, and the only thing in his voice was gentle warmth, caring. He wasn’t disgusted, wasn’t horrified. Somehow, Stretch with his silver-pure soul believed he wasn’t worthy of Edge and he’d never understood that, never, not when he was the one whose soul was stained dark red with LV.

(liar, he lied)

No, not a liar. He’d kept a secret, yes, but he’d been worried, understandably frightened, and he’d apologized for it.

“I love you,” Edge told him hoarsely.

“i know, but i do like to hear it.” He could hear the creak of the mattress as Stretch moved and in his mind’s eye, weary as it was, he could see his husband curled up temptingly bare in the sheets. “look, you do what you need to and if you want anything from me—“

“I’ll be home soon.” What he wanted was to hold Stretch close and sleep with him in his arms. The only pulse in his soul now was a gentle one, eager to be close to him.

“good,” Stretch hesitated. “edge?” He was quiet for a long moment and then, “i love you.” It seemed like he was about to say something else, but he only added, “come home?”

“I’m on my way,” Edge assured him. He hung up, dropping his phone into his pocket and gathered his keys, stepping into his shoes. A glance around revealed no sign of Red, but Edge still murmured, “Thank you, brother.”

Then he walked back to the elevator. He was ready to go home.

-finis-

[vespertine-legacy]

Fictober 2019 Day 9

Prompt #10. “Listen, I can’t explain it, you’ll have to trust me.”

Fandom: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game) - Knights of the Eternal Throne expansion

Rating: Teen & Up / Mature?

Warnings: Major Character Death, That choice (you know the one)

Characters: Female Jedi Consular | Alliance Commander (OC: Kestrel Fortuna), Senya Tirall, Arcann, Vette, Torian Cadera

(disclaimer: I am SO SORRY friends, some of you are gonna HATE me for this)

Kestrel, Arcann, and Senya pause in a clearing so that Kestrel can pull her holocomm out of her pocket, requesting status updates before Vaylin’s arrival on Odessen’s surface. Vette flickers before her, the holographic Twi’lek crouching, obviously guarding wounds on her side. But she has been successful in taking out the artillery guns.

“They are not happy about it, and I’m pinned down over here now.” Vette winces and grips her side tighter, ducking down as though trying to remain out of sight. “Gonna need some help.”

Torian’s grainy image cuts in over Vette. “Vette isn’t the only one in trouble. I’m the only one left and about to be overrun.”

“That’s great, Torian, but I’ve got about two minutes before they squash me like a bug.”

Before Kestrel can say anything to stop Torian and Vette from arguing, Valkorion interrupts her thoughts, appearing before her. Even you can’t save everyone, Outlander. By choosing who shall live, you also choose who shall die. Are you ready for that burden?

Kestrel can feel more than hear Valkorion’s laughter inside her head, and she grips the holocomm unit until she thinks it might crack. She can feel Arcann and Senya watching her, waiting for a response, and her voice sounds like someone else’s when she finally speaks. “Torian, we’re coming your way.”

 “Thank you, Commander. I’ll hold my position until you arrive.”

 As soon as Torian closes the channel, Vette’s voice comes back, quietly. “This is a joke, right? You--you’re abandoning me?”

 “Vette--” Kestrel clenches her free fist until her knuckles turn white, trying to keep her voice from breaking. “Vette, you’re a survivor. You’ve walked away from Vaylin before. As soon as we have Torian, we’re coming for you. Okay?”

 Vette’s hologram shakes her head in resignation. “Yeah. Good luck, Commander.”

 After Kestrel shoves the holocomm back into her pocket, Arcann puts a hand on her shoulder. “You’re sure?”

 “Yes. I can’t explain it to you, you’re just going to have to trust me on this. Now we need to go - Torian needs us.”

 --

 It does not take them long to cut a path to Torian’s location, but Senya and Arcann are both awed by Kestrel’s fury as she takes down Skytroopers and Knights. Briefly, Senya wishes she’d been able to train Kestrel back in her former life as a Knight-Captain on Zakuul. When they reach Torian, Senya quickly gets to work assessing his injuries while Arcann scans the area for any remaining troops.

 Kestrel speaks into her comm unit. “Vette! Do you copy? We’ve got Torian. We’re coming for you now.”

 “Wrong again, Outlander.”

 Hearing Vaylin’s voice instead of Vette, Kestrel’s heart sinks and the color drains from her face. 

 “I found the little Twi’lek, and now she’s all mine. I know I told you before that her coloring wasn’t right for my wall, but I may have reconsidered.”

 “Vaylin, don’t hurt her.” Kestrel can’t keep her voice from wavering, and Senya places a warning hand on Kestrel’s arm.

 “Hmmm…. No.” Vaylin laughs, and Kestrel hears a thud and a groan that is probably Vette being thrown against something solid. “You got me to Odessen, so let’s end this.”

 “Let Vette go first. She’s of no consequence to you.”

 “I think I’ll hold on to my little bargaining chip a little longer. I’m sending you a location. Meet me there.”

 Vaylin closes the channel and Kestrel stands clenching and unclenching her fists until her comm unit beeps to indicate a message. Senya glances over at the location displaying on her wrist comm. “That’s--that’s the base!”

 --

 As they run into the Alliance Base, heading toward the location Vaylin indicated, Kestrel can’t bring herself to look at any of the bodies littering the ground to see who else her actions have killed today. Stepping out of the elevator, she sees Vaylin, surrounded by Skytroopers. At first, Vette is nowhere to be seen, but Vaylin turns to face them, revealing Vette being held on her knees with a pike pointed at her back.

 “If you’d waited much longer, I was going to have to snap your friend’s spine to amuse myself.” Vaylin pouted.

 “Hey, do me a favor, Commander,” Vette speaks up from behind Vaylin. “Turn this yeahu'era into bantha fodder.”

 “Let me speak to Father.” Vaylin ignores Vette’s taunt.

 “You know it doesn’t work that way. Let Vette go.” Kestrel watches Vaylin’s hands for any sign of an attack toward Vette.

 “What did he even see in you? Did he really think you could take my throne?”

 On cue, Valkorion appears behind Vaylin. Her eyes widen with an emotion that resembles, but doesn’t quite match, fear. You are not worthy of the throne. You are not fit to rule the Eternal Empire. 

 “I deserve the throne more than your puppet does.” In a rage, Vaylin picks up Vette with the Force and flings her toward Kestrel.

 Vette lands several feet from where Kestrel stands, so she rushes forward as Vette tries to scramble to her feet. As Vette pulls herself up onto her elbows, Kestrel kneels beside her, reaches out to help her. At the same time, Vaylin reaches out with the Force, wrapping an invisible hand around Vette’s neck, and twisting. Vette falls limp against Kestrel’s chest, and for a moment Kestrel stares down at her in disbelief. 

 “You… you monster.” Kestrel’s voice cracks. She can hear Vaylin laughing, saying something about “can’t even protect your own people,” but her ears are starting to ring.

 She can still hear Valkorion clearly. There’s only one way to stop Vaylin. You know what you must do.

 Kestrel slowly stands, lifting Vette’s body, carries her to the nearby weapons modification station. As the closest raised flat surface, it will have to do for a bier for now. She turns back to Vaylin and ignites her polesaber, hears Senya and Arcann ignite their sabers behind her.

 “We end this, Vaylin. Now.”

 The fight does not last long. Senya and Arcann mostly dispatch Skytroopers while Vaylin and Kestrel wear each other down. Vaylin uses cheap tactics, but Kestrel is not afraid to stay tight in Vaylin’s personal space and make her rely on her lightsaber rather than her Force skills. 

 The instant she has an opening, Kestrel drives one end of her saber up into Vaylin’s chest, through her heart. Vaylin’s short cry is one of anger more than anything. Kestrel’s scream is a mixture of anger, pain, sadness, frustration, and guilt, and it doesn’t end until a blast of purple energy causes their bodies to fall away from each other.

 Arcann pulls Kestrel to her feet and drapes one of her arms over his shoulders to support her as he tries to lead her away to find wherever they’ve set up a medical or healing station. Kestrel looks frantically for Senya, and finding her realizes that she can’t speak so she just mouths I’m so sorry over and over.

 --

 In Doctor Oggurobb’s lab, where the Alliance has set up a triage center, Kestrel, Arcann, and Senya are all treated for relatively minor wounds before being cleared to leave. On the way out, Kestrel is told that Torian, who is being treated for more substantial wounds in the healing center that has been set up in the Force User’s Enclave, has asked for her.

 Torian waves away the Voss who has been tending to him when Kestrel arrives. Before she can ask him how he’s doing, he holds up a hand.

 “I know why you picked me, Commander.”

Kestrel tilts her head at Torian, waiting for further explanation.

 “Darvannis, right? You didn’t have to do that. You shouldn’t have done that, Commander. But thank you. I’m gonna make it up to you.” 

 Kestrel closes her eyes and slowly releases a breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

 “Go save the galaxy, Commander. Re'turcye mhi.” Torian offers Kestrel his hand, which she gladly takes, gripping tightly.

 “Re’turcye mhi, Torian.”

    yeahu'era = “bitch” in Ryl

re’turcye mhi = pretty standard Mando’a goodbye, “until we meet again”

(Characters except Kestrel belong to EA/BioWare/the StarWars folks, blahblahblah)

[thebrotherswholoved]

It’s the thirty-first of December 1999, and the Winchester boys are cooped up in their ‘better father’ Bobby Singer’s home where John dumped them to go hunting. You know, just like he did on Christmas. And their birthdays—for the last six years.

The old man is most likely grumbling as he shuffles about in the grocery store looking for the sundae supplies that slipped his mind to buy last week. Yeah, he’s mumbling something about them being idjits under his breath, but he loves the boys: after all, he is buying the things to surprise them. Meanwhile, the sixteen year old lanky teen is trying to build a tower with red cups and his twenty year old brother is searching through a million keys to find one that works to open the liquor cabinet. Sam’s cup-tower falls and he huffs, putting them away and walking into the main room to watch some lame program on the ancient television.

His green-blue eyes reflect the channels he’s mindlessly skipping through like glass, which is a perfect simile because he’s spaced out and oblivious to the world around him. That is, until Dean throws a pillow at him from behind and yanks him from his dissociation.

“Dude, the fuck?” He mumbles, pushing strands of hair from his face and sputtering at the ones that caught in his mouth from the impact.

Dean shrugs and takes a swig of the whiskey he successfully freed from the off-limits prison it was in. “It is a throw pillow.”

“Jerk.” Sam rolls onto his stomach with a stifled laugh.

“Bitch,” the older emphasises the last syllable to annoy his little brother, because that’s what family is for. “Hey, where’s our cheery old geezer?”

“I think he said he was goin’ to the store?” He blows air through his pouting lips as a response.

Dean cocks his head for a moment but laughs. “On fucking New Years Eve? Send my regards to the other drivers on the streets, his road rage is pretty bad.”

Sam lets out a breathy laugh and tosses the remote into his older brother’s hands. “See if you can find anything decently entertaining.”

The younger is shoved into a sitting posture by Dean, who smirks at him and tries to mold himself into the sofa. The dork holds the thing at the TV with a dramatic pout on his face, making gunshot noises every time he changes the channel.

Sam is chuckling at his nerd brother when he’s jerked into this emptiness out of nowhere. He can’t quite feel anything and can’t hear or think or comprehend...only a thought that he’s unable to identify. He knows this place well, all its darkness and disparity: it’s his state of denial. He only ever regresses into this state of mind when he’s around Dean, and he thinks he knows why. It’s ten o’clock on New Years Eve, and he’s just figured it out now instead of three years ago when it all started. His thirteen year old self is flipping him off, he can guarantee it.

He’s always felt...something for Dean. He loved him like family because that’s what he is: his brother. Brother in arms, brother by blood, brother in every aspect of life; but, is that all there is to it? This feeling should give him comfort when it reminds him that he’s got Dean and in the way he does, but all it does is follow him into bed and hurl spears at him while he tries to sleep. It’s painful and feels wrong, but he knows it’s at its strongest when he happens to see his brother picking up some chick he met ten minutes ago and using all his terrible pickup lines that he just knows would work on a sucker like him. If this feeling he has for Dean is a deeper and more intimate than he thought—if this feeling is love—then he’s in a shitload of trouble.

“Hey, Beautiful Mind? Do I need to throw another pillow at y—“

“Am I sick?” He awakens from his sleep like state with tears in his eyes. Turning toward Dean, Sam repeats himself a tone that’s crackling like Bobby’s furnace. “De, am I sick?”

“No! Why would you be?” The older brother turns off the idiot box and turns toward the boy, who’s failing to calm himself down.

Sam’s lips are quivering and he feels the ice running through his veins. “You...you’re gonna hate me. You’re gonna leave with Dad and just despise me—“

“I would never do that, Sammy,” Dean cuts him off by taking his smaller hand in his calloused one, hardened by the years he should have been spending as a boy instead of a man. “Please, tell me what’s goin’ on.”

“I think...I think I’m—“ He chokes on his words. He can’t possibly say that he loves him outright. He doesn’t even know...oh, he should probably lead with that. “I’m gay.”

Dean stares for a minute that seems like wins for Sam, who’s panicking inside. If he can’t handle this PSA, he won’t respond well to the whole ‘I’m in love with you’ thing. Without warning, the sandy blonde man snorts and bursts into laughter, holding his stomach while his little brother waits in utter confusion.

He begins to calm down and looks at Sam with the spasms of humor still rocketing through him. “Dude, you thought I didn’t know?! Oh my god, I gave what’s-his-face, the one you had a crush on in the eighth grade—Liam!—I gave Liam some pointers on how to ask you out. I also threatened him with my 12-gauge, but whatever.”

“You...that’s why he didn’t wanna do homework at the motel!” Sam’s laughing now, but he knows he has to get his point across. “I don’t think your pointers worked though. I had my sights set on someone else. Wasn’t really my type.”

“Oh?” Dean raises an eyebrow. “And what type would that be, lover boy?”

“Y’know: blonde, almost brown hair, a little older, mysterious, handy, loves flannels...” he hums. Looking over at Dean, he bites his lip and grits his teeth. “...and owning a ‘67 Chevy Impala is just the cherry on top of the cake.”

The older of the two almost makes a sarcastic comment, but Sam’s obvious shameful look and honest eyes choke the air from his lungs. He finds his voice again after a second and opens his mouth to say something, anything—the thing that’ll make or break their relationship.

“I-I’m sorry, I...I didn’t know,” he rubs the back of his neck and watches as Sam nods with a doleful frown. Inhaling once more, he prepares for the typhoon to hit. “If I knew...hell, I’d probably have told ‘ya how I feel sooner.”

“What?” Sam sits upright and stares in shock at the gorgeous man in front of him, at last feeling as though he can call him that without moral flagellation. “You l-like me? In that way?”

The younger’s stomach plummets when he sees Dean shake his head, but feels a shaky hand pull him off the sofa and into the center of the room. “No, Sammy, I don’t like you. I love you. I get it: it’s weird, it’s sick, I’m basically a pedophile and—“

Sam holds a finger to his lips and takes a few steps toward Dean, pausing to look up into the green expanses above him.

Mere inches from the man he’s loved since he knew how to love, he dons a courageous and challenging veneer and cranks it to eleven.

“If you feel that way, if you love me,” he bites his lip and watches Dean’s face fall, “then prove it.”

Both of them feel like they going to explode treading into this new, foreign territory; but one of them has to take the leap of faith. Dean’s seeing his life flash before his eyes, but when he sees his soulmate expecting the unthinkable from him, he loses his sanity and dives into the deep end.

Pulling him close, Dean sees Sam’s eyelids flutter shut as their lips collide, a beautiful sight. He traces his fingers along his jawline and leans in closer, tears now gathering in his eyes. He always thought he was sick—and hell, maybe he is—but he’s not alone anymore. Dean cups the back of Sam’s neck and shudders at the most gorgeous sound erupts into the space between them: pure bliss.

When they part, the first thing Sam does is become worried at the tear tracks running down his brother’s cheeks like rivers. “D-Dean are you okay? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. No! Not at all, that was...god, that was just what I’ve wanted for a while now, that’s all.” He sniffles and rubs his thumb along Sam’s bottom lip, making the younger boy’s eyes shut in disbelief, ecstasy, and contentment.

“Please,” he whispers into the hush engulfing their surrogate father’s home, “please kiss me again. Please.”

In less than a second they’re in each other’s arms again, lips connecting like they’re meant to be together. In the sacred, private world of bliss they’re dwelling in, neither of them notice the back door unlocking and bags being set down on the kitchen counter. They hear a step and stop kissing, only to find a very shocked and speechless Bobby Singer.

“Uh...” He struggles for a moment, the boys watching in fear, before holding up a grocery bag. “Who wants whipped cream?”

[dailyaudiobible]

09/20/2019 DAB Transcript

Isaiah 33:10-36:22, Galatians 5:13-26, Psalms 64:1-10, Proverbs 23:23

Today is the 20th day of September. Welcome to the Daily Audio Bible. I am Brian. I am excited to be here with you today as we all just come in and find our places around this global campfire that is our community. And so, as we often say and really, as was the theme that we spoke about in Isaiah yesterday, let's exhale, let's return to God, let's rest and allow his word to wash over us before we get blown away. And, so, this is a good time to anchor ourselves in the Scriptures, and in our relationship with God. So we’re reading from the New English Translation this week and we kinda crossed the center of the book of Isaiah yesterday so we’re moving into the back half. Isaiah 33 verse 10 to 36 verse 22 today.

Commentary:

Okay. So, it's a pretty regular thing in the Bible to find that paths are laid out before us and we can choose this one or we can choose that one and we get to see where both of those paths lead and then we get to choose. And so that was a case as we were reading in the book of Isaiah yesterday. And we talked about

And, so, in our reading from Galatians today we had another one of these opportunities to see a couple of paths and their outcomes so that we can choose. And in this case, the paths are that of the sinful nature and the path of union with the Holy Spirit. So, Paul says, “for the flash has desires that are opposed to the spirit and the spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh for these are in opposition to each other so that you cannot do what you want.” Okay, so the path that submits to sin fights for control of our lives but how do we know? Like, yesterday we were talking in Isaiah about just being blown off the path and we even prayed, asked the Holy Spirit to show us when the drifting starts so that we can see that and repent then, as opposed to when it’s all all chaos. So, are there any signs? Like anything that could reveal that we are choosing the path of sin? According to Paul, there are. “When we follow the desires of our sinful nature then the results are clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasure, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, dissensions, or quarreling, jealousy, fits of rage or anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties and other things like that” is what Paul had to say. So, let's spend a minute with that. I mean…I mean we can understand how sexual immorality would be on that list, right? We can understand how lustful pleasures would be on that list because those are like A list of sins. So, we think. We can understand why drunkenness would be on the list. Those are A listers. But what jealousy, what about envy, what about outbursts of anger. Because according Paul…there on the same list. Have we ever thought about the fact that those are walking the path of sinful nature as well? And we might be like, alright, listen, we’re free from the law, so I'm not going under another law. What's the big deal. Everybody gets mad. Everybody gets angry. For Paul, the big deal was that those kinds of behaviors, those kinds of sins don't lead us to anything other than more bondage. And when we started our reading from Galatians today Paul was talking about supreme freedom. And, so, Paul’s trying to reveal that freedom in Christ is boundless. There is no limit to that freedom. But it's a choice, and we have pretty good built-in indicators. Like one…I mean…when you're looking at what somebody else has and thinking, “I'll never be able to get there. I'll never be able to do that” like, when you're comparing your life to somebody else's life and jealousy and envy are all around you, how free did you feel? I mean, how free were you in that moment? I mean, did you get a sense of wholeness and shalom that just kind of overwhelmed you out of nowhere where all of a sudden you were at such peace that you hadn't felt that way in so long. The last time you had an outburst of rage, right? Like, when was the last time lust gave you this immense sense of God's presence and this joy this spiritual joy that was just coming up from within you, right? So, it's kind of built in. Paul gave us a list and he does that a lot. So, we got a list, but we kinda got a built-in spiritual gauge. And when we’re walking off the path, we’re not going to be experiencing the presence of God and an overwhelming sense of calm and peace and strength. So, Pal’s like, I’ve told you this before, I’m telling you it again, if that's the life you’re gonna live, if that’s where you’re gonna go then…then you’re not gonna inherit the kingdom of God. So, thankfully what Paul didn't say is that anybody who fails in any of those areas is hopelessly lost. Its…it's the person that lives into that way of being, the one who walks that path will not inherit the kingdom of God. So, are we walking that path? So, I mean we can look at the A listers and go like, “I’m not walking that path”, but Paul didn't like…he didn't categorize what he was saying. So, are we walking the path or not? And is the path that we’re walking on going to end up where we hope it does? Because Paul gave another path, a counter path, an opposite path. And he says the fruit of the spirit, so like if you're gonna walk the path of the spirit, then the outflow of that, the fruit of that will be love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. And as an aside, Paul illuminates that there are no laws against those things. So, we have some contrasting paths today and we need to examine ourselves to understand which path we’re on and we’re probably on both of those paths and how can you end up in two different places? And, so, we need to decide which path leads to the place that I am hoping to end up and then follow that path. And whatever path we are walking will absolutely be borne out in our thoughts, our words, and our deeds

Prayer:

Father, this is challenging, and Your word challenges us constantly. And we need it. And sometimes we’re very, very deeply convicted because the lights have come on and the darkness has been illuminated and we can see clearly what's going on and we ask for that, that the light of truth by the power of Your Holy Spirit would shine into the dark recesses of our hearts illuminating what's really going on. What path that are we walking? Because so often we walk ourselves into a wall and then blame You and are angry at You when we walked there. And perhaps we were confused about where we were walking, but that’s not Your fault, You never left us, and You promised to lead us into all truth. And, so, we gotta do our part and listen and obey. So, come Holy Spirit and show us again what path we’re walking. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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And that's it for today. I'm Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, it’s where you find out what’s going on around here so be sure to stay connected.

The Prayer Wall is in the community section at dailyaudiobible.com and all the different social media places we were interacting is in the community section at dailyaudiobible.com.

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If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that at dailyaudiobible.com together. As you can see, Daily Audio Bible is home base, right, I say it every day, but it is. It is where we find out what’s going on. So anyway, thank you. Thank you profoundly for your partnership. So, there’s a link on the web site…on the homepage. If you’re using the Daily Audio Bible app, you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner or, if you prefer, the mailing address is PO Box 1996, Springhill, Tennessee 37174.

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And that’s it for today. Let’s have a great weekend. I’m Brian I love you and I’ll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hi this is Victoria Soldier just calling tonight to talk to some of the DABbers. I wanted to say hi to Jerry the new listener and want to continue to pray with you that you keep the faith in your marriage. I want to pray for the family of the father that committed suicide and left those precious kids and his mother and family. Lord, I just want to __ just continue to pray with that and the kids going to school and the challenges that is happening in our nation of the separation and people in the devastated areas. Gracious father we praise You today. Lord, we know that You’re a God that can do anything but fail. We know that Your ways are not our ways. Lord we know that You are a mighty God You’re a God that can do anything but fail. Lord we ask You to touch that family of that man who wind up taking his precious life. Oh Lord whatever the devil __ make that man think that he couldn’t hold on, that he didn’t have anything to live for. Those precious babies, I pray that You know that You have something to You live for, You have to live for the legacy that Your father left You. You have to live for the legacy that Your mother left You and the legacy that Jesus gave You. He has a plan for Your life. It’s for a future and a hope. We pray for the saints. I pray for the missionary that was going through and she needed strength. Lord You give her the strength like You give her the strength like never before. Oh Lord You have Your miracles. Lord You stretch out Your hands on the DABbers. You know the needs. You know the thoughts, You know the intents of their heart. Lord we ask You to bless Lord. We ask You to open up the flood gate of heaven Lord and bring them out of the blessing. Lord You work miracles Lord. You decide. You direct Lord. You protect Lord. Oh Lord…

Hi this is Susie from Colorado. I’m just calling in with an update. I wanted to say thank you from the deepest part of my heart for all the prayers and the compassion that you showed by praying for me. I had just gotten back from Haiti about a little over a week ago and called in pretty distraught feeling really cut up bruised and hurting and you know just tired. You know I’ve been working in Haiti 25 years and I just had had…kind of had it. I’m feeling so much better. I tell you about 70% recovered and I…I want to thank Duane from Wisconsin for lifting me up in prayer and Dave Steinhearst and Sheriff I believe it was. I did try to email you. My husband thanks you all for praying for us. Also, I heard yesterday, today’s the 14th, Jude and Anya lost their dad to suicide and Jude found him deceased and I know that Jude is only in 10th grade and I…I…I’m so sorry. My heart is lifting you up to the Holy Spirit every day. And the boy whose getting bullied at school, it was so encouraging for me to hear him praying for blessings and love for those who are being the bullies. Tat just…you are something very very special and I just want you to know that we all will be praying for you…you all. Thank you. God bless. Bye.

Hi, my name is Liliana. I need prayer. My boyfriend __ just yesterday morning went in for surgery for leukemia then later on the hospital contacted me saying that he’s in a coma and has lost a lot of blood. I just need desperate prayer. Thank you. Thank you, Daily Audio Bible.

Hi, this is Ben from Ohio. I just heard about Jude and Anya losing their father to suicide. And, so, I want to pray for them now. Father God, I pray that You would go and You would touch the hearts of these two Young people. Jesus, please intercede on their behalf. Please go and rescue these two Young people as they bore the loss of their father as they have, You know, as they were morning of their loss of their family and now they’ve got to mourn the loss of their father. Lord I just pray that You would go and You would work this for good Lord. I pray that You would only as You can only in Your power could something good and fruitful come out of this. And so we are trusting You father, we’re just trusting You Jesus, we’re trusting You Holy Spirit to go and intercept these children, these Young people hearts Lord to keep them from going into bitterness or self-destructive behavior or…or doubt Lord. I pray that this would be a catalyst for hope and rescue and pursuit of the You Lord. And I pray this all in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Hello Daily Audio Bible family it’s Jay from Nashville Tennessee. Listen guys, God is so good. I’m calling with a praise report, obviously, because you can hear it in my voice. And, you know, I was going to a spiritual retreat and on this spiritual retreat I was told I can’t bring any electronics - no phones, no laptops, no watches, nothing, right? And the problem was, right before I had to go in my project management class, I had a 49%, that was my grade, a big fat F. And I called up the team and I said, listen I need to bring my laptop, I need to bring my phone and I need to bring my iPad because I’ve got to get these papers and these quizzes and things done or I’m gonna fail my class. And before I left, I prayed, and God spoke to my heart and said, “have I ever let you down before.” And I thought, “God you’ve never let me down.” So, I left my laptop, I left my phone, I left my watch, I left my iPad and I trusted that God would give me the ability to get that work done in the five hours that I would have left before the deadline when I got home. So, I got home from this retreat. And I mean when I tell you I cried like a baby at this retreat, I cried like a baby. Long story short, I get home and I’ve got five hours left. I sat down and I prayed, and I said, “Lord whatever your will is in this moment I trust in it.” And I sat down, and I started typing and my fingers moved at the speed of light. I could not keep up with the information that came from God. I got all the tests, all the discussions, all the posts, all the papers. I went from a 49 to a B. God is good. Trust in God. He will provide. I love you guys.

[elecman108]

(This is about to be a BIG rant on my part about MatPat’s video on YouTube he made today, so I’m gonna put my rant under the cut but you can watch the video here: https://youtu.be/iB7C7o920zE )

MatPat summarized my whole opinion on YouTube in the video I mentioned above. Content creators, especially gamers, give back to their communities more than most, in more than just monetary values. I’ll admit, while I personally want to go into a Psychology field, I’d love to BE a YouTuber. And one in the gaming sphere, for that matter! Or maybe more like a variety channel with gaming and the rest in it. But that’s beside the point.

YouTubers give content because that’s what they want to do. They’re entertainers, educators, and yes, some could be bad, some could do stupid things, but look: Humanity is inherently flawed. YouTube in and of itself is comprised of people. Cat videos? Done by people. YouTube Gaming? People playing those games. Beauty Vloggers? That’s people on the screen right there.

There is no way I can describe my outright rage towards ad companies pulling ads for a bad press story one niche channel did in one small video in a sphere of so much other content from the platform. If that were the case, why don’t they pull their ads anywhere else? Racism, sexism, bigortry, and so, so much more happens on the Television. But you still see Disney advertising their theme parks, their movies. You still see all these ads for products you’ll never need just there, on your screen.

YouTube is television, sort of, catered to watching what you want, when you want, from who you want. Television, you’re stuck with what’s on right now on the upwards of like, 800 channels out there. I want to watch the Kirby Anime! Where do I go? YOUTUBE. I don’t care that each of a hundred and one videos, each of which about twenty minutes long, have an ad at the start. That’s a hundred and one ads over the course of a hundred and one videos, for about forty hours that I’ve wasted of my life watching Kirby beat Dedede at his own game. But that’s beside the point.

“No one wants to hear good stories from YouTube.”

With today’s reality, the news is full of... shit. For lack of a better word. I’m in Canada, so I watch local news - car crashes, events, shootings, fires, sports, entertainment, weather - and some satirical comedy shows out of the US - presidential, presidential, oh my god can we hear something that isn’t presidential I want to gouge my eyes out, disaster, Stephen Colbert’s “Meanwhile” segments, and interviews - and it’s a whole lot of shit. I get no real “feel good” stories.

But here’s the thing: MatPat mentioned charity streams.

There was the one by... oh, my memory’s failing me again, but the Trans DK64 livestream. I heard about that! It made me so happy! I watched (not live, of course, I’m a bit slow for that sort of thing) Awesome Games Done Quick from their YouTube channel, and watched their Mario Odyssey playthrough when they hit two million just to make the runner do the re-fights, and to support the charity. It made my little heart so happy at like, midnight one night when I watched the whole thing, to see so much kindness.

Because all “real” news gives us is depressing.

Give me some feel-good stories about the Yogscast Jingle Jam raising 3 million. Give me some stories about AGDQ raising two million for cancer research. Give me some stories about Markiplier raising almost a million for charity. Give me some stories about that twenty million MatPat spoke of that YouTube content creators raised this past year.

You want to know why I think this?

Because the media can’t control the content.

They can’t control the creators and what they want to do.

They can’t turn to a YouTube channel and say “no more use of guns on your gaming channel” because, here’s your wake up call, a lot of games have guns in them.

YouTube lately has, from what I can see in my own personal watching, done something about their content creators, because the Yogscast seems to be... censoring some swear words. They censored cunt before, and it was funny at the time because it came out of nowhere in a TTT video. But now they censored Lewis saying “Duncan, I think I fucked up.” in the recently completed SevTech series on Duncan’s channel. You can fuck up - EVERYONE is entitled to fuck up at least once in their life - and Lewis, the idiot whom we love so much for being awkward and terrible and having almost no filter when it comes to stupid comments, thought he fucked up.

But they censor it, and the gravity of Lewis realizing with a sinking heart that he’s fucked up is lost, and it’s just irritating beeps and Lewis sounds worried in tone. I can get it being in a television show - Children may be watching! - but on YouTube, the only thing you can stop is age restricting things to 18+.

And you can just make a new account that’s over 18. I have a spam Gmail account I use for signing up for things for school that I really didn’t want on my main email, and through the random act of hitting random dates and years, it’s an 18+ account I can use on YouTube. I mean now I’m over 18, but still. 

I think they realize that kids have access to these 18+ concepts online, but there’s nothing they can do about it. Go online, look up boobs, the only thing stopping you might be Google’s Safe Search, which is easily turned off with a click of a button. Go on, look up Call of Duty with all its gun violence. Nothing’s stopping you! You can watch someone else play the games you can’t because of age restrictions.

I said before that I want to go into Psychology, and I’m currently in some Psychology courses at College - soon to HOPEFULLY be a Psych program next year for two years, possibly with Co-Op. Regardless, I think my class today in Developmental Psych taught me a couple key things. And I’m going to mention one of two here: Parenting.

Sounds kind of out there on a YouTube-based post, but bear with me.

There are four types of parenting, more or less, and I’ll just list them from my lecture slides (if they’ll load for me...) because I’m not going to bother with images that probably won’t load anyways: Permissive, Authoritative, Rejecting (and other terms for this one), or Authoritarian. I’ll cover each quickly for you.

Permissive Parents are parents who don’t control their children much, but are very nurturing. “We love you so you can do what you want”. Simple as that. Authoritative Parents are parents who control their children but care for them. I like to say helicopter parenting falls somewhere within here, but “I must know what you’re doing at all times because I love you and care about you deeply.” I know this part very well, and this is the “golden standard” which I’ll be returning to. Rejecting, Neglecting, or Uninvolved Parents don’t care and don’t control. “Do whatever, I don’t care.” Not good, lemmie say. The last is Authoritarian Parents, who are controlling with no nurture (or little of it). “You must do as I say because its my way or the highway.” I’ll return to this too.

Let’s talk about Authoritative. Take this concept and put it to YouTube. They want what’s best under their views for their users, so they control the content (or try to) that’s put on their side. Helicopter Website? But they don’t care about the viewer, they only care about money, I hear you shouting from the depths of this hellsite. Then Authoritarian, I raise to you. You must abide by these things to protect the children who may or may not see this content because it’s this way or the highway. Or the ban hammer. Whichever.

Now I said two things from my lecture today, so here’s the second: Gender Development. I can hear confusion. So here, let me clarify. Children around the age of two or three learn to differentiate the sex of themselves and others through physical appearance. Gender and sex are not the same. I’ll say it again. Gender and sex are not the same. Gender is a social construct. Sex is biological. Sex, in layman’s terms, is whether you have a puss or a wang downstairs, and if you have something else, that’s intersex. Gender is how you feel. I personally feel like social constructs don’t fit, so I am gender non-conforming. Because Society wants it to be black or white, I’m gonna be green like Luigi.

But think about it: YouTube has content for everybody. So... Children who go to YouTube for entertainment see these people and start thinking. I have another Yogscast example, bear with me.

Sjin, one of my personal favourites, does a thing (almost?) every Jingle Jam, and he dresses up as Elsa and sings Let It Go. He’s fantastic. And hell, he looks good in the Elsa dress. Think to these children told that boys can’t wear dresses and makeup and like girly things from a young age by society looking at this grown-ass man living the life and singing a Disney song for charity. That’s not something society wants, they want black and white. They can’t have Sjin in a dress because he wants to! They can’t have men wearing makeup and doing girly things! No way in hell that’s happening! And yet YouTube... is here... and Sjin is Sjelsa.

He gives open arms to people who don’t feel like they can conform to society’s standards and says, with his actions, it doesn’t matter, so long as you’re happy with who you are. No one can deny that Sjin loves Frozen, and loves Elsa. He’s happy. And some people, seeing a grown man in a dress go “I don’t want my kids seeing that, its indecent and not what a man should do!”

Dude. If you’re a woman wearing pants right now, then go put on a skirt. Its indecent.

Or so people would’ve said several decades ago.

Because Society is changing.

And these old crones need to learn that Society is being run by people who open their arms to difference, and instead of saying “its this or that and nothing else”, they kick the false dilemma fallacy that it originally held and say “Hey, you’re different, and I want to know why if you’re willing to share. Oh, that’s it? Cool! Let’s continue our lives both richer with the knowledge we’ve gained today.”

((God, I put both of my classes’ lectures into this rant...))

Life isn’t black and white anymore.

It’s not even monochrome.

Life is in colour. And society needs to catch up.

As per usual...

TL;DR: Society, as shown by MatPat with his video on YouTube, wants to paint any new thing in a bad light and really only a bad light even though its good. I theorize it’s because society is the helicopter parent nobody likes and the censorship to everything that nobody deserves.

Let people live their lives. Honestly.

[krycek-asks]

Luis’ Storytime: Wanda’s Day Out

A Luis story I wrote to manage the rage and make @thelittleblackfox smile

Overheard at the next table during brunch last Sunday:

“Yo yo yo, so, like, you remember last week when I was all ‘why doesn’t Wanda come out with us anymore to Brunch Roulette?’ And you were like, ‘I dunno brah, but now that you mention it she didn’t hang on movie night neither’. And that was Tremors night yo! Kevin Fuckin’ Bacon - you remember the look on Little Stevie’s face when Rhonda tricked the worm into flying off a cliff to its explosive death? Pure victory, bro! You just know he’s saving that strategy up there in his eidetic memory banks. So’s, like, I solved the mystery dude, but you’re gonna like it about as much as I do, which is like, nada, nil, nyet as you say when you slip into your dark side. Fuck bro! Watch it where you throw that potato hash! Shit is hot! Anyways, so I’m wandering through the common room just back from that abstractionism exhibit at that chill gallery down on 3rd when I find our girl just staring at the news. ‘Course she heard me coming from a mile away but her sixth sense was distracted just enough to not change the channel until it was too late and I caught a glimpse of the reel at the bottom of the screen. Big, bold letters, yo: Wanda Maximoff -should the Scarlet Witch be allowed to walk the streets? Congress to decide on bill regarding inhumans. ‘Inhumans’. In-fuckin’-humans, can you believe that? Barely eighteen years old and the people running this so-called civilization you call home have already decided you’re not a human. They’re going to have a big ol’ chat about how none of the laws that are there to protect their citizens apply to you because they’ve already decided you’re not one of them. Perfect fuckin’ strangers have an opinion about whether you deserve to live your life or not. And that’s not even the worst part bro, not by a long shot. Internet trolls are one thing, just about everybody’s got a case of those sad fuckers, but guess who’s standing in the fucking kitchen making his triple-shot mocha latte? Tony My-girl-left-me-so-I’mma-take-everyone-down-with-me Stark. And you know what he says? Put down the knife, my man, he ain’t standin’ right behind me. Is he? Well, since Vision took his douche-filter out to be de-scaled or somethin’, he says to Wanda, ‘Better stay in the Tower until this blows over. And by ‘stay’ I mean that I’ve already altered security protocols, so, you know, stay. And try not to send someone to their own personal hellscape just because you’re bored, ‘K? We have x-box for that.’ And poof! He’s gone like a leprechaun.

I KNOW.

I can see the murder in your eyes, amigo, I am right on that train to avenge-ville with you but it’s not gonna help and you know it. Just make all kinda things worse for that sweet little redhead, ya know? No, I don’t mean Nat! What’s wrong wichu? Don’t get me wrong, I love my girl, but last time I called her ‘sweet’, well, let’s just say that my Twitter followers will never recover. Yes, I have more than just Scott following me. Steve Fuckin’ Rogers, for one. Clint, too. Uh, Sam, Rhodey… Oh yes, he fuckin’ does! I beg to differ, brah. This may come as a surprise to you but your Golden Rod of Morning Wood is a killah on social media. You ain’t ever seen him go after some corrupt government official online? Duuuuude someday you will cave and get an iPhone and get learnt, I’m tellin you! He called himself that bro, don’t get mad at me! Your boy has all kinds of creativity, I’m sure. Sorry my man but ever since I got a taste of those lumber jacked arms around me I gotta bit of a homey-crush, know what I’m sayin’? That’s a fuckin’ secret asshole, don’t you go all giggle fit on me. What is in these mimosas, dawg? Super-trooper truth serum or some shit Bruce cooked up, no doubt.

But, like, as I was sayin’ Wanda looked down, bro, like already given up. Like, when you get told some bullshit so often you start to believe it, all doubting yourself n’shit. Nah, man, no way, that snapped me out of the frozen stupor caused by Tony’s douche-ray and I immediately put my arm around her and said, ‘Girl, I am taking you to see some fish.’

No, I am not talkin’ about my prima Leticia’s boyfriend’s little brother’s mariscos place down by Fulton’s, Bucky. Well, I guess ‘Cente makes a decent ceviche, you know, for this latitude, and yes I am a ‘fuckin food snob’ as you so eloquently put it, and who’s one to talk bro! You’re the one who sent back your poached eggs because the yolks were three-quarters dry. Pot, kettle, black, that’s all I’m sayin’. I was going for a little something more life affirming, and where do I go when I want to just escape and remind myself of some goodness in this world? The aquarium! Yeaahhhhh, now you’re gettin’ it. I know how you liked those octo-dudes in their camo hanging out on those rocks when I brought you the first time - the look on your face when they appeared from outta nowhere, duuuude, I’ve seen love and I’ve seen envy and those complicated emotions with all their little nuances blending together like a Norman Lewis, that was your face! But Wanda, she had a harder time letting go of the outside world and just, you know, experiencing these other-worldly creatures. There were a couple times when her eyes would light up at manta rays dancin’ like they’re flying all around you, or the jellyfish all glowing and ethereal. But always something would make the sadness in those big brown eyes of hers come back, you know, all pull the hood down around her, shrink away a bit deeper into herself. And like maayyyyybe I was talkin’ too much, you know me when I get onto a subject that I know just enough about to be dangerous. My cousin Frankie says that’s why they wouldn’t let me into no science clubs at juvie, ‘fraid I’d accidentally blow somethin’ up. I know, right! Like it’d be an ‘accident’. But Wanda just says in her soft voice that no, she likes it when I talk. Don’t have to tell me twice, homes! Probably the only time I was speechless was when we went to see the otters. Oh my gawd, bro, they are so cute. And smart! And there was this aqua-lady with a mic explaining how they can like float on their backs and use their bellies like a table. I know, I totally thought of Clint too when he’s all cozy on the edge of the sofa and settled in to watch Myth Busters. And otters, those little hedonists, will do shit just for the fun of it. Sometimes they’re like lone wolves of the sea, but mostly they live in groups. And here’s the cutest shit of all, homes, they hold hands when they’re sleeping so they don’t drift away from eachother. Wanda was so into it, these smart little creatures going about their business havin’ fun in this world and livin’ it up. Then she takes my hand, gives it a squeeze and says, ‘Thanks for not letting me float away.’

You know how sensitive I am, bro, I teared up for sure at that, eyes all red rimmed, snifflin’, the works. Just made Wanda smile, so it’s worth it, obvs. So I get her a soft little otter key ring at the gift shop and she cajoles me until I get that ‘AxoLOLtl’ t-shirt I’ve been hummin’ and hawin’ about. We sneak back across town, and she’s grippin’ that fuzzy little otter like it’s the only thing keepin’ her feet on the ground. But you know, she didn’t look down once the whole way back, sat there on that train just like everyone else. So, maybe she’s not ready for Brunch Roulette, but I don’t think she believes that shit people say about her, and she knows she ain’t gotta prove nothin’ to nobody.

‘Course, coulda been that emotional speech Little Stevie gave to her when we got back to the common room that really drove it home. All ‘we’re a family, we’re in this together’ and ‘who here can call themselves human if not a one of us has half the kindness and heart and bravery that you have’. Oh my gawd, bro, when Steve Fuckin’ Rogers gets goin’, I mean, not a dry eye in the house, fuck, I’m tearin’ up just thinkin’ about it. And Wanda just nods and accepts his words and like lets him hug her and kinda sags a bit into his teddy-bear embrace, I mean dude is all-encompassing, I guess I don’t have to tell you that, you dawg. And I have never seen Tony look so conTRITE! His face was so red, I am positive Cap had given him his own speech, not the huggy kind know what I mean, and dragged him by his ears to apologize, like literally, and I don’t gotta remind you the grip your boy has with them strong hands, dude’s like a vice with them muscles, but soft too. Oh shit, is it hot in here? Garçon! Another mimosa, and keep ‘em comin’ brah.”  

[winsister91]

Crash Trickster Racing

Summary: The angelic master of mischief interrupts a game night that’s getting steamy…

Characters: Dean x Reader, Gabriel

Word Count: 1649

Warning: Language, implied smut, fluff? Is this what is known as crack? IDK

A/N: I can join in my own challenge right? lolol Out of all the things I’ve written, I think this takes the crown as the dumbest. Have I seriously just done a kinda sorta SPN CTR crossover? I should be shot. Pretty niche market here I guess, apologies to all you youngsters/non-gamers who probably have no idea what Crash Team Racing is. 

My Masterlist!

~ Dean and forever tags are open! ~

Dean taglist predominantly from @spnfanficpond . Let me know if want to be added/removed!

“Dean Winchester,” you laugh in triumph, “You suck!”

You throw the Playstation controller to the floor, doing a ridiculous victory dance. The result now was 12-1, in your favour. The only reason he won that one race in Crash Team Racing was because he started it without you while you went to grab a drink.

“You are inhumanely good at this stupid game,” Dean sulks, throwing his own controller down and folding his arms, “If it was a real race, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”

“Whatever,” you shrug, sticking your tongue out and shaking your butt in a tease as you turn, “Victory beer!”

You skip to the kitchen, grinning like a child. As you go to open the fridge, Dean’s hand forces it closed again. He swiftly takes you in his arms, picking you up onto the counter and biting down your neck. You giggle as tingles wash over you, throwing your head back to grant him access.

“Distract me all you want,” you gasp as he moves around to the other side of your neck, “You still suck at Crash.”

“Maybe,” he growls, taking you to a higher place with a deep kiss on your collarbone, “But I know what I am good at.”

“Thank god you do,” you exhale before his lips forcefully clash into yours, instantly allowing his hungry tongue to do battle with your own.

He lifts you onto his hips, you wrap your legs around him and the tongue battle continues. You rake your hands through his hair, your core fluttering with excitement when those beautiful olive eyes of his pierce lustfully into yours. He carries you through the room and into the corridor leading to his bedroom. You giggle, pulling your t-shirt up and over your head on the way. He hums at the sight of you, kicking his door open and bringing you inside.

“What the fuck?” he stops and freezes. The sounds of numerous engines rumbling come to your ears and confused isn’t even the word. You look around, this was most definitely not Dean’s room. It was…outside? Pixelated?

“Okaay?” you jump down from his hips, looking around. You’re at the start line of a race track in a blocky cartoon world? It looks like the Coco Park track…it is Coco Park. Perfect in every detail. There’s a flash of white light and suddenly you’re in a racing kart. You immediately try to pull yourself out, but some invisible force is holding you there.

“Dean what’s going on!?” your shriek.

Dean is in the kart next to you, also struggling for freedom, he curses under his breath. “God dammit Gabriel where are you!?” he shouts viciously.

“Oh no…” you groan, rolling your eyes.

“Now is that any way to greet a buddy?” that familiar chirpy voice comes. Gabriel melts into view, laying on the flat rectangular texture of grass at the side of the road, “I’ve always thought you two were such a cute couple, but man it gets monotonous. A playful argument, sex, self-deprecation, sex, get drunk, sex. The result is always the same!”

You and Dean share a worried glance.

“You’ve been watching us?” Dean shakes his head in disbelief.

“Ew!” you shout.

“Who needs soap opera’s when the Winchesters exist? But its rapidly declining into a porno” he chuckles, snapping his fingers and appearing in a third kart between you both, “Now come on, this is fun! She says he sucks at Crash, he says he could win a real race, let’s combine the two!” “Could I have some dignity please first!?” you cross your arms, remembering you are topless, only a bra and pants on show.

The angel tuts and with a wave of his hand, your t-shirt appears back on you, “It’s game time,” he grins eagerly.

The unforgettable sound of the air horn count down echoes in the air, you can see the in game lights hovering above you. You get your game face on, thinking, Fine! Whatever! I’m gonna kick your asses.

The last siren blares and your foot is pressed firmly down on the gas pedal. The kart shoots forward, much faster than you expected. You squeal in terror as you crash into one of the item crates, the blocky shards of wood flying over you. This moment makes you realise the game’s hud is in your eyesight, like it’s imprinted on your iris. You see your lap time ticking away in the top corner of your sight, and a mini map of the track in a bottom corner. This is insane, and awesome. A box in the top centre of your vision is flicking through pictures of the in-game weapons, stopping on the missile. You grin mischievously before worry hits you. You can’t use a freaking missile! You’ll kill them!

While your mind had wandered, you realise you’re making a bee line for a red bottle, left on the track by Gabriel. You jerk on the wheel hard to try and avoid it, but it’s too late. You crash into it, sending the kart into a spin and you scream hysterically. Your vision becomes blurry and your car a stuttering slow mess as it clumsily bobs along with a black rain cloud following and raining on to you.

“Shit!” you shout in frustration, bashing at the gas pedal, but it’s fruitless while the bottle’s effect is in play.

“Oh yea, feel free to use the weapons!” Gabriel’s voice echoes omnipotently in the air, “They’ll not really hurt you!”

The cloud vanishes and you shoot forward again. Now you’re determined.

You can hear Dean laughing and clearly enjoying the ride, turning back to you and mocking while you try to catch up. You ignore him, focusing on the damned archangel further ahead. You spot a huge red button in the middle of the steering wheel, the angel in your line of sight and you slam it. The missile blasts out of the front of your kart and your grin returns. You watch in glee as it soars away into the distance. Then your face drops as the explosive turns and hones in on Dean.

“Uh oh,” you mumble, remembering these things are designed to aim at the person directly in front of you in the standings.

The rocket explodes into Dean’s car sending him flying in the air in a cartoonish fashion. You hear him cursing you as you speed past.

“Bitch!!!!”

“Sorry not sorry!” you squeak sheepishly.

With Dean now falling far behind, it’s a full on battle for first place between you and Gabriel. Damn, he’s good. You question as to whether he’s tweaked things, being in control over this world he’s created after all. His car is way faster than yours. You can barely keep up using all the tricks in the book, grinding around corners and hitting your boost in a specific timing. Hiding TNT boxes behind the item crates for when another lap comes around. You fire numerous cannons at him, but he frequently swerves away or conveniently has a shield every time one does hit.

“Oh come on!!!” you scream, gamer rage coursing through you as he dodges another one of your traps, “This is bullshit!!!”

You hear another familiar noise and you sit wide eyed. Oh no. It’s an electrical noise, sounding like waves, you turn and see what you dread. A huge intimidating blue ball of electricity flying through the air, its aim to hit everyone in its path. You can see Dean with an evil grin behind it, clearly the culprit as it’s an item only granted to those in last place. There’s no outrunning it, you have no shield in your possession. You brace yourself.

You squeal as it passes over you and your car is flung into the air. Holding on for dear life, you breathe a sigh of relief after spinning in the air and finally landing back on the ground, dazed. Gabriel falls victim to it too, a wail coming from his kart in front of you.

You can hear Dean laughing as he speeds past you both, crossing the finish line and becoming enveloped in a flood of confetti.

“Well done you,” you grumble as you and Gabriel cross the line with glum faces. You were so pissed at coming last.

“I think it’s safe to say I am the ultimate champ at this now?” Dean pokes his tongue out, folding his arms smugly.

“Bite me,” you hiss, “You got lucky with the stupid OP weapon.”

He raised an eyebrow at you, blowing you a kiss in a mock fashion which makes you wanna go over there and part kill him, part ravage him.

“Oh, guys come on now!” Gabriel raises his hand in disbelief, “The sexual tension in the air is just…so obvious plot wise!”

“The winner of your god damn race…” Dean starts calmly before ordering, “says, put us back in our god damn room right now!”

Gabriel rolls his eyes, “Fine, this isn’t the last you’ll hear from me,” with a snap of his fingers, you’re back at the bunker, sat on the floor of the bedroom. Gabriel is nowhere in sight.

“Rematch!” you squeal, jumping to your feet and marching for the door.

“Now just wait,” Dean chuckles, stepping in front of you and pulling you into a tight embrace, “…where were we first?”

In a moment of de ja vu, you find yourself being hoisted back onto Dean’s hips, violently pulling off your t-shirt.

“Really?” Gabriel groans, sat in a place unknown watching a huge TV screen where he watches people’s lives for entertainment, “There’s more sex here than in Game of Thrones…” He tuts, changing the channel with a fistful of popcorn.

Tags! @aprofoundbondwithdean @manawhaat @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @nichelle-my-belle @leatherwhiskeycoffeeplaid @notnaturalanahi @bkwrm523 @salvachester @whispersandwhiskerburn @roxy-davenport @impala-dreamer @deathtonormalcy56 @samsgoddess @frenchybell @scorpiongirl1 @for-the-love-of-dean @mysupernaturalfics @spn-fan-girl-173 @deandoesthingstome @jelly-beans-and-gstrings @fiveleaf @deansleather @curliesallovertheplace @whywhydoyouwantmetosaymyname @waywardjoy @mrswhozeewhatsis @imadeangirl-butimsamcurious @kayteonline @supernatural-jackles @wevegotworktodo @ilovedean-spn2 @quiddy-writes @babypieandwhiskey @wi-deangirl77 @deantbh @supermoonpanda @sinceriouslyamellpadalecki @deanwinchesterforpromqueen @chaos-and-the-calm67 @memariana91 @plaidstiel-wormstache @teamfreewill-imagine @chelsea-winchester @fandommaniacx @writingbeautifulmen @revwinchester @lucibae-is-dancing-in-hell @castieltrash1 @supernaturalyobessed @ohwritever @ruined-by-destiel @inmysparetime0 @winchester-writes @deals-with-demons @maraisabellegrey @faith-in-dean @winchestersmolder  @bennyyh @clueless-gold @deanwinchesterxreader @melbelle45 @winchester-family-business  @4401lnc @sofreddie @sis-tafics @chelsea072498 @arcturuz

[sumergosuigeneris]

June 10, 2019

Woke up thinking about not-great things from my life again. And thinking that I am repeating my mother’s patterns despite myself. Hell of a way to wake up. Probably need to go to therapy. Probably need to address issues in my life.

Yesterday ended up interesting.

Got confused about when I was gonna get in. Thought it was an hour later than I thought. When it turned out I was right, I decided to get food before heading to the club. The bar was closed and there was nowhere else nearby. Went back to train station and asked the guy sitting there to take me. Never doing that again. First of all, he only took cash (I technically didn’t have enough). I didn’t have enough to give him a tip, which is bad. But in a way, I felt it made us even because I was forced to make conversation. Hoo-eee is this guy loyal to the local university. I expressed my support for not-that-school and he proceeded to talk about how horrible another school was. I tried to say all schools do these things, not that it’s right but that they’re common. It went eh. Another guy that listens to his own opinion exclusively. And it cost me $40! Technically $42+tip, but I only had 40 in cash. How much would it have been if I took the deliberately underpriced car sharing service? Grrrrrr. But yay for supporting the beleaguered taxi drivers. Also, the Jus sie case came up. Of course. So I pointed out that celebs and rich people get away with the same shit all the time. I really really wanted to say if it was a yt person, you’d be fine with it, but I kept it together.

Get to the club....and no one was there. Not even Bob. I called him and somehow he thought I was coming in at 1am, so he gave up on me and went home. He lives about 45min away, esp because he’s a hypermiler, but he drove back for me. I was ambivalent b/c I wanted to shoot, and give him his stupid gifts, but I felt guilty for making him drive. Anyway, while waiting I discovered I’d left one of his gifts on the train. IDIOT! I spent twenty-five minutes total on several phone calls to am-not-track, only to be told to fill out a form online. So fucking stupid b/c I figured it out within an hour so that would have been perfect timing for the train staff (I’m blanking on everything except conductor) to find it and tag it for me. Fucking terrible customer service AGAIN! I was gonna complain on social media but it felt like all I was doing was complaining about companies and so companies would stop taking me seriously.

And of course, i couldn’t fill out the form b/c there was no internet at the club. Civil War Bob got there in time for me to be in a rage. I gave him the gifts I had, and told him (not asked him) that I was getting him an emergency cell phone. Fuck that shit. Our incident could have been avoided if I’d called him before he left for the club, but I forgot about the time change, and then despite that, if he’d had a fucking cell phone. He could have called me or I could have called him. Aggravating.

He took me to shoot pistols. I missed shooting rifles, but I’d never shot anything except black powder pistols before. It was fun. It was loud. Real hand guns, at least before these modern plastic models, are not like portrayed on tv/movies. Harder to aim. And very, very loud. Still throw gun powder depending on the model. But I can say I shot a Colt and a Smith&Wesson - quality American brands. I forgot my safety goggles, and all CWB had was prescription sunglasses. Whew that was hard. I made a few good shots but mostly bad, and I’m not sure how much of that is me being out of practice shooting new to me weapons, and how much was prescription sunglasses. Oh, and it’s really nice to take forever to load or clean. I like pistols.

Oh, and I found out that some guns have serial numbers already. They’ve been having serial numbers. Like a car vin. Although now that I’m writing this, I feel like I did know that a while ago, b/c on tv they’d talk about filing off the number. Dummy. Anyway, the point is guns could be registered to owners like cars are. Not like permits for carrying or safety (although a safety permit would be nice) but for gun policy level safety. Although, as with other things on guns, the people who would follow it wouldn’t be the problems but they’d be mouthy about how it was infringing on their rights.

The one thing was he started making political comments, about how someone shot up a place or people and was theoretically sympathetic to IS IS so CWB thinks of IS IS as terr orists. Oh no. I was not gonna have that. You’re going to ignore all the white supremacists? And also fo x was probably lying, but I’m not sure b/c I don’t know who he was talking about. We only do well when we don’t acknowledge his ignorant views, so I decided to shut that shit down. I told him I think of Tr ump supporters that way (re: ter ror ism). Shut him the fuck up.

We had fun. He gave me a tshift he’s been hanging on to. It’s orange, which is fine. But he said I like to wear loud colors. Which is not true. I will wear them, like I had an orange hooded jacket for a few years, but that’s me trying to expand beyond my mostly black, and brown and green and red. Anyway.

I didn’t tell him I was staying overnight. 2 1/2 hours is pretty good for me hanging out with CWB. 4 1/2 is the limit.

At this point, it was 5-ish, and I’d only had 1/2 a coffee and a terrible blueberry muffin. i was starving. i asked him to drop me off at a location that seemed like i was  going to the bus station but was close enough to walk to the hotel. I passed restaurants. It was so hard not to just stop at one of them, but I was determined to address my longing for pizza from here.

Also, while I feel I only had to talk about school once, it was extremely uncomfortable. Why *do* we always ask people what they do, or if they’re in school? Social media says it’s so we can judge people and how much respect to give them.

Got to the hotel and was excited b/c my room unexpectedly had a jacuzzi. Which doesn’t work. There were hardly any working lamps, basically one plug for me to plug things in. Very few channels and most of them were terribly staticy. I went to the pool and there was a family monopolizing it. They’d have made room for me, but it would have curtailed them a bit, and not really given me room to do anything besides sit there, so I went to go to the hot tub. Which wasn’t working and looked yucky. This hotel actually kind of sucks. Because the coup d’grace? The internet is *atrocious*! So I couldn’t do online instead of real life. I ended up going to bed pretty early. Which I needed.

But I ordered my pizzas. I ordered two. I wonder what the front desk person thought of that. I ordered one from the place that I’d found is closest to real pizza but was expensive and didn’t deliver as far away as i lived before I moved. And I ordered one from my favorite local chain.

As I was afraid of, both were disappointing. They weren’t as good as I’d built them up to be in my memory. The one was about as good as I think it was the last time I’d gotten it several years ago. The thing is, when I ran away to this particular state, the pizza was really really decent, but it changed a few years after that.To be less good. Which was a reason I hardly ever ordered the expensive stuff. The chain one was good for itself, but there was too much dough. Not sure if the recipe changed or the location made a mistake or b/c it was a medium. But it tasted yummy. Really the issue is with pizza in general. To make good pizza, you need to do the whole dough tossing thing. It’s not just for show, or to make a lump of dough spread out. It does something with air bubbles or whatever. And no one does that anymore. Almost no one. Because making pizza properly takes too long.

So anyway, now I can let that go for a while. And I’m taking home at least 3 meals worth of pizza. Yay!

All in all, I think I spent significantly too much on this trip (and I’m not home yet). I won’t do this again. It’s only renting a car, and only a one day thing (so get up ungodly early in the morning). I’m nervous about taking the bus. I’ve never had a problem, but the company itself has a reputation. Anyway, $120 ish for transpo and hotel. $80 for taxis. $50 ish for pizza. Well, as I type it out, only the car/taxi nonsense was unexpectedly high. Still, I need to take the bus to the bus pickup. Grab coffee, etc.. take the bus back to my city...take the train or bus home. Then, I’ll know. And feel safe lol.

And the bus isn’t known for having good internet. Here’s crossing my fingers.

Boy, I’m gonna sleep well tonight.