#i was FULLY convinced that part was actually true until i got to the last page of the book where the discussion questions were

[stevethehairington]

first book of 2024 = finished woooohoooo!!!!

[seraphtrevs]

I feel as dense as Jesse because I just don't see it about Walt loving him even more than Skyler and going completely feral when other people hurt him? Like obviously he loves him because he can easily manipulate him but I just... don't get it? Is it that he wants to be the only one who hurts Jesse?

But Walt doesn't think he's hurting Jesse. He thinks he's protecting him. Every time Walt does something shitty to Jesse, he convinces himself it was for Jesse's own good.

Like when he let Jane die. Walt's true reason was that Jane tried to take Jesse away from him. But Walt thinks that the reason he did it was to protect Jesse. Jane got him hooked on heroin. If he stays with her, she'll kill him. In a way, Walt killed her for Jesse.

And I don't think Jesse was actually that easy for Walt to manipulate at first. Jesse kicked and screamed the whole way as Walt dragged him into their partnership. Things changed when their relationship became more intense - when they loved each other, Jesse became easier to manipulate. But Walt didn't fall in love with him because he was easy to manipulate since that didn't come until later.

A big part of the reason their relationship is so intense is that they've been through several life-and-death situations together now, starting from the beginning when Krazy-8 comes for them. Walt kills Emilio in defense of himself and Jesse. Later, he kills Domingo, sparing Jesse from having to do it.

When Walt killed Emilio, he wasn't doing it specifically to save Jesse (he was saving them both, so it was as much self-interest). But once the dust settled...I think Walt felt excited about the idea of killing someone in defense of someone else. A huge part of Walt's psychology is that he loves the idea of being a protector (and a provider). In mundane life, there's no opportunity for doing something that primal. He can't kill for Skylar and the kids...

...but he can kill for Jesse.

The other thing he can do for Jesse is provide. (Yes, they're partners, but Walt views himself as the leader.) The only person in the whole show who ever feels happy about getting money from Walt is Jesse (that doesn't last long, but he was very excited at first).

Heisenberg is Walt's ideal self - powerful, rich, dangerous, feared. But he has to hide his ideal self from Skyler and his son, even as he's in the process of fully realizing fantasies he's had for years. (btw Heisenberg is nowhere near as cool as Walt thinks he is, but that's how Walt feels when he's running his empire). A huge part of this fantasy is being a protector - he can't be Heisenberg unless he has someone to protect. So that person becomes Jesse

Jesse used to be his student, so he already had some residual protective feelings for him, which puts Jesse in the role of a child - a son. But at the same time, these fantasies are VERY sexy to Walt - he tries to bring it home to Skyler to mixed results. So with that energy frustrated and needing a place to go, Jesse also becomes like his wife. (What can I say, he's a sick person.) Their relationship plays out more like a romance than a father/son story, in my opinion, but there's definitely an element of both, which is what makes it so disturbing and fascinating

[appleflavoredkitkats]

do you have any headcanons on what russell went through during his time with the utopians?

HELLO ISSY!! im in the middle of plotting my version of ivywood so i have SOME things... but not everything is fully fleshed out! here r some of them (under the cut!)

since it's sort of implied that russell's been raised there since birth/childhood, i feel like his parents only joined because they were struggling financially, which the utopians would have aided

i do think russell would have HATED the strict regulations at a young age. like obviously, he would still grow to adapt to some things (ie. desperate need to prove himself worthy, because the utopians would have deprived that of their followers) but to me, russell is just too much of a curious child. he wouldn't have kept his curiosities at bay, especially since he loved learning about more mind-boggling things like cryptic codes, linguistics, the human brain, etc. at a young age

i think this guy! would have been a very lonely child! esp since he's austistic and trans! since he's afab, i feel like his autism diagnosis would have come in late (like maybe 10 years old?) and that's the same time he would have realized he was trans. so he basically became a disappointment amongst the utopians. like parents would tell their kids that russell would be the child NOT to imitate u get me

but i feel like as much as i think russell would come out of this with insecurities, i think his pride is one of the reasons that got him out of there in the first place? and i mean, call him egotistical all you want, but the last thing russell would want to do is doubt his capabilities because that's EXACTLY what the utopians would have wanted.

in my version of ivywood, i made "once upon a crime" happen AFTER "wild wild death" because i hc that trevor neuman was responsible for russell's interest in psychology. but don't get it twisted, he doesn't rlly like the kid- rather, the higher-ups in utopia saw potential in his intelligence and wanted to profit off of that. to me, russell might have possibly made the foundations for their brainwashing mechanism, but russell himself doesn't realize that it actually works

i do think russell was genuinely close to his parents, although they don't get along all the time because the two are depressed servants of the cult. i do think russell would have had a closer bond to his mother though. i'd like to think she actually helped russell escape at 16. the only reason she didn't go with him was because she wanted to convince jupiter to go with her, but he adamantly refused out of fear.

the higher-ups definitely knew that caroline (russell's mom) assisted his escape and so they would have murdered her and framed it as an accident. when this happened, they utilized jupiter's grief to make him stay in utopia even longer.

after hearing news about his mom's death, russell would have sneakily watched the funeral from afar. that's when he received the note that says he has nowhere to hide.

i need to flesh this out even more, but i definitely think russell reached out to the pbpd after he escaped. i think it would be funny if andrea assigned frank to look after him, at least up until russell finds a secure job to move out lol. there is a reason these two are at each other's throats all the time !

to return to the utopians though, i genuinely think that the fact russell was raised in a cult fucked up his sense of identity and vulnerability, in a sense that. this mfker HATES showing his true self to anyone in fear of it being used against him. his flirty, manipulative mask is definitely just. a mask. because it's a survival skill he developed after escaping !

moreover i do think he gets impostor syndrome sometimes because as much as he's a genuinely prideful person, sometimes he thinks he feels the need to grab everyone's attention because he was so deprived of it when he was young. so sometimes he does have to grapple with that, because he HATES thinking that a part of him is still disgustingly utopian

[gothcatgirlfriend]

undertale yellow spoilers!

spoilers for the end of undertale yellow's no mercy route, neutral route, and major parts of pacifist. please do not read if you do not wish to be spoiled. you have been warned.

i apologize for any possible inaccuracies. i tried to be as accurate as possible by rewatching cutscenes, but there's always a chance i got things wrong. it also might be a bit rambly because i wrote them as messages. still, i have a lot of thoughts on this decision undertale yellow made, which i'd like to believe i backed with solid evidence. and in the end, it is only my opinion. i'd just like to have my point of view seen.

so, in regards to martlet and undertale yellow's no mercy route:

i think martlet is the perfect choice as no mercy's last stand, actually.

in undertale, it's sans, and yeah, he shows that he's menacing no matter what route you're on, but for the most part he comes off as a goofy slacker with some mysteries.

it's the fact that the player drives him to the state where he has to do something, because they're on a killing spree with nobody spared, literally. and he reveals that he's actually been working hard on all the time anomaly shenanigans behind the scenes that make sans such a good character to be the last defense between the player and asgore (until flowey kills him, and then the player kills flowey, and then chara kills the player...)

with undertale yellow, martlet is a very optimistic and genuine person. she's a bit of an airhead, but she still tries her best as a member of the royal guard. all the other major bosses fight clover in pacifist for reasons such as mistaking clover for the blue soul believing to be tracked down by them and defending themselves (dalv), blaming clover for their ruined relationships and believing that bringing in their soul themselves will repair their reputation (starlo), and of course, requiring clover's soul in a last-ditch effort to save their daughter from being at death's door (ceroba).

martlet is literally going by protocol. she's following the rules to the letter, and gets confused when clover refuses to attack, not even doing so herself before she gets to the part where she's allowed to. and the part where clover insults her behavior as a royal guard is where she falters and decides to spare clover, because it's true. her best isn't enough for them. the royal guard is under asgore's rule to take human's souls for monsterkind, but that isn't enough for her to finish the job.

this is where you keep in mind martlet and chujin's conversation that clover sees in the no mercy route. her mentor, that she admired and was close to, is extremely cautious of humans due to the incident with the blue soul. but even after knowing the damage they can cause, she has hope that not all of them are bad, as she'll say in no mercy herself.

so that's why in no mercy, when clover is delivering their twisted sense of justice and killing every monster they can, she knows she has to stop them. in the first encounter, after she realizes clover is the culprit, she tosses the guide book and puts everything she's got into the fight. but that, just as well, isn't enough. she has to retreat because they're too powerful, even though clover could continue their rampage. but still, after almost dying to them, she tries to convince them to end the violence because she wants to believe that they have an ounce of sympathy for their victims.

if no mercy is aborted, when clover meets her on the roof, she throws away the determination serum she picked up from the lab just like in regular neutral. because she sees that, at least in one instance, they didn't choose murder. and that's good enough for her. that's all it takes, even if flowey goes in for the kill and martlet blames clover. she only goes so far to do so in her dying moments, and because flowey purposefully hid in the shadows, so how would she know it wasn't them?

when no mercy is fully initiated, she doesn't even instigate the combat; clover does. they're so trigger-happy that they waste no time. and at that point she has to use the last weapon monsterkind has to prevent clover from reaching asgore. she waited until the last moment, hoping clover would change their mind. but when there's no hope for them, she harnesses that determination to become the most powerful monster in the underground, the zenith of monsterkind. she'll wield the determination to deliver justice unto clover.

even if it kills her.

[k-s-morgan]

Why does Will have a dream about Hannibal where he calls him beloved? Will tried to kill Hannibal there so I'm confused why he''s violent but images romantic lines from him.

Oh, I actually have a mini-meta about The Dream!

Violence and love are closely interrelated in Will and Hannibal’s relationship. This Will’s dream is fascinating because it reveals a lot of things about his state of mind. 

Firstly, he’s angry at Hannibal. He’s been released from prison just a month ago after framing, and he’s still feeling betrayed and hurt. Most importantly, he thinks Hannibal killed Abigail and this is something Will doesn’t understand and can’t get over. So he’s dreaming of his retribution, of making Hannibal pay. 

At the same time, he has doubts. Will knows now that Hannibal wanted to help him Become. He knows Hannibal is the one who got him free and that he wants to be his friend - Will said that to Chilton two episode before. He thinks he understands now: Hannibal is not a psychopathic killer who’s doing things out of amusement and curiosity. He’s capable of deep feelings; he’s lonely and he loves Will. But then again, why did he kill Abigail? Why was he so cruel about it - she was killed sadistically, he cut off her ear and implanted it in Will? How can Will trust that such a person loves him when this is what he did to a girl he supposedly cared about? We see Will’s inner struggle in this conversation:

Will: I want an admission. Admit what you are.

When Hannibal doesn’t reply directly, Will amplifies violence. 

Dream Hannibal: Why not appeal to my better nature?

Will: I wasn’t aware you had one.

This is extremely illuminating. Will is in denial. He wants Hannibal to confirm to him that he’s a monster and thus not worthy of Will’s attention - Will is trying to literally torture the answer he wants out of Hannibal. Like he said to Peter in the previous episode, killing is much easier when you know how to feel. And Will doesn’t know how to feel about Hannibal, not until he finds a way to label him as a hollow monster. 

But the truth is, Hannibal isn’t a hollow monster. And a part of Will knows it. That’s why as Will tortures Hannibal, Hannibal replies with love, not violence. I’ll include the deleted last sentence:

Dream Hannibal: No one can be fully aware of another human being unless we love them. By that love, we see potential in our beloved. Through that love, we allow our beloved to see their potential. Expressing that love, our beloved’s potential comes true. I love you, Will.

Like Will suspects, Hannibal is doing everything out of love for him. He sees what Will is. He accepts it, admires it, and he wants Will to act on it. His motivations are complex and he refuses to give up his love even under torture.

A part of Will is probably overjoyed at getting this answer. But a bigger part is frustrated because it just complicates things. He would love to convince himself that Hannibal is soulless, kill him, and be done with it, but that’s not what he is and Will is lost in his conflicting feelings.

There is also this bit that comes after Will’s first question:

Dream Hannibal: Must I denounce myself as a monster while you still refuse to see the one growing inside you?

And in the script, the following line is: Not the answer Will wants.

So, in conclusion: Will’s dream is about his inner conflict about Hannibal. A part of him, the one that accepts his own darkness, thinks that Hannibal loves him. Another part is terrified of the implications of this, so it’s trying to force Hannibal to admit he has no depth because otherwise, Will could never kill him. 

[blackjackkent]

Quick camp chats before heading out on the road again. (I'm thinking about making straight for the creche actually, since Rakha definitely thinks it's the most important thing to do right now, and then circling back for final nautiloid map stuff on the way to the Underdark.)

Rakha questioned Gale much more thoroughly about Karsus and the fall of Netheril; even though it happened a long time ago, she's still hungry for any new knowledge, more pieces in her picture of the world. I think this is probably not the last time that he ends up just discoursing to her on some random subject or another; if there's one thing Gale can't resist, it's an attentive student, even if it's one fully capable of ripping his throat out in the wrong moment. He also explained, much to her disappointment, that there's no way she would be strong enough on her own to channel the Weave as they did together - that it requires intense study even for someone with a natural magical gift like her. She's quietly bummed about this; she was taken with the idea of showing it to Wyll.

Having talked to Dammon, we have the option to ask Karlach directly about the engine in camp. She's not willing to give the full story until the Paladins are dead, but does explain that it prevents her from touching anyone and how upset that makes her, that she can't have a hug. Rakha spends a lot of time thinking about this afterwards. She has had sex with Lae'zel and she has had Astarion's weight on her as he sucked the blood at her neck, but beyond this, her experience with physical contact of any sort is... limited. But Karlach's longing for it is obvious. It must be comforting, she decides. Like the blanket of the Weave around her. Like Wyll's hand on her arm was, last night.

Astarion is indignant about Gale's orb: "To think, Gale's had this devastating orb within himself the entire time, and only just mentioned it? Who'd keep a secret like that from his friends? You can't trust anyone these days." It takes Rakha a little while to work out that he is being ironic. His response to the question "What do you think we'll find at Moonrise Towers?" amuses me, because his phrasing feels deliberately calibrated for Rakha specifically: "Who knows? Drow? Mind flayers? Death? Hopefully not ours. But maybe answers, if we can convince the right people to talk." Death and answers are Rakha's two favorite things in the whole world.

Wyll is super cute and kinda shy. "Since the party, I've had a spring in my step, and I've got you to thank." Sadly none of the (positive) dialogue options quite fall in Rakha's blunt conversational wheelhouse, but we'll go with, "It was a lovely evening. I hope we can share even more." Because it's true - talking to him was the best part of the party for her by far. She doesn't fully understand her own feelings, but she is realizing she feels better near him than otherwise. He smiles. "I'm sure we will. And when the time comes... I've got something in mind." He raises a hand to forestall her as she opens her mouth to ask questions. "Now, now - no prodding. You don't want to spoil the surprise. But I'll say this... it'll be worth the wait." The odd sense of pleasant anticipation with which Rakha receives this information is a rather new concept for her. She isn't sure what he means... but she is curious to find out.

He also tells her a little bit about growing up as a Duke's son in Baldur's Gate. Most of his descriptions of court and nobility are somewhat lost on her-- more interesting is his description of the transition into becoming Blade of Frontiers. She asks if it was much of a change. "Yes and no," he answers. "Father taught me the four pillars of power - courage, insight, strategy, justice. He reckoned I'd follow in his footsteps, first as a Fist Marshal, then as a Duke. Vanquish evil, maintain order, save the world. But a duke makes bedfellows with more monsters than he slays. Father called it 'diplomacy'. I called it 'hypocrisy.' In the frontiers, there is no posturing, no diplomacy. I slay monsters; I don't consort with them, even if I might look like one." As usual, Rakha tucks away these foundational tenets of his philosophy to consider for herself. Courage, insight, strategy, justice. None of them mean as much to her as violence, hunger, survival, death. And yet they are, perhaps, something to aspire to, if she should ever learn to control the beast... She wonders about that last statement, though. Wyll claims not to consort with monsters - but he travels with Astarion. He travels with her. He travels with Gale and that bomb in his chest. There are many in their group who could be called monsters. What does he see when he looks at them? Does he see his presence here as just another sort of hypocrisy, deep down?

[the-case-book-of-fanfiction]

my rewatch of broadchurch has reminded me of how much i love the idea of hopper taking on steve as an intern and showing him the ropes of policework. so, uh, here's a little thing i might make into an actual fic one of these days:

it's not steve's first choice of job. but it was offered to both him and robin, it pays well, it gets his dad off his back. or maybe worse. ("finally getting your life together, are you? finally got yourself an actual career.")

at first, it's simple, easy. reports, paperwork, sometimes some leg work. hopper oversees steve and robin's training personally. he says it's because they show potential; while that may be true, steve also suspects that hop's been told to keep an eye on the two of them by the shady government agents who have been lingering around hawkins—most of them pretending to be regular people, but the townspeople know better. everyone knows everyone in a small town like hawkins, and after the hellscape the town became, people have their own theories about what happened. most of them are pretty close, almost all of them including a government conspiracy.

for the few months, that's all they do. chase after the people who get too close to the truth, hush them up before the papers can snap up the story. they can't stop them all, but for the most part, people outside of hawkins write it off as lunacy. steve and hopper are thankful for that.

two years. two years of pure silence from any related to the upside down; no demodogs, no labs, no doctors, no psychic children. just eleven—jane, now—with the hopper-byers, and she hasn't used her powers for anything other than making max's life easier. the party's gone back to playing d&d together regularly, even though their parents tease them they're too old to be playing it in mike's basement.

and then, a couple months after the anniversary of will's disappearance, the world starts to crack again.

not really, not literally, not like it did when vecna split hawkins into four chunks of hell. but it's close, because steve can feel the world shift and begin to fall, just like it did then. it's worse this time, though, because he didn't really notice last time. he was too wrapped up in himself, in high school, in tommy and carol, in nancy. but this time? this time steve is fully aware of just how disastrous the world is.

it's a body. it's a young boy. all of hawkins stills because it's a little too similar.

when he's found, nobody knows who it is. the body's in the quarry, found by a group of young kids playing a little too close to the edge. (the town starts to get uneasy.)

the police retrieve the body. the family's contacted privately. the mother screams and wails that she was right, that she knew, that if they had just listened to her—

they realize, too late, that a missing persons report was filed about the boy two days ago. hopper hates how much the woman reminds him of joyce.

the autopsy is performed, and it confirms that the boy is really this woman's son. hopper insists on being present for the autopsy, just a little too worried it would be another fake.

for a while, steve is convinced it has to be related to what happened in the early 80s. hopper is, too, until that autopsy. after that, he tells steve it's a perfectly normal murder case.

it takes a while before steve believes him. only after that does he start to think that a regular murder case is even worse.

"i hate these small town murders," hopper says to him one day. "too many secrets about too many people get uncovered. things we never should know."

"but we're the police, shouldn't we know these things? if people are threatening and blackmailing and committing petty crimes, shouldn't we know?" steve asks, confused as to why hopper seems to be okay with these things—small compared to a murder, but big to a small town—happening all the time under their noses.

because that's what has been happening. backs are turning quickly. the town is becoming violent, accusing anyone and everyone who is slightly suspicious as the boy's killer.

"in a regular small town, it wouldn't be as big of a deal," hopper says. "even then, some things are just better left unsaid. but here? there's too many secrets we need to keep. secrets unrelated to this case. secrets that could get the soviets interested again."

and the idea of that makes steve shudder, his body remembering pain he had never really gotten rid of, always feeling it when it's too cold or raining.

robin shares similar ideas to hopper. "all these accusations," she says one night, when it's just them in the office because hop sent everybody else home and he's in the next room making coffee, "doesn't it scare you? like imagine if somebody turns on...i don't know, jonathan or...or nancy? i mean nancy owns guns and people know about it—"

"the boy wasn't shot, robs."

"—and jonathan, i mean, everybody who went to school with us heard about you breaking the camera and why you did it. they might..."

steve shakes his head. "i wish i hadn't, robs. especially now."

"i know that, that's not what i'm saying. my point is, we've all got dirt, every single one of us. eddie's been accused of murder before, who's to say they won't do it again? even if it doesn't make sense, neither do the people they target now. anyone who's done any wrong is in the risk of it being made public. and if that happened to us? if people find out about el, about vecna, about will? what happens then?"

she's worked herself up into a panic, steve can tell. but this time, he doesn't really know what to say. he doesn't know what will happen. the government agents who watched them for months before they disappeared all at once never made verbal threats, but the threat of their presence was enough to silence everyone.

the only thing he can think to say is "eddie's on tour with the guys right now, he's safe from all of this."

"until they get back, then everyone will become the next jason carver," robin says, and steve begs her not to bring him back up.

secrets get dug up as the case drags on, only getting further and further away from closure. affairs, bullying, threats, drugs, alcohol, robbery. whatever small, dirty secret the town could possibly have, it does have, and it gets dug up and aired out like dirty laundry.

steve watches the town pretend to be shocked at every new revelation. it doesn't hurt very much until he watches the entire town pretend that they—and he—didn't know his dad was cheating on his mom and has been for years; that still doesn't hurt as much as the pitying looks they give him when he shows up to ask questions or to take their statements; and that still doesn't compare to the looks everyone gives his mom.

he watches his mom lose her love of life. it was fine, or they could pretend it was fine, before everybody knew (officially) about his dad's infidelity. they could pretend it wasn't happening. they pretended it was some big business meeting or a dinner with a client or whatever it was, except what it actually was.

that's what hurts steve most about policework. watching people go under for things that have nothing to do with him. watching people lose family and livelihoods over mistakes made years ago. watching the life drain from a community, replaced by suspicion and anger and hatred.

because if he stops and thinks about it, steve doesn't really mind it otherwise. he likes the thrill, the facts fitting together, the possibility that they might actually be right.

and when they are right, even after countless wrong leads, steve feels the relief deep in his bones. he feels it in the town, too, feels people start to breathe again and start to go back to normal and live their lives again.

he knows it's not normal again, not really. how can it be? but he watches the case go to trial, he watches it go right, he watches the killer go to jail. he watches the family finally breathe again, hears the mother thank him and robin and hopper, sees them try to go back to their lives and do they best they can.

it's not normal, but it's better. it's better than it was, because the accusations are gone now, what's been dug up has either been forgotten or left alone or maybe it has changed lives, but people are moving on. sweeping it under the rug like it never even happened.

there are some divorces in the following weeks—the couples whose infidelity was discovered. the police chase a few domestic abuse reports. steve handles a few of them, because he's learned to handle the punches now. there'a crackdown on illicit substances. steve and robin are glad eddie's quit all of that now, that he had given it up years ago.

the world stops ending. steve knows it'll end again someday, more often if he ever ends up in a big city. but for now, it's over and he can go back to his boring old police routine.

steve likes "boring" these days. boring is a safety net, something to fall back into when things get exciting.

the other thing steve likes about policework—it is exciting. sometimes. sometimes, it makes him feel alive again.

[ralphlanyon]

For the TC ask game: 2, 6, 10, 15, 17, 22, and 24!

2. Scene that lives in your head rent free.

So many! But I'll go with "Come and say goodbye to me," which speaks for itself.

6. Wackiest (but hilarious) Laurie opinion™.

Laurie trying to convince himself that Ralph and Bunny are happily in love despite all evidence to the contrary and that he isn't incredibly jealous and resentful of Bunny!

10. Laurie/Andrew and Laurie/Ralph: discuss.

Obviously I'm a Ralph Lanyon and Ralph/Laurie girlie through and through! I think they are just extremely similar and compatible, in terms of their personalities, their idealism, their values, their sense of humor, their beliefs and attitudes towards queerness and towards the war, their past trauma, their need to be needed, their intense loneliness and desire for intimacy and affection (and of course Renault makes it clear that they are very sexually compatible). They also both understand what it's like to be abandoned by a parent, to become permanently and visibly disabled by war injury, and to not feel a sense of belonging or attachment to anywhere. So many themes and parallels with their relationship - it makes the literature nerd in me happy. 🤩

Laurie/Andrew doesn't have nearly the same emotional pull for me, although intellectually I get its place in the novel and Laurie's development. Part of it is that for most of the book Laurie seems to be unconsciously projecting his fantasy of school-age Ralph onto Andrew (as well as various moral ideals), so I never felt like I got to truly know Andrew as a person (or that Laurie did, for that matter), just what Laurie thinks he is, or ought to be. It's not an accident I think that Andrew is the same age as Ralph when we first meet him (and when Laurie last sees him at school) and that he often feels less a fully fleshed out character than an ideal Laurie carries in his head.

15. At which point did you know TC was going to be One Of Those Books for you?

Haha, I will have you know that the first time I read the book, I was being perfectly normal about it up until the party chapter, and then Ralph showed up again and ruined my life and now I'm here eight years later still totally obsessed! If it had ended unhappily with Ralph dying or Laurie and Ralph not getting back together (which would have been the conventional Queer Novel ending back then), I probably would have just moved on, but it had the temerity to actually end on a hopeful/happy note so I guess I'm just going to be invested forever.

17. Most ??? passage (ambiguous/unclear/etc)

"As Laurie got up he found he was levering himself on a pile of hymn books; some almost submerged tactile memory remarked, Ancient and Modern, not Songs of Praise." I was not Raised In A Christian Home and still do not get why that distinction is at all relevant, lol.

22. What was the soldier at the party about to reveal about Alec/Ralph?

Hmm, I actually didn't interpret it as being about Alec/Ralph specifically, just about Ralph! I thought he was going to drop some salacious gossip about Ralph's sex life or kinks - like "The man acts all uptight and strait-laced, disapproving of everything going on here, but I hear this is how he really behaves when he's in bed..." And then Laurie cuts him off with, "I've known him for years," which the soldier interprets as, "I've slept with him," prompting him to ask Laurie for confirmation if the sex gossip about Ralph is true.

24. Most surprisingly modern aspect of TC.

I guess actually acknowledging that bisexuality exists, even briefly? Ralph rattling off the historical figures he considers bisexuals and Ralph and Laurie talking about Shakespeare being "normal plus, not minus" amusingly remind me of how queer people nowadays discuss their favorite queer historical icons.

[princess-unipeg]

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish was so epic it served up 3 flavors of antagonists

First up I want to talk about Goldie Locks and the three bears. In this incarnation Goldie is part of the family as the adopted sister/daughter. Despite the fact they are a crime family they love and bicker like a close typical family. They went after the map to the wishing Star since it was what Goldie wanted. What she wanted (or what she thought she wanted) was a human family. By no means it’s not like she wanted to get rid of her bear family. Goldie was taught by story books that having a family that was the same species as her is what she needed to be complete. But Perrito convinced her that she already got what she needed right in front of her. Goldie rejected the wish for a human family in favor of the bear family that was always by her side. It’s why she and the three bears are the survivors along with Puss, Softpaws and Purrito to make it out of the ordeal unlike Big Jack Horner.

Big Jack Horner is the typical cartoon villain that you root against since he has little to no redeeming qualities to him. Like he was plucked straight out of a Shrek story. His desires are completely selfish and his motives equally so. He wanted all the power in the world since he was bitter his tale is nothing more then an obscure nursery rhyme. Despite Big Jack having everything else, loving parents, childhood stability and a thriving pastry empire for him to inherit it was not enough for him. His privilege allowed him to bypass the obstacles with the fairytale items he stole and the loyal employees he literally stepped on. It was easy to celebrate his downfall especially with the cricket who tried to act as his conscience deliver the finishing blow.

Let’s not forget the most epic antagonist of all. Death himself in form of a bounty hunter white wolf. A force of nature who can never truly be defeated. When he got tired of Puss in Boots having wasted his extra lives so carelessly, Death figured he would just come after him even with the last life he has left. Death actually put true fear into Puss when many others failed to do the same. He’s the reason why Puss went on the wishing Star quest. Why Puss became more fearful throughout the story. With Death’s eerie whistle and his imposing presence Death wasn’t someone to trifle with. Though Death was shown not to be an outright villain. When Puss in Boots got his fiery courage back with the conviction to fight for his life, Death admits defeat for now with grace. He leaves Puss for the time being allowing him to fully live out his last life until the time comes.

This movie is not bad for something that started as a spin-off of a spin-off of a blatant cash grab franchise.

[redwineconversation]

Kadidiatou Diani Signing to Olympique Lyonnais

First of all I cannot wait to see how many fake football blogs get Diani's full first name wrong. (You're not her pal!! Don't use the nickname!)

Anyway, let's just grab a cup of tea and have a good and proper chat about things. Semi-annoyed at having to do this, but apparently there are a lot of so-called football experts who suddenly have deep insights about a team I'm not fully convinced they even knew existed prior to 2021.

Right, first thing I want to nip in the bud is the belief that Diani signing somehow telegraphs a Hegerberg exit. Again, shouldn't have to explain this, but critical thinking seems to be a bit too much to ask for some football fans, so alas. Here we are. Diani is a right winger. This means she plays on the right. Hegerberg is a center forward. This means she plays in the middle of the attack. If you are on the right, you are not in the middle; if you are in the middle, you are not on the right. Two separate positions. Right is different from middle. Cannot believe I have to spell it out in such simple terms.

"Diani played as a center forward this season!" you argue, not without cause. Yep, she sure did! Now, since you didn't realize that football actually existed prior to 2021 or 2022, you probably haven't heard of this player called Marie-Antoinette Katoto. She played center forward for PSG, got injured right before the Euros, had to sit out the entire season. That is why she found herself as center forward. It's not her natural position.

So if anything, it puts Cascarino's future at Lyon at play, not Hegerberg's. And even if then I think it's too early to try reading tea leaves - there has been zero movement on the bigger 2024 contracts (Hegerberg, M'Bock, Cascarino, Endler) and I don't think that it means that much. I don't expect a ton of movement on those ones until both the World Cup is over and Kang has officially taken over.

But going back to Cascarino. The plus side is that it was a partial ACL tear, so I don't think she will be sidelined as long as if it were a full tear. But this is still her second ACL injury, we don't know what her form will look like once she is back, she's talented enough that it's not worth rushing her back from injury. It's nice to have reliable cover until that happens.

The down side is realistically those players are too good to have one of them sitting on the bench, so that's why I think it telegraphs more a Cascarino possible departure than it does a Hegerberg one. That being said, the last time Cascarino tore her ACL, everyone and their mother wrote Cascarino off, and it was Aulas who gave her a second chance. TBD if Kang shows the same faith, and whether it is enough for Cascarino.

With that in mind, let's discuss how to get away with murder how to survive a scandal the Hamraoui affair, because obviously everyone else is going to be talking about it.

Hamraoui was the victim and it's shocking, absolutely shocking, at how badly PSG mismanaged the situation. Their casual disregard towards her is unethical bordering on criminal. I can't blame her for wanting to burn the world down. Scorch the earth, everyone finds a blow torch therapeutic on some level.

Now, you can argue that Diani wasn't directly involved, and that may be true, but it's also a hell of an argument to make in good faith. Diani's husband was directly involved, to the point that he was even questioned by police. Diallo's closest friends were/are Katoto and Diani. To pretend neither of them had any knowledge nor any involvement in the scandal requires a hell of a leap of faith.

So why did Lyon, who for all its faults usually does manage to keep the locker room under control, end up signing arguably one of the most controversial players?

Part of it, if we're honest, is simply Lyon flexing. Every time Lyon loses, the popular narrative becomes we are witnessing the team's downfall and they will never recover. This is Lyon simply reminding other teams that they don't have a statute of limitation on resurrections.

It's also Kang displaying a message of intent to the Lyon players, and I think that's actually something people are failing to grasp. Kang is showing the money is there, that they can attract top players and pay them accordingly. This is, realistically, something that will come into play for the bigger 2024 contracts whom I named earlier. Kang has to win them over. In a weird way, this is a financial gesture of good faith. I put the money down, your turn to deliver.

But money doesn't necessarily translate to control over the locker room. I said privately that I would be shocked if there weren't very, very tight clauses in that contract to ensure that what happened at PSG won't happen at Lyon. While it is true that PSG isn't run the same way Lyon is - both Kang and Aulas actually care about women's football, for example - the reality is that Kang is not Aulas, and so the ability to make the locker room fall in line has yet to be tested.

So what will happen with Diani at Lyon? From a footballing perspective, Lyon strengthened their right side, crippled their biggest rival, and sent a warning shot to UWCL contenders that they aren't quite yet willing to concede their throne.

But from a personnel perspective, a lot remains to be seen. Diani probably won't be able to pull the same shit with Lyon as she did with PSG, simply because the two clubs are run differently, and even with the paycheck, she won't be catapulted to the top of the hierarchy.

The question is will she try to change that, and how will Lyon react if she does. We don't know. And I'm not exactly thrilled that we may have to find out.

[little-klng]

Wait wait wait tell us abt the Walmart piercer please!! That sounds horrible!

WHEEZE so like, graphic description+picture of scarring from a botched piercing below the cut,, but,,

I have 8 total ear piercings (I do intend on getting more) but currently only have 4 in one ear and 2 in the other, and the two most recent holes on my left ear are closed up and scarred over. I've always gotten them done at Walmart (because all of them were from childhood where I didn't get a choice of piercer), and for the last set of earrings I got (the ones that are closed now) I was 18 and tried very very hard to convince my mom to let me get them done by a real piercer and not a piercing gun. I tried to explain that they're dangerous and result in infections really often because the people using them often aren't trained very well and they're rarely actually sanitized. I didn't have control over my own transportation at the time, so I didn't have a way to do it differently when my mom said "no it's fine, we've both always gotten them done by piercing guns and it's never gone bad" (not true, she has something like 12 piercings and has had to have several redone too)

So we end up going to Walmart to get it done, and red flag #1 they had to redo the pen mark like 4-5 times to line up the piercings evenly on both sides, red flag #2 the piercer didn't actually speak to me, she spoke to my mom and barely looked at me except to line up the gun, and red flag #3 she was also chatting to her coworker more than she was paying attention to what she was loading into the piercing gun (we had to stop her and course correct that they had to be *gold bars*, not silver, because I'm allergic to metals that aren't gold and it'll need to come straight out and a new one will need to be put in. We already picked the bars, she just had a few out and kept picking up the wrong ones because she wasn't paying attention. Bonus red flag, she didn't sanitize the piercings or the gun, and when I pointed it out, she basically ignored me and told my mom instead that "we sanitize it afterwards anyway, so it doesn't matter" (basically hoping+assuming the person before her had done a good enough job, however long ago that was)

First pierce went "okay" (it was a little crooked but didn't hurt much, it was only later when I needed to change the bars for hoops that I realized how crooked, because it still lies weird in my ear and pointed towards my face instead of straight ahead) but the second one was 1. No warning 2. Extremely painful and made me flinch with the gun still in my ear because 3. She had fully turned her head away from me to talk to a passing customer she knew and was excited to see right before she pulled the trigger. The result was a hole that was in the wrong place entirely (too far down, close to another piercing below it), very bleedy/weepy, and a weirdly "corkscrewed" hole? When I had to change the bar to a hoop, it took 45 minutes and a LOT of tears to twist it around inside until it finally came out the other side. For the year that I insisted on keeping it in (because I couldn't redo it) (personal reasons yknow how it is) I suffered constant reinfections, internal pus spots inside of my ear, ear infections in general, migraines, generally getting sick more often, infection of the already-established piercing below it, and eventual rejection of both the original and lower piercing that meant I had to remove and close both holes and just bank on being able to repierce as an adult (I was 18 when it was pierced, 19 when this happened, and I'm turning 23 this year and it's still not redone lol)

Here's how it looks now, sorry about the blurry photo, my phone won't focus properly in front cam mode

You can see just how long I let them both reject for before I gave up lmao (scars are the puffy lighter parts above the two hoops, for those unfamiliar)

And here's the other side, so you can see just how crooked that piercing really is. No, I'm not holding my ear weird, it just sits like that and bothers me when I wear headphones. I considered letting this hole close too and just getting it redone, but I wanted to talk to a real piercer first and get their opinion on if it can be fixed first since I've never actually spoken to one or know the limitations of piercing over existing scars

Anyway yeah don't do piercing guns, kids, and don't make your kids do piercing guns either if they ask you for a real piercer appointment :|

[rostekhorn]

This is not over. There are probably still ways the donors could ball this up for all of us. I'll definitely breathe a little easier after the convention has actually happened. BUT, it's been encouraging as hell watching the party deny the donors the victory they really wanted.

Something the last few days have reminded me of: the 2020 primary and Mike Bloomberg. Even with the acrimonious Hillbot vs Berniebro divide that had never fully healed from 2016, even with all the money Bloomberg was bringing to the table, even with the party desperate for unity in the face of Trump, all the non-Bloomberg candidates coordinated to concentrate all fire on Bloomberg at the first debate until he was fatally wounded. Because no, they were not going to let a literal Republican plutocrat walk in and try to take over the party.

Despite everything that's said about it (not all of it wrong by any means), the twenty first century Democratic Party does, in fact, have a sense of self that's independent from its donors. And while the politicians too often act like panicky herd animals, most of them do in fact have a notion that the party should stand for something more than just rich people's bank accounts. All that Third Way/DLC stuff the base of the party excoriates? The politicians don't want to go back to that either. Most of them got into politics because they want to accomplish something, not just be a billionaire's sock puppet.

(I also have a private theory that part of the reason this is true is that the late twentieth century convinced any of them who might have thought otherwise that becoming the Rich People's Party was chasing fool's gold. Carter and Clinton damn near gave the rich everything they wanted, and the rich - and their mouthpiece, the media - still spit on them every chance they got and treated them like beggars who had to be chased away from their doorstep by any means necessary. The rich already have their club, and it's the Republicans. Not us. Nothing the Democrats can do is going to convince them to break that up, so the Democrats might as well go back to what they're good at. And they have).

“Are we willing to fight for it?” Crowd: “YES!” “And when we fight?” Crowd: “WE WIN!” — Kamala Harris to campaign staff, 22 July 2024

That’s right, the “if we fight we win” isn’t from me this time. It’s from Kamala Harris, and I am kind of in shock.

One of the things I most feared about the “replace Biden” movement was the donor class yanking the party right again and hand-picking an all old white dudes ticket and absolutely tanking every chance we had of winning this election and stopping Trumpism for good.

Politically active Black people I know personally were expecting that to happen, because that kind of shit has happened so many times. And when political Black people talk about this shit in the Democratic party, you better listen, because their history on this stuff is solid.

I mean, that’s not the only reason I feared it, I have plenty of my own experience watching this same shit go down. But it’s a big one.

That – and all the many money and organisational problems I have described which would result – was about the biggest problem I had with replacing Biden. Particularly once it was clear the money people were moving on it so hard. I was so sure they’d do again what they’ve always done, slide the top of the ticket back to the “right,” repudiating so much economic and climate good the Biden administration has done, trying to haul us back to Clintinesque neoliberalism which would fail more spectacularly than ever before.

That’s also why I was an instant loud and dare I say it strident pivot to Harris when Biden actually did drop out – it was all to stop that money move from happening. That’s why I was out Sunday as loud and long as I could be, shouting, “WHITE PEOPLE, GET HER THE NOMINATION. FUCKING DO IT” while various usual clowns and dilettantes wibbled on demanding an ‘open convention’ and nattering about a ‘flash primary’ and going off about ‘not voting for a cop’ and the wretched spectre of Joe Manchin dipped a skeletal toe into the race.

None of that was an option. It’s still not an option. It had to be her; it has to be her.

And that speech I’m quoting shows why.

I’m still stunned. I never expected to hear a presidential candidate echoing my own words back at me.

I mean, Biden understands exactly what we’re dealing with – fash propaganda aside, he really is still all there, and his words show it. But he’s not able to frame it that way, it’s just not who he is. To see a candidate frame it like this… exactly like this… that’s something new. And I did not expect it.

I am so rarely truly surprised in politics. It has been a while since I have been surprised at all.

This has surprised me.

Another political writer I follow described her as the first Generation X candidate, and maybe that’s why. Technically she’s like two months too early for GenX, she’s in that transition zone, but y’know what? If she wants to grab that label I am fine with that, because those are some words from someone who fucking gets it. From someone who has figured it the fuck out.

Go watch her speech, particularly, oh… the “I know Donald Trump’s type” section starts around 19 minutes in, but the part after that, that’s where it really starts to matter, at 21:45. Here, I timestamped for you, hopefully it’ll work where you’re reading this and if not, just skip ahead:

I’ve been saying – this is the turning point year. The peak year of a fascist movement weakened but not destroyed by self-inflicted wounds of COVID, the last year of the backstop, the year after which we can start to win.

But still I expected that this year that we’d still have to fight under the old rules, playing the old games of the Baby Boom, even if I knew that one final year of holding would shatter it all, and let us make and play by new rules in ’26 and ’28.

Hence, one more year of the bulwark, one more year of the hold.

Until two days ago, on Sunday, July 21st, 2024, that was exactly how it was playing out.

Then a political miracle happened. Biden left the race and the donor class didn’t get their push to the right, and some of them apparently didn’t even want it because they dropped money again the moment Harris announced her campaign.

I guess maybe those rich bastards finally learned a thing or two about not throwing elections.

And that means…

…maybe we don’t have to wait ’til ’26 and ’28.

Maybe it’s not one last hold after all, before the spring.

Maybe the rules can change now.

Maybe Millennials and Zoomers are going to seize the moment this year.

If they do – if you do, if you go in, if you mean it, if you don’t waver and trip yourself up in details and personality and propaganda and purity tests and and and all of it…

…then…

…this year won’t just be a hold.

This year will be the fucking landslide we have needed for eight years now to wipe Trumpism and its like off the map for a century.

Wanna make that happen?

France and England have shown us the way, and christ, I want to make that happen.

How about you? You up for it? You ready to do the work?

Let’s go, then. Everybody.

All in.

104 days remain.

[corvidcrybaby]

Uh ohhhh I'm back with more rambling on Y/N/reader insert fanfic

Now that I'm a few months out from when I finished a Y/N fic I've been going back and ruminating on the emotions I was feeling that I wanted to give a place to live when i wrote that

When I decided to write a Y/N fic it was largely on a whim. A ton of the time I was flying by the seat of my pants and it shows - for me, that's part of the charm. The death metal aesthetic especially centers on sloppy, unsophisticated and choppy execution of ideas the people creating them find so g-ddamn compelling that they simply can't wait to get them out there. But for me it was beyond this.

I've talked before about how Alucard was my bisexual awakening in terms of my taste in men - I had one when I was a teen but to me that doesn't really count since I was, yanno, a child who knew nothing of intimacy and actual interpersonal attraction. Moreover, I've talked about how when I first watched Hellsing as much as I found Alucard relentlessly compelling, my attraction to him was something I suppressed so deep and so hard that I really didn't process what it was until like last summer.

This, for what I believe, comes from the internalized androphobia I developed over time as a closeted bisexual kid with rampant gender dysphoria. I knew I was into men, but I didn't want men to be into me - because I didn't want to be a man's boyfriend, I wanted to be viewed as a girl. But I didn't fully get that at the time (transfemme egg things). Hence, my aversion. Over time, this aversion grew so strong that I developed this intense complex about attraction to men such that I was legitimately convinced that if I dared to act on my attraction to men in any real capacity, I'd get hurt, badly. Whether out of fear of being seen as a """trap""" or just as a gross sexual deviant, I can't really say. All I knew was, I only felt safe talking to men over text - ESPECIALLY cis men, which was some internalized cisnormativity I had to unpack as I got older.

Nevertheless, it makes all too much sense to me now why I was so fixated on Alucard. 1. He was fictional, and therefore posed no true threat to me, 2. At the same time, being a vampire, he represents the idea of taboo or dangerous sexuality and sensuality, which combined make him a one-two-punch to someone dealing with repressed sexuality regarding attraction to men. 3. being a MAN'S man, is far more outwardly masculine than any irl mascs I had experience with irl (only dated pretty femboys prior to this).

Tying all this together was the time I began HRT and finally began to detangle the mess of emotions that was my sexual and romantic orientation. I've cracked jokes about how shit turned on a dime for me regarding being attracted to that particular fictional man but it was so so so fucking true. I eventually grew so fascinated by this conundrum/Catch-22 of "I'm attracted to men but I am terrified of them" plus "Alucard is a gorgeous deadly attractive man but is a vampire and is therefore designed to be both deadly and beautiful down to the last atom" that eventually I came to view him as this perfect personification of my own personal repression and, eventually, my escape from it.

These feelings grew so strong and I spent so much time poring over them that I eventually decided the most productive thing for me to do for self-exploration was to deadass just write a story about it and build a narrative that would allow me to vicariously experience that feeling of "this seems so stupidly dangerous but I cannot escape how drawn to it I am, until I find out that, sike, it can actually be okay, and there's nothing wrong with wanting things that seem scary just because people around you make it seem that way."

[quindolyn]

subby Jamie fluffy (Smut?) where he wakes up in the middle of the night and sucks on the readers titties to drink from her tits because she's lactating after giving birth to their daughter. I don't know if this makes sense but I hope it does!

Lactation Kink || James Potter

A/N: I'm not even sure if I should include "kink" but I will admit that there are some very smutty overtones so read at your own discretion. I tweaked the request a little bit in terms of the circumstances but the bones are still there. I hope you enjoy.

Warnings: lactation kink, light sub!James and Dom!reader, not much I don't think, all acts are completely consensual and if they needed a safe word they'd have one

Word Count: 1851

Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were life savers. They could only watch their two closest friends creep closer and closer to death for so long before doing something about it.

After giving birth to a beautiful baby boy seven months ago you and James had come to understand a new definition of the word exhaustion. You were absolutely enamoured with your baby boy, James the same way if not worse, always keeping him cradled in his arms, Harry’s little head nestled into the crook of James’ arm.

Regardless, there is no amount of parental love to counteract the complete lack of sleep the two of you have endured. “Sleep when the baby sleeps” they all say, it's excellent in theory if only the baby would actually sleep.

No, instead you and James were subject to months of newborn induced insomnia,

You’d barely understood what Remus and Sirius were saying when they offered to watch your son for a few days, give you and James some time alone. Even though every part of your being screamed for you to take them up on their offer there was that small, annoyingly persistent, voice in the back of your head. The voice of maternal guilt.

Your friends wouldn’t hear any of your arguments, listening as you insisted that Harry was still far too young for you to leave him, you could barely stand a few hours, how were you supposed to survive days?

Despite your insistence that it was far too early to leave Harry with his godfathers for an extended weekend when the following Thursday rolled around you and James were rather unceremoniously kicked out of your own house, told that reservations had been made for you at an expensive spa and resort and that you were not to return home until the following Monday.

They’d even packed your bags for you.

You and James had successfully made it through the first night away from your baby, your quality of your sleep however was not up to par as you tossed and turned, worrying about the little boy you’d left at home.

Even cuddled up to Jamie’s chest your sleep was more like a light sheet over your consciousness giving you a shallow, unsatisfactory, reprieve.

What you needed was for sleep to hit you over the head with a baseball bat, knock you unconscious for hours and give your body time to recover.

After a long, exhausting day of taking advantage of the resort's numerous spa treatments, your wish of deep, meaningful sleep seemed as though it might actually just come true.

Minutes after laying your head down on the pillow, James slipping into bed behind you, you were out cold. Pulling you closer so that he could bury his face in the crook of your neck James was close behind you.

Finally, sleep.

-----

Your tits hurt, they fucking hurt. You were finally getting some quality sleep but the discomfort in your chest became intolerable and you were lulled back into a dreaded state of consciousness.

You’d been so ready for sleep and the peace that it would bring that you’d forgotten to pump your milk before getting into bed. You find yourself regretting that decision now, you shift slightly in James’ hold, just as tight as it had been when you’d fallen asleep. The clock on the bedside table reads three in the morning.

Fuck me, you think, your thoughts still blurry from sleep, carrying a weight in your temples that lures your head back down to the pillow as you fall back into your spot in James’ arms. You’re going to have to get up eventually, that much you understand, but the prospect of getting up and finding the pump, hooking it up, then actually sitting there while you pump sounds nothing short of absolutely dreadful.

You can only lay there for so long, on your back so as not to apply any pressure to your breasts, staring up at the ceiling before your tits go from hurting to feeling like they’re about to explode.

Eventually you’re forced to begin to fuss in James’ arms, trying to find the seal that will let you get up hopefully without waking your husband.

Even asleep James’ grip is insistent, he’s like quick sand, the more you try to maneuver your way out of his arms the tighter his hold gets, the closer he pulls you to him.

“Jamie, you gotta let go,” You murmur, hoping to appeal to the half asleep man.

“Where you going, angel?” His voice is the crashing of a wave against the shore in your ears, low, rumbling, calming. That voice alone is enough to have you considering just climbing back into bed with him, exploding tits be damned.

“Forgot to pump Jamie, m’tits feel like they’re ready to explode.”

He flickers his eyes open, worry etched into his irises, already blanketed in sleep, “Hurting?” Raising his head his eyes drop to your tits, like maybe he’ll be able to see your affliction.

“A little bit,” You nod, your hands combing through his unruly curls before making another attempt to rise from the mattress, “Gonna pump and then I’ll feel all better. I’ll be quick.”

“No,” He whines, god you miss the sound of his whine. His arms are like steel as he pulls you firmly back onto the bed, “M’thirsty anyways.”

Confusion heightens in you before James turns you so you’re fully on your back before slipping under your arm, resting his head on your chest.

Nimble fingers find the neckline of the silk camisole you’d found in the luggage Remus and Sirius had packed for you, sons of bitches also packed every single pair of lacy panties you own.

With little difficulty he slips the thin strap down your shoulder allowing him to tuck the soft material of the top under your breast.

“Miss my girls,” He whispers as he bares your breasts, they’re swollen with milk but the way he’s looking at you you’d think they were something far more precious.

“I’ll be gentle,” His promise comes just as he latches onto your pert nipple, carefully guarding his teeth with his lips, the last thing he would wanna do is hurt you.

It bears little resemblance to the way he used to suck your tits, fervently like they were the only things keeping him grounded, sometimes they had been. Now he proceeds with a new sense of caution but that doesn’t mean it’s any less pleasurable.

“Jamesie, ‘s for Harry, you can’t drink the baby’s milk,” You regrettably push him off your tit, he looks anything but pleased.

“They were mine first,” He whines, throwing you a dirty glance that falls completely flat given the immense adoration that lies just behind it, “And I told you (Y/N), ‘m thirsty, want your milk. Wanna make you feel good.”

Giving you his most convincing puppy dog eyes he leans back in, he latches on efficiently and sucking with an increased vigor you feel a feeling of fullness swell in your breast as your nipple tingles. It’s a feeling you’ve gotten used to but so rarely has it ever turned you on as when James is the cause of it.

He hums in satisfaction as the warm milk seeps into his mouth, it encourages him in his efforts causing him to latch on tighter. A little too tight.

“Easy there baby,” You hiss, “M’tits are sensitive.”’

He complies immediately, loosening his lips around your nipple the sensation becomes pleasurable once more. The pleasure helps distract from the discomfort which, at least in the tit James it latched onto, seems to be dwindling. The other breast is left aching until you feel a similar sensation coming from your nipple.

“You’re leaking.”

Casting your eyes downward you see that he’s right, you’re leaking slightly out of your unattended nipple. It's not unusual for it to happen but usually you just brush it away with a warm washcloth, not wanting to have a sticky mess on your chest.

Carefully, he brushes the pad of his thumb over the over sensitive bud.

“Can’t let it go to waste,” He brings his thumb to his mouth to suck it clean, the visual is almost enough to make your head spin.

You can’t remember the last time you saw James subby, ever since you’ve had Harry it's been sleepy handjobs and once you fully recovered, him pushing you up anywhere he could and taking you right there. It’s like parenthood awoke something far more dominant inside of him but as he latches back onto your tit you’re reminded how beautiful he is when he submits to you.

You wrap your arms around his neck, letting your fingers dance along the nape of his neck as you feel yourself unwinding with every second he sucks at your tit, bringing you relief.

“You full yet?”

He gently lets your tit slide from his mouth before responding, “Does it still hurt?”

The genuine concern in his voice has butterflies erupting in your stomach, you learned a long time ago just how sweet and caring James is but sometimes it hits you harder than you were expecting and you’re left feeling just as giddy as you did in the beginning of your relationship.

James seems to have sucked you dry, or at least to a point where your tit no longer burns with the feeling of an impending explosion.

“No s’all better baby, did such a good job,” You guide his face up towards yours, “Got a little milk on your lips,” You lean in, kissing the milk off his swollen lips.

It’s sweeter than you expected but maybe everything was sweeter coming off his lips.

You take your time admiring his face, hazel eyes that look a little more brown than they did yesterday, lips an impossible pink. Thick, long lashes you remember envying for as long as you’ve known each other cast their shadows along his cheekbones. He’s perfect.

You run the pad of your thumb along his bottom lip before letting him suck it into his mouth, when he couldn’t get to your tits sucking on your fingers always used to help James calm down. For the life of you you can’t remember the last time he’d sucked on your fingers. If it’d been in the last seven months you’d probably just been too tired to remember.

Letting your digit slide from his mouth James hauls himself over you, careful not to brush against your breasts, to lay on your other side. He moves with a surprising grace considering just minutes ago he’d been in the throws of sleep, you’d forgotten how well he moved.

“Other one now,” He murmurs, eyes glued to your tit as his hands move to cup it, giving him better access to your nipple.

“You sure baby? I can just pump this one and you can go back to bed, s’okay.”

“No,” His brows furrow with his empathic response, if he wasn’t already on top of you you’re sure he’d pull you closer in fear that you might escape, “Mine.”

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[memryse]

many thoughts about Scar in Last Life

We all know Scar is one of the standouts of Last Life; he’s always been one of the key players ever since 3rd Life, driving conflicts and shaping the course of the server. His chaotic nature lends itself perfectly to 3rd/Last Life, and he seems to have only refined it in the hiatus between seasons.

In 3rd Life, Scar was more of a subjective villain. From his own perspective and Grian’s perspective, he wasn’t scary at all! The two of them were just having fun and causing problems – sure, they threatened people, but their dumb antics together made them just feel like two friends messing around; their POV was lighthearted until the final session, really. From other perspectives, however (particularly Dogwarts’ POVs), that was not how the two of them came across. They felt malicious, scary in how casually they approached such a bloodthirsty game. They’d laugh as they took lives, showing no care for anybody but themselves – they’d betray their allies in a heartbeat without an ounce of remorse, and the rest of the players knew it. Scar wasn’t someone to fear from his own POV.

Since Last Life began, however, Scar has become very openly malicious. Even watching his own POV, it’s hard to see him as anything but a villain – his own comment section is full of people commenting on how scary he suddenly seems. I want to expand on some of these villainous moments, because holy fuck, Scar.

In session 1, Scar is certainly a prominent figure, but we mostly get to see his classic silly Scar antics. Sure, he plans on “selling souls”, but it feels like the equivalent of his reputation points in S1. We still don’t get the sense of him going full villain arc yet. He allies with Joel and commits a crime, and we all expect another lighthearted Scar scam which definitely does not go to plan.

And that is what happened… sort of. He’s immediately caught by Scott and Pearl, etc etc etc. The two of them cheerfully agree a scheme to try and kill Jimmy, but that casual discussion of murder is as bad as they get.

Session 2, Scar is chosen as one of the two boogeymen, alongside Joel.

Things go decidedly not to plan immediately. The two of them had agreed last session to try and kill Jimmy, and were supposed to be trusting enough to tell each other if they’re the boogeyman – and yet what does Scar do? Immediately try and push Joel into lava. He’d betray Joel without a second thought – already a contrast to 3rdLife, where upon turning red Scar threw flowers at Grian and asked if they could still be friends. He doesn’t succeed, of course, and Scar and Joel realise they’re both boogeymen, before parting ways.

Scar heads to the nether, where he immediately decides to deceive Etho and Bdubs into thinking he’s weak and has no food, so that he can get close to them nonthreateningly or something. I’ll talk about this more later, but here we get to see what a good liar Scar actually is. People want to assume that he’s all bark and no bite, that he’s a schemer who poses no real threat – when Scar plays into this, he can be reallyconvincing.

The next big moment I want to talk about is, of course, Joel’s trap. The first thing to comment on here is that Scar cries “Joel, are you trying to kill your best buddy?!”, and I can’t work out whether this is Scar acting to diffuse suspicion, or genuine surprise that he’d pull the trap when Scar was right there, but either way it definitely has the former effect. None of the Southlanders suspect Scar in the slightest. Until Scar murders Mumbo in a matter of seconds.

What’s really horrifying about this is that Scar had been begging Mumbo to ally with him just last session. And yet here… not only does he go for Mumbo without hesitation, his reaction afterwards is downright chilling. He just laughs, and tells the others “Welcome to Magical Mountain!” – it’s really quite like a movie villain in how little he seems to care. He doesn’t actually say a word about killing Mumbo; again, despite having desperately wanted to ally with him. To Scar, this was nothing more than an opportunity. Or maybe it’s all a show to him. Maybe it’s both. Scar doesn’t actually care about winning this game – to him, it’s more fun to put on as good a show as possible, and drag as many people down with him as possible (which is definitely a “cc!Scar being a good entertainer” thing, but it translates very well into being a LL!Scar character trait too).

He then hands Joel some supplies, and with the exact same level of nonchalance, tells him to go burn Scott and Pearl’s house down. I’m… getting the sense he enjoyed burning down Etho’s castle in 3rdLife.

Not much of note happens during his subsequent conversation with the Southlanders beyond him failing an initiation spectacularly – after this, he heads back to Joel. They chat from opposite ends of a broken bridge, which is quite a poetic scene honestly, representing the gap between their lives, the destruction of their alliance, etc. I’m just here to talk about Scar’s villainous moments, though, so let me point out one specific line from this conversation.

“I did avenge you, to be fair - Mumbo, I burned him to death, which was enjoyable. I heard him cry, so it was- yeah, that was a thing.”

Just… what the fuck, Scar? What? I know he tried to push the “red lives are psychopathic and feel nothing except a small sense of happiness when people die” in 3rd Life, but this was definitely a lie or at least an exaggeration, because 3l!Scar definitely had a much wider range of emotions than that. Either way, here he doesn’t even have the excuse of being a red life; this is just active malice, pure and simple. Bdubs had a similar level of pride in his boogeyman kill, but I never got the sense that he enjoyed it like Scar did.

Scar goes off to visit Scott and Pearl, and figure out whether they have the enchanting table or not. Note the emphasis on simply figuring it out, not actually getting the enchanting table. Here’s where I want to talk about Scar being a great liar: he fully convinces them into thinking that he was willing to trade lives for the enchanting table, and then he convinces them that he’s so desperate to get the table that he’ll lie about Joel burning their house down. The thing is, Scar had no intention of ever getting the table at that moment – he wasn’t going to trade lives for it to begin with. He’d try his luck at threatening them, but nothing more. He got exactly what he wanted out of that situation: proof. Meanwhile, Scott and Pearl were left believing they’d outwitted him, that they’d called his bluff and bullied him into leaving. They never saw his true intentions, never saw him as an actual threat. Scar is much smarter than people believe, which only makes him all the more threatening.

And finally, he goes on to prove this intelligence even further. He figures out that Scott and Pearl planned to trade for the enchanting table simply by seeing Scott ask Lizzie if she’s home in chat. He then goes to visit Lizzie, and she tells him she declined their offer. What’s notable about this scene is how much less belligerent Scar is than usual: he readily accepts what Lizzie says for once in his life and leaves without being too annoying about it. He later talks about lulling the others into a false sense of security, letting them think he’s not after the enchanting table anymore; that makes me think his visit to Lizzie was purely to confirm that the offer was even made, and he’s now certain that she accepted it. It’s not hard to work out, especially if he noticed her life count.

So, all in all, if you’re not scared of Scar in Last Life, you most definitely should be.

Did I forget to mention he’s currently tied for the highest life count on the server?

[never-ending-fanfic]

I guessed it

Let me rant

Star Wars as of the entirety of it was my dear fixation once around junior high, then I got into atla and voltron for a while and forgot about it. My point is, the fixation happened before the premiere of Rebels and only carried on during it's early seasons, then it stopped and I found something else, so I missed out on the premieres of the rest of the seasons.

Then one summer a few years ago, I needed some background noise and rewatched 1st season of Rebels and then carried on with the rest that I never saw before (I watched the 1st season when it first aired in my country, if I recall correctly). I had NO knowledge of the rest of the seasons, because I haven't been interested in Star Wars for years at that point. By the time I watched the 2nd season I suspected this might turn into fixation again and I was totally okay with it.

Back to Kallus tho

It's safe to say I hated his guts early on and literally at the beginning of 'The Honourable Ones' I still couldn't stand him. I had no idea what would happen in that episode, I went in completely blind. Which was just perfect, because by the time I realised what was happening (if I recall correctly, my exact thoughts were: am I about to witness 'enemies have to work together' trope? Yes past me, that's exactly that and more) it stopped being simply background show to my other hobbies. I watched that episode and as I learned about Kallus, I was shocked to see that I had some sympathy growing in me for him. It started around the moment he decided not to shoot Zeb but instead the creature- that was the moment I went 'there's still something in him, then'. And it only got more intense. Especially at the end. I specifically remember recording a voice message to my Star Wars Clueless Bestie™ explaining everything in detail and how I hope that Kallus turns good and that the creators don't miss a chance to be fucking iconic with his redemption arc. By the time I reached the momemt he came back, I was fully convinced that it was happening.

Then he was not in a few episodes, so I forgot about it and lost a bit of that hope that stirred in me then. UNTIL that one Fulcrum transmission. No idea how exactly it sounds in English, but in Polish the voice was not very easily recognisable through the transmission, the only thing I had was the mannerisms of the one speaking and I remember having so. much. hope. SO MUCH HOPE that it was Kallus. I was not sure, I only knew I wanted it to happen. And I was so ready for that (ask my friend, she was so done with me).

I think you can easily guess that I squeaked and screamed and ran around my room at the reveal in 'The Inside Man'.

It wasn't an unexpected plot twist, by any means considering the earlier episodes, but as a person who watched the sequels before Rebels, you can imagine I had little faith in well done spy trope (no shade for my sequel enthusiasts tho, I didn't specifically enjoy Hux's 'I'm the spy' moment). A part of me was ready to see the creators forget the already started trope and throw it in garbage. It happened before, after all. I would have been heartbroken, but I wouldn't have been surprised.

But then they didn't. They specifically went and made it happen and gave Kallus actual growth and actual character arc. That felt like a personal victory to me.

This was something. This felt earned. Earned by Kallus, yes, but earned by me and my hope that started at 'The Honourable Ones' and only grew the longer it lasted. Until the hope came true and I went feral

Thank you, that's my story

I came very late to the SWR fandom (the first time. I’ve come and gone for a long time since) but I just. I can’t help wondering what it was like when ‘An Inside Man’ first aired and it went from ‘there are rebels in the assembly line’ to ‘Oh yeah Kallus is Fulcrum’

But at the same time he’s acting Sooooo shady when he happens to be in the season before hand so I wonder how many people guessed.