#she said the system

[leadmeastraylittlefairy]

i wish that my student loan people would stop changing my shit for no reason with no warning or at least make sure your employees understand what’s happening enough to be able to explain why…

[anbaisai]

Boop!

(Part 2)

[oursystemblog]

Thank you caretakers but also can you be productive sometime else

[zaahvi]

a little breakdown of the new mural:

the context: this is part of a quest named "regrets of the dread wolf" in which rook uses a wolf statuette to "restore" this damaged mural in the lighthouse. it's referred to as a "regret" and seems to echo a memory linked to the events shown in the mural

"[Solas'] history, along with the history of the other elven gods, is baked into the Lighthouse, and you learn more and more about the threat you face as you unlock Solas' murals with various wolf statues. You even get to see some of his memories firsthand." [source with timestamp]

first, the imagery:

these "star" symbols are the same as on the "death of a titan" mural from trespasser, and even have similar halos. there are three visible in the circle here, which itself is cracked and there's a beam of light coming from above, sort of mirroring the titan mural:

it's interesting that the beam of light is coming from above, and is hitting the circle at the bottom, illuminating the outline; it seems like the light itself is what "cracked" the circle? there's also light shining from above, and elgar'nan is looking up at it, so... maybe it's the sun? the halos around the hands are also reminiscent of the left figure on the titan mural.

for triangle symbolism enjoyers... there are triangles around the light beam a little further up 👀

this is also our first look at mythal <3 she had dark hair and her headpiece is silver like flemeth's, a nice contrast to the golden crown elgar'nan has! they're like the sun and moon...

elgar'nan appears to have silver hair here, much lighter than the dark greyish he seems to have in-game. i'm thinking that either the blight darkened it, solas painted it differently, OR that the lighting that we've seen him in so far just hasn't shown off the colour properly. on his robes there is a sun pattern on his shoulder :) the bottom of the robes seem greenish and has patterns similar to the lyrium veins(?) on the titan mural above, and now that i look at them side by side... he kinda looks like the figure on the left, doesn't he?

solas with hair real!!! and he has his signature wolf pelt :) he's standing among some kneeling elves, and, notably, none of them have vallaslin.

these leafless trees - usually used as symbols of mythal - are almost framing the piece. the blue coming from the cracked circle is also interesting: solas rarely uses blue apart from his murals inside skyhold, so maybe it means something? it could be lyrium, or the titans' power?

the story:

remembering the context: this is one of solas' old memories, and a "regret" of his. looking at the imagery and pairing it with the dialogue seen, the events portrayed become clear:

Elgar'nan: They need strength. Mythal: And wisdom. Elgar'nan: They need gods who can protect them. Solas: We are not gods. You will learn that.

this is the evanuris first declaring themselves gods, seemingly after whatever war the elves fought; possibly with the titans, judging by the hints in these murals.

elgar'nan and mythal came first, which lines up with the dalish legends. i'm very curious if they were actually a couple or if they were just paired together in legends because they were the first gods (like how falon'din and dirthamen were paired as twin brothers in dalish tales but had no familial connection in elvhen lore). and from what they say... using "they" to refer to the elves rather than "you", implies this was a private conversation, which leads me to believe that they did originally intend to protect the elves. for instance, if they'd said "you need gods who can protect you", that's a whole other story which could be clearly interpreted as installing themselves as rulers in order to gain power and oppress the people. but this? the elves need strength, and wisdom, and protection? it's our first real clue that the evanuris were not always tyrannical, and that is just so interesting! i am very excited to see the story of how they became corrupted 👀

solas has an interesting line here also. using "we" instead of "you"... there's a popular theory that solas was a spirit of wisdom who was asked by mythal to join her, as implied by these lines from cole:

"He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face." "Bare-faced but free, frolicking fighting, fierce. He wants to give wisdom, not orders."

so maybe solas was a general alongside the evanuris, and was clearly opposed to becoming a "god" like the rest of them. i find it interesting he doesn't have vallaslin on the mural here. the cole lines implied he had mythal's vallaslin, and i would've assumed he "burned it off" when he started his rebellion. the only thing i can think of is that the vallaslin may have originally acted as a spirit binding (like binding a spirit to a body) but if it could be removed then... idk.

finally, circling back that this is referred to as a "regret"... i suppose this is his regret of not having stopped them before everything that followed. and with regret mentioned as being one of the key themes of the game... aghh this is gonna be so good

[oh-wow-im-still-here]

I saw a post once talking about a bingqiu scott pilgrim au where LBH had to fight all of SQQ's suitors, which is a cool concept and all, but have you considered the comedic potential and insanity of a bingyuan Scott pilgrim au where SY has to defeat LITERALLY HUNDREDS of bingge's exes??

[fluentisonus]

chiens-loups

[lavandulalurker]

I've had this sitting on my computer for a while so here's Nemmie!

[dreamings-free]

TASH 🥹

tashfrisco instagram stories 8/9/24

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[<==PREV PAGES] [NEXT PAGE==>(not out yet.wait a year.or maybe more.imagine.]

saw alot of comments on prev pages; saying 'i HATE that mean teacher! im gonna FIGHT HIM!!' & i LOVE the energy!! it WOULD be nice. to have that catharsis. but the story of young tidestrider is Not one of catharsis. it is a story of being so small and so special and sucking so bad.

[thepoisonroom]

'I flirted with the idea that instead of being trans that I was just a cross-dresser (a quirk, I thought, that could be quietly folded into an otherwise average life) and that my dysphoria was sexual in nature, and sexual only. And if my feelings were only sexual, then, I wondered, perhaps I wasn’t actually trans.

I had read about a book called The Man Who Would Be Queen, by a Northwestern University professor who believed that transwomen who were attracted to women were really confused fetishists, they wanted to be women to satisfy an autogynephilia. And though I first read about this book in the context of its debunkment and disparagement, I thought about the electricity of slipping on those tights, zipping up those boots, and a stream of guilt followed. Maybe this professor was right, and maybe I was only a fetishist. Not trans, just a misguided boy.

About a year later, on the Internet, I come across a transwoman who added a unique message to the crowd refuting this professor. Oh, I wish I remember who this woman was, and I wish even more that I could do better than paraphrase her, but I remember her saying something like this: “Well, of course I feel sexy putting on women’s clothing and having a woman’s body. If you feel comfortable in your body for the first time, won’t that probably mean it’ll be the first time you feel comfortable, too, with delighting in your body as a sexual thing?”'

-Casey Plett, Consciousness

[theposhperyton]

All evidence suggests yes

[cuubism]

Intemperate

alternatively titled, "consumed with lust for some fucking guy"

4300 words following the thought, "what would it be like to experience sexual attraction again after 100 years in a jar?"

Dreamling, E rated, post-2022 reunion, dom/sub vibes & daydreaming about bondage

--

Dream had never been a creature of the senses, but he did have senses. In the Dreaming, anything that smelled or tasted or sounded was merely part of his power, and therefore not really a subject of the senses as usually conceived. The Waking was a different matter, a cacophony of things outside of himself to experience.

But Dream never thought himself as driven by senses the way actual beings of the Waking were. His senses were an illusion, abstracted from physical reality, a way of bringing him closer to the living things his function was to serve but not really a part of him. So many senses were vague in dreams, after all, for they were products of the conscious mind and its understanding of the world. Not of the realm of dreams.

Dream was not driven by his senses. He was struggling to remember that at this moment.

“So I’ve been saving this one for a special occasion,” Hob was saying, as he poured from a bottle of syrah into two glasses, “and I know we’ve met a few times already, recently that is, but—” he finished off his pour, leaving the bottle to the side and slanting a bashful smile in Dream’s direction— “every time I see you still feels like a special occasion, to be honest. Anyway, you’ll have to let me know how it is.”

Dream took his glass in the hopes that the scent and taste of the wine might distract him from all the other senses currently bombarding him.

He had thought, for a time after his imprisonment, that he might have lost his senses entirely, become inured to the feelings of the Waking world. For one hundred and five years he had felt almost nothing in his cage: there had been no smell, no taste; all sounds were muffled other than the ones he made himself; he saw nothing but the inside of that basement, and the reflections of the glass. Even touch had atrophied when the only thing his skin felt for so, so long was cool, even glass.

He had nearly forgotten what it was like to be otherwise. But he was certain it had never been like this.

It was their first time meeting alone, upstairs in Hob’s kitchen rather than downstairs in the inn. And Dream was sitting altogether too close to him. They had taken seats at right angles to each other at the table, rather than across, and he was perpetually aware of Hob in his peripheral vision, of how their knees almost bumped under the table, of Hob’s forearm resting on the tabletop near his own. He was so close, had he ever felt so close?

The simple curve of Hob’s shoulder was catching like a knife under Dream’s ribcage. The angle of his jaw making a home in his throat, and the smile lines at the corners of his eyes landing somewhere in his vocal cords. The deft movement of his hands curling at the base of his skull, the scent of his cologne when he leaned close simmering low in his belly, the hum of his voice tickling up every inch of Dream’s skin. Grabbing hold of his breath.

“You’re quiet today,” observed Hob, sipping his wine. “More than usual, I mean. Everything alright in the Dreaming?”

Was it like this for humans all the time? Dream wondered. This heavy anticipation in his chest, the bodily attention verging on pain? He hadn’t known it was possible to be so intently aware of another person, but there it was, Hob Hob Hob in the pounding heart he didn’t need, a compulsion that wasn’t intellectual or even particularly romantic, but rather a strained desperation that could only be soothed by touch.

He had hardly touched anyone since his escape, and he had only touched Hob once, at their second meeting when he had told Hob where he’d been, and Hob had hugged him. Strong arms, solid chest, the tickle of hair against his ear, the resonance of life that hummed in Hob’s body. Dream had returned to the Dreaming afterwards and sat on the steps of his throne room for a very long time, palm pressed to his chest where their bodies had connected.

“I am fine,” he said now, and, because he was trying to be a better friend, added, “thank you.”

Not, he thought, with a tangle of chaos inside him, that it was really friendship that he was feeling now.

“Okay,” Hob said, with little conviction. “If you say so.”

Dream wanted to know what Hob would say about it. What he would say about it using his hands and his body and his skin. It was difficult to keep up any sort of conversation thinking like so. Hob was making him feel incredibly loud inside, and not the loudness of the Dreaming, of the dreamers, but a noise of his own making. A noise of his own longing.

He took another sip of his wine to steady himself, and found his hand was trembling.

“Whoa.” Hob grabbed hold of his wrist to steady him before he could drop the glass. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

Dream fixated on where their hands were connected, struck by the insane impulse to shake more so Hob would keep holding onto him. Dream had fallen headfirst many times—it was the only way he knew how to do it, in fact—but he could not now recall if it had ever been quite like this. Had he ever been so flung askew by someone’s mere proximity, made so insensate just by the desire to touch? He did not recall, but he did not think so, and he wondered again about his imprisonment, and how sunlight that one might normally turn one’s face towards with ease could be blinding when coming out of the darkness.

Hob realized belatedly what he had done, and let go of him with a guilty startle, and then Dream did drop his glass, ignoring how it cracked and spilled on the table as he lunged for Hob’s hand, catching it before he could pull away fully.

Hob stared at where they touched, utterly still. “I’ve never known you to get drunk,” he said. An out, perhaps, for Dream, if not a graceful one.

Dream gave in to impulse and brought Hob’s hand to his mouth, kissing his palm. The touch of skin was so bright, bright as the rush of power when the Dreaming was returned to him, loud as a billion dreamers’ minds filling him again where before there was silence. And Dream’s nonexistent blood was singing, or perhaps screaming.

“I am not,” he said, and looked up in time to see Hob’s eyes darken. Once such attention from Hob might have triggered the part of Dream that was prone to offense; now he wanted to do such unbecoming things as falling to his knees between Hob’s legs and biting the inside of his thigh through his jeans. Press his face between Hob’s legs and see if that alone would be enough to get him hard, if Hob would put his hands in his hair. To want such things was hardly new in Dream’s long existence but to feel it so strongly, like he was starving, like touching Hob might fix what felt perpetually broken inside of him, that was.

Intemperate. Out of control. Such feelings had never brought Dream anywhere good. But he was made of feelings.

“Dream…” murmured Hob, turning his hand to caress his cheek. Hob held Dream’s face in his palm, and he might as well have been touching every inch of his skin for how Dream felt it. Easy. Takeable. Had. Dream had always prided himself on being above it all, untouchable, but really he was weak for a kind touch and for wanting and for the burn of skin on skin, and he felt especially weak, right now, for Hob.

Hob might not mind such weakness, he thought. Unlike most, might not hold it like a blade above his neck.

Again, Dream let his compulsions pull him, trusted Hob, trusted his friend, to keep him bounded as he slid off his chair and onto his knees, Hob’s thighs bracketing his shoulders. Hob’s breath hitched, and Dream looked up, meeting his stunned gaze, dark in the low light of the kitchen.

Hob swallowed, the bob of his throat visible, and laid his hand on Dream’s cheek again.

Dream did not kneel. Dream had been forcibly put on his knees for one hundred years. Dream was on his knees now at Hob Gadling’s feet, and he wanted to be there, he wanted to trust Hob to touch him and let him touch, to hold carefully the rope he had furtively woven around Dream’s throat when he wasn’t paying attention. To hold him there, so he couldn’t get up until he was satisfied.

“What—” Dream started, and had to swallow, mouth dry, the acidity of the wine clinging to his throat. “What would you have done to me, if you had me the way you daydreamed, the day we first met?”

Dream had caught the scent of those daydreams, of course, and merely pushed them aside. He wondered, now, if Hob could have always affected him so, had he merely looked properly in that direction.

“What’s more important is what I want to do with you now,” Hob murmured, thumb ghosting across Dream’s lower lip. “Of course I wanted to have you when I first saw you. Of course I did. You were like nothing I’d ever seen. But that feeling is— it’s practically nothing compared to how I feel about you now, when I lo—” he swallowed, cutting himself off. Dream kept looking up at him, and Hob kept holding his face. “When I love you.”

Love. Dream did not know quite in what respect Hob meant it, but perhaps it was all, or perhaps it didn’t matter. Dream had never had a love where it didn’t matter.

Dream leaned his cheek against Hob’s inner thigh, as he had so wanted to, and Hob ran a hand through his hair, tugging lightly. Even through his jeans, Hob’s body was warm, his hand gentle, and Dream sighed, put at ease by the proximity. It should be alarming, to be so easily soothed. Threatening, to be touched. But it wasn’t. Dream only wanted to be closer, no matter what direction it careened their relationship in. Hob would not let it end badly, he thought. What a strange thing to feel sure of.

“I have not been with someone in a very long time,” he admitted. He was sure Hob could surmise this of the past century, but it had been much longer than that. “Locked away, I became so divorced from sensation that… I no longer know quite what it is I am feeling, I’m afraid.”

Hob scratched at his scalp, and Dream shivered. “All you have to know is how to tell me off if I do something you don’t like.” He huffed. “Not that you’ve ever been particularly shy about that.”

Dream smiled, a small thing, but it came easier than it had in a long time. “Perhaps I should have been.”

“Much as I do wish you hadn’t run out on me, I kind of like you as the stormy thing that you are,” Hob said. “I like my Stranger. Tell me off all you want, only stick around. Don’t leave.”

“I won’t leave,” Dream said. “I swear it.” He had no desire to, either. Not for quite a while.

“I get the sense that a swear from you means a lot.” Hob’s hand was still in his hair. It was bliss.

“Yes.”

Hob’s smile was warm and the tiniest bit possessive, and something in Dream that had been holding him up for a long time, that should have been proud and indignant and resisted being bound, thrilled at it instead, and wanted to bare its soft throat. Part of him wanted to punish Hob for his audacity in going along with this, wanted to punish himself for this most unbecoming behavior, but the part that had felt Hob’s daydreams and his forgiveness and now the touch of his hands had seized control and thrust him forward into the river of his own arousal. And Dream found himself enjoying the current so much that he no longer cared onto what rocks it might dash him.

Again, he thought: Hob would not let that happen.

“I’ll have to be careful not to abuse it then,” said Hob. And he let go of Dream’s hair, and Dream, unaware of how much that touch had been holding him up, swayed forward until his face was pressed to the juncture of Hob’s thigh, where he was growing hard under his jeans.

“I know that you would not,” he said. Hob had always let him go. Even when he didn’t want to.

“Up you get, then,” said Hob, and hauled him to his feet. Dream went easily, surprised into movement. “We’re not doing this here. You’ll kill your knees.”

“My body is not human,” Dream said.

“Still.”

They were face to face, now, and Hob’s expression was so soft for him, even with the heat building in his eyes. “You would take care of me?”

Hob rubbed up and down Dream’s arms. “I would. I would take care of you.”

Dream leaned in and kissed the corner of his lips, and then, caught by the hunger that latched under his ribcage, captured the rest of his mouth as well in a growling, starving kiss. All that heat and hunger filled him up and he followed it in a way he had not let himself for an eternity. He chased the lingering taste of wine from Hob’s mouth. Curled himself into the warmth there.

Hob kissed him back, tongue and teeth and the wanting of a hundred-plus years. His hands slid up over Dream’s shoulders to his neck, held lightly there, and with that hold he pulled Dream backwards through the kitchen, their lips connecting with less and less grace as they went.

“Better get somewhere more comfortable before I lose my wits entirely,” Hob said, between breaths. “I’m feeling less compassionate towards your knees by the second.”

Dream cared not where they were; he followed Hob blindly. Overcome by touch and taste and the sound of Hob’s breath and all things that were so so so loud after a century of silence. And it was perhaps because he was not aiding at all in their trajectory that they crashed into the wall by Hob’s bedroom door instead of making it over the threshold. Hob’s back hit the wall, and Dream hit his chest, catching himself just quickly enough that he only came nose-to-nose with Hob instead of smacking their foreheads together. Which would have been terribly undignified, not that Dream was feeling particularly inspired by dignity at the moment.

“Look at you,” Hob breathed, running his thumb under Dream’s eye. Then added, eloquently, “Fuck.”

Dream nipped at his throat, then sank again to his knees in one smooth motion, dragging his hands down Hob’s body as he went before letting them land in his own lap. He looked up at Hob, feeling spectacularly unclothed for all he was still wearing his jeans, shirt, socks even, but without his coat or his cloak or his shoes. Rare, for him to be so bare, since. Hob, too, was dressed casually, barefoot in his jeans and long sleeve Henley, and it made Dream feel on more equal footing. No attempt at pretenses.

Kneeling there felt like the right place to be, at that moment. Dream left that feeling to interrogate for later.

“This is really not a good look for me,” Hob said, breathing unevenly as he took Dream’s face in his hands again. “Get my oldest friend back and not only am I getting into your pants, but I’m not even doing it in a bed. It’s a bloody good look for you, though, fuck.”

“You like seeing me thus?” said Dream, as Hob nudged at his lips with his thumb. Dream opened his mouth, let Hob press his finger to his tongue.

“Yeah, of-bloody-course I do, Dream, you’re gorgeous like that. I only—” he bit the thought off halfway through, biting his lip so hard it turned white.

“Trust that I would not be here if I did not wish it so.”

Hob softened. “I know. I’m just reeling a bit. Fuck.”

“Your mouth gets filthier as you get emotional,” Dream observed, gratified that he was able to make Hob so.

“Yup, ‘fraid it’s my first—” he jumped as Dream pressed him to the wall by his hips, took the button on his jeans in his teeth and pulled it open— “first— fuck— language. Anything respectable’s from later, if it was ever there at all. Sorry for the filth, Your Majesty.”

Everything in Dream jumped to hear Hob call him thus even as he was on his knees. “I don’t mind.” He pulled Hob’s zipper down, too, salivating as it revealed the heaviness of Hob’s arousal, still cradled in his briefs. “I know by now what kind of man I am taking as my lover.”

He meant this in many ways at once and he hoped Hob understood.

Hob cupped himself through his underwear. “Can I…?”

Dream nodded. In fact, he wished very much that Hob would. Whatever he was thinking. Anything.

Hob pulled himself out, and then Dream was faced with his cock and— he had never actually been in this position before. He could summon the experience, of course—Dream contained all memories of intimacy, all wet dreams, all fantasies—but that was not the same as feeling the rush of pained arousal happening to him, the need to open his mouth consuming his body. The newness made it all the more startling and intense, but for the first time since regaining his freedom Dream leaned into newness, into intensity—and pressed his lips to Hob’s cock.

Instantly, another kaleidoscope of sensation: heat and sweat and pressure as Hob gasped and jerked forward involuntarily, nudging the head of his cock properly into Dream’s mouth— and then there was the heaviness of him on Dream’s tongue and Hob’s hand going to his hair, and Dream wrapped his hands around the strong muscles of Hob’s thighs to balance and it was all very, very much. A noise loud enough to banish the quiet of the basement that he still sometimes heard, echoing within him.

“Alright, love?” Hob asked, petting his face, and Dream hummed an assent, and took him deeper. Straining in his own pants, enjoying the play between his own arousal and Hob’s. Enjoying hanging there with no relief because it made everything prickle louder on his skin. He took Hob deep, then pulled off again, taking a breath that was more for Hob’s benefit than his own.

“I am,” he said, voice already with a rough edge to it, “I think, very well indeed.”

Hob laughed. “God, you. You have no idea what I want to do to you. Or, maybe you do, what with your—”

“I can sense dreams, not all thoughts, as such,” Dream said. He imagined the noise if he heard every passing thought of every being around him. “That would be maddening.”

“Dreams already sounds maddening, you mad thing.”

“It is true that I have rarely been accused of sanity or reason,” Dream admitted, and Hob laughed, head tipping back against the wall.

“Nor I, apparently. I cannot believe I interrupted you sucking my dick to have this discussion. Curiosity really does kill.”

“Curiosity has kept you alive, Hob Gadling,” said Dream, pressing his lips again to Hob’s cock. “And I am grateful for it.”

He took Hob in his mouth again, humming at the taste and weight of him, and Hob swore above him. What would you do to me? Dream wondered. Given the liberty?

As if he had heard the question, Hob started rambling, eyes falling shut. “You have no idea how pretty you look like that, on your knees. I don’t take it lightly. I don’t. I know you’re a king, I know you’re— and you make me mad, you make me want more, how could I possibly be given more than this? But you know me. One day, if you’ll have it, I’ll tie you up properly. And I know, okay? I know, you’ll have to trust me. If you really want to be on your knees. You make me want awful things. Beautiful things. Fuck—”

This last bit came as Dream took him deep enough to bump against the back of his throat, possessed by the image Hob had spun, and Hob let out a strangled gasp as Dream swallowed convulsively around him, nearly choking on it.

“Dream, I—”

Dream knew he would come, and leaned into the sensation. Bitter spend flooded his mouth, spilled down his throat and over his lips, and as he rode through Hob’s orgasm with him he let Hob’s daydreams bump up against him. Images of Dream on his knees again, naked this time, rope wound around him in intricate patterns, holding him there. Hob’s hands on the knots. Bound by kind hands rather than those that meant him harm, held in place to rend nothing from him but pleasure. And steadiness. Captured from the rough currents of himself.

He moaned as he let Hob’s spent cock slip from his mouth, shivered once and then again, out of control as Hob’s imaginings and his physical sensations and Dream’s own arousal battered at him. Hob fell to his knees before him, said “Dream,” with so much broken longing in it—haven’t you had me already? Dream thought, aren’t you having me?—and kissed him, hands cradling his face. Dream felt he must be vibrating at the pitch of the universe itself, so elemental was his wanting, and Hob gave him what he wanted. Of course he did.

He lowered Dream to the floor, cradling the back of his head, braced himself over Dream with their chests pressed together. His weight should have been oppressive, but wasn’t. It merely held him in place, easy and steady.

Their gazes met. “You would—” Dream’s voice was rough— “bind me? Gently? Hob Gadling?”

“Only so,” said Hob, eyes dark, cheeks still flushed, and Dream shivered again. “But right now, I just want to make you feel good. Okay?”

“Yes,” Dream breathed.

Hob braced himself on one arm and reached between them, undoing the button on Dream’s jeans with some difficulty. Dream should have made his clothing vanish to make it easier for him, but found that he wanted Hob to do it for him, to work for it, and to take care of him.

Hob’s hand wrapped around his prick, and Dream startled. Hob’s grip was warm and deft and Dream was very close to the edge already, and then Hob kissed him. Tender and hot, like he had been waiting to do this for a very long time. Waiting, always waiting for Dream.

He bit down on Hob’s lip as he came, clutching at his shoulders for steadiness, feeling rushing through him to the point of pain, to the point of whiteout. Far too much released all at once. All the sensation he had craved, blinding as the noontime sun.

Hob worked him through it as he shook, and gradually came back to himself. Everything was pleasantly staticky then, and Hob's weight was grounding as he let himself sink fully onto Dream, blanketing his body on the floor. And then Hob kissed him again, gentle and sweet. This was a lot of kisses for a being who had not been kissed in a millennium, and Dream whined, overwhelmed, winding a hand in Hob’s hair like he could perhaps manage to keep him there.

“There's a good love," Hob was murmuring into his cheek. "You’re so needy, aren’t you? I love it.”

Dream of a century ago had bristled at the mere implication that he needed anything, but Dream of today, pinned under Hob’s weight, was forced to concede that he did. Was forced to admit that he liked when Hob called him such, because Hob always qualified it with and I want to give it to you. And he realized that Hob had done so then, too, only Dream had been too blind to see it.

Still trembling with the aftershocks of pleasure, he curled a leg around Hob’s hip, drawing him closer, and Hob chuckled as he complied. “I’m regretting the floor,” he admitted. “Your poor knees.”

“I reiterate that I am not human,” said Dream, “and am not bound by human bodily limitations.”

“Oh, but you could be,” Hob crooned, stroking a hand up and down Dream’s side under his shirt, “couldn’t you?”

A smile tugged at Dream’s lips. “Hob Gadling, do you wish to see me colored by your lovemaking?”

Hob sucked a mark on his neck. “Maybe.”

Dream shifted his form just slightly to let the skin there bruise.

Hob sighed. “God, you’re a marvel.”

“Careful,” Dream cautioned, as the words caught somewhere within him that he hadn't known was lacking. “A man might feast on such compliments.”

“Feast, then. You’re too skinny by far.”

“I thought I was pleasing to you.”

“Oh, you are.” Hob gathered him up in his arms, rolled them so that Dream was on top and no longer pressed into the hard floor. “You are, darling.”

Darling.

The mania that had possessed Dream had subsided, but he found himself still hyper-focused on Hob’s arms around him, the smell of his sweat when Dream pressed his face into his throat, the warm rumble of his voice. So much missing sensation. He did not know how to reel all of the parts of himself that had spilled out back in, but perhaps if it was only here, that was okay. He could stay unspooled across the floor, unwound and directionless, wrapped around Hob's hands, until he was forced again by his responsibilities to go.

He wormed his way further into Hob's arms and said, “I think I would like to stay for a while, if that is alright.”

Hob pressed a smile into his hair. “Love, I would be terribly sad if you didn’t.”

[thoughtfulchaos773]

He vividly remembers when Syd said Hi. Hello. and that was close to a year ago. He remembers her headband and the smile on her face. Usually, he only vividly remembers bad things- family dinners, yelling, glass breaking, slaps, and his favorite song going backward.

But the good thing he remembers is when he first met Sydney. He remembers the expression on her face when she said yes to his business proposal. He remembers all the good things she said about him.

This is 'the first moment I saw her, I knew' quote a million times over.

Tell me it's love without telling me it's love.

[anghraine]

melyzard replied to this post:

You know, given that P&P was published in 1813 before the 1696 window tax was repealed, she might just be admiring both the outdoors AND the expansive and numerous windows themselves. I mean, good windows really were a big sign of wealth and consequence until 1851 when the tax was finally repealed. But yeah,also,yeah, she's definitely more interested in the outdoors than the Great Chimney Places of the Wealthy

It's true that windows were a major status symbol at the time and long before, but I don't think Elizabeth much cares about that, in all honesty! That is the relevant historical context for Mr Collins's rhapsodies over Rosings' windows, for instance:

she could not be in such raptures as Mr Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh

He's silly but he's not mistaken in identifying the windows as a significant status symbol (which without that cultural context can seem like just another Mr Collins absurdity). But Elizabeth specifically, as a person, is consistently not very interested in these kinds of status symbols (though she knows they're there and understands what they signify). She is attracted to natural beauty and unassuming elegance, which is the overwhelming note at Pemberley:

She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste.

Even when it does come to Pemberley's expensive interior, she focuses on the aesthetic dissimilarity to Rosings and, even more, about what is suggested about Darcy's relationships to other people dependent on him (Elizabeth's takeaway from the pretty interior decorating project for Georgiana is "He is certainly a good brother" and not how much disposable income this represents, say).

The fuller quote when she first approaches the window is pretty clear about what Elizabeth is focusing on, IMO:

Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, from which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks, and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms, these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen.

[floralcavern]

I’ll never forget when someone I considered to be a close friend said I was racist for stating that Palestinian children are brainwashed into hating Jews at very young ages.

And, yknow what, I think it’s time I address that because it’s been making my blood boil for that past few months. 

What about Tomorrow’s Pioneers?

What about this puzzle right here?

What about the fact that Hamas uses child soldiers to kill Israelis and Jews?

What about Hamas’s ‘summer camps’?

What about the fact that a large majority of Palestinian adults hold antisemitic values, meaning they are bound to teach those same ideologies to their children?

What about the fact that Hamas openly supports the Nazi Party while also being extremely involved and tyrannical in their civilian’s lives, meaning they very much could have, oh, I don’t know, taught it to their civilians? HELL, KIDS IN PALESTINE AREN’T EVEN TAUGHT ABOUT THE HOLOCAUST IN SCHOOLS.

It’s not ‘racism’, it’s fact. Stop infantilizing Palestinians. 

Condemn Hamas while also acknowledging that their civilians hold many of their ideologies. It’s ok to feel bad for the citizens, but it is not ok to purposely stay in the dark because you don’t like the truth.

My entire life, my mother has taught me about my honor. How I should never let anyone besmirch my name, including myself. One time my mom was accused of doing something inappropriate in work when she had not. 

My mom was upset because her honor had been violated by lies about her character. And I thought my best friend would know me better than that. She lied about my character and who I am as a person.

[thattheater-kid]

A very traumatized, very unwell, heavily grieving alter whose spouse went dormant laughed and smiled genuinely for the first time in nine months today! I’m so proud of him!