#to intellectual bitches against each other

[dradelcra]

Victor Frankenstein learning all he needs to from college and leaving early vs Dr. Jekyll collecting degrees like a pokemon trainer.

[aangell333]

Okay your Spencer smut might be the best I've ever read, could you maybe do one about Spencer absolutely manhandling reader and just like really rough sex. Idk maybe some jealousy or a bad case and he needs to take his anger out on you, just whatever you want.

And like just really rough with like edging and overstimulation and dacryphilia and just very very rough. And maybe some sweet aftercare or something like that

I'm in desperate need for Spencer to fuck me till I'm cum dumb :))

Thank you <33

oh

my god.

first off THANK YOU SWEETIE THATS TOO SWEET OF YOU!!

second off i’ve given the reader a thing I personally have where I kinda cum prematurely during sex 🫠 this means I get overstimulated really easily so I think it’ll pair with what you’re looking for :)

this is utter filth guys. also I KNOWWW some things are unrealistic but they’re hot so shove it.

so sorry this took so long and that the ending feels super rushed 😭

anyways enjoy!

you knew this was wrong.

hooking up with your coworker simply because this case was beating both your asses and sex wasn’t exactly presenting itself to you as a little pink box with a shiny ribbon on top.

the two of you had been going back and forth all day, snapping and jabbing at each other. theories were belittled and intellectuality degraded; everyone knew one of you was about to snap. they expected you to end up going through the dry wall or spencer out of the window.

they would never have expected to… explode in this way.

it was dirty. filthy. you both knew it.

and you both loved it.

he followed close behind you as you entered the hotel room and the door slammed behind him before his hands were all over you. he grabbed you by the upper arms, tugging you harshly into the wall. you hit it with a thud, your head bouncing off it.

you barely had time to get your surroundings before his hand was closing around your neck.

“do you get off on some sick power play to diminish me in front of everyone?” he hissed. “i’ve been doing this for years. you’ve been here for two seconds compared to my experience.”

“wow, prison sure did harden you up, huh. word from the team has it you were a little bitch before,” you could barely get your statement out before his hand was tightening, having you gasping for air as your airways closed up.

“shut the fuck up.” you would’ve snapped back, if you weren’t distracted by your buttons flying everywhere.

the two parts of the front of your now-ruined blouse were clutched in spencer’s hands. his face was the picture of rage, anger simmering in his gorgeous eyes and his lips pursed tightly.

“you asshole!”

“no. you need to be put in your place.”

you’d never been kissed with such ferocity. his lips smushed against yours, pressing them this way and that. it was messy, almost gross the way your tongues intertwined and saliva dripped. spencer pulled your hair from the crown of your head, harshly pulling your head back as his mouth immediately latched onto the column of your neck.

as he sucked and nipped, he pushed your blouse further off your shoulders the lower he went. your own fingers fumbled with his buttons, trying desperately to undo them. once your blouse was on the floor, he pulled away from you, throwing you onto the bed.

“dumb bitch can’t even undo some buttons?” he hissed, ripping your shoes off as you hastily unbuttoned your jeans.

“god, reid, shut up!” you wined as you squirmed your hips and pushed your jeans down.

“such a mouth on you.” he tutted patronisingly, rolling the sleeves of his half-buttoned-up shirt to his elbows and freeing his belt from his pant loops. “I ought to teach you a lesson.”

he chucked his belt onto the bed beside you before forcefully yanking your jeans off. he then grabbed your wrists in one hand, restraining you as he flipped you over. before you knew it, he was sat on the edge of the bed with you over his knee.

“reid!” you exclaimed as he folded his belt in half.

crack.

“ah!” your yelp sounded more like a moan, your ass stinging red.

the juxtaposition of spencer’s soothing hand and scrutinisingly-sweet voice overwhelmed your senses.

“aww, does the brat not know how to take her punishment with fucking dignity? this is what rude little girls get, you understand?” his tone boiled rage in you.

“fuck you.”

crack.

“ah!”

“count it.” he hissed.

“wha- what?”

crack.

“fucking count it!”

“one!”

“good girl.” his tone was condescending, as if he was talking to a misbehaving child trying to turn their behaviour around.

you counted every crack to your skin, your flesh burning as the belt came down on it. you eventually got to ten, your ass glowing red and cheeks tear-streaked. yet, by the time you got to ten, your pussy was soaked.

your hole oozed slick with every crack and caress that spencer administered to your cheeks. you whimpered in his lap, pressing your face into the comforter of the hotel bed.

“you dick.” you whimpered with a sniffle.

a smack to your hot rear had your back arching.

“i’ll show you dick.” spencer snarled.

he spread his legs, pushing you off of him and onto your knees between his. the stark contrast of your naked body and his fully clothed one was enough to have you grinding in your seat. spencer undid his flies and opened them, presenting his cock straining against his boxers to you.

he once again tangled his hand in your hair at the crown of your head before pulling you into his crotch. you let out a muffled whine, pushing on his thighs, but he held you still. you couldn’t move your face from his boxer shorts.

“lick.” he commanded, but you couldn’t hear him over your struggle. “I said, lick.”

it was degrading the way he had you lapping at his clothed cock like a damn dog. your tongue picked up bits of lint from the fabric of his boxers and the spot where his tip was leaking precum was damp and salty. it was disgusting. you couldn’t help but love it.

when your hands came up to the elastic of his boxers, he didn’t stop you from pulling them down. his cock stood up, taking your breath with it.

what he lacked slightly in girth, god damn did he make up for in length. he was huge, intimidating even.

“the fuck are you waiting for? what happened to the cock-hungry bitch licking my cock a second ago?” his words probed at something inside of you and you curled your hand around his cock, squeezing.

and god did you want to capture that breathy moan and head tilt that he released and keep it forever.

but his mood quickly shifted as his hands gripped your hair and shoved your face down onto his cock. gags, whimpers and tears left you as he hammered his cock into your throat, his pace relentless and bruising.

“god, this shut you up, huh? I should have you like this more often. bet you’d love it if I shut you up by shoving my cock into your mouth in the middle or the office, huh? show hotch and morgan what a slut you are for my cock. yeah? you want that attention?” he was mocking you! god knows what compelled you to hum and nod in agreement. “fucking whore. oh, look at you! fucking touching yourself?”

his cock was pulled out of your mouth, strings of saliva connecting you to it. ignoring your coughs and splutters, he manoeuvred his leg between yours, angling it so his shin rubbed deliciously against your core.

“wha- what are you doing?” you asked him, voice slightly hoarse.

“if you wanna get off so bad, you can hump my leg like the bitch you are!” he laughed.

anger flooded you, your nails biting into his calf and a frown coming over your face.

“no.”

“oh!”

his leg jolting up to meet your core had you moaning loudly. and you couldn’t help yourself. you started chasing that feeling, hips working overtime as you fully humped dr spencer reid’s leg. that was still covered by his stupid pants!

“aww, aren’t you just a needy bitch?” his tone was condescending, mocking as he lazily stroked his cock like you were simply porn material. you shook your head, prompting him to begin bouncing his leg up to meet your core. “come on, tell me what a needy bitch you are.”

“I’m a needy bitch,” you whispered out.

you found your arms wrapping around his leg as you pressed your whole body to him, still humping him.

“louder.” he ordered.

“I’m a needy bitch!” your voice is pitchy and whiny, almost screaming when he begins rocking his leg up to meet your sensitive clit.

you didn’t have to hump for long before you found your core tightening and your breathing becoming more laboured. you whimpered out how close you were, causing spencer to pull his leg from under you. the loss of balance had you falling into his knee, face smushing against the bony structure.

“wha…” you whimpered sadly as spencer pouted down at you with faux-sympathy.

“aww, is the little bitch all sad she can’t cum?” he asked condescendingly, making you sit straight again.

you sat in front of him on your knees, looking up at him with an angry pout. deciding to take matters into your own hands and stop waiting for his every order, you crawled to turn yourself around, revealing your back to him.

“what are you doing, huh?” he murmured.

you didn’t say anything, only lifting your ass up and down a few times as if you were shaking your ass on a dick. you felt it jiggle, looking back at him with a smirk. his pupils were blown and his hand loose around his cock.

“pet…” he warned and you took your chances.

still on the floor, you fell forward and pushed your ass into the air as you manoeuvred yourself into the deepest arch. you whined loudly as you did so, exposing your gooey, drooling hole to him. where you were sat, a wet patch glistened and the thin string connected to the carpet and your hole snapped. you heard spencer sigh shakily and squirmed on the bed. the sound of a zipper going back up sounded, the rustling of a button returning back to its hole.

only that’s where you’re wrong. he wasn’t squirming, he was standing.

three long fingers pushed easily into your hole, making you scream out. he kneeled over you, almost mounting you as he fingerfucked you. he was relentless, curling and uncurling his fingers at an ungodly speed. your slick dripped down his hand, sprayed over his forearm with the force of his movements and squelched loudly.

“trying to tease me?” he draped his body over yours as he hissed in your ear.

you whined pathetically, hips pushing back to meet his hand. he didn’t stop and you felt your orgasm drawing closer.

“oh god! oh god, oh god, oh god, I’m close!” you yelled out, only for his fingers to remove from your body. “wha- reid!”

“aww, I know. it’s hard being teased, isn’t it?” he asked, his tone as condescending as ever. you whimpered as you felt your orgasm dissolve.

and he plunged his fingers back in your pussy, grinning and laughing when you screamed out and your eyes rolled back. his fingers sped up and up and up until they stopped again.

each time you got close, he would stop touching you all together. he knelt over you and laughed as you begged and babbled pathetically. he was practically mounting you, you hadn’t even realise he’d pulled his cock out.

“you wanna cum, baby?” he asked, chuckling when you nodded and babbled pathetically. “of course you do.”

it was that night that you realised, you’d never experienced true pleasure until you had spencer reid fucking you like a madman.

his pace was relentless, bruising and wild. his hips slammed against your already sore ass and his tip bullied your cervix. tears rolled down your face, making him laugh.

“my little toy looks so pretty when she cries! aw, what’s the matter, princess?” he cooed mockingly in your ear.

“feels- feels so- so good…” you could hardly speak, hardly form a thought. it was too much.

you were cumming before you knew it, coating his cock in your cream. he laughed mockingly at you, hand coming down to draw little circles on your clit. you screamed and spasmed, knees giving up on you as you fell to the floor. he held you up by your hips, almost completely suspending your lower half.

“can’t even hold yourself up.” he grunted.

with one arm wrapped around your middle and the other hand at your clit, he chased his own orgasm in a haze of blinding hot pleasure. yet, you were cumming again before he was, your squirt splashing out onto his legs.

“oh, sweetheart! squirting all over me?” he laughed delightedly. “what a good girl. fuck, baby, I’m- hah- I’m close. gonna come inside. gonna- ha-ah- fill you up- fuck- yeah- claim you-”

his seed spilled into you in thick, copious amounts. you felt him fill you, your tummy swelling a little with the amount he was pumping into you.

“thank you, doctor,” you whimpered out, feeling all hazy and fuzzy.

he was panting above you, head thrown back in exhaustion.

“good girl. my good girl,” he murmured breathlessly. “let’s get you cleaned up, shall we?”

you’d never been pampered as nicely as you were that night.

*~*~*

“ah! spencer! ah!” derek moaned at you, high pitched and over dramatic, as you place his coffee down on his borrowed desk.

you frowned, trying to keep a straight face.

“I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’d rather you kept your sexual fantasies to yourself. I think that’s something you discuss with reid,” you sniped.

“I think you discusssd a lot with reid last night,” he smirked. “oh my god! just like that spencer!”

“someone clearly wasn’t paying attention. he likes it when I call him doctor.” you say, stalking away.

from his seat opposite derek, spencer grinned at him in a way that clearly said: “yeah. she’s mine.”

@wietske27

[blooming-violets]

Hear me out :

Peter is jaded after Gwen, it’s before the events of NWH, and he’s slowly starting to fall in love with a woman he’s (literally) ran into at the library. She’s intellectual, kind, but is also a little jaded like Peter. Slowly, he has seen hope in her chestnut eyes. He is starting to see a future.

One night, Peter is listening to the police scanners and hears the code for an armed break-in, and it’s library girl’s apartment complex’s address.

He swallows, angry chills run up his spine as he hears her apartment number called out.

What does he do, Katie? How would he react?

I'm With You || TASM Peter Parker x fem!Reader

Trigger Warnings: stalking, sexual assault of a woman (being masturbated over by a man and touched w/o consent), nudity, crass language, gun usage, armed break-ins with the intent to harm a woman living alone, being tied and gagged against her will, violence from Peter/Spider-Man with a tiny bit of gore

It’s a damn cold night. 

Peter tugged his jacket close around his body as he jogged the last few remaining steps into the public library. His overdue books were hidden inside the satchel at his side. He was about a month late in returning them and the library was almost closed. He wanted to get them in before he forgot. If he waited another day, he would never remember to bring them back. 

As he rounded the corner, he tripped over someone’s outstretched legs. Being a man of his talents, he quickly corrected his fall to land effortlessly back on his feet with the elegance of a ballerina making a graceful leap. 

Quizzical eyes stared up at him. 

The woman on the floor was leaning with her back against the bookcase with an open book in her lap. She looked more annoyed at him for tripping over her instead of apologetic for having her legs across the aisle. 

“Watch where you’re going,” she grumbled. 

She lifted the book up to her face, blocking him back out. 

Peter let out a breathy laugh of disbelief at the audacity of this bitch. 

“Excuse me?” He said, agast. 

She peeked her eyes over the top of the book to stare him down, “Dude, get lost. I’m busy. Not my fault you’re clumsy.”

“You tripped me!” He read the cover of the book she was reading. The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. “Doing a bit of light reading, I see. First it’s tripping innocent strangers and next it’s world domination? Is that it?”

He caught the smallest of smiles tug at her lips hidden behind the book.  

A singular butterfly fluttered around inside his stomach at the sight. The feeling was enough to grab his attention. He quietly admired her. Legs still stretched out in front of her. Zero regard for the space she was taking up. He kind of liked it. She didn’t give a shit. 

Peter turned and left her to her book, not wanting to bother her further, and headed to the front desk to deal with his late fees.

A week had passed and he was back in the library. He had no real purpose for being there today other than he liked the smell of the books. They made him feel relaxed. He liked to walk down the aisles and let his fingers graze across each bump of their spines. Every book he touched, filled with another story, another world, hundreds of lives under the tips of his fingers. 

“Hey,” a feminine voice hissed from between a gap of books on the other side of the shelf. 

Those eyes. He blinked back at them, peering between the shelves, trying to place where he remembered them from. 

Then it hit him. 

Atomic bomb girl. 

“Can I borrow your height?” She whispered, keeping her voice low to be respectful to the people studying on the other side of the room. Unlike the last time he saw her, it was a Thursday afternoon and the library was full with students. 

Peter slipped into the next aisle. She pointed to the book she wanted on the top shelf, just out of her reach. He plucked it down for her and turned it over in his hands. Relativity: The Special and the General Theory by Albert Einstein.

She eyed him with an intensity he wasn’t used to, like she was seeing straight through his skin and into his soul. Her eyes were captivating. He wanted to get lost in them. 

“You’re the unbalanced, trippy guy, right?” She asked. 

Peter smiled. Last night he stood on one foot on top of the Empire State Building spire just to admire the view. He was more balanced than she would ever know. 

“You mean, am I the one you tripped? Yes.” He handed her over the book. “You’re into science, I see, atomic bomb girl?” 

“I’m into learning. Whatever form that may come in.” She took the book and tucked it under her arm. “Thanks, trippy.” 

“Peter,” he called after her as she spun around to walk away. “You can call me Peter!”

The library became his new home. He took every opportunity to attend in the hopes of bumping into her again. Some days were a success, other’s a failure, but he found himself wanting more. Every time she had a new book and every time he would find the same one to read after her. It wasn’t weird. He was just…trying to find quiet ways to relate to someone new.

So he told himself. 

Peter had forgotten how to talk to women after Gwen. It had been so long since he even attempted to date anyone.

“Are you stalking me?” She asked one evening when she walked into the room to find him sitting on his laptop at one of the tables. 

He glanced up and shrugged, “I was here first this time. Maybe you’re stalking me?”

She smiled and slid into the seat across from him, “I already have one stalker. I don’t need another. If you’re into me, you better just grow a pair, and ask me out now.” 

Peter grinned, “I’m…wait…okay.” He ran a hand through his hair, sitting up straighter, completely letting the stalker comments fly over his head as he got flustered. “Would you like to go on a date with me? Right here. Right now. If you say ‘yes’ then it’s already starting.” He closed his laptop to give her his full attention. 

Her eyes widened and she settled happily back into her chair, “Alright, Peter, was it? Nice to meet you. This is an interesting choice of restaurant for a first date. Not what I would have chosen for our dinner and a movie night. I didn’t see a kitchen when I walked in but I chose to trust you.” 

“This is the finest establishment the borough has to offer,” he feigned a gasp. “Don’t you insult my choice of restaurant.” 

He raised a finger in the air, pretending to call over an imaginary waiter, “Hello, yes, I will take your finest bottle of wine for the table to start. The more expensive, the better. And I will take a big, giant steak for myself and, perhaps, a nice, small salad for the lovely lady?” He shot her a cheeky wink as she let out a laugh. 

“Fuck you,” she giggled.

Fucking him was exactly what she did. 

They continued their imaginary dinner date in the library until it closed, the librarian kicking them out and shooing them out the front door. They walked into the chilly night air, stopping at a bodega at the street corner to grab a few snacks, as they made their way to her place. 

He had slept with other women since Gwen passed but this time was different. There were feelings involved. Feelings that were still in their infancy. Ones that were just sparking to life. But they were there. He didn’t just want to fuck her and run. He wanted more than that. He wanted to stay. He wanted to grow and cultivate whatever path they were headed down. He wanted this to be something. 

He was ready to try dating again. 

She rolled over in the bed, naked and relaxed, staring up at the ceiling, “That was amazing. You really know how to use that tongue of yours for more than just being a dick. I’m impressed.”

Peter chuckled, “Oh, please, your tongue was nothing to scoff at either.”

It really had been one of the best blow jobs of his life. 

He leaned on his side, propping his head up with his hand, and gazed happily down at her, “I want to take you on a real date. Saturday night. To an actual restaurant.”

She hesitated. A shadowed sadness darkened her eyes which she quickly pushed away, “Okay. I think I can do that.”

Peter frowned, “Something wrong?”

She shook her head, leaning over to kiss him as a distraction, “Nope. When you leave, can you leave through one of the side doors? Don’t walk out the front of the apartment.” 

That was his cue to leave, apparently. He chewed anxiously against his bottom lip. Maybe he was misreading whatever he thought was going on between them. Maybe she wanted a quick fuck and nothing more. Come to think of it, when they entered here, she had snuck them in the back door, too, making him walk a few feet behind her like they weren’t together.

Maybe she was in a relationship and cheating on her partner with him?

“I’ll see you tomorrow, yeah?” She offered, casually urging him to get out of the bed. “Text me. I stuck my contact in your phone earlier.”

Peter left feeling more confused and unsure than when he entered her place. 

He lifted his phone as he walked through the streets, searching the contracts until he found her under ❤️Atomic Bomb Girl❤️, and he smiled down at it. A heart. Maybe he was overthinking things. Maybe her front door was just broken. He always went straight to assuming the worst. 

Someone slammed into his shoulder, jostling him out of his thoughts, and he glanced behind him. A large, buff man glared back at him. He looked to be in his late fifties and was balding. His massive arms bulged under his tight fitting, worn down leather jacket. He reached out to clamp a hand down around Peter’s upper arm.

Peter frowned and tried to jerk away, “Dude, it was an accident, chill.” 

“Did you fuck that girl up there?” That man asked, nodding his head back to her apartment building. There was a crazed desperation in his voice. “I saw you following her home. Did she spread her legs for you and whore herself out? Did you get a good look at that tight, little pussy? Tell me, what did it look like? You take any pictures? I’ll pay you for them.”

Peter jerked his arm out of the man’s grasp, scowling in disgust, “What the fuck? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I wasn’t following anyone. I was meeting a friend who lives there. Fuck off.” 

The man leaned forward and inhaled his scent causing Peter to jump back. 

“I can smell her on you,” he growled as his eyes rolled back into his head. “That’s her perfume. I know because I bought it for her. You were fucking her.” 

That was enough. 

Peter shoved the older man off of him and jogged around the corner, waiting until he was out of sight before throwing himself up onto her building roof, peering over the edge to keep an eye on him. 

He was just pacing back and forth outside the apartment door, mumbling to himself and fidgeting with something in his pocket. 

“Freak,” Peter muttered under his breath. 

He pulled up her contact and sent her a text: Some crazy old dude just ambushed me outside your place. Asked about you. Maybe don’t go outside tonight. I think he’s not right in the head.

He saw three bubbles appear as she started to text back but then they disappeared again, leaving him hanging. 

Peter shrugged it off. He stayed and kept watch until the man finally wandered off down the street.

The night before he was supposed to take her out on a date, Peter was laid over his bed in his Spider suit sans mask. His police scanner let out more static of nothing as he waited for something, anything, to happen. He was bored but it was too cold to hang around on a rooftop somewhere. He would stay in the warmth of his bedroom unless something exciting came his way. They had been texting back and forth nonstop for the last few days and calling each other every night to talk for hours. He liked it when she sent him pictures of things she was doing around her house during the day. She was adorable and he looked forward to whenever his phone would buzz. 

As if on cue, it vibrated across the mattress next to him. 

He lifted it up in a gloved hand to read the text. A frown settled over his face as he read it. 

Atomic Bomb Girl: ha ha ha i win u lose dontever touch wat is mine again 

Right as he was attempting to decipher what she was talking about, taking note of how drastic of a change of text from her usual ones it was, the police scanner lit to life.

“All available units to Linden Boulevard, Oak Ridge Apartments, floor three. Multiple calls of gunshots heard and one reported casualty of a security guard. Suspect is wearing dark clothes, caucasian older male, considered armed and dangerous. Approach with caution.”

His senses exploded in a panicked wave of tingles. That was her place. Her floor. The image of that strange man assaulting him on the street after he left came back to hit him like a ton of bricks. Peter looked back at his phone as the pieces fell into place. 

Oh, fuck. 

Quiet, controlled anger replaced the panic. His heart rate steadied as a calm chill fell over him. His jaw locked in determination. He reached for his mask, tugging it over his stone cold, deadly expression, and he leaped out of his open window. 

Peter Parker no longer fucked around when it came to protecting the one’s he cared about. This was personal. 

He arrived at the scene in record speed, landing directly on top of a black S.W.A.T truck as it pulled up. He rapped a fist down on the hood to get their attention.

“Feel free to sit this one out, boys!” He called down to them. “Spidey’s got you covered! I’ll be in and out in minutes. No need to worry. Focus on crowd control. I’ve got a date with a balding fucker. If all goes well, it’ll end up with a quickie in the back of a cop car, as I ride his ass straight to prison.” 

Peter threw himself up onto her building, scaling to the third floor and around to find her window. He knew exactly where he would find his perp. His masked face popped up in her bedroom window. It was empty and quiet. He slammed his fist through the glass, slipping his hand inside to find the lock, and shoved it open wide enough for him to shimmy through. 

From inside, he could hear muffled cries. Whimpers. They were different from the whimpers he had been able to elicit out of her the other night but he knew them all the same. 

Silent as a shadow, Peter crept around the corner. With her hands tied behind her back, her shirt ripped open so her bare chest was on display, and thrown against the couch was his girl. The gun man stood above her. A pistol was aimed directly at her forehead. From this angle, he couldn’t quite make out what was going on, but it looked as if the man was masturbating over her. Trails of mascara ran down her cheeks and she let out muffled cries against the heavy amounts of duct tape blocking her mouth as she struggled to break free. 

His anger flared but he tried to push it down to manable levels. He had learned over the years that getting too angry made him sloppy. He needed to control it. Work with it. Tame it into something he could use as a weapon instead of making it a weakness. 

Peter crawled up her wall and onto her ceiling, prowling towards the man. Up here, he had a clear view. His dick was out and he was frantically jerking it as fast as he could at her breasts. Her eyes widened in fear but then flashed with hope when caught sight of Spider-Man crawling across her ceiling. 

He hadn’t even done anything yet and he already felt pride. She felt a sense of safety around him…even if she didn’t know it was him behind the mask. It made him cocky. Made him want to show off. 

When he was directly behind him, he silently lowered himself upside on a web until his face was hung directly behind the assailant. 

“I’m actually surprised you can even get it up,” he quipped, keeping his voice light, despite the rage eating at his stomach. “I didn’t know something that small could get hard.”  

The man whipped around, his dick flopping against his leg, as he sputtered in shock. His pistol went off, firing aimless at the wall behind Peter’s head. 

Peter held up his hands in mock surrender as he jumped to his feet, “Whoa, there, tinycock! Don’t go blowing your load so soon! You’ll miss out on all the fun.”

There was no doubt this was the same man he had met outside the other day. His eyes were crazed with an unhinged, desperation that reeked of a man off his meds. Peter made sure to keep the man’s eyes on himself, holding his attention, instead of on her. 

“What’s a sad sap like you doing out of the psych ward? Were you a good boy and managed to snag yourself a day pass?” Peter clasped his hands together like he was excited for him, voice dripping with sarcasm. “And you used it to visit your daughter? Aww, that’s so sweet. Wait a minute.” He pretended to just now notice the man’s cock hanging out of his pants. It had gone soft and shrunken up like a scared little mouse. “Is she…not your daughter? But you’re so old. And she’s so young. I guess I don’t see any resemblance. She’s really pretty and you’ve got-” He motioned a hand around the man’s face. “-all that. Something tells me that there’s more going on here. Wanna tell your pal Spidey all about it?” 

The man was silent, blinking in a shocked awe at the masked hero, before finally snapping out of it. Spider-Man always excelled at talking his bad guys into circles with his stream of conscious babbling. The gun raised towards his head but, quicker than the man could even process, Peter had latched his hand around the barrel and crushed it in his grasp with the same ease as one might squish a can of soda after they finished drinking.

“Whoopies,” he joked. “Looks like your gun broke! I wouldn’t pull that trigger if I were you. It’ll explode right back into your face there. On second thought, maybe give it a go! It might improve what you’re working with!” 

The man faltered, looking confused and baffled down at his crushed gun. He clearly wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box. That was okay. Peter didn’t need him to be intelligent. He just needed him to be unarmed. 

Which he now was. 

Peter grabbed him by the scruff of the collar and turned him around to face her, “Do you see that girl there?” The man’s eyes glazed over as he stared down at her exposed breasts. Peter quickly threw a hand over the man’s eyes to block them, manhandling him around like he wasn’t twice his size. “I take that back. Don’t see that girl there. Use your imagination. Remember her face. You know that girl? Yeah, that girl. The one you tied up and assaulted? The one sitting in front of us, scared out of her mind and traumatized. I want you to remember her. Because if you ever, and I mean ever, even think about her again, if she ever crosses your pathetically shriveled up mind, if you ever say her fucking name, speak about her, think about, look in her direction, or ever come near her again…” 

Peter dragged him over to the living room window where the slew of police were barricaded outside. He could hear the S.W.A.T crew moving up the stairwell now towards them and knew they only had a few more precious minutes of alone time. He shoved the man up to the window, raising his arm to force him to wave limply at all the cops down below. 

His voice lowered to a dangerous growl. Any playful, sarcastic essence it once held in the presence of his girl disappeared so only the man could hear him. 

“If you ever fucking touch her again,” he breathed. “I will toss you off of the Empire State Building and laugh through your entire fall down to your grizzly end.” 

With his hand still clutching the man’s collar, he jerked him back and smashed his face directly through the glass window. He heard her muffled scream of shock behind him but he knew she would be alright. 

A shard of glass stuck out of the man’s forehead, blood dripping down over his half closed eye, and Peter flicked it off down onto the street below. 

“That was for trying to taunt me over text,” he whispered in the dazed man’s ear. “I don’t play nice with men like you. Want to see what it would feel like falling to your death? Here’s a little preview so you’ll be sure to know exactly what you’ll be in for if you ever even think about my woman again.” 

Peter reeled back and tossed the man straight out of her window, head first, sending him down to the cops below. If he let his anger win, he would have never set a web straight after him, but she was watching and he didn’t want to be that person. She had gone through enough without having to see her Saturday night date murder a man in front of her.

The web latched onto his back at the final moments to break his fall. His legs may have crumpled against the ground…just a little bit…but he was alive. It was more than he deserved but the cops could deal with him now. 

Peter spun around to look back at her. She was quietly sobbing, muffled by her gag, but held a look of relief on her face. She brought her teary eyes up to meet his, or where she thought they would under the mask, and gave him a short nod of thanks. 

The S.W.A.T team was nearing her door. He could jump out the window and allow them to help her get free or…

She clung onto him, her head buried in his shoulder, as he soared them down the street and away from the commotion below. She cried softly. He wasn’t sure if it was from fear or the trauma or that fact that New York’s very own Spider-Man had just stolen her from her home but he kept a firm hold on her and kept whispering reassuring words in her ear. 

Eventually, he landed them on top of his own apartment building, setting her down gently onto her bottom. 

She gasped for breath, reaching up a hand to wipe the tears from her eyes, “I always…wondered…what it would be like…to fly…” Her chest was heaving between each gasping word. “Turns out, it’s terrifying. Still, thank you, Peter. For saving me.” 

He shrugged, “It’s no problem. I was just doing my- hey, wait!”

She gave him a sneaky smile, still shivering and teary, but proud of herself for figuring it out.

“What?” She asked, innocently. “You think I wouldn’t know your voice? I’ve been listening to it for hours every night over the phone for the past few days.”

Peter reluctantly reached a hand up to pull off his mask, “You’re good.” 

Despite having already guessed his secret identity, she still looked surprised to actually see him without the mask on. He squatted down in front of her to seem less intimidating. 

“So that was your stalker, I take it?” He asked. 

She nodded, giving a sad sigh, “The one and only. He’s a joy, isn’t he?” 

He plopped onto his ass and crossed his legs, giving her a shrug, “I don’t think he’ll be bothering you again. I may have had some, ahem, choice words to encourage him to find new hobbies.”

She smiled again, blinking back her tears, “Thank you, Peter. Or, should I be calling you Spidey from now on?”

He laughed, rolling his eyes, “Look, this is a big deal! You better not go running your mouth or else I’ll have to have some choice words with you, too.” 

He liked hearing the sound of her laugh, especially after everything she just went though, and he knew she would be okay. 

“I have a date with Spider-Man tomorrow,” she giggled. “How exciting.”

Peter chuckled, “The excitement wears off quickly, trust me.” 

She scooted closer to bring her mascara streaked face inches from his, “Somehow I doubt that.”

[thatneoncrisis]

any other info to give about that harrow, nova and nona as triplets AU thingie you drew a lil while back? i am very interested i must know more

BARK I LOVE YOU SO BAD

its an INCREDIBLY self indulgent sand box thing with a fluctuating canon to fit whatever dumbass ideas sam and i have. its like the kind of thing we could never actually write or it would kill us instantly as it goes against literally everything i like about harrow in the books. but its fun to wax about sometimes i just want to do addams family shit. what if they were all creepy and did whatever they wanted and had a big mansion to fuck about in. it loke Pains me to think about how indulgent it is but whaddever

just random bullet points:

- harrows the oldest then nova then nona

- Anastasia and samael are their biological parents but alecto carried the kids because samael has fertility issues. also anasam t4t realness

- nova is also trans. you can pick which direction it literally doesnt matter sometimes there are just different stories to tell in different ways

- nonas birth name is nastja nonas just a nickname

- all three were homeschooled. nona has an intellectual disability and nova is aggressively dyslexic

- nova does fencing shes perfectly adequate at it

- the girls* Like each other and this is expressed through mostly ignoring each other. nona used to sleep in the others bed but that stopped when they were around 14. they cannot begin to understand each others hobbies but they enjoy doing them in the same room separately without talking

- on a related note harrow with siblings and slightly less intense parents is obviously a very different person with different goals but overall shes still an isolated bitch.

- gideons in this au and so is necro!gideon we just call that one agnus for simplicity. agnus was adopted by a couple of jesus freaks gideon lives with john

- when the girls* have a birthday they segment it into morning noon and night, one for each. usually they just silently give harrow and nova a present and dont say anything more but nona actually has people over or wants to go out

- nona has a dog its name is It. nobody knows where she got it

- they live next to a lake nona goes down there a lot to swim and throw rocks

- ana and sam are married. they refuse to specify exactly what alectos doing there but you can just kind of guess

[justpostsyeet]

Who's that smiling guy(gif) in your profile pic?

You mean this bitch

You can find basic info here

Huo Daofu emerges as a fascinating, almost inexplicable enigma in a world where most are bound by tomb-raiding honor codes and dogged loyalty. He's sharp, perceptive, and as caustic as vinegar, his well-practiced snark a refreshing balm against Wu Xie's perpetual charm that often borders on Marty Sue territory. Huo Daofu knows how to wound with a look, to offer up contempt veiled in the thinnest guise of professionalism. He's That Bitch personified—the eye rolls, the carefully meted-out sarcasm, the razor-sharp side commentary: he's not here for heroics or loyalty, he's here for him, and maybe just a little for the drama.

Yet behind that acid wit lies a man curiously entangled in the lives of others, even if he’d rather nobody noticed. He grumbles about Wu Xie's cough but shelters him from the rain, curses him out of one lung but obsessively ensures the other keeps breathing. Huo Daofu's affection is a thorny, prickly thing, given in spite of himself, as much to make a point as to fulfill a duty. The constant push-pull between his prickly disdain and quiet, nearly feral loyalty hints at something deeper—something he likely resents and treasures in equal measure. Fluent in logistics and anatomy—skills that make him both a fantastic doctor and a potential cleaner of inconvenient messes—he’s functional and ruthlessly efficient but also visibly out of place, eternally displaced from what he might call home. His relationships speak volumes about his contradictions. With Yang Hao, there's a protective, yet undeniably self-serving interest—bordering on a possessive pride in the boy’s potential, layered with enough ambiguity to raise eyebrows. He’s the cold-blooded pragmatist, but he’s also the one pulling Yang Hao back from countless moments of danger, silently dragging the kid to safety while casting his signature scornful gaze at the oblivious crowd. He's a man with vaguely menacing aspirations—he'll take over the Huos if the opportunity presents itself, but he's smart enough to know that a little decency might be his best survival tool.

And, of course, Huo Daofu’s fashion sense is impeccable, and that's not merely an aesthetic choice but a declaration of independence in a world of practical, dusty clothes. His checked suit, pocket square, and dramatic scarf mark him as someone unbothered by the scorn of his peers. He’s out of place, doesn’t fully belong—and he knows it. So why not dress up the part of the outsider, the drama-imbued intellectual, the man with his sights set on surviving by any means necessary? There’s more than a touch of dark humor in his choices, as though he’s laughing privately at the world that never wanted him and never will, savoring his own bitter bite in each calculated appearance.

His impeccable fashion sense :

In the end, Huo Daofu is not a hero, not a friend, and not an enemy—he’s a man who loves reluctantly, fights strategically, and suffers elegantly, a character so deliciously layered with contradictions that we can’t help but lean in closer.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not reconnecting with my brother?

I (21x) have a really complicated relationship with my brother (18m), not helped by the fact we both live with our mom right now. He’s had a really hard time in his life, with having anger issues, ADHD, what we both suspect is NPD, and our family being. Dysfunctional at best and neglectful/borderline emotionally abusive at worse. We both know that our family wasn’t particularly good for us, but we have pretty different approaches on how to deal with it/how we feel like it’s effected us.

This is where some of my (100% AH) behavior comes in- I was incredibly cruel to him as a young teen (12ish) and basically belittled him and pushed him away at every opportunity. We used to be intense but loving with each other and I feel like I took that and made him feel like he couldn’t love or trust me (which he’s told me himself multiple times). I know I failed him as an older sibling and I hold so much regret and shame for not nurturing him into all the good he held (and still does).

Where it gets rocky is our current relationship. I hate to say this and I’ve never said it to his face, but I feel like the roles have completely swapped. He talks over and down to me, gets incredibly upset when I won’t drop everything for him (I won’t get into it bc this would turn into a long vent but he once got legitimately mad at me for days for not giving up my bed and bedroom for him out of nowhere because he didn’t want to be in his anymore). He’s called me every cruel name under the sun, and when I fight back or our fights get ugly, he reminds me it’s all my fault he’s like this because I ruined our relationship. I’ve tried to heal from my own separate trauma and mend our family situation but whenever I talk to him it’s like I regress into a fawning doormat who never challenges the way he absolutely steps over me and puts me down (my friends have talked to me about this and have come down a lot harsher than me, so I’m borrowing their words because I can’t let go of the fact he’s not. Wrong to be this upset with me- I’m a victim of emotional abuse in my own right and I know how it feels to be wrapped in fear and hate and don’t hold it against him that he’s been hurt by me).

I’ve wanted to be a better sibling for a long time, and since about 16 I’ve made a conscious effort to shelf my pent up resentment and hurt emotions to try to always understand him and give him space to be upset, plus always taking the step to reconcile and apologize for my part to play in arguments. I refuse to call him any of the horrible names I used to (bare minimum I know, but I’ve really worked to diffuse that anger and make sure everything I say isnt an attack on him personally and only ever touches oh his current actions) and I try every diffusing move in the book with only framing my feeling as mine and not reflective of who he is and how I want to know his feelings so we can work to understand each other and move past the proboem. But he still treats me like an unstable, untrustworthy bitch who “emotionally manipulates him” by breaking down crying when he calls me names and tells me I’m stupid and he’s above my level of intellectual thought and rationale (I wish I was joking but he has directly said this, almost word for word).

I’m at a big crossroads. I want to keep trying to show him I love him and want him in my life, but it feels like he’s given up on me. If he truly has, I think I have to accept it as part of my failures and shames, but he also tells me he wishes I spent more time with him and that he wants to have a relationship with me. AITA for trying not to engage with him anymore? I want to support him but when he treats me badly if makes me regress into anger and like I’m just digging myself deeper and I’m never going to be good enough to be part of his life. I don’t know what to do with myself and how to live around him when a conversation as small as asking him to do the dishes turns into him berating me for being a nagging stupid asshole.

What are these acronyms?

[bonaesperanza]

I think Lymond's early scenes with the Somervilles gain a lot more nuance and impact and emotional punch when you reread them.

Because, okay, on the first read they seem like kind, intelligent, respectable people who love each other very much - the warmth and connection and the instinctual wordless understanding between Gideon and Kate is immediately palpable - but at that point you don't really know enough about Francis to understand how they appear to him specifically. At this point he just seems like a callous cunt who takes pleasure in offending anyone who isn't Christian.

But think about it - artistic, intellectual boy grows up in a family full of constant acrimonious conflict (Mother bought a crate of books, Father burned it, they fought over it, Father drank...), his interests cnstantly belittled as too soft and his things smashed against walls until he learns to be vicious enough to defend himself. Father seems resentful about his very existence, angelic little sister has suicidal tendencies, Mother loves him but can be a manipulative bitch. He's a POW at sixteen, then groomed by an older woman, then sent to a probable death by that same woman. He's accused of treason over an incident that killed the sister, spends years as a slave suffering through every kind of abuse imaginable, tries coming back home but Father kicks him out because he doesn't believe him.

Ends up running a band of outlaws and considering how he later admits to hating the St. Mary's lifestyle - where his officers are all middle class intellectuals handpicked by himself - because he misses his music and his clever conversation and being friends with women? Can you imagine how he must have felt with the outlaws, where he, who used to read books on ethics for fun, had to constantly keep them entertained so they don't rape and pillage their way across their own countryside?

And then he goes to Flaw Valleys and sees a music room? And one of the first things to come out of Kate's mouth is how must not get many opportunities to play the harpischord with his kind of lifestyle, and how he must miss it a lot? She has no idea how much she's hit it right on the head.

And then he gets to know them, and they're... probably his Platonic ideal of a perfect family? He probably didn't think families like that existed outside of his own imagination (just compare them to every other family we see in the series). And then compare them to Francis's own interests and personality.

The husband is an accomplished musician, and the wife adores him for it and begs him to play every opportunity she gets. When he's in a mood, she knows how to draw him out of it skillfully and subtly and wittily and without being too intrusive. He, in turn, knows her well enough to anticipate her every need and delights in making her happy and giving her everything he can. There's palpable love and respect and understanding between them - they seem to understand each other wordlessly. They're both kind and empathetic and well-educated and keep themselves up-to-date on current events, on which they have nuanced and insightful opinions beyond picking a side. The wife is a master of witty conversation and enjoys and can keep up with Francis's own barbed back-and-forth. The husband and Francis come to an immediate understanding over politics despite technically being on opposite sides of a very complicated war. The husband's managed to keep his hands clean throughout it. Their daugher is already growing up to be a person of intellect, talent, and bold personality, because she's growing up surrounded with love and care and support and books and music and opportunities to be carefree and make messes and run around with the village boys.

He's barely twenty and he's been to hell and back so many times that he feels subhuman, and these picture perfect people take him in even though he's done nothing but treat them like shit, and they offer him their kindness and care and support and try to help him every way they can despite having zero reason to trust him or like him.

Can you imagine the kind of pedestal he'd put them on? It's no wonder he keeps coming back and maintains that friendship through everything. They're like the only stars he can see from his pitch-black gutter.

And I think this makes all his hand wringing over Philippa a lot more understandable, especially considering how he now sees himself as subhuman in ten additional ways after the extra trauma of the intervening years? On the first read you kind of just want to smack him because he's being so unreasonable, but really at that point you've spent so much time in Philippa's head and so little in Francis's that she's just Philippa to you (despite all the admiration she gets), while Francis is the one everyone is constantly panting over.

But to him she's part of a family so perfect and loving and healthy and aligned with all his ideals that he can't quite bring himself to believe that not only do they exist but they also like his miserable self, a family to whom he owes a great personal debt he can never repay (as he tells Kate in RC) and Philippa's the brightest and most impressive and accomplished member of that family. She is on a pedestal so high there's literally nothing he can do to measure up to what she means to him short of becoming a god.

And then consider how he later thinks that she's broken herself beyond repair over him. They're the only pure and flawless thing he knows of, the literal embodiment of how he dreams of people being in an ideal world, and he's destroyed it.

[doctor-roman]

It’s six in the morning on a Saturday which means no one’s gonna see this which means mom says it’s my turn to complain about Innistrad and Magic story for the eleventy billionth time, sO

This is all the ramblings of a dude who woke up way too early and let himself have Thoughts about a card game, so don’t bother commenting on it, as none of this is actually important

I just can’t get over the fact that Innistrad went from a plane where hope was backed by actual power to “just do drugs about it”.

We see Sigarda just blasting Halo to all the humans of Innistrad in a deus ex machina “everything’s fine now” band aid slap to all the problems people (okay, not people, me, that I-) have brought up with the current setting of the plane.

And I know WOTC has come out and said “oh, no, Halo isn’t a drug at all”, but like. You introduced it in the roaring 20’s inspired mobster/gang war set where each faction is fighting each other for this stuff and literally described it as having a euphoric effect on the user. It’s not hard to see where that stemmed from.

I mean, everyone and their mom was joking about Wizards saying “serve Halo at your prerelease with pop rocks and fruit punch! But don’t serve it in a martini glass - for the children”.

Anyway, getting off topic.

I’m just going to reiterate for the hundredth time that seeing a plane where religion and hope were not only a good thing but also the foundation of survival for an entire group of people of that plane was refreshing to see and was one of the main draws that brought me into Magic as a whole. Just seeing a happy ending for what was otherwise a doomed setting at a time when grim dark “everybody sucks, everything is fUCKED, ARGHHHHHHH” was running rampant in most media was just nice to see, ya know?

And then everything got blown up beyond any hope of repair. And then everything got blown up beyond any hope of repair again in Amonkhet - another plane where its people derived power from faith and belief in their gods and it just becomes this whole “oh, we just can’t have good things again” mindset. “Don’t get emotionally invested in our intellectual property you stupid son of a bitch, we’re just going to set it on fire for shock value somewhere down the line anyway”.

And rather than look back at what made Innistrad good - “hope and community against the darkness”, Wizards just throws its hand in the air and says “fine! Fine! We know Sigarda ain’t shit when it comes to helping the humans of Innistrad. By god, she couldn’t even save herself twice, so fucking. Here. Here’s some fucking drugs. Just have the humans get high about it. We don’t fucking care. Shut up and buy our product, we have investors to please.”

[waltwhitmansbeard]

“Telling the truth even when it hurts” for any characters, please

Btw your writing is so so good!! Don’t mind me reblogging everything you write to my cr sideblog

21. Telling the truth even when it hurts thank you!! i will never mind rbs lol. nsfw conversation in this one, folks.

He should have known better than to talk to Beau about this. She is an Expositor, a truth-seeker, a steadfast researcher—and a bitch, when she wants to be, which is, it seems, most of the time. He should have known that going to Beau for advice would result in less advice and more blunt statements of what are, to Beau, facts, things that she believes he needs to hear.

Which is why he hardly gets half a sentence out before she's rolling her eyes with a dramatic, put-upon groan. "Fucking hell, Caleb, why are we having this conversation?"

Caleb blinks owlishly. "Because I do not know the best course of action, Beauregard, and I thought my friend might sympathize."

She hits him with that look, the one the cuts to the quick and sees pasts each and every shield he's ever cast in his life. "If you wanted sympathy, you would have gone to Jester. You want me to tell you to fuck Essek, so do it. Fuck him. And stop talking to me about it."

His face is instantly on fire. He cannot believe his skin doesn't radiate a low, reddish light. "I—that is not what I—"

"You've been dancing around this forever and, like, I'm sorry? But it's boring. You like him. You want him. He likes and wants you, if the look his gives whenever you use words like temporal or sigil are anything to go by. So just jump his bones and put the rest of us out of our simmering misery."

Sometimes Caleb wishes they left her in the Astral Sea. "Things are not so simple, Beauregard."

She'd been lounging back on the couch in her and Yasha's living room, but now she sits up, rests her elbows on her knees, and stares directly at him. "Actually, this is the simplest shit. I get that your life has been, comparatively, pretty fucking extraordinary. Most people aren't brainwashed child soldiers who killed their parents and spent a decade in a fugue state in an asylum before going on the run from an entire government. That shit is complicated.

"But this? Being so intellectually and physically attracted to someone that you want to ride their dick until your eyes roll back in your head and you see gods? That's basic, baby, that's one-oh-one. It's not special or nuanced or specific, it's just being into someone. People have been doing that for, like, ever, so just do something about it."

They're glaring at each other, but mostly Caleb's glaring at her because he doesn't have the ability to glare at himself. She's annoying a lot of the time, but she's especially annoying when she's right.

Except there's one thing she has not considered, the thing Caleb has not been able to stop thinking about since he first realized how desperately he desires Essek. "And what if he does not return the sentiment, hmm? Am I to ruin the friendship we so carefully built?"

She snorts, cocksure, aggravating, and flops back against the couch again. "Caleb, if you walked into his tower and asked, he'd be on his knees for you without a thought."

And oh, how unexpected, this rush of want, hot and curling in his belly. He ignores it. "You seem so sure."

Beau turns her head over her shoulder and shouts, "HEY YASHA!"

The woman in question, who is out in the garden pruning her tulips, shouts back, "YEAH?"

"HOW BADLY DOES ESSEK WANT TO FUCK CALEB?'

"LIKE SO BADLY. LIKE SOMETIMES IT'S UNCOMFORTABLE TO LOOK AT HIM. THERE'S A LOT GOING ON THERE."

Beau extends her hands in an I told you so motion, and Caleb would love nothing more than for the ground beneath him to open up and swallow him whole—which, now that he thinks about it, he's sure Essek has a spell for. "Well this has been a terrible conversation. Let's never do it again."

"Gladly." Beau shoves herself off of the couch. "Just be sure to name the first kid after me. Anyway, you staying for dinner?"

And he does, because family is family, after all.

[scarlet-witchery]

Femslash February — Day 3 — Found Family

Debbie/Sandy, little domestic bitches. (ao3) @m4ndysk4nkovich this one's for you, m'dear <3

For a long time now—longer than she might admit—Debbie had known something was missing from her life. Intellectually she knew that she didn’t need a romantic partner to fill some kind of void, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t want love. She had a long list of people trailing behind her who had broken her heart, men and women alike, and at some point Debbie figured that love must not be in the cards for her. Not even just romantic love, either; sometimes it seemed like everyone she loved, family included, decided to leave her. Or would leave her, one day. And it hurt, goddammit. She was a strong, independent woman, a working mom with her own business, but at the end of the day she still wanted someone to love her. Maybe she was still a silly little girl deep down. It didn’t change anything, though.

So she’d decided to stick with just fucking, just mindless sex where feelings didn’t have to be involved. It worked pretty well, too—didn’t have to worry about Franny getting attached to someone who’d inevitably leave. And Debbie knew she’d always get her heart broken no matter what, but it was Franny she worried about more. Maybe she’d had a chaotic upbringing, but she wanted better for her daughter. And it was…it was fine, for a while. She’d done tinder hookups with West Side lesbians when she could get one of her brothers to watch Franny—meet them at a bar, have some drinks, go back to their place and fuck, then leave as soon as the other woman was asleep. Not many, and not often, but enough that it scratched an itch. And she never, ever brought any of them back home.

But then she broke her own rule. Sitting on the front steps of the Gallagher home, she’d turned to Sandy Milkovich and took the cigarette out of her mouth, looked her straight in the eye and said, “Wanna fuck?” Then she’d tried to ignore the butterflies in her stomach when Sandy blew out a lungful of smoke and gave her a lazy grin, all “fuck yeah” in her low, gravelly voice. They’d gone up to Debbie’s childhood bedroom and fucked in her bed, and Debbie was never so grateful that her daughter slept like a rock.

And suddenly Debbie had someone who was there—who stepped into her life like there’d been a spot perfectly carved out for her. Sandy didn’t have to stay, but she did. They slotted against each other like they’d always meant to be there. And Franny, well…Franny adored her. One day Debbie had come home from work, dragging her tired body up the stairs to the bathroom so she could take a much-needed hot shower, only to find Sandy and Franny in there already. Franny giggled as she played with Sandy’s hair, making it into a huge mess, but Sandy glanced at Debbie in the mirror and shrugged.

“No one else has long enough hair for her to practice with,” she said by way of explanation. Franny looked up at her mother and grinned, hugging Debbie’s leg in greeting.

“Hi, mommy! I missed you!” she said.

Debbie crouched down and hugged her little girl back as tight as she could, loudly giving her a smacking kiss on top of her forehead. “Mwah! I missed you, too, Fran. Did you and Sandy have fun today?”

“Yeah! We got ice cream, and played at the park, and watched monster hunters!”

Sandy shrugged, but Debbie could see her fighting off a grin. “Your kid really likes monster hunters, by the way.”

“Does she, now?” Debbie asked, leaning over and giving Sandy a kiss as well. Sandy brought her hand up to mess with Debbie’s ponytail a little bit, which was a mess from her hard hat that she’d had to wear on the job site. After the whole debacle with Julia and almost getting arrested—Claudia apparently had had no idea that seventeen was the age of consent in Illinois, so the case against Debbie had fallen through really quickly—Debbie had never been happier to get back to work. Their union had managed to secure some good concessions in her absence, and the other welders on site had given her a lot of pats on the back for being the one who started the whole thing in the first place. Sure, being out of work for so long hadn’t been great, but it was worth it now that she was making good money. Enough that maybe she could splurge a little more on Franny this year for Christmas.

“Oh, yeah,” Sandy told her. “Said she wanted to watch the rest with you tonight. Mick and Ian are off doing newlywed shit or something, so we probably could make one of those frozen pizzas and watch TV till this one falls asleep on the couch.”

Debbie grinned. “I like the sound of that. Hey, Franny, go get changed into your pajamas, okay? Mommy’s gotta get a shower.” Franny nodded and ran off to their room, and Sandy closed the door once she was gone.

“Maybe it’d be a good idea if we showered together,” Sandy told her, one eyebrow going up almost suggestively. “Conserve water, and all that shit.” She pressed Debbie back against the door and kissed her, a hand going to the back of Debbie’s neck to pull her in closer; Sandy’s other hand went to her waist, tracing along the waistline of her jeans. Debbie couldn’t help but grin into the kiss. She couldn’t stop thinking about how well they fit together, every time they fucked just better and better, not to mention how easily Sandy had found a place in her and Franny’s lives like she’d always been here.

“Hmm…” Debbie said, pretending to think it over as she draped her arms over Sandy’s shoulders. “You know, you might be onto something there. Anything we can do to keep the water bill down, right?”

Sandy chuckled, her lip ring bumping against Debbie’s mouth. “That’s me,” she said, “always trying to be conscientious of the bills.” She reached up and pulled Debbie’s long hair out of her ponytail holder, and Debbie maneuvered them around so she could get the water running.

It was almost a revelation, being so easily comfortable with someone so quickly. Debbie had always fallen fast, anyway, but Sandy had fallen into their family life with little effort. Maybe it should scare Debbie that it could lead to heartbreak—no matter how she tried to do things differently before, it had always led to that in the past. But maybe that was the trick: maybe it was about letting things happen as they would, and not overthinking it too much. That had always been her downfall before. But with Sandy, it was easy to let the world fall away.

Later, they sat on the couch with Franny, eating slices of frozen pizza that they’d heated up in the oven, Franny enraptured by the show on the TV while Debbie lay stretched out with her head in Sandy’s lap. Everything in her life was about her family—her siblings, her daughter. At one point that family had included her parents, before they both disappointed her beyond repair. And now there was Sandy, who was combing her fingers through Debbie’s damp hair and handing Franny a pack of markers from the coffee table so she could draw the sea monster that this episode was all about hunting. This little family was good, too; as a rule, Debbie tried not to get her hopes up too quickly anymore, having learned that lesson the hard way too many times. But maybe, just maybe, this could lead to something good.

[titleleaf]

Various Wills Graham & The Man Your Haunted Eideteker Could Smell Like

I promised you a really long-winded post about why the "ship on the bottle" aftershave exchanges don't work for me in the TV show and I am here to deliver. Thoughts on Will and Clarice's respective ~*~*~*signature scents~*~*~* in the novels, how the scent motif gets updated for the NBC show, and the smells I want 2013 Will Graham to smell like. Come with me on an olfactory journey.

(That second ad: dude, ew.) Gird your loins because there is so much corny sailing imagery to come.

In The Books

Dr. Hannibal Lecter lay on his cot asleep, his head propped on a pillow against the wall. Alexandre Dumas’s Le Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine was open on his chest. Graham had stared through the bars for about five seconds when Lecter opened his eyes and said, “That’s the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court.” “I keep getting it for Christmas.” Dr. Lecter’s eyes are maroon and they reflect the light redly in tiny points. Graham felt each hair bristle on his nape. He put his hand on the back of his neck. “Christmas, yes,” Lecter said. “Did you get my card?” “I got it. Thank you.” Dr. Lecter’s Christmas card had been forwarded to Graham from the FBI crime laboratory in Washington. He took it into the backyard, burned it, and washed his hands before touching Molly. [...] “Your hands are rough. They don’t look like a cop’s hands anymore. That shaving lotion is something a child would select. It has a ship on the bottle, doesn’t it?” Dr. Lecter seldom holds his head upright. He tilts it as he asks a question, as though he were screwing an auger of curiosity into your face. Another silence, and Lecter said, “Don’t think you can persuade me with appeals to my intellectual vanity.”

(Red Dragon, Thomas Harris, 1981)

Will is in his mid-to-late 30s circa s1 of the NBC show, airing in 2013; his book counterpart is ~40 at the time of Red Dragon (at least prior to some later timeline shuffling? I think?) which would make him ~34-35 at the time of his briefer encounter with Lecter in that continuity. The substantial difference is when they're born -- the early 1940s rather than the late 1970s. Show Will's Gen X. Book Will isn't even a baby boomer, he's Silent Generation! These generational cohorts don't mean very much but in some things, like fashion and marketing, they flag differences in how certain products are marketed and how they're viewed.

(all my Old Spice bottle images in this post come courtesy of OldSpiceCollectibles)

The aftershave lotion with a ship on the bottle that Hannibal is bitching about is almost certainly Old Spice -- the OG Old Spice, as formulated in the late 1970s. This was a golden era for aftershave in gift-giving (witness the dozens and dozens of different collectible Avon bottles) and while the classic Old Spice bottle very much does have a ship on the bottle, Willy might have given his stepfather any number of novelty bottles designed for gifting, all of them with roughly similar early-Americana/nautical themes. Ship's wheels, ship's lanterns, ships in general, scrimshawed whale teeth, binoculars, basically anything you could possibly want. (I'd wager this is at least in part to keep up with similar collectibles coming out of Avon, but I might have that the wrong way around, or be completely off the mark altogether.)

http://www.oldspicecollectibles.com/Bottles/novelty bottles.html

The fragrance inside the bottle is a spicy floral with resinous basenotes, what for decades has been called an "oriental" fragrance. (Mercifully some parts of the industry seem to be beginning a shift toward less racist language, and I hope that shift continues, I'm seeing people float "ambrée"/"amberesque" and other language to evoke the spicy, warm profile of some scents.) It's an alcohol-based aftershave lotion, so it stings like a mother when you put it on freshly-shaven skin, and it's not great for hydration.

For cultural context, most of this will probably be stating the obvious, but I think it's interesting with the book's themes around social class, family -- Will's little family, Dolarhyde's family of origin, Dolarhyde's victims' family -- and masculinity.

In 1981, Old Spice is already positioned firmly as a highly accessible men's fragrance in the US -- available pretty much anywhere at the drugstore level, with a coordinating line of toiletries like shaving cream if aftershave isn't enough for you. For a wide swath of people of a certain age, it carries associations with dads and grandfathers, or the transmission of rituals around masculinity and coming of age from father to son. (This is weird for me as a person who came of age during the whole "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign, which aimed at revamping Old Spice's product line and aiming it toward a younger demographic, in competition with Axe. That Old Spice revamp was probably my intro into men's fragrances and it's so fucking embarrassing to say that -- it seemed very transgressive and butch to me to be wearing men's deodorant with my Catholic schoolgirl 'fit every weekday.)

It's chronologically feasible that Will's dad also wore Old Spice, and it makes sense as the kind of gift you'd give your new stepdad -- it's an impersonal gift, reflecting a fairly conservative, mainline, American masculinity. The unease many American men still felt about using scented products — even deodorant, which remained a squeamish topic — could be mitigated by the association with shaving the face as some distinctly male ritual and one taught by fathers to sons as part of their entrance into adolescence.

Have another incredibly corny print ad from 1970:

(the text is tiny here, but the gist is: hey, all these different dudes love Old Spice! Grandpa Hal! Uncle Fred! Jack! Dave! Even that goofball Pete! Just a whole bunch of guys.)

So Hannibal's remark has layers -- he's needling Will about the fact that he knows (or suspects) that Will now has a wife and child, which he likely didn't have when they last encountered each other. He's taking a swipe at his social class and his lack of sophistication — for someone with a dainty nose and a decidedly bitchy sensibility (especially in RD) Old Spice is very much d��classé. And in a narrative level, the fact that Hannibal is distinguished by his aesthetic refinement and a certain degree of fussiness as well as viciousness sets him and Will in opposition, two different modes of masculinity. I have… a lot of thoughts about how Thomas Harris uses aesthetics and sensory pleasure and refinement — certain fabrics, certain garments, certain styles of penmanship — to frame social deviance in these books but that’s for a different post I’m definitely not going to make.

This moment gets a fun parallel to Hannibal's first meeting with Clarice in The Silence Of The Lambs (1988):

“Now,” Lecter said, sitting sideways at his table to face her, “what did Miggs say to you?” “Who?” “Multiple Miggs, in the cell down there. He hissed at you. What did he say?” “He said, 'I can smell your cunt.”' “I see. I myself cannot. You use Evyan skin cream, and sometimes you wear L'Air du Temps, but not today. Today you are determinedly unperfumed. How do you feel about what Miggs said?” “He's hostile for reasons I couldn't know. It's too bad. He's hostile to people, people are hostile to him. It's a loop.” “Are you hostile to him?” “I'm sorry he's disturbed. Beyond that, he's noise. How did you know about the perfume?” “A puff from your bag when you got out your card. Your bag is lovely.”

This is definitely a different tone than he takes with Will Graham, both because he has a very different past history with Will and because of Clarice's position as a woman, placed in front of him as an object for scrutiny. L'Air du Temps is also an old school fragrance (premiering in 1948) and had been popular for several decades by the time the novel's set — a warm floral with the kind of powdery iris note that gets really annoying people on perfume review sites fighting over the words "old lady". (FWIW I own multiple bottles of L’Air du Temps and all but one are from estate sales. The one that isn't, I... uh... bought because I was thinking about Clarice Starling a lot at the time.) This one was and is a ton of women's signature scent, and there's nothing juvenile about it. Clarice wears it, and her mother might well have worn it too. That shit is iconic but for different reasons than Old Spice is for men.

(This little '80s spray is not what any of my bottles look like. If you want more on the various ways this one's been formulated over the years, check out the PerfumeShrine piece I linked above or this blog post on how to identify its different bottles and flankers.)

Someone on Fragrantica compared L'Air du Temps to the olfactory version of a pair of pearl earrings or a cashmere sweater — conveying polished, (small-c) conservative femininity. The inside of Clarice’s handbag is the recipient of scent here, not her body (that part's conveyed through the remark about her hand cream) and the indirectness of the detail under observation is what conveys the keenness of Lecter’s senses and how closely he’s paying attention to his visitor. He also huffs her business card because of course he does.

All of these elements of class and restraint are set in opposition to the crassness of Miggs’ unwanted commentary on Clarice’s body. With her good bag and her cheap shoes Clarice is faking a certain degree of maturity and presenting herself in the most palatable way possible for this interview ("determinedly unperfumed" and all the things that can mean; pretty but serious; feminine but not too feminine; performing the right social class, all along in flight from her "common" origins) but she’s still facing virulent misogyny from damn near every direction. The book doesn’t have quite the same pointed sense of a Theme(tm) around misogyny that the film manages, though that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have plenty going on with regard to gender, but I think the differences around how Hannibal identifies these two perfumes, and what the reader is meant to gather from each allusion or name drop, are telling and very fun.

Hannibal then goes on to give Clarice advice about how to zhuszh up her add-a-bead necklace with some semiprecious stones in order to best set off the color of her hair and eyes, which… again, I do not have time to get into that, but I’m obsessed with it.

In The NBC Show

Hannibal stands behind Will, his NOSTRILS FLARE as CAMERA SLOWLY PUSHES IN on the back of Will’s neck. WILL GRAHAM Did you just smell me? HANNIBAL Difficult to avoid. I really must introduce you to a finer aftershave. That smells like something with a ship on the bottle. WILL GRAHAM I keep getting it for Christmas. HANNIBAL Have your headaches gotten any worse lately? More frequent? WILL GRAHAM Yes, actually. HANNIBAL I’d change the aftershave. (s01e05 "Coquilles")

Love the mention of the back of Will's neck, already intimating that it's not his aftershave Hannibal's huffing here. This is something I just can't fanwank for the television show's remixed timeline -- if Will doesn't have a partner and child in his life, or really anyone else in his life in a position to be giving him presents, this recontextualized snippet about getting the offending aftershave for Christmas doesn't make a lot of sense. It works on the level of "hey, I recognize that bit!" and it establishes for the viewer (or reminds them of) Hannibal's highly developed sense of smell, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

INT. HANNIBAL LECTER'S HOUSE - KITCHEN - NIGHT Hannibal comes into the dark room. Moves toward the refrigerator. Stops. Lifts his nose to the air. HANNIBAL The same unfortunate aftershave. Too long in the bottle. Hannibal opens the refrigerator door and the light illuminates a gun pointed at his head, Will Graham behind it. - (s02e07 "Yakimono")

HANNIBAL LECTER. He lies on his cot, asleep, his head propped on a pillow against the wall. Alexandre Dumas's Grand Dictionnaire de Cuisine is open on his chest. Eyes still closed, he takes a long slow breath through his nose, smelling the current of air that the CAMERA traveled. He opens his eyes. HANNIBAL That's the same atrocious aftershave you wore in court. - (s03e09 "…And the Woman Clothed with the Sun", very directly drawn from Red Dragon)

What’s the modern-day analogue of the original Old Spice in 1981 — ubiquity, maturity, connotations around class and gender? I don’t know if there is one. In 2013 Will's more likely to be wearing Old Spice deodorant, post-rebrand, still with a ship on the packaging but called Fiji or Denali. Or Bearglove, or Wolfthorn. No doubt Hannibal would find that offensive, but offensive in a different way than his book counterpart way back in the Reagan administration.

There's no shortage of drugstore-y scents in 2013, highly accessible fragrances for a person giving a generic Male Gift at an accessible price point, or habitual buys for a guy who mostly wants to smell like he's at least attempting to be a put-together human being: D&G Light Blue, Davidoff Cool Water, CK One, CK Eternity. (Or their body spray equivalents, if you really want Hannibal to suffer, and I do, every day of my life.) But in general there's a* lot* more diversity in fragrance worn by American men in 2013 than there was circa the events of Red Dragon or at whatever age book!Will might have started using fragrance. There's no one scent that stands in for such a broad section of gender and class as Old Spice aftershave would have in the 1970s.

It seems doubtful that in 2013 Will's using whatever he's using primarily for its shaving benefits, not least of all because he's a bearded king. (Presumably he cleans his beard up from time to time and trims his neck and whatnot, but bear with me here.) True aftershave is still available in many drugstores, including some venerable names — Aqua Velva, Skin Bracer, Pinaud Clubman — but they’re no longer the arena of younger men unless they're curious budding fragheads. And you can still be an outdoorsy dude in 2013 wearing Old Spice, but it's a bit more of a self-conscious put-on at that point, either someone's buying Will tongue-in-cheek dad cologne to go with his house full of boat engines and dog statues, or Will's bashful about his own taste for tongue-in-cheek dad cologne.

What might Will be wearing in 2013? This depends on which aspect we’re trying to reflect. For modest budget and ubiquity I can see him going for the OG Polo Green or one of its flankers. (There's a great piece of NBC Hannibal perfume meta by Genufa that I swear I only encountered after I already chose this, and it mentions Polo Classic in tandem with Will, so I'm glad we're in agreement here.) For stuff in an amber-spice neighborhood, CK Obsession For Men maybe? Still retro (premiered in 1986) but not 1930s retro.

What’s a step up? If I was out here somehow tasked with buying this man a nice smelling gift, what would I choose? If Will wanted to treat himself with something under that broad constellation of selling points — a single fragrance for steady wear, something unflashy and congruent with his presentation of himself -- I would be really tempted to put him in something slightly more niche, but not a lot more niche.

I am a huge fan of Etat Libre d'Orange Fat Electrician, a really fun creamy vetiver that's sexy in a clean soft-butch kind of way. It's not spicy in the least but as the scent's subtitle of a "semi-modern vetiver" indicates it has a nice timeless quality, warm and clean-smelling but not soapy. (And a very subtle gourmand aspect -- chestnut cream or marrons glacés.) Or something from DS&Durga, Mississippi Medicine, or Bowmakers, or Burning Barbershop -- there's a whole slew of "vintage barbershop"-inspired scents that might scratch the same itch for someone who wears a fragrance out of habit and to feel grounded in a solid, put-together masculinity. (Maybe especially when he's not feeling otherwise particularly grounded or put-together.)

For different ways of evoking Will's kind of dignified no-fuss outdoorsman thing, Profumum Arso ("Cedar leaves, incense, leather, pine resin") maybe, or Fumidus, though it sounds like peaty hell to me -- Will seems to be a bourbon guy and not a scotch dude. For something a little more glamorous and a little more established, maybe Guerlain Habit Rouge, idk. 

What’s the next step up from these -- the equivalent of Bella's Bolt Of Lightning? If someone (with a bankroll on par with Hannibal, or Bedelia, or Jack, or Bella) were to introduce Will to a still pricier class of fragrance, what might that look like? It's hard for me to say, since this isn't a type of perfumery I engage with, like... at all. I like my indie oils, I like niche perfumers, I love decants, but I don't have a cool $800 to drop on a whole bottle of... anything. Once you reach a certain level you can shop pretty differently from normal people, up to and including getting something one-of-a-kind commissioned for your boytoy/crime gimp/ex-husband's ex-husband/etc. (And as a gift for someone else -- since none of these people barring possibly Bella has a remotely normal relationship with Will -- it'd say as much about their intentions with the gift and their perception of Will as the reality of who Will is.) So I'm going to have to mull that a while.

Absolutely none of this gets into the bonkers Farmacia di Santa Maria Novella sequence in Hannibal, which... has a lot going on, idk. ("Starling, then. Clean, and rich in textures. Cotton sun-dried and ironed. Clarice Starling, then. Engaging and toothsome. Tedious in her earnestness and absurd in her principles. Quick in her mother wit." Please, sir!) Like basically every other element of the series, the smell stuff gets ratcheted up to 11 for that book, and it seems like its own separate thing to unpack. Hannibal fucking loves shopping in that book and I love reading about his weird little ass shopping.

[paperlunamoth]

Genuinely blows my mind that there are people unironically saying that being autistic gives you permission to call people retarded as a slur. Autism and intellectual disability are sometimes comorbid, yes, but they are not the same condition, and belonging to one group does not grant you automatic membership to the other. And being part of a group does not give you the right to use slurs against that group as slurs. When black people call each other the N-word or women call each other bitch in friendly conversation, they don't mean those words in a racist or sexist way. But calling someone retarded because you think they're dumb is using the word in an ableist way. It is not the same thing as two intellectually disabled people greeting each other with "what's up, retard?" And pretending that it is the same thing is being deliberately disingenuous.

And I don't care if you're autistic and people have called you retarded, how on god's green fucking Earth does that make it okay for you turn around and do that to other people? I'm autistic. Is it okay for people to call me retarded, amongst other things, as long as they're also autistic? Is it okay for someone to use the same language that has been used to insult and disparage me all my life in order to insult and disparage me, as long as they are also autistic? Is it okay for a black person to tell another black person, "no, I'm black, you're a n*gger"? Is it okay for a woman to call another woman who has been prostituted a worthless whore?

Irony of ironies, these people are displaying a poorer understanding of conversational context and the relevance of intent than could be expected of the average autistic person. That or they perfectly understand that what they're saying is bullshit, but they'd rather worship misogynistic men than admit that maybe their idols are not the most amazing people.

[sophocused]

oct 26, 2024 | mid 20s era

I'm 25, unemployed, married, and we moved into our first house. I'm going to sound so ungrateful and whiny, but I still have this old studyblr where I can shout into the void. At the end of the day, I'll blame late stage capitalism but let me get into the crucks and quirks of it all. It's the being sheltered for 22 years by 1st generation immigrant Filipino parents. It's the fatphobia faced since I was 7 years old. It's being the youngest sibling that everybody thinks is stupid and that having boundaries is just me being a bitch. It's being a burnt out gifted kid who instead of being able to follow their dreams and make sixfigs as a pharmacist by 2023, is unemployed after being discriminated against for 9 months at her old desk job, and graduated with a general science degree that can't get her into a master's because ya need a 4-year major for that. It's the 4 years of rumination that I might have autism or ADHD after being misdiagnosed with just type 2 bipolar disorder. It's all of these ways that the cards fell in my life, and I've just been having to deal deal deal.

Long story, long, I got into my firt serious relationship right before lockdown happened in 2020. We decided to stick it out despite not getting to do all the honeymoon stage dates and romantic whatnots for a whole 2 years. Before you worry that, oh no, did the relationship go awry as well? No, it's the one thing I can trust as a constant in my life, we got married last year (2023).

We moved in together last year as well, spedrun because haha actually my parents got in the way so many times of how often we could see each other, we had a curfew of 8:30pm, we couldn't see each for almost 6 months in 2022 when everyone else was reconnecting with their loved ones, ALL. BECAUSE. OF. MY. PARENTS. I was 20-23 years old throughout this whole relationship, and my parents had that much power over my actions.

Now fast-forward to this year, I've maneuvered through my in-laws trying to make me some kind of trad wife/sister-in-law, we've moved into our dream home, which is... Any house, in this economy. But more specifically, we are forrtunate enough to have a house/home that checks all our boxes. I swear I'm doing the work, not a day goes by that I DON'T think about how much I need to improve as a person to fit suddenly into this life where every move isnt under a microscope, I answer to no one, and I'm just in a happy healthy marriage in my own space with our 2 cats.

I can't catch up. That's just how I feel. I feel my environment and surroundings have all glowed tf up, on paper it's great and magical and much much better than the 20 years I was with my narcissistic, emotionally, and sometimes physically, ab*sive parents. It's like... I was in survival mode so long, my mind and body can't accept the "War is Over" theme in my surroundings.

I can't enjoy it. I can't relax. There's always something that needs to get done, me without enough spoons for it, and me feeling ounces and ounces of guilt and shame and frustration that my body doesn't keep up with the ever-ending to-do list in my brain. No therapy buzz words can be enough to spring me into permanent action. I need momentum or there's nothing. Momentum is so easily lost, and so difficult to regain.

I write this and hope, that a month, three months, even a year from now, I hope I've cut myself some slack and gave myself the room and time to breathe. This is a normal reaction after being in hypervigilant survival mode for 20 of my most sentient years.

My incentive is: actually take time to enjoy my situation/reality, shake the habits of feeling guilty for existing and relaxing, create and follow through with goals instead of just ruminating, intellectualizing, and getting trapped in thought trains of grandeur.

[wutheringmights]

I finished The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin last night, then spent all of today digesting it. I really needed time to figure out how I feel about this book, nonetheless the Broken Earth trilogy.

As a whole, I like this series. My biggest praise will always go to the relationship between Essun and Nassun. That Essun, a woman defined by her motherhood, was a terrible mother to her daughter, and that her daughter in turn found solace in her mother's old abuser, is fascinating. It's insane. I would read a hundred books about them.

But even though the series is about Essun and Nassun, it's so just... not. I've complained before that the intricate world building is as fascinating as it is distracting. The narrative is always scrambling to explain something new, so much so that the characters aren't allowed to interact as much as they should.

I'm not even just talking about Essun and Nassun. Tonkee was wasted. She was first introduced in the very first book, and she was very cool and interesting. I kept waiting for the reason why Tonkee is in this story beyond a few lines of needed exposition. But after the first book, she stops being important.

Outside of characters like Schaffa, Hoa, and Alabaster, I didn't really care or know any of the other characters in the large cast. In theory, I'm supposed to have feelings about Lerna and Ykka, but... no. They served a function. And that's it.

The plot of this series just baffles me. Why did we spend so much time with Castrima? Why did Nassun have to keep finding excuses to not go after Essun? Why was this three books? This could have been duology! If I really wanted to, I could put on a tin foil hat and claim that someone outside Jemisin forced her to turn a two-book plot into a trilogy. I'm just utterly baffled that someone would let this story meander like this.

All my griping aside, I don't hate this series. I like it a lot, but on a intellectual scale.

This book is filled with fascinating observations about our society. I bet someone who knows more about the neo slave narratives of the 20th century would be able to write a killer paper on how this series ruminates on the legacy of authors like Butler and Morrison.

I like all of the complicated characters, how they defy dichotomies like good vs evil. Nassun is one hell of a character. I want to study her. I want more of her.

I don't want to pit two bad bitches against each other, but I can't help but compare this series to R.F. Kuang's The Poppy War trilogy. They have little in common, but they are both dark fantasy series I read this year, so bear with me.

The more distance I put between myself and Kuang, the more I struggle with how simplistic her stories can be at times. She doesn't leave a lot of room for interpretation or for the reader to introduce their own feelings to the mix. If you scrape off the overt violence, it surprisingly simple. It's a series that doesn't require a whole lot of input from the reader. But, the plot has fantastic momentum. Each book by itself is a joy to read.

Jemisin embraces uncertainty far more. There are no clear answers. The reader meets these characters and are forced to come to their own conclusions about them. Everything from its world to its themes gets more complex the more thought you put into them. The book demands you think about it. But, each book is kind of a slog. I always had to force myself to pick it up and read the next part. I never regretted doing so, but I also never really fell in love with the series the way I wanted to.

This is a case where I can say that a series is objectively excellent, but not really for me. I'm glad I read them all and I'm going to continue diving deeper into Jemisin's books. But I am so very glad to get the Broken Earth trilogy off my plate.

I also want to talk about the acknowledgements at the end of the book. In it, Jemisin explains that she wrote the trilogy while caring for her sick mother, who died before the last book was finished. I wish I got this context sooner. As Jemisin says, the trilogy is inadvertently an exploration of motherhood and her grappling with her mother's death.

There were a few scenes in this book in particular where I felt her experiences and thoughts echoed my own. I'm not a Hugo Award winning author, but I did notice that after my mother died a few years ago, everything I wrote was about her, even when it wasn't.

"Even that part where--?" Yes, even that. Even now I'm still writing about her and my relationship with her, and in many ways that are and aren't painfully obvious.

It was just an interesting thing to read when her death anniversary just past.

(Do me a favor and don't give me any more condolences. I really don't need them, and I would like to not regret adding that little tidbit about myself to this reflection.)

[soulsam]

Sam Winchester x multiples of 5 for the ask game!

LIV!! hi!!!! yes thank you i will always take an opportunity to ramble about samuel william winchester my darling my beloved my everything

5. What's the first song that comes to mind when you think about them?

oh my god this is such a tough question because there are multiple ;-; one is definitely bubblegum bitch because of that legendary edit. another is "something super sweet" by rory webley which as YOU already know is my season 8-9 sam anthem of choice. there are also like a whole bunch of coldplay songs that i think of right away...trouble is probably the biggest one, but paradise and hurts like heaven are definitely up there. and those are not even the only coldplay songs on my sam playlist akjfhdjkfhdjk he's so coldplay-coded. to me. and just for you. just because it is you who asked this question. forget to remember, by mudvayne. from the saw II soundtrack.

(i did an AWFUL job answering the original question but idc!!! i love music, sue me :P)

10. Could you be best friends with this character?

yes. my toxic trait is that i honestly do believe i could be besties with sam winchester. when i'm watching the show i often find myself saying stuff that sam then says seconds after me. he and i could be true crime girlies together (leave me alone okay i promise i'm normal about it). we have drift compatible autism i just know it. we could therapize each other i think

15. What's your favorite ship for this character? (Doesn't matter if it's canon or not.)

ok now you're just indulging me :P the answer is and has always been and will always be WINCEST. SAMDEAN. THE BLOWJOB BROTHERS. how can you not love them. they're brothers they're mother and son they're best friends they're coworkers they're affair partners they're married they're divorced they've got puppy crushes on each other and they have the deepest and most profound love in the universe. they're everything and i love them and i'll never get them out of my brain as long as i live. when i get old and develop alzheimer's i will forget my own mother's name before i forget about them, i just know it. i have never been more autistic about anything than i am about them. to say they've altered my brain chemistry would be the understatement of the millennium. they are everything and i owe my gf my ENTIRE LIFE for showing me a post about sex and violence and opening my eyes to the truth of the wincest gospel

20. Which other character is the ideal best friend for this character, the amount of screentime they share doesn't matter?

oh no this is a tough one too...especially because i haven't finished the show yet ;-; but just from what i know so far...i do think i have to pick rowena. i'm biased as fuck because i think they should have let sam learn to do witchcraft but also. they're just really funny together. and i think crowley and dean would both be really pissed.

honorable mention goes to pre-ahbl ava because i love ava and i've also seen hunted like six times for. um. reasons. and they're just so cute when she's helping him investigate ;-; meg 2.0 might also have been kinda funny.

conclusion: give! sam!! a girlbestie!!!! please!!!!!!

25. What was your first impression of this character? How about now?

ok this one is slightly unfair because i went in knowing i was and would be a samgirl. i had technically seen some of the show before i started for real last october (though i only remembered pieces of the pilot and pieces of mystery spot) and because sam is ~the intellectual one~ (and the one with longer hair. lmao) i was almost certain he'd be more my type than dean.

BUT. INTERESTINGLY. i do think i was actually kind of a stealth deangirl at first. either that or i'm just Easily Manipulated cause i totally fell for dean's unreliable narration and let myself get mad at sam for things i don't hold against him at all anymore. that's not to say i've turned my back on dean, i adore him, but sam !!!! sam!!!!! he's my everything and he's never done anything wrong in his LIFE.

also. fun and terrible fact. back when i was still watching the first few seasons i used to cringe at any screenshots of him in seasons like. 11 or later. i hate change and convinced myself he looked terrible for the entire latter third of the series. can you believe that. it's so funny though because now i'm like. ok. best sam look, mid-late s8. but SECOND best? SEASON 12. HOLY SHIT SEASON 12 SAM. JESUS CHRIST. i finally saw american nightmare the other day and they hit me with the back-to-back priest outfit and red sweater and i was about to faint like some kind of victorian maiden. hoooooly shit. something something frog in boiling water or whatever but oh my god. late seasons sam. cannot believe i turned my back on him for so long. shameful!!!!

anyway !!! THANK YOU for sending in this ask aaa im sorry i went so crazy on it shfdkjhkdjfhdk i'll really be making the lightest commentary in my tags and almost zero personal posts and then someone sends me an ask and all of a sudden i become the world's chattiest cathy. yes this is an open invitation for anyone to send me asks at any time btw. give me more reasons to be chatty (if you dare)!!!

[meraki-yao]

"I just saw a post on Tumblr on someone claiming that and RWRB fan doxxed Nick?" Anon question that you answered to. I got a question on my own about this situation.

Now, I don't know why or if I have to say this, but I'M A NICK FAN, A TAYLOR FAN, AND RWRB FAN (and a TAYNICK fan). So Imma be unbiased (well, hopefully I sound unbiased. And hopefully you can be too.)

I asked an anon to another Tumblr account (not you Meraki) about something that I've been thinking for a while. The Tumblr account posted a screenshot about a another person saying that they want Taylor announcement casting for his projects. Now that's not a problem and I never said it was a problem. But they mentioned that they need to see "that bunch of hater bitches" to shut up. Which I get and I agree. Now, I assumed the "bitch" was a fan of Nick because that's how everyone seems to deal with haters. If people hate on Taylor, they have to be a "Nick fan". If people hate on Nick, they have to be "Taylor fan". So, I sent the Tumblr account an anon that pretty much sums up that I think we should get proof of what people say they saw. Like screenshots. Because, in my opinion, some "Taylor fans" and some "Nick fans" are just making shit up. That they want to start a fan war. And you even said it too: "If you see a claim that makes you uncomfortable or you don't find believable, please check to see if the claim can be backed up by evidence." And pretty much, what I'm trying to ask is, can both "sides" lie about what they see (the hate)? Now, I'm not saying all the fans and not everything is a lie. But people can lie right? Bc at this point, all I'm hearing is the same thing these past months: oh there's hate towards Taylor, so they must be a Nick stan. Oh there's hate towards Nick, to they must be a Taylor stan. (Or an RWRB stan) I mean, if people see it this way, and keep using the actor's name, isn't it toxic? Which is why I hate when people/fans use the name "Nick" and "Taylor" to star a whole debate/fanwar.

Which leads me to what I wanted to asked you (this is about your answer towards the anon post. The " This is a toxic Nick fan making shit up"). If you say toxic Nick fans make shit up, why can't toxic Taylor fans make shit up (now this is because the Tumblr account said that no one makes shit up in Taylor's favor (?) Or side. Idk what word to use here.)? Isn't that kinda biased?

And I know people have different opinions and you're not responsible for what everyone says. But I guess I need an opinion.. ? A non biased opinion. Please. And I guess this whole thing rubs me the wrong way bc people are using Nick and Taylor's name in the fans/people's war. In the war against each other (the normal people. The people behind the accounts).

Okay, there's a lot to unpack here. But thank you for bringing up this topic, because this is a really prevalent topic that should be discussed and examined. And I will try to be as objective as I can. (Sometimes biases are subconscious)

Can both "sides" lie about what they see (the hate)? If you say toxic Nick fans make shit up, why can't toxic Taylor fans make shit up?

Yes, both sides can definitely lie about what they see. Yes, Toxic Taylor fans absolutely can make shit up too if they want to.

I'm not entirely sure if this is part of your question, but in the case of your previous ask, yes, it could have been a toxic Taylor stan. But that post sets out to make Taylor and RWRB fans as the perpetrators and Nick as the victim, so if a toxic Taylor fan was the one to say that that would have meant they were a double agent, which I highly doubt people would use that much time or intellectual resources for something like this.

"Oh there's hate towards Taylor, so they must be a Nick stan. Oh, there's hate towards Nick, so they must be a Taylor stan. (Or an RWRB stan)" I mean, if people see it this way, and keep using the actor's name, isn't it toxic?

Two things to this.

Regarding my use of the word, I admit this is my fault because I am used to this polarizing culture, that's unfortunately the norm where I am, and that was how the culture was in my last active fandom. In Asian celebrity fandoms, there's such a distinction between fan types: group stans, cp/ship stans, solo stans, toxic solo stans, dream girls, dream child, mom stans, sister stans... jesus christ the list goes on. And everyone chooses a label or is demanded a label to be part of the fan community. I subconsciously took that mindset here, that's on me. I apologize. I'm gonna reflect on that and see what's a better way to phrase things.

But in the wider picture, there's a reason why it's so clearly divided into groups like this.

Let's examine the cases that you mentioned before. For fairness's sakes, I'm gonna use X and Y instead of the boys' actual name.

In the scenario where bad things are done to harm the reputation or image of X, we can deduce two things about the perpetrator: 1, the perpetrator doesn't like X, hates them even 2, the perpetrator knows something about X.

But why is it so often a war between two co-stars? Why couldn't it simply been a hater of X without any affiliation with Y?

Now, if whatever was done to damage X's reputation or image, another party that has relations to X, in this case, Y, is brought into discussion and put in a better light, then there's a clear favouritism toward Y. In your previous case, the perpetrator knows that Taylor has been hurled insults by Nick fans, because that statement was phrased as a response statement, and they could have just said "Taylor wasn't insulted" but they specifically said "Taylor wasn't thrown insults by Nick's fans". There's a stance.

Also if someone simply dislikes X without an absolute reason (ex: being a supremacist, abuser, criminal etc), then a more common reaction to people you don't like is to avoid them, instead of dedicating so much time to creating these narratives. (I mean there are ridiculous haters like that too but I don't think that's the majority)

Why is pitting co-stars against each other so common?

That's because, in society, things are by default a competition.

I wanna preface this segment real quick by mentioning this is just one perspective of society/the industry. There can be different takes on it, but I'm using this perspective to explain the scenario at hand.

In the industry, everyone is fighting for their piece, whether that's projects, events, exposure, connections etc. There are far more people who want opportunities than there are opportunities. And through the celebrity-fan parasocial relationship, fans of the celebrity want them to get said opportunities.

In the case where one is only interested in one of the celebrities in a pair, or even a group, the other becomes a competitor, and the fan wants the person they like to win, so they try to drag the other one down.

But why is this competition so prominent between Taylor and Nick? They don't seem to have such issues in their previous projects?

That's because compared to their co-stars in previous projects, as well as their own character's standing in the project, RWRB is the one project where they are on far more equal footing with each other.

For example, for Nick, if you look at Cinderella 2021, he can't be compared to Camilla Cabello even though they're both leads because 1, she's a woman and 2, she's a singer doing an acting project, while he's a full-on actor. if you look at M&G, he can't be compared to Tony Curran even though they're both male actors and the leads (actually you can argue that King James is a secondary lead but I digress), because Tony is a seasoned actor who started his acting career before Nick was even born while Nick is 29.

For Taylor, let's use The Kissing Booth. He can't be compared to Joey King because, again, she's a girl, and actresses are held to a different standard than actors. Jacob Elordi is a little more debatable since they're approximately the same age ranges when it comes to the characters they can get cast as, but the problem there is for the Kissing Booth, the way the story and even marketing material was made, clearly framed Marco as a secondary lead, not the lead. So their position in the movie is different and, therefore less comparable.

RWRB is a movie with two male leads, both of which are attractive males in around the same status ring in the industry and in the late 20s to early 30s age range. It's the fairest comparison you can get when it comes to co-stars. This is why there's such a division when it comes to fans who only like one of the boys, and why if you're interested in Dan Gai (Chinese Gay Novel Adaptation Shows that has been banned from major streaming platforms since 2021), there always ends up being a huge and hostile division between fans of the two leads. It is a literal cyber war. In shows with two leads of the same gender and age range, comparison/ competition is easy. And if the stars in question aren't good friends the way Taylor and Nick are, then yes, they are indeed competitors on the same track.

To be clear, I don't support this mindset, it's pretty toxic. I'm just trying to explain the whole phenomenon to the best of my ability. Please don't be a fan mentioned in the above section.

... Yeah I think that's it for now! Don't know how this turned into a sociology paper, once again proving to myself that I should have been a social science student instead of an engineering student. Anyways please let me know if this helped in any way or if you have any additional thoughts!