#to shove him into a Fundamentally Good or Fundamentally Bad box

[take-care-of-it]

Yknow I don’t think curly is as bad as Jimmy or knowingly helped him steal IDs or whatever. But I doooo think people going “the good intentioned thing means there’s no action he could’ve taken to know abt Jimmy before canon” is missing just how much you can rationalize yours and others behaviors. Especially if you want to see the best in them/yourself.

Which can lead to MORE rationalizing because sunk cost fallacy, to become better you have admit you were worse. And a lot of people aren’t willing to do that, or even think about the possibility they might need to be doing that. (Jimmy is basically doing this x10)

I’m just saying, in the interview she ALSO later says “…people like [curly] are defending perpetrators or use their power to cover up for misbehaving friends while still thinking they are doing a good, generous thing.” as we can see with Jimmy, you can rationalize anything to any extreme to convince yourself you’re doing good if you’re dead set on it.

Curly can genuinely have good intentions, want to help Anya, but still be *willfully* ignorant. You don’t have to be fully cognizant of WHAT you’re ignoring to be willfully ignorant, in fact that’s pretty counterintuitive to the term. But I do think curly could’ve chosen to dig deeper into this beforehand, but was afraid of what he’d find. So he held off until the problem became too big for him to be ignorant about. To quote the interview again, “good intentions don’t mean much when the situation has already gotten massively out of hand.”

[saucyjothoughts]

🌼 i was literally just in your inbox talking about feminized kris but the nacekris got to me. bless you saucy its one of my favorite ships. i realise this is pretty long to drop in your ask box so i apologize if thats bad etiquette - i got carried away

i imagine theyre in the london apartment. kris thinks hes all alone putting his get up on. for all intents and purposes, hes supposed to be. nace just comes home earlier because he realises hes forgotten his metro card.

its a set he found in london, on his way back from his photoshoot with damon. he stopped at the mall just to pick up shampoo, he swears, but on the way to the pharmacy he passes the lingerie store.

he actually gasps seeing it in the window. its extremely pretty. innocent in the dirtiest way possible. pretty and pink, and mostly see through, a little bow with a pearl in the middle of the knot right above where his cock would sit in the panties. the bralette is a bandeau with no sponge padding but still the sort hed shove his pecs into and the way the elastic bands at the top and bottom would crowd them would turn them into small handfuls.

he stares as he passes it and is distracted through his entire pharmacy trip. he picks up the wrong shampoo and realises as hes queuing for the checkout, twice, and almost forgets to pick up the cough drops jure asked for. he tries to pay with the wrong card and lets out a string of colorful slovene as it declines and he has to pick out the correct one. he apologizes to the cashier for the inconveniece as he punches his pin in, and she makes a joke about him being distracted with valentines day coming up. he swears all of his blood leaves his brain and his legs and arms as he blushes scarlet and stutters something like an agreement, which just makes the cashier giggle more.

he does stop for the set. somewhere between the pharmacy and the store something in his brain breaks fundamentally, he guesses, and its like the dial on his self control is a level pushed so hard it cant be unstuck ever again. he walks in and gets help from a sales assistant. he tells her a pretty story about his girl named tina (conveniently leaving out how that comes from kristina), and their planned trip to his hometown for valentines day, and really he just wants to surprise her so bad with the set in the window she saw the other day.

he thinks the lever on his self control mightve unstuck when he gets to checking out, but he spots some almost entirely transparent stockings and it becomes apparent said lever might never become work normally again. but you dont understand, theyre so beautiful, theyd look like theres just a line down the back of his legs. thank fucking god he knows his measurements, he thinks not for the first time. a lifetime of getting pants tailored for his longs legs is good for just the one thing, he guesses.

he tucks the set and the stockings, in their packaging, in the very bottom of his backpack, under everything else and hopes he finds a place in his shared fucking room he can hide it well enough. fuck that broken lever, seriously.

the whole ordeal leaves his heart beating so hard he chainsmokes his last four cigarettes in the bus stop, hoping he gets home at least looking normal.

now, in his room, hes putting on the set, hoping he at least gets to look at himself in the mirror before everyone else comes home if nothing else. he's midway through putting on the bralette, trying to figure out how to do the closing mechanism in the back properly with how wide the bandeau is, when he hears the apartment door open and close.

fuck no shit no fuck fuck fuck fuck. hes trying to be quiet, searching for his pants, pretending to be alseep, hoping whoever entered isnt looking for him or anything in his room.

of course luck isnt on his side. of course he hears, "kris? are you up? i think my metro card fell out of my jeans in there last night."

right, of course, he and nace hung out until late last night in his room, until bojan kicked them both out to facetime jere in peace. he must be quiet for too long, because the door opens before he gets to say just a sec or anything similar and now hes there, lace panties on, pink roses all over his ass and god, the bow too, and hes holding the bralette in his hands and now naces there and hes so fucking mortified and-

"im sorry," nace says too quickly and closes the door, and his blushing face and dilated pupils is burned onto kris's retinas for ever and ever now, he thinks.

he hears the apartment door close and lock and thats that for now. christ on bikes.

sure, hes slept with nace before. hes slept with everyone in the band, and a few people in the crew. several times. but thats different. quickies in venue dressing rooms, and club bathrooms and one memorable time in the tour bus lounge area. thats different.

hes not even in the mood anymore. he changes and tucks the lingerie away and takes a cold shower that takes too long. is there something wrong with him? the store in the mall taught him that his self control is shot when it comes to pretty underwear but now hes really thinking its something else. like, psychologically. he thinks about texting damon to get his ass here, since there is no way in hell hell talk to anyone in the band about it and damon might be his best shot, but then decides to look up therapists near him when words like nymphomania and hypersexuality pass his mind. his questionable health insurance policy leaves him, however, thinking that would be better to consider when he returns to slovenia. he gets in bed despite it being barely late afternoon and tosses about and then sleeps until the next day.

nace doesnt say anything about it, but keeps giving kris these long looks when he thinks he isnt looking, which might be worse.

the situation does resolve itself, in the most satisfying twist of fate, when they end up alone in the house a week or so later.

jan is the last to leave and hes barely out of the door, throwing one last shifty look to kris and nace (because of course hed notice something is up), when nace pins him to the nearest wall in the living room. nace starts kissing and biting at his neck before kris can even gasp, and then starts speaking.

"god, you were so pretty. all lace and blush." and kris is so suprised, nace never initiates this aggressively, which has a thrill going through him at just the thought, and he lets out the most embarassing sound of his fucking life right then.

"cmon, baby," nace continues, and its so uncharacteristic and so rough and so erotic, kris is so hard he becomes light headed. "why dont you go put your pretty clothes on, huh?" kris barely manages to gulp and nod, and then theyre rushing to his room, naces hands all over his back and ass and waist on the way. its clear nace was as affected as kris is and he doesnt know what to do with himself, his brain getting fuzzy from arousal and embarassment.

in his room, he gets out the set nace got a glimpse of and sets about putting it on. he chooses not to examine how satisfying the whole ordeal is, from how the lace is laying against his ass to nace groaning and gripping himself through his pants. the groaning gets loder when he bends over to put on the stockings.

he turns back to face nace when its time for the bralette and puts on his most innocent face. nace, thankfully, gets it, and helps him do the back.

"what a pretty girl you make," he comments off handedly, and something breaks further is kris's brain. oh. nace catches on, of course, and grins in that dangerous way he does. "look at you, dressed up all nice for me. and so shy, never wouldve showed me. do you want to out anything else on? or can i have fun with you now?"

kris has not felt this out of his fucking mind since he got high for the first time, almost a decade prior. he barely gets to squeak out, "shoes. lipstick."

naces eyebrows hit his hairline when he processes what hes hearing and he hums, "where are the shoes, pretty girl? put your makeup on, ill get them," he says, all gently.

"under- in the closet, in the black box, under the jackets." nace kisses his forehead and turns to rifling through the closet.

kris's one and only lipstick, he bought on accident. he bought it in poland at a drug store, thinking it was a balm, which he still half thinks it is, except its extremely pigmented, a nudey pink, but impossible to miss. he puts it on in the full length mirror, which lets him see nace finding the shoes, and whistling when he opens the box.

theyre simple pink pumps he bought second hand weeks ago, which thinking back, is probably when he shouldve realized his self control was shot. he planned to donate them again or throw them away before moving back, depending on how shot they were by that time.

"cmon, sit down, ill help you." and he does. naces hands on his legs feel reverent, and kris feels the band on his panties lift with how turned on he is. nace looks him up and down, and when he finally gets to look at his face, he breathes hard.

kris never gets to walk around in the heels. nace pushes him down on the bed in the next second and kisses him hard, smearing make up all over his face. nace drags down the bralette and tortures his nipples with his teeth and hands until theyre puffy and red and erect. like a girls, kris's brain helpfully supplies.

one hes done with kris's nipples, nace lets his mouth run. he tells kris how pretty and sexy he is, how nice it is of him to surprise nace like this as he pushes the panties to the side, spitting on kris's hole a few times before he pushes a first finger in.

kris cant keep his noises in, moaning and whimpering and gasping. at one point, nace stops fingering him to push the bralette back up over his tits, and the lace rubbing iver his raw nipples almost has kris coming right then.

nace keeps his mouth running as he fucks kris, kris's pumps on his shoulders. its probably the most vocal kris has seen him during sex. moaning and groaning and praising and degrading kris all at one. calling him pretty, and a dirty girl all in one, and calling him perfect fucking slut for me, which shoots kris's brain up into flames.

when kris is close, nace jerks him off through the panties until he comes in them, ruining the lace, and then pulls out to jerk himself off and come over them, too. kris feels so dirty and so hot, and hes so in his head about it he doesnt feel when nace drags the panties down to his knees, and gasps loudly when nace begins licking at his wet cock to clean him up. nace continues long after hes clean, only stopping when kris is too over sensitive to take it anymore.

kris's mind is far away as nace takes off all the pieces of his set, and takes him to the bathroom to wash him off. nace kisses his neck and face and whispers praises as he washes kris's hair and body. he even changes the bed sheets, which kris is extremely thankful for, and puts the lingerie in the bag kris took it out of.

they cuddle for a long time, until kris can vocalize more that hnggggh, "do you figure i could get the panties dry cleaned? so we can mess them up again."

nace laughs with his entire chest, and runs his hair through kris's damp hair, "ill buy you a thousand pairs if you let me mess them up."

NaceKris nation, come get your breakfast!

[chaifootsteps]

there was this vid that a guy named Shaun made about Harry Potter where he pointed out that the moral logic underpinning Rowling's books is basically: characters are either Fundamentally Good or Fundamentally Bad. It's fine if a Good character does a Bad thing to a Bad character, because they're good (and reverse the logic going the other way).

In other words, Harry can be as cruel as he wants or shame his cousin for being fat and that isn't morally wrong because his cousin is Bad and he is Good. But anyone picking on Mrs Weasley for being 'plump' or Hermione for being a nerd/having frizzy hair in the earlier books or whatever - that's Bad because their target is a Good person.

It feels like Helluva has devolved to the same logic - where before it was acknowledged that characters who were deep down good (or who had the potential to be) could do bad things and that their lives being a mess (Stolas and Blitz, obvs) was the result of their actions and choices and they could make better ones once they stopped engaging in unhealthy habits and coping mechanisms.

Now it feels like the same Good Team, Bad Team logic and fans are understandably bracing for other returning characters who once had nuance to be shunted to either of those boxes accordingly (it wouldn't surprise me at all if Verosika returned and was shoved onto the Bad Team for being a woman who dares remind Blitz he treated her badly. Let's just say I've seen fanfics where she's 'put in her place' for daring to still be angry with him and Blitz merrily calls her a bitch the whole time)

The centre of Good Team is naturally Stolas, where even Blitz will be put on the Bad Team if he doesn't fall in line. That's how Stolas doing unambiguously bad things can be excused - he didn't mean any harm at the time, & since he's good that means there functionally was no harm and anyone saying otherwise is just being antagonistic for no reason!

I'll agree, with the caveat that I think even at its worst, Harry Potter was Tolstoy compared to Viv's writing. Harry Potter, for all its imperfect handling of good and evil, at least allows some leeway for its Good Guys to be flawed people and its Bad Guys to be right. Dudley takes the brunt of some very Roald Dahl-esque fat shaming, but in the end, he's the product of Vernon and Petunia Dursley's raising and gets a small redemption arc. His mom is abusive and terrible, but we get some insight into why she is the way she is. The Malfoys love their son above all else. Both Rowling and Dumbledore are aware that Dumbledore sucks.

Rowling, for all her flaws, knows what her characters would and wouldn't do. They consistently behave in ways that it makes sense for them to behave based on what we're shown. Viv's incapable of doing that, but sometimes, it's all you need.

[nonbinary-witch-sam]

okay nobody asked but i have a lot of thoughts about the Winchester brother codependency. instead of flooding the poll with tags i decided to make my own post lol

at heart I am a sabriel enthusiast first and this whole thought started with my good friend @bakh-meliorism pointing out (very correctly) that Gabriel wouldn't tolerate the codependency when it meant that he would be second place to Dean, which I agree with completely. my interpretation applies to all Sam ships though, and Sam QPR's too, not just sabriel

i think out of the two Sam is the only one capable of ending the codependency and we see it in the show over and over. Dean NEEDS his little brother. Sam knows this, Dean knows this. everyone around them knows this. Sam is the only one that can show Dean that Sam doesnt need him like Dean needs Sam, but even as he tries over and over to do exactly that, even when Dean ACCEPTS that sam wouldnt trade his life for Dean's like Dean does for Sam's, it takes Dean dying for sam to have peace.

And fundamentally, I believe it's because Sam can't set healthy boundaries after he's soulless. he barely even tries, and even if it hurts him, he'll live Dean's life and disregard what he wants and let Dean be the boss because he knows that's what Dean needs him to do.

And honestly honestly you can see how Sam hates it at Deans side when things get bad. he's shoved into the same 'little brother' box he was in at 12, his words are disregarded, hes not seen as his own person while by Dean's side but he will stay anyways. he will stay not just because he loves Dean, but because time and time again when he leaves Dean chases him down and drags him back. Dean will never let him go, Dean will NEVER accept that he isn't the most important person in Sam's life. if he ever did he would take his gun and shoot Sam and then himself to make sure nobody could ever get between him and his little brother again.

and bringing this back to Sabriel, maybe Gabriel gives him an out, enough courage to put his foot down and say enough is enough. but i also think Sam wouldn't ever be able to do so on his own. he could never leave Dean without someone he loves giving him that ultimatum, because he knows Dean would simply never accept it.

anyways that's my interpretation of their codependency have fun with that

[beebobeebo]

Title: Hot to Go

Fandom: Justified

Characters: Raylan Givens & Tim Gutterson

Relationship: Tim Gutterson x Raylan Givens (Givenson)

Summary:

Raylan ain't happy. Raylan's drunk. Very drunk.

Nothin' to do about the happy issue, but he could go for some pizza to help sop up the bourbon and beer.

A fundamental truth of his life is that things just work out for Raylan Givens more often than seems fair. Sometimes, they give him a workout. Sometimes they're an apathetic twenty-something with a questionable work ethic and timing to be proud of.

A.K.A. The Pizza Boy AU

Notes:

I should not be encouraged or enabled.

Thank you to @thylacinedream for the idea for the AU, some of the choicest lines of dialogue, making sure this makes a modicum of sense, and generally putting up with me sending them random passages of Raylan knowing he should shut up and Tim decidedly not shutting up until someone is /nice/.

It should not feel so damn good to lean against this door, but it's solid and cold against his cheek. He peeks back reluctantly and looks at his car. That is not the parking job of a sober man. Damn it. Answering the phone had been a shit idea. Nothin' good came from picking up the seventh call after six missed ones. Fuck a man for workin'. Maybe there was beer left in the fridge?

After a few solid attempts and half a dozen questionable ones, he gets the key in the hole. Everything inside was a discomforting blend of orange and cigarette-dyed yellow, but he's bedded down in worse places.

He's been in worse places.

He grabs a faded menu sticking out from under the cracked yellow phone. Pizza. Not a bad idea. Not a good one, either, but something had to soak some of this up or tomorrow would be a new circle of hell.

He pulls out his cell, because he's not touching a phone that's probably seen more heavy breathing than the bed he's eased down on.

The call's perfunctory, the guy on the phone knows the address, just needs a room number. Thirty minutes or it's free. He lies back and shuts his eyes. Shit.

There's the knock in less than thirty minutes. Fuck. Wallet.

The kid at the door looks like he's as happy to see Raylan as Raylan is to be him in his current state. Kid can't be out of his twenties. He's wearing a sour face, stained shirt, and a worn baseball cap.

"Twenty bucks," the pizza boy drawls and holds out the box.

"Hello? How are you? Any of these ringin' a bell?" Raylan asks as he attempts to operate his suddenly complicated wallet.

The kid sighs

"Man, it's twenty bucks. That doesn't include the tip."

Raylan pulls out a twenty and eyes the kid.

"You look like someone knocked your dick in the dirt."

"You smile the entire time you're at work? This is my job."

Raylan digs out the rest of the cash in his wallet and hands it over. The kid scowls at it.

"Your generosity is as great as your commentary."

A sober Raylan would have the good sense to be sheepish. He was not sober by any stretch of the imagination. "You cleaned me out…"

"Tim," the kid answers with an almost audible eyeroll.

"I apologize for my meager means, Timothy. I'll—"

"Tim." The kid shoves the money in his pocket and dryly, robotically says,"Thank you for your order. Have a great day knowing you got the right slice at the right price."

He turns to leave and Raylan watches him walk back to a newer sedan. Bit rich for a pizza boy, but not unbelievable if he had supportive parents somewhere with better fucking manners.

The way his eyes drift down the kid, Tim, gives him a moment's pause. He needs to eat something and fuck off to sleep.

Looking at the hotel room's Bakelite clock isn't doing him any good. Another rough phone call leads to another night of attempting to drown his sorrows. 'Cause his sorrows aren't even swimming; they're floating like they're enjoyin' the goddamn lazy river at Dollywood.

The overwhelming urge to fix something settles in his chest. He hates this. There's some deep psychological reason behind it, this impulse, but fuck if he's goin' there tonight. Tonight he is goin' to turn on a movie with more violence than plot…and order a pizza.

"Just makin' it up to the kid," he defends himself to the tacky wall-wide mirror over the room's peeling dresser. That's all. No reason he broke that hundred into twenties. Life just works out for Raylan sometimes.

He calls the pizza place. The man on the phone seems a bit off about having a repeat customer, but Raylan shoves it off and asks if Tim is working. He starts to go into a drunken explanation but the voice on the other end of the line tells him they only have two drivers and you get who you get. Raylan starts to argue, but that would be fuckin' weird, so he just thanks the guy.

The knock on the door jolts Raylan out of his skin.

He opens the door. The kid, Tim, is standing in the sickly light of the bare bulb next to the door. They take measure of each other. Tim wears the same disgruntled look and stained shirt over slouchy jeans as before.

"Twenty bucks. Doesn't include tip," Tim pointedly says as he shoves the pizza at Raylan's bare chest. When had he taken his shirt off? He was hot and then there was a knock.

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Workin' on it. Your manners haven't improved."

"Has the tip?" Tim says with a barely raised eyebrow. When Raylan hands over the forty dollars, the kid makes a show of clutching it to his chest. "It's an honor contributing to the destruction of your girlish figure, sir," he says in the flattest voice Raylan has ever heard.

"Kid, how old are you? You makin' a career out of pizza delivery?" Raylan leans against the door frame to steady himself against the whiskey and the audacity of this little shit.

"Older than you think." Tim scoffs. "And why? Worried I'll move on and you'll never see me again, Stranger Danger?"

"Nah. Just thinkin' you might be doin' more than this." Raylan says and immediately regrets it. Tim squares his shoulders, proving he is capable of upright posture.

“We all make sacrifices to live the dream. Can’t imagine what it’s costing you to keep up a place like this with them chargin' by the hour and all.”

“Why do you think I care so much about the thirty minute guarantee?” Raylan plonks the pizza down on the table by the door and crosses his arms over his chest.

"And you're wastin' time jawin' with forced company instead? You go down the street thattaway you'll find a whole mess of people to give you time for forty dollars."

Raylan sniffs."Then what would I eat?"

They both decidedly let that one lie.

"Gotta go," Tim says as if though the very thought of existing bores him.

"Goin' on intrepid pizza boy adventures?" Raylan asks with more of smirk than he intends. Tim shrugs.

“At least until Daddy John releases me at 2:30am. I’m kinda a hot date.”

Raylan goes to scratch idly at his stomach before some sense slips through. "A hot date at 2:30am? Because so much good happens then."

“Well then I’ll be the best show in town," Tim says over his shoulder as he walks back to his car.

Raylan takes a beat. "You gotta buy a ticket to that show?"

Tim turns and walks backward for a few feet as he says, “Tickets? I don’t whore out for cash. Five hundred word essay on my desk by morning.”

“And should I drop that off at y'all's location on King Street or the one that used to be a gas station?”

Tim manages to look terrifying while smiling as he answers,"Fuck off. Three o'clock."

And Tim is in the car and gone.

Raylan? Raylan's a fucking idiot.

The knock at the door comes at a quarter before three. The kid is fucking punctual if nothing else. When Raylan opens the door Tim is standing with a half handle of Jim Beam, not unlike the one Raylan finished killing a half hour ago. Kid's thrown on a flannel, but is otherwise the same petulant little shit who walked off hours earlier.

"Hey." Raylan steps aside to let Tim enter. "I see you made it through the trials and tribulation of deliverin' pizza."

"I see you didn't bother to put on a shirt." Tim lounges into the chair next to the rickety table that's holding a half-eaten pizza. The kid actually looks bemused. "You've been eatin' the pizza?"

"What the hell else would I do with it?" Raylan asks incredulously as he grabs a pair of plastic cups from the sink. He knows he's simultaneously furrowed his brow and widened his eyes because the kid mocks him in a damn good impression.

Tim pours without being asked. "Man, no one eats the pizza." Raylan drinks his cup down as he ponders the implications of all that. Tim smiles into his cup. "You got no fuckin' clue, man."

"Raylan."

Tim chokes into his cup."That was a quick assumption," he says as he laughs and looks up at Raylan.

"No, you little bastard, my name is Raylan."

"What kinda name is Raylan?" Tim has perked up ever so slightly at the very idea of that even being a name.

"What kinda name is Tim?" Raylan's jaw works as he leans down to rest his hands on the arms of the Tim-filled chair.

"A human one," Tim says before catching the back of Raylan's neck and pulling him into a kiss. Raylan forgets how annoying the kid is the minute their mouths are together. Tim is quick to use his teeth and beg forgiveness with his tongue. Raylan contemplates spending all night leaning over this chair to keep feeling this pressure, this heat. Tim has other ideas and shoves him back. "I gotta be out of here at five so no use pussy footin' around."

"That your hot date?" Raylan says as he backs up to sit on the edge of the bed. Tim follows tossing his shirts behind him.

"More like an appointment."

Raylan leans back so that Tim can straddle his lap.

"Appointment? At five—"

"You ask a lot of questions for someone who wants a fuck." Tim leans in and bites Raylan's bottom lip. "You bathe in bourbon?"

"You always complain so fuckin' much, Tim?" That sets the kid off. The little shit is digging red crescents into Raylan's shoulders as he forces them back against the bed. "You wanna try that again, Raylan?" Raylan's slides his hand down Tim's back and into his jeans to grab the mouthy fuck by his ass. He guides Tim's hips to grind against him as he leans up to bite at the curve of his throat. He's rewarded with a soft, low sound slipping from the younger man's mouth. The answer to this is clearly more teeth.

"Fuck," Tim groans out followed by a less impressed, "Fuck, man." He slides a hand between them and expertly frees Raylan's dick which is at best half hard. Tim is pulling out every step to rectify that. Kid is thorough,but—

"I've seen the commercial. You're not supposed to be embarrassed about this. Disappointed. You should be very disappointed," Tim drawls with a tinge of annoyance.

Raylan sinks his teeth into Tim's shoulder.

"Maybe it’s not me. That mouth of yours do anything else or just spit out bullshit?”

Tim lets out the softest hiss. "Did you just blame me for your whiskey dick?" He scoffs."My mouth works just fine. Not a complaint one."

Raylan rolls them with a surprising amount of resistance. The kid certainly had some fight in him.

"Show me." He grabs Tim's jaw and slides his thumb between his lips. Tim promptly bites down. Raylan stares down at him with no reaction other than a smirk. "Nice try, kid. Show me."

Tim snorts, but drags his tongue up Raylan's thumb, purposefully catching his bottom lip on the top. "Can't even get it up for this?" He drags a hand down Raylan's chest as he sinks an eye tooth into the meat of the thumb and sucks at the wound.

"Fuck." Raylan wants to strangle the kid. He wants to shut him the fuck up, but he also wants more of whatever the hell this is.

"What is wrong with you?" He replaces his thumb with his tongue. Tim seems no less enthusiastic for the swap.

Raylan pulls back so he can stand and shuck off his pants and boxers.

"An impressive sight if it, you know, worked," Tim says pushing up on his elbows. Raylan proudly notes that in spite of everything the kid's breathing is rough.

"More than one way to skin a cat."

"Hmmm, thought the lack of cat and cat-related words was the point of this," Tim says gesturing vaguely around them. Raylan rolls his eyes and gets to work seeing Tim, who watches with the idle boredom of youth, undressed.

"You could help."

"I could also just enjoy the view. Which do you think I'm gonna do?" Tim smiles like the cat who got the cream. Raylan leaves the grinning ass with his jeans around his boots to grab a bottle from the nightstand.

"Gideons know you're keepin' that there with their bible?" says a far too amused Tim until Raylan presses him to the bed with forearm across his chest.

"You gonna behave?" Raylan slides his coated hand between them so that he can tease at himself, preparing for exactly what the little shit deserves.

"Prolly not,"Tim says, his eyes barely widening.

"Didn't fuckin' think so." Raylan kisses him roughly. He's about had enough lip and isn't keen on the fact that he's stretching himself when he'd rather have Tim writhing underneath him. But a man makes do.

Whenever Tim gets the notion to find some relieving friction, Raylan's forearm rolls forward making him momentarily gasp for air. Raylan isn't surprised how much they both like that. He's more surprised that Tim has shut the fuck up for the last bit so they can both enjoy what's coming next.

Raylan sits up straddling a stomach that might actually put his to shame if he was in the mood to give the kid credit. He's not.

"You have some sort of plan here?" Tim says as he regains the ability to be an asshole.

"Yeah." Raylan grabs Tim's cock and lines him up with his ass. "I'm fuckin' you until I wipe that look off your goddamn face."

Tim groans as Raylan eases himself down. It's been a hot minute since Raylan's played reception, but he knows the game. What he refuses to acknowledge is how starry-eyed he feels as Tim looks up at him with something finally bordering the lesser side of petulance and disdain. "Fuck."

"Yeah. Fuck." Tim starts to raises hips and Raylan is quick to press his forearm back to his chest. "No. Don't fucking move."

"You're gonna be beg—"

Raylan rides the little bastard, hand moving to rest against his throat if he decides to get smart or worse interrupt this feeling. Fuck, the kid probably knows exactly what he has that's why he doesn't have a problem runnin' his mouth. He doesn't slow down until he hears Tim whimper. The smug look on his face replaced by wide blue eyes when Raylan's ass meets his hips. The bastard is coming and all Raylan can think about is how he wants to complete some fucked up circuit and ram his tongue down Tim's throat. He gives in to the impulse and takes his finally responsive cock in hand and thrusts into it until he coats Tim's chest.

Rolling off to the side was a good idea, but now his head is next to Tim's and the pathetic part of him, the part that always returns those fuckin' calls wants to kiss his neck and smooth his damp hair. He closes his eyes.

"Ain't you got somewhere to be, kid?"

Tim, who has been remarkably silent for the last few moments nods. "Gotta leave before five. Appointment."

"Fuckin' five o'clock mystery appointment."

Tim rolls over and goddamn snuggles up to Raylan.

"Yeah." He kisses Raylan's shoulder. "Hey, don't watch the news today."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"Means I gotta go." Tim is awkwardly tugging up his pants and going to the sink to clean himself off. "Can't be late."

"You workin' tonight?" Raylan asks the younger man now half trapped in the shirt he's tugging over his head.

"Nah. Got the night off. Pizza'll have to deliver itself."

"Come back by after nine if you want." Raylan says as he decides he should probably clean his ass up before even thinking about work.

"If I want," Tim sounds too pointedly petulant for either of them to doubt he'd be back.

"Yeah."

"Bye, Raylan." Tim has one arm in his flannel as he's barreling out the door.

"Bye, Tim."

After he'd showered, Raylan passed out for a few hours. He finally stirs around nine and clicks on the TV. "Don't watch the news." What the fuck does that even mean? He turns the TV over to channel five, worst case he sees the weather.

Raylan goes about getting dressed, the low hum of a story about a dog to adopt and a report on a possible thunderstorm playing in the background of his making himself presentable.

When he sits on the edge of the bed, the lady reporter is going on about some top story about a prison transfer gone wrong. He brushes it off. Occupational hazard. But everyone's fine except the man who got five years for a list of things that give even Raylan pause. Single gunshot to the head from what had to be far enough off for the poor bastard driving to not see the shooter. Hit a red light and the piece of shit in the back is dead at exactly a quarter to five.

That's…shit.

[quietwingsinthesky]

something very tragic about how Dean’s worldview (ie that people are what they are rather than the product of what they do, that they cannot change being what they are, that what they do never matters if fundamentally, deep down, they are Bad because inevitably they will always backslide due to their nature) is one of the biggest things that prevents him from growing as a person. The infamous “I’m poison” speech is the obvious moment of it, where Dean doesn’t acknowledge that what he did to Sam was wrong, but instead decides that it’s what he is that’s wrong, that there’s no way for him to make good choices that will let the people around him love him and be safe.

This, like a lot of how he sees the world, is the product of hunting — it’s the only way he can keep doing his job without collapsing in on himself by considering that the monsters they’ve killed might have had a chance to become better if they’d had other options. They have to be Evil, they have to be the bad guys. (and Dean likes stories where the bad guy always loses at the end, there’s comfort in the simplicity of it.) Dean himself occupies a space of Good in relation to what he kills, but Bad in relation to other people. He’s carved out his own little space there so that he can alienate himself from everyone, put himself into a little box where he can never change and can only keep doing what he’s doing forever. Where he knows he will never be loved for long, so he can instead make the hard choices that keep other safe, and if they end up hating him for that, then they were always going to hate him anyway because he’s. poison. (ex. Sam & Gadreel situation, but also everything with Lisa & Ben.)

The problem is that people don’t actually work like this. He can rationalize away his own actions, he will always live in his box, but that’s a lot harder to do for other characters like Cas, Benny, Sam. How I wish they hadn’t deleted that scene where Benny confesses to Dean that he drank from a person because it would have made that whole situation infinitely more complex. Dean’s view of Benny is definitely that he’s Not Like Other Vampires: Benny doesn’t hurt people, Benny hunts vampires and the other monsters in Purgatory, Benny tries to assimilate into human life as best he can. That’s what allows Dean to move him from one category to the next, into someone who is Good, not a monster, not inherently evil, and therefore, someone Dean should be allowed to have a continuing relationship with no matter what Sam says and who Dean will not believe is killing people despite them having the bare minimum of evidence that he is that they’d normally use to hunt anything else. And then, if they’d just had that one scene proving to Dean that Benny’s not special, that when backed into a corner, yeah, he’ll do what he has to to survive, he needs to fucking eat. Idk. It would have been my favorite part of their whole arc tbh. Is remorse for his actions enough for Dean to keep him in his mind as a good person, or is it the willingness to sacrifice for Sam, or does having a close relationship with Benny give Dean the wiggle room to start questioning his worldview. Unfortunately, canonically, that scene doesn’t exist, so we don’t get to know lol.

I want to write out a whole thing for Cas, too, but honestly, it can mostly be summed up as Dean never really letting Cas into the category of Good, especially not post-s6, no matter what he does, because Dean always perceives himself on some level as needing to be able to shove Cas out in order to kill him if he goes bad again. He has. so many issues about that angel. Cas is on probationary good status with a caveat that says ‘Useful’ underneath, and the thing is that this is not something that stops Dean from seeing him as his best friend, either. He’s just Dean’s best friend that he might have to murder one day for everyone’s sakes. To me, anyway, and as the show goes on and Cas gets noticeably toothless regarding Dean’s decisions and judgement, I think he’s allowed further and further into that category.

But Sam is the really interesting one, cause I think Sam, in Dean’s head, is paradoxically in both. We can talk about Dean’s Sam-related Madonna-Whore complex another day, but what it comes down to is that Sam is always, will always, be capable of going bad and can easily be seduced into doing so and never makes the right decisions on his own, which would, for anything Dean hunts, be reason enough to put them down. But Sam is also Dean’s little brother and something to be protected, or maybe more accurately, preserved, like a butterfly pinned down with its wings spread and kept behind glass. Preserved at all costs, against Sam’s wishes and despite his protests, specifically when the cost of preserving him is something Sam has to pay. (A lot of the time when Sam does the same thing, sacrifices something to save Dean in the same way, the price isn’t something to Dean personally. It’s usually larger. It’s world-ending. Which is v interesting to me, narratively. Sam’s survival is at the cost of his autonomy where Dean’s survival reinforces his idea that he’s poisonous to the world around him, that his own life is what keeps causing all this horrible shit to keep happening to the world and to them.) So, in occupying both, the only thing Dean can do is try to keep as much control over Sam as possible to make sure he does not backslide into his inherently evil nature, and he does this because Sam will always be good, deep down, to him.

Does any of this make any fucking sense alsjdkfjfk. tl;dr: Everyone in Dean’s world has to be static on the scale of good and evil because if they weren’t, he’d be even more fucked up about all the monsters/people he has killed.

[lastoneout]

okay I said I was done but I'm not I just gotta vent but pls if you liked it you're wonderful and this is not directed at you at all, I'm just processing my thoughts, feel free to ignore me and this <3

I also just like....is that what Wolfwood is like in the manga? Bcs in the '98 anime he was way nicer?? I liked his dynamic with Vash bcs on the surface they seemed like VERY similar people but when push came to shove they had fundamental ideological differences that brought them to conflict. They would both decide to help people because they believed in helping people, they just disagreed about how sometimes. It was interesting! You don't usually see conflicts like that!!

And every time Wolfwood was an outright asshole to Vash, insulting him and being genuinely mean, or just being an open, unrepentant ass to every other person around him I was just like "He would not say that!!" bcs Anime Wolfwood was yeah, a bit of a jerk, but he was NICE!! He helped people with a smile on his face out of the goodness of his heart!! He liked hanging out with Milly and Meryl!! He was goofy like Vash!!

In Stampede he just feels like every single bitchy anime boy whos the protag's foil he's like Keith and Bakugo and Sasuke all wrapped into one boring as hell burrito I just don't get it!! He was interesting!! Unique!! Now he's bland!! What the fuck!!

I def saw the appeal in and shipped Vash//Wood after the original anime, but Tri//Stamp Vash//Wood? I can't even believe they're friends. (And trust me, that's not bcs I like Vash//Meryl more or anything bcs this version of Meryl is just as bland as ever I much prefer their dynamic in the '98 anime over this. In fact, I much prefer the four of them in an ot4 bcs the original anime really sells ya on it.)

But yeah idk if I even want to read the manga bcs the Tri//Stamp versions of these characters kinda fucking suck??? Meryl literally just exists to be confused and say what's happening, she never is given any real agency or a chance to shine, her "defining" moment was pointless and was barely given any time to breathe or have weight, she's a sexy lamp with a voice box that goes "huh, what?" every five seconds I s2g, and instead of a partner who played off of her and made sense she's saddled with Generic Drunk Anime Detective/Reporter 11 who treats her like complete shit constantly right up until he dies!!

I don't understand how this is a better version of the story. I don't understand how waiting to introduce Milly does ANYTHING for Meryl's character. She had an arc in the '98 anime that didn't start with her being a baffled plot tourist, you can have her be competent yet out of her depth AND STILL GROW FROM THERE. And maybe I'm just reaching but I cannot get over the fact that it feels misogynistic as fuck to get rid of your well-written GNC female character in favor of an asshole guy and to take your other well-written female character, who was basically the POV character and nuke everything interesting about her until she can't do anything but go "huh what?", stand up for herself exactly once by deciding to do what some other guy tells her to do, and shout Vash's name.

It's bad fucking writing.

Like Trigun '98 was such a breath of fresh air in terms of shonen character writing. Two male protags who are upbeat and goofy and earnest and sweet and want to do the right thing but struggle? Two well-written, NOT SEXUALIZED, MAIN female characters who are confident and strong and have arcs and personalities and DO IMPORTANT THINGS ON THEIR OWN WITHOUT HELP? YOU NEVER GET THAT. I think my queer ass REALLY resonated with it, these characters felt so wonderfully queer because of how much they subverted traditional gender roles, bcs of how they were more than the tropes they came from, but Tri//Stamp just shoved them back in their boxes and it honestly sucks to see.

And as a woman(more or less) I have spent my entire life acutely aware that shonen anime and manga Does Not and Will Not make space for people like me, and so seeing the ONE THAT DID get NUKED in favor of again, a new asshole and an old character who's had all of his caring, soft, "female" traits dragged out back and shot so he can be EXTRA rude and dickish is so fucking upsetting.

We don't get characters like the Milly and Meryl and Wolfwood we got in the '98 anime. We don't see subversions of gender roles and archetypes like we did in that anime. But we should. And frankly, if this is all that Tri//Stamp can bring to the table, then I am not impressed.

[actual-changeling]

i mean, arguably the job ending also wasn't as great and romantic as people make it out to be.

crowley already has a more or less solid morality compass for himself, he knows what he wants to protect, how to do so, and how to keep himself alive at the same time. he didn't mean to fall, he didn't want to fall, he didn't want any of this, but he is taking it and moving forward.

meanwhile aziraphale is showing us the start of a pattern he will continue right up until the end of episode 6: whenever heaven is being cruel or otherwise undeniably going against what aziraphale thinks of as "fundamentally good", he separates those actions from heaven as an institution—"it's just a few bad archangels"—AND from god.

"i don't think that is what god actually wants" is a, and please excuse the language, fucking arrogantly blasphemous take. aziraphale builds himself a different reality in which god's plans and will always align with his own so he never has to examine his actions or morality because "that's what god wants".

it works because technically no one can outright disagree with him because technically no one actually knows what god does and doesn't want—that is how they stop the first apocalypse, by arguing that the great plan is not the same as the ineffable plan, and since it is ineffable, no one can know what it is except for god. so maybe it was her will that they prevented armageddon.

and since the only other celestial that aziraphale is around is crowley, he can brush off his arguments as "he's a demon, of course he'd say/think that, he's evil". he is never actually around other angels except for a ten minute meeting every few centuries. no one whose opinion he'd consider ever challenges him—because outside of god that being doesn't exist.

it's a perfect denial trap.

"i'm like you now" said by an angel to a demon who went through unimaginable trauma simply because aziraphale lied to his superior after having already lied to GOD is just fucking ridiculous. i'm sorry, but the fact that crowley comforts him and stays with him makes him a better person than i would have been in that situation.

aziraphale lives in a fairy tale world that is always exactly what he needs it to be and in which he can ignore all the pain and torture crowley experiences by shoving all that information into a box labeled "big evil demon". look at job, look at the flood, at the crucifixion, edinburgh and the bastille, the insurance conversation in 1862, 1941 and 1967 and the fact that aziraphale was fine with armageddon because he would not be the one suffering.

at the end of edinburgh—another one of their dates—crowley gets tortured in hell for fuck knows how long. at the end of 1941 crowley is in pain, terrified, and might get pulled down to hell for eternal torture come morning because hell doesn't just let people go.

this got very long but tl;dr if you have a close look at any of their dates, you will discover very quickly that the only one actually having unrestrained summer fun is aziraphale, never crowley—and yet he keeps meeting him because he loves him and wants to make him happy.

combing through the 1941 candlelight dinner like crowley would it KILL YOU to have even the hint of a smile please?????? aziraphale is vibrating out of his skin with affection meanwhile crowley is probably still in shock from shooting a gun at his face

[hchollym]

What are your thoughts on Slytherin!Percy?

Ooh, I love this question! 🥰

Before I answer, I just want to be clear that I'm a firm believer that the house system at Hogwarts was fundamentally flawed. One, it shoves kids into these little boxes of characteristics that ultimately define them for the rest of their academic careers (and beyond, in many cases), and two, most people could easily belong to several houses. For example, I think Percy would have fit well in every house (he’s brave like Gryffindors, ambitious like Slytherins, smart like Ravenclaws, and he values hard work/fair play like Hufflepuffs). So in an ideal world, there would be no houses, and this wouldn’t even be an issue. 

That being said, Hogwarts does have a house system, and as such, I have a soft spot for Slytherin Percy. This is because Percy embodies all the Slytherin traits in a positive way. He’s cunning, resourceful, a leader, and ambitious, but he uses all of those characteristics to do the right thing. JKR had a tendency to make most Slytherins the “bad guys.” Yes, she made characters from other houses villains too (like Peter Pettigrew), but being sorted into Slytherin was essentially a precursor to becoming bad/evil. Having Percy in Slytherin would have been a good step towards making Slytherin House more balanced. I also think Percy could have been a positive influence on other characters too, because he represents a better way/choice - he can still be a Slytherin without going down the wrong path. 

However, I think Percy’s relationship with his family would have seriously suffered from this, because the Weasleys have a deep prejudice against Slytherins (whether they want to admit it or not). There’s a reason Ron said this on the way to Hogwarts for his first year:

“What house are your brothers in?” asked Harry. 

“Gryffindor,” said Ron. Gloom seemed to be settling on him again. “Mom and Dad were in it, too. I don’t know what they’ll say if I’m not. I don’t suppose Ravenclaw would be too bad, but imagine if they put me in Slytherin.”

Ron hasn’t even started Hogwarts yet, and he already has a highly negative view of Slytherins. That’s not coming from nowhere (and I’m willing to bet that Arthur encouraged this opinion, since he blatantly insulted Lucius to his children). 

The Weasleys likely would have been horrified and disappointed in Percy, wondering where they went wrong. I think all of his siblings would have ignored him (at best) or made his life hell with insults/pranks. I don't even think his mother would have doted on him as much (she would have still loved him, but she definitely would have been more distant and blamed herself for what she saw as a flaw/failure). 

That would have been really tough for Percy, but in some ways, it might have been better for him in the long run. Up until the beginning of Book 5, Percy still obviously craved acceptance from his family, and unfortunately, they never truly gave it to him (he was just too “different” for them to ever really understand). If he’d been sorted into Slytherin, he would have had to accept this fact much sooner, and it’s very possible that he would have stopped being so concerned with their opinion and just focused on being himself instead (which likely would have felt like a weight was lifted off his shoulders). 

Some of his fellow Slytherins probably would have treated him poorly at first, because he's a Weasley, but I think that would have fizzled out pretty quickly once they realized his strenuous relationship with his family. The Slytherins tend to have a “protect our own” mentality (which makes sense, given how they are usually judged by the other houses), and that would have extended to Percy. I actually think he would have had more friends in Slytherin than he did in Gryffindor, because as @mirrorofliterature said in this post, most of his siblings' friends have a more negative view of Percy than the rest of the student body, and since his siblings were all in Gryffindor, that didn't leave Percy a whole lot of options for friends. In Slytherin, he wouldn’t have been judged by his housemates because of the way his siblings perceived him, and in turn, he likely would have felt more comfortable opening up to others (like Adrian Pucey). 

I also think Percy being sorted into Slytherin would have all but ensured that he was a spy during the war. With Slytherin connections, someone like Percy would seem like the perfect recruit for Voldemort - he’s smart, ambitious, a pureblood, and distant from his blood traitor family - and the Dark Lord would have assumed that he could manipulate Percy into being loyal to him. I think Percy would have played the part well and quickly rose in ranks amongst the Death Eaters until he eventually became part of Voldemort’s inner circle. This could have changed the books tremendously, and it would have been fascinating to read! 

Sorry for rambling, but thanks for the ask! 😊

[southslates]

full in all your veins

@kanejweek day one: mythology (soulmates) / kanej / one-shot - rated T / read on ao3! / 1545 words

Kaz teaches Inej how to read Kerch uncharacteristically, patiently. She sits at his window, on his floor, and he tosses books at her. Between doing the Crow Club’s numbers and dreaming of revenge, he listens to her speak his language and make it her own, like so much more. On her tongue, the dreary words he’s spent his whole life fitting into his mouth flow like water down the mouth of the Beurscanal.

He tells himself that he does this because it is what makes sense. Inej is always in his rooms, and it is necessary that his best spider read Kerch. She’s a quick study, a quick study with the knives, with the letters, with hearts. She’s been with the Dregs for barely a month and she has their respect; she is like him, who knows that’s enough. He’s seen the brass knuckles she keeps in her pocket, stained at the tips. He’d told her he couldn’t promise her safety. He told the truth. He doesn’t know why there’s an ache in his chest which contests that.

One day, she sits on his desk as he’s filing papers. She’s feet away from him—he couldn’t reach out and touch her. It’s closer than he lets most people get, but he knows she will not touch him. She will not even try. He doesn’t want her to try.

He doesn’t.

“Kaz,” Inej asks, “can you . . . can you read my mark?”

“You have a mark?” he asks, without calculation, in surprise. There is something cold creeping down his spine, Jordie’s voice whispering in his ear, asking him what exactly he’d thought of in the dredges of his mind, what he’d dared hope for. She is good, the voice says, have you looked at yourself in the mirror, monster?

Kaz shoves it down into a box he doesn’t want to open. Inej is barely a friend. She’s pretty, but he can take his eyes off her. This kind of desire is the one thing he cannot conquer, and he is not one to abet his weaknesses. He will ignore this, and he will best it.

“I got it in the Menagerie,” she says quietly, and he suddenly regrets his snapping. That can only mean so much. “I don’t want to know who, if it’s terrible. And I don’t—I don’t know who came there. Could you tell me?”

Kaz Brekker has no room for weakness, no room for soulmarks and the tales his father had spoken into existence on cold Lij nights. His father and his mother had not shared the mark, never had letters carved into their skins. Few did—there were far too many people in the world, from Fjerda to Ravka to Novyi Zem, for most to meet theirs.

He knows the world is cruel, but his opinion of it sinks lower and he finds himself needing to hold his breath as he considers that Inej—who he can admit is fundamentally good—was cursed with the mark of someone who came to the Menagerie. At best, the name will be that of a married Kerch man—at worst, a rapist.

“Kaz?” Inej asks again. She seems vulnerable, and Kaz allows himself this concession. He breathes out as though he’s exhausted, as though his heart is not beating through his chest, and nods at her with a scowl.

“Show me,” he says gruffly. He can’t hold in his shiver as she lifts up her leg and shows him the side of it. She is feet away, he thinks, looking at her skin, smooth and brown and gorgeous and disgusting, and you are weak. It’s just flesh.

He focuses on the letter and the word carved into her skin. He wonders if it would be Charles Loeder or Petjer Sasker—he will tell her the truth.

But the mark tattooed into Inej in glaring white, in Kerch, is not the name of a rich mercher, a slaver, a man meant for hell. It’s a silent name, and it makes Kaz reach for the gun beside him.

“Is it that bad?” Inej asks.

Kaz looks away from it as quickly as he can, sees the tears welling in her eyes. “It’s . . .”

One pushes over. She will eventually be able to read it as he can, so he tells as much of the truth as he can muster. “I’ve never heard of them, so they can’t be the worst of the lot.”

“Kaz,” she shudders out. “What does it say?”

“K Rietveld,” he breathes out. “This is a waste of time. Go get Jesper.”

He turns back to his papers as she turns with a small sniffle and leaves out the window. There is a single tear where she sat on his desk, and he stares at it for a long moment before grabbing his cane and stalking out of the attic. Surely there’s someone in the club who needs to be roughed up tonight.

/

Kaz searches his body for words, words in places he might have missed. He twists in the mirror, his shirt off, so close to drowning for so long, until he notices the white letters written in an unfamiliar script at the small of his back.

He goes to the university library and steals a global translator’s book, and then he spends hours trying to read the letters. He knows what they will say, but he needs confirmation. He needs—

When the club’s latest dealer skims thousands of kruge out from under Jesper’s unwatchful eyes, Kaz takes him to the Dregs’ backroom and breaks his wrists. He means to rough up the Suli man and then let him go—Kaz Brekker always has a reason—but a little boy dancing in rain puddles in Lij dances in front of his consciousness, hurts his heart. He takes off his shirt and stands with his back to the man, his skin crawling with insects, dead hands in every crevice of the pale flesh which hasn’t seen the sun in years. “Read that,” he commands.

“I,” the man stutters out the first letter. He’s lost teeth, and his mouth is a bloody mess. “Ghafa.”

The man works—worked for the Dregs, so he’s well aware of who the Wraith is. His eyes grow large before Kaz takes his cane and shoves the end of it into his mouth, and then quickly shoots what’s left of his face. He crumbles to the floor, a mess of blood and gore, and Kaz stalks back to his room. On his way, he tells Pim to take the body out.

“Why did you kill Saran?” Inej asks at night in his window. He can hear the heart-hurt in her voice, so he ignores her. She jumps off in a huff, and he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t care.

/

“Johannes Rietveld,” Inej repeats the name he’d given Colm Fahey to him slowly, like an incantation. “Rietveld.”

“Yes.” Kaz doesn’t look at her. He looks at the bandages, at the wound at her shoulder. That fucking net.

“Tell me,” Inej asks him. Her breath catches, and he feels himself move in-synch with her, the same souls, the same heartbeat. He wants to let this go, he wants to let her go, he never wants to let her go.

He doesn’t say anything. He leans back and takes off his shirt, his undershirt, the layers of cloth he uses to armor himself, and then he takes in a deep breath and lets the rest of the gold shake off too.

She is sitting on the bathroom sink, so he turns to her. He can hear her gasp when she sees the white etched into his back, in swirling Suli script. It’s a quiet sound, but to him, it’s a melody. He feels it reverberate in his chest. It pains, it feels like death, it feels like salvation.

“Okay,” Inej says simply, and he turns around to face her. He is vulnerable like this, so vulnerable, planes of scarred skin in front of her eyes. He has trusted Inej with his pride, but never his shame. But he has faith in her convictions. “Why?”

She is looking at him, he is not looking at her. He thinks the world has stopped spinning, that it could end like this, him just steps away from the circle of her arms. He is so close and yet he is eons away. To move closer, he needs to admit a weakness.

“You deserve him,” he says simply. “And he’s dead.”

It happens slowly, the pressure against his face. He’s looking down, and Inej wraps her fingers in bandages, ripped from his shirt, and places them against his face. The fabric is crisp, and cool, and he finds himself wanting more, wanting nothing.

She’d told him she wanted him without armor.

He raises his eyes to her, because he is Kaz Brekker, and he is going to fight for her—for him—for them.

“I think you’re worth saving, Kaz,” Inej says quietly, tracing his cheekbones. She is bleeding out on the sink, and he thinks this is what religion must feel like. “Kaz Rietveld.”

He looks into her eyes, puts down her hand, grabs her bandages and decides he is going to finish the story written into his soul.

[autisticandroids]

I appreciate you being Dean concerned and not Dean critical. I’m sure you’ve already answered this before but what do you genuinely like about him? A lot of his good traits get twisted in your meta (and in the show) which is really interesting! But like. What about him do you just think is neat?

Also, you don’t talk about Sam a lot but I’m rewatching season 8 and it really feels like both a continuation of preseason one -> season one (Sam has a normal life, Dean is gone -> Sam wants to return to his normal life but Dean coming back gets him back in the game) which also gives it finale vibes :(

Besides the fact that the stuff with Amelia is really boring, it all just feels ooc and like a step back for Sam. Not to go on a rant but Sam seemed to finally make peace with his life back in season 7.

The stuff with Amelia also has both the same and the exact opposite energy as the stuff with Lisa. During his time with Lisa, it was always like Dean had one foot out the door back to hunting. During his time when he goes back to hunting with Dean in season 8, it feels like Sam always has one foot out the door back to Amelia.

That and I just can’t bring myself to give a shit about Amelia (maybe because she’s boring and inconsistent, maybe because info about her is drop fed instead of presented mostly all at once like with Lisa in season 6, maybe because she’s just shoved in for something for Sam to be up to and it feels ooc to me idk)

I thought I’d like season 8 (and I do really like a lot of Cas’ stuff but he’s always my favorite anyway so that was basically gaurenteed) but a lot of the stuff just makes my brain feel like a white noise machine. I’m only on episode 10 so I’m sure it’ll get better for me once the Sam stuff gets resolved but for now it’s very.... eh.

Thoughts?

okay so, what i like about dean. hm. that's hard! i love dean, for all sorts of reasons, and i know i'll miss stuff, but: - he charms me, on a sort of pure, animal level. he's very charming, that's true within the show but it's true for the audience, or at least me, as well. he's funny, he's affectionate, he's sweet, and he tries so hard. and it makes me love him - he's compellingly tragic. like dean is a fucked up guy, he hurts both himself and everyone around him because of patterns of trauma an neurosis he can't break out of. no one wants to be a bad guy, no one wants to hurt the ones they love, least of all dean, but he can't stop doing both those things. like his self-made cage of ideology, emotional repression, and control is killing him, and it's killing everyone who doesn't get away from him, and that's sad! it's awful! no one is winning except dean's self-image. he will sacrifice everyone and everything he loves on the altar of never having to re-evaluate himself. or, i hope he won't. but he might! and that's sad! it's the perfect tragedy! - second hand deangirlism due to cas kinnie disease. men will be the first person who was ever nice to castiel and then me and castiel will love them forever about it. - he is my little puzzle box and i will solve him - straightmarried gf i liked that sam ran off and tried to escape The Life in s8, that makes sense to me. i think sam really fundamentally doesn't want to be a hunter and the only reason he gives up on trying to leave post s8 is that it is impressed upon him that he's completely trapped. he can never be free. dean will always drag him back, kicking and screaming. i actually feel like sam's equivalent to lisa isn't amelia, it's jess. i talked some about that here but like. both jess and lisa were kind of synecdoches for a false ideal of the american dream, each in their own way. they're both images of suburban perfection, and what draws the winchesters to them is the desire to fit into that image.

but comparing lisa and amelia..... like, dean promises sam that he will go try to make a normal life with lisa, and then he does, because that obligation is all he has left to cling to. like dean is nothing but a miserable little pile of duties and tasks, he doesn't know who he is without a chore (see: demon!dean's total directionlessness) and lisa is the last promise he made to his brother, so he fulfills that. she's an idea to him, not a real woman. the thing he's clinging to, in sam's absence, is not lisa, but the idea of a normative suburban lifestyle. but then the moment sam shows up and voids his own last wishes, dean is like okay bye i don't need to fulfill this obligation anymore. like he was never all that interested in lisa. he didn't love her and his relationship with her was built on obligations, normative images, and anxiety over her safety, which finally resolves itself in dean horrifically violating her by asking cas to wipe her memories.

whereas sam is with amelia because he like, meets her and they form a connection. they hit it off. and sam has a pattern of like. when he wants to get away from something, especially if dean isn't around, he jumps into bed with the nearest girl who smiles at him and then forms a super intense with her. his early season one-off love interests, ruby, and now amelia. (amelia is actually kind of the last time he does that, because after season eight he gives up trying to escape for real). but what he's clinging to there isn't an image that he's trying to fit into. it's the girl herself. like he likes amelia and he wants to be around her and he dives into like. spending time with her and building a relationship with her. and like amelia is a real woman and sam sees her as a real woman. like she's a fucked up mess and so is he and they connect. like she's a bitch and she clogs her drain with limes. also #MyGirlfriendsHusbandFightsForYourFreedom. like samelia is a little boring but i don't begrudge sam that. it's almost compelling because it's boring.

i'm actually not a huge season eight guy myself but my issue with it isn't samelia.

actually, and this is a complete tangent, can i bitch about season ten for a second? like. okay. seasons eight and nine are about sam learning that dean will never let him go. that he's trapped forever in the hunting life and trapped forever with his brother, that dean will do horrific things to him in order to keep them together. and slowly just... giving up. deciding to relinquish his dreams of getting out once and for all.

and then season ten rolls around and suddenly sam makes a hypocrite of himself? suddenly sam is the one who will go to any lengths to save dean, even against dean's own wishes? NOT believable. like sam should be like. sad and fucked up about it, but letting dean go his own way. if anything, cas should be the one trying to save dean against his will, that's way more cas' move. like there's definitely a certain level of cas -> dean :: dean -> sam that exists in the show, at least in terms of protective fixation. cas is somewhat more respectful of dean's boundaries and autonomy, but he's the one with a pattern of blowing up at dean for being self-destructive etc etc.

like, sam should have been way different in s10. i don't know exactly what i would do with him, maybe give him his own distinct plot? or maybe have demon dean last somewhat longer and make "demon dean tries to kill sam" a whole multi-episode arc, i think that would slap. and then the relationship fallout from that can be many more episodes.

like imo this happened because jeremy carver got his start in season three, when sam legitimately was trying to save dean against dean's wishes, but in s3 that made sense. like, one, the brothers were much closer then, dean wasn't quite as much of a prison guard for sam, but two, much more importantly, dean's deal was sam's fault. he blamed himself. he wasn't just trying to save dean from dying, he was trying to save dean from going to hell because of him. like girl, it made sense in mystery spot. but this is not the energy you should be bringing to the table with sam in s10. ooc!

[system-of-a-feather]

Go ahead ^^ We don't use our part specific sideblogs as much anymore since we have less moments when a part is specifically saying "oh that is a me specific post" but they're always open for others to follow

I get the whole autism / OCD hyperfixation thing though, most parts of our system (especially Riku) for a good like 80% or more of our main recovery journey were very - arguably aggressive even in good intent - on trying to find out everything and know how everything works and seeing the full picture, partially out of the "its interesting and fun" and partially in the "I need to know if I don't know then bad things might happen we have to know everything" and partially in the "if they are suffering, if I know more I can help and I don't want them to suffer" - the latter honestly being the thing that XIV and I had to largely leverage; also honestly the second one XIV did some leveraging on.

Cause when we started sorting things out with XIV at first and he officially went from a risky / dangerous / heavy persecutory part to the modern "Rikus other half and the ride or die duo", a lot of parts really tried to shove him into a role or a box and give him a job but like... XIV's nature as a part is fundamentally against that and he paved the path of "stop trying to label or make everything make clean and organized sense because its causing yall to be controlling to parts that don't fit or conform well into your arbitrary understanding of how things work."

And then for me, I literally had to bitch out all the system for how much they were making it worse for me as Lin 1.0 by constantly arguing for me / about me and constantly trying to drag me here and out and aroudn and trying to make me heal to the beat of THEIR drum. (technically XIV I had to bitch out for loosing his focus, hes always had the right vision but he used to be SO bad at getting caught in drama cause he used to be hooked on conflict that it'd blind him and distract him).

That said, its a hard thing to get that to less trauma impacted parts, particularly less trauma impacted parts with a lot of good intent and worry imo.

But yeah, the side system is heavy fantasy based because - as a child - there was a large amount of maladaptive daydreaming and escapism as a coping mechanism. In our "main" system, that was largely impacting mostly just specifically Riku TM while the rest tended to actually have almost a deficit in fantasy sort of escapism which is likely due to the fact the "main" system is the "Main" System because the needs of those parts worked better with facilitating improvement in real life

On the other hand, the side system largely opted to quit and give up on life a while back and decided they'd rather just either stay chronically sleeping or in a la-la daydream land rather than ever existing because they felt they just fuck everything up for everyone among many other things like persistent flashbacks, often being out around abuse, and eventually just the sheer stress of being "so behind" and unadjusted to living in a real world outside of their head.

I also do think of it - the whole fantastical nature of how I tend to work with those parts when I'm in their safe space - as a form of play therapy. A lot of the parts there are teens at oldest and even those parts really haven't had much of a real childhood and haven't really been given the space to operate in a more child-like manner (may that be regression or just in that imagination / fantasy based way) and so I think its pretty theraputic to give them the space to be able to operate and navigate complex and traumatic situations in the way most children best express, operate, and navigate those sorts of things which is through active play.

And so while its not "play" for most parts in the sense that there is necessarily an INTENTIONAL "oh we are playing", the leaning into fantastical roles when operating with those parts serves a similar symbolic and indirect way of handling and dealing with topics similar to play.

So Cheshire, for me, is part of a sort-of character not-character I play a lot with them when its more appropriate to do so since the Cheshire, in a way, is a guide that offers and instills a sense of curiosity and intrigue and poses to have some conversations which plays a nice role in doing some sort of a Motivational Interviewing sort of style of support and care

And so at this point that side of the system just kind of sees me as their catboy ghost who hangs in trees randomly and just Says Things with good intent and what not. I dont ACTUALLY identify as a catboy, but its become my form in the Side System to help facilitate conversation so *shrugs* I guess I am a catboy

Anyways, I unironically very much find a lot of peace and personal joy in having probably one of the main things I do as a specific part is figure out the best ways to help those lil guys, largely cause they used to absolutely terrify most of the "main" system since they used to be, understandably, extremely unstable any time they were near the front and a number of them were very hostile to parts as a means of "keeping the 'main' system in line" to protect their ability to Not Exist in Peace and what not.

I personally don't find anyone over there scary at all especially these days (where even the "main" system is mostly and usually chill with them) cause they're just severely traumatized and ill children, tweens and teens. If you give them warmth and care and the unconditional love and support they need, there harmless

ANYWAYS, I tangented when I MEANT to wrap up, but its just to say I like talking about this sort of stuff. Ray and I are two parts that have a lot of our existence as a part centered around system structure and engaging with sensitive parts and what not, so the both of us - in different realms - really enjoy just exploring and finding optimal ways to both connect parts, make parts feel comfortable, and create an environment conducive to healing. For me and him, it's actually a bit of our part-specific special interest, so the two of us could probably ramble about it for ages.

Allison's fusion confirmed a few things about our System, like the fact we do, in fact, have a side-System. Learning and trying to find information on a side-System has been way harder than doing the same for our sub-Systems. But there was a unique interaction in a sort of stream-of-consciousness type way while Em was playing boardgames with their partner. We don't typically share personal notes like this, but we were curious if something similar had ever happened to another CDD System? Or if anyone had advice about trying to explore a side-System that only one alter has access to? Transcription under the cut.

Alter 1: What's going on?

Alter 2: Em is playing a game with their partner.

Alter 1: Who am I?

Alter 2: Describe yourself?

Alter 1: Blonde? Golden? Do I have a tail? or am I just graceful? (Grateful). Am I real ...

Alter 2: You're writing, so yes.

Alter 1: Am I new?

Alter 2: Do you feel new?

Alter 1: I don't know, I was asking you. Animal features. Gold with dark skin. Golden eyes. Am I real? Probably not. Am I just a walk-in? Maybe. Or part of the side-system. THAT'S IT. JUST LIKE NEPTHYS. THAT'S WHY I DON'T FEEL REAL. THIS IS NOT MY SYSTEM.

[addictedtostorytelling]

Heather told grissom that he forfeited the right to give her advice some time ago. Do you have idea what she was talking about? Was it when he accused her as a suspect with an insulin syringe?

hi, anon!

my interpretation is that heather is lashing out because she's in pain, saying something that isn't exactly true in order to drive grissom away from her so that she can complete the terrible objective she has set out for herself (i.e., to seduce the man she believes is jacob wolfowitz) without grissom forcing her to confront the ethical implications of her actions.

her literal reference here is indeed to him treating her as a suspect during the events of episode 03x15 "lady heather's box."

however, what she's accusing him of also runs somewhat deeper, as she is essentially pointing out that while she and grissom may be friends, whenever push comes to shove and she's involved in one of his cases, he is always going to prioritize his professional obligations as a law enforcement officer over his relationship with her; she's basically saying, "you've always had a choice whether to support me or do your job, and you've always chosen to do your job. don't pretend that in this situation, what you're most concerned about here is me. you just don't want me going vigilante because it will make this case more difficult for you as a criminalist."

—which is quite a scathing accusation, but something which i think she knows (deep down) isn't true.

she's pushing grissom away because she needs to be clear-minded and ruthless in order to get her revenge against her daughter's killer. she knows she can’t be around him and still manage to do what she intends to do because he has a way of humanizing her, acting as a kind of external conscience for her.

he’d make her think better of it.

as i talk about here,

in each other, grissom and heather find a like soul—someone who understands their aloof and even misanthropic natures; someone who is aware of their flaws but does not out-of-hand judge or reject them. that heather is able to read grissom like an open book from their first meeting and yet does not disparage him, even knowing his fears and flaws, causes grissom to feel very loyal to her. that grissom knows who and what heather is and what she does for a living but does not assume the worst of her likewise elicits loyalty from her to him. each sees in the other someone like themselves, though (as per the very human impulse to excuse in our loved ones flaws that in ourselves we damn) they each also tend to think better of the other than they do of themselves, so whereas grissom finds his own asocial traits shameful, in heather he understands and can justify similar traits, and vice-versa.

because they understand each other on such a fundamental level, grissom and heather’s is a very frank relationship. though they may try to, they really can’t hide much from each other; emotionally, they are open books in each other’s presence. while we see heather call out grissom more often than he does her, as she is the more socially aggressive friend between the two of them, the fact is that he can see through her just as well as she can through him, and, in his own ways, he keeps her honest—such as he does in episode 07x23 “the good, the bad, and the dominatrix,” when he is able to recognize her depression based on their brief interaction in the hospital.

this rawness can at times be a source of social tension in their interactions—like in episode 09x05 “leave out all the rest,” when heather’s incisive questions about his and sara’s relationship get under grissom’s skin and he ends up snapping at her. for as much as having a “kindred spirit” is in some ways relieving to them, it can also be uncomfortable. because neither one of them can keep the masks they wear in the presence of others from slipping when they’re together, they often find themselves much more exposed than they’d prefer, like when grissom prevents heather from revenge-killing her daughter’s murderer, and she ends up sobbing in his arms, broken and emotionally naked (see episode 06x15 “pirates of the third reich”). in that moment, heather knows that grissom understands her rage and her shame and the darkness that threatened to take over her, and as much as she wishes she could turn away, she can’t. grissom is right there, witnessing her, fully aware of how close she came to doing something she could never take back.

so basically? heather is saying something hurtful here because she's trying to make grissom back off of her, pretending like they're not as close as they are because that's what will make things easiest for her in the moment.

of course, the truth is that heather actually values grissom's opinion very highly, and under other circumstances, he is one of the few people whose moral advice she will willingly accept. while he is law enforcement and does have responsibilities in his capacity as such, he is also her friend, and he has always, even when she has been a suspect in his past investigations, treated her fairly. he has never judged her out of hand.

she knows as much.

in this situation, she just can't allow herself to acknowledge that truth because doing so would trip her up.

thank you for the question! please feel welcome to send another any time.

[tripleaxeldiaz]

all my stones become your pearls

for @madamewriterofwrongs <3

read on ao3

Buck looks up from his phone with a smile when he hears the truck pull into the driveway. Thank God, he thinks, joints popping as he stands and stretches, feeling slowly coming back into his legs after sitting cross-legged on the lawn for an hour. Eddie hops out of the truck, a smile on his face that makes Buck’s stomach go a little funny, and he can hear Christopher’s voice drifting out of the open door. He’s still talking as Eddie rounds the truck to the backseat and helps him out, grabbing his backpack and lunch box and handing Chris his crutches. The story wraps up just as they reach the front door, and Chris turns his attention towards their visitor.

“Buck!” he shouts, dropping his crutches in favor of wrapping himself around Buck’s legs. Buck scoops him up and spins him around, Chris’ giggles floating through the air. “I didn’t know you were coming over!”

“Yeah, we weren’t expecting to find a stray at our porch when we got home today,” Eddie says with a laugh.

Buck laughs too and shrugs. “Well I have the day off tomorrow, figured tonight would be a good night to eat our weight in takeout and watch superhero movies.” His eyes snap to Eddie’s, suddenly, inexplicably worried that maybe this was not the move. “I mean, if I’m not intruding.”

Eddie shakes his head, smile still warm. “You’re never intruding, Buck. We’re glad you’re here.” He unlocks the door and they pile inside, Chris describing everything he did at school for Buck as he gets his homework set up at the kitchen table. 

They fall into a routine, one Buck hadn’t even realized they’d established. Eddie moves around the kitchen, putting away dishes, wiping down counters, getting Chris’ lunch together for tomorrow so he doesn’t have to worry about it later. Buck sits at the table next to Chris as he works, handing him notebooks and folders as he needs them. They both try and help where they can — Eddie with history, Buck with English, and a valiant tag team effort with math. 

Later, when they’re piled on the couch, full of Chinese food and watching Thor and Hulk try to escape Sakaar, Buck’s overwhelmed (not for the first time) by how settled he feels at the Diaz house. He’d been drifting for years, from apartment to apartment as leases ran out and rent went up, trying to find some place that felt like a home he didn’t really remember having, not since Maddie left. He thought he found it with Abby, but that warmth quickly evaporated when she left him too, the emptiness filling back in the longer she was away. Even his apartment now, as nice as it is, feels too big and too quiet sometimes.

But here, with Eddie and Chris, he feels unbelievably content. There’s laughter and chatter and a liveliness he hasn’t had outside the firehouse, and it’s good. He feels good here, like he’s accepted, like he’s part of something, like he’s wanted.

There’s still that annoying doubt, though, creeping in the back of his mind, reminding him that none of this is actually his. He might love Eddie and Chris more than most people, but he’s still just a visitor, allowed in for brief moments before he’s sent back to his own house with his own thoughts and not much else.

Not that Eddie’s ever said that. He always insists that Buck is welcome and never intruding, even on days like today, when the quiet is so loud it physically drives him out in search of warmth and comfort and these two, prompting him to show up on the Diaz porch like a lost puppy and pray that they let him in.

They always let him in. They always will let him in. But still. Buck knows he has to leave eventually.

Chris is snoring by the time the credits role, sprawled across both of their laps in his sleep. Eddie carries him to his room as Buck cleans up their dinner, throwing out trash and stacking leftovers in the fridge. It’s about this time, when it’s dark and things are winding down, that Buck feels like he’s overstaying his welcome and taking advantage. There’s usually one more beer or one more non-kid movie, but Buck always feels like he needs to rush through it, get it done and leave so Eddie can have space in his own house, even though all he wants to do is stay and be in that space too.

He hears Eddie coming back down the hallways as he closes the fridge, moving slowly in a subconscious effort to stay a little bit longer. Eddie stops in the doorway to the kitchen, eyes darting around to anywhere but Buck. He’s fidgeting with something in his hand and breathing in an artificially even way that Buck knows means something is up.

Oh. He’s nervous. Eddie’s nervous. What the hell could he be nervous about?

When he finally catches Eddie’s eye, he can practically see the determination settle on his face. He walks into the kitchen, straight at Buck, stopping right in front of him. He takes a deep breath as he grabs Buck’s hand, opens it flat, and places— 

“A key?”

Eddie nods. “So you’re not stuck waiting in the grass anymore.”

Buck closes his fingers around the cool, jagged metal, his mind going a mile a minute. It’s too much and exactly what he wants and not enough and what does it mean, does it mean something? Is it a declaration of something or just for convenience, did he force Eddie to do this since he never leaves? Is this good, is this bad, is this anything?

He knows he’s quiet for too long because Eddie starts fidgeting again. “You don’t have to use it,” he says quickly. “I mean, I just figured since you’re here all the time anyway and if you ever beat us home again and want to come in or something, you can. But you don’t have to, not if you don’t want to—”

“I always want to,” Buck says just as quickly, and they both stop and stare at each other for a beat. He’s not sure if that statement ends with be here or be with you or be a part of this or all three, but the small, pleased smile he gets from Eddie lets him know that he understands no matter what.

“Good,” Eddie says. “I— We, Chris and me, always want you to...too.” 

Buck smiles and Eddie nods again and that’s that. There’s one more beer and one more movie and for once, Buck lets himself linger.

When he finally gets up to go, he reaches into his pocket for his phone and feels the key again. It sends another jolt of doubt through him, convincing him that as soon as he leaves with it, Eddie’s going to realize he made a mistake and ask for it back. He turns and stops on the front step before Eddie shuts the door.

“Seriously though,” he says as casually as he can. Eddie freezes,  the porch light making him glow so beautifully Buck almost loses his words. “Let me know if I start overusing this thing. I don’t want to break any house guest etiquette rules.”

Eddie scrunches his eyebrows, utterly (adorably) confused. “You’re not a guest, Buck. You’re family. And you’re always welcome.” He says it so easily, like it’s a fundamental, unshakable truth, and that’s all it takes for the doubts to get shoved away again. It’s the simplicity that finally lets Buck believe that he’s found a place for himself.

So he uses the key, and he doesn’t feel like he’s overstepping.

He gets to the house before Eddie and Chris, and he doesn’t feel like he’s intruding.

He tells Maddie, “This is Eddie’s house, I’m not really a guest,” and he knows that it’s the truth.

[tinumiel]

Time for the tea aka I just finished Rule of Wolves

Spoiler alert...I...was kind of really disappointed by it :/

NEEDLESS TO SAY THERE’S SPOILERS OVER SPOILERS FOR KING OF SCARS AND RULE OF WOLVES BELOW THE READ MORE...Also a long ass essay no one asked for, I just needed to vent.

General Impression.

I was kind of disappointed, because the duology was sold as a Nikolai Lantsov duology, and while I definitely felt that was delivered in King of Scars, I feel like in Rule of Wolves he just sort of became a secondary character to the stories of others like Nina and Zoya (which don’t get me wrong, I love that they gain protagonism, but then why sell the whole thing as Nikolai centered?). That said, I loved Nina’s entire storyline and really enjoyed the Shu Han plot (which I think sets up quite nicely for a new, independent storyline).

Things I DID NOT like.

First I’ll speak of things that I didn’t like but more because of personal preferences. That is, things I didn’t like, but I can see why other did enjoy.

Zoyalai. I guess this has a lot to do with the fact that I am a Nikolina shipper first and a human being second and it’s hard for me to let go of a ship once I’ve invested myself in it. I wanted to like Zoyalai, and I did for the majority of King of Scars, but in Rule of Wolves, it suddenly started to feel kind of forced to me. I think they have a lot of things in common, but differ in very fundamental aspects that on the long run simply wouldn’t make them work. But more than that, I felt like their entire lovestory in Rule of Wolves was basically some kind of Nikolina AU in which everything that a very large chunk of the fandom wanted to see with Nikolai x Alina, was given to Zoya x Nikolai. It almsot felt as if Leigh Bardugo said “Oh well, the fans really wanted to see this, but since I gave the character they wanted to see in it a different ending, I’ll just give it to them but with a different character” and Zoya was just the one available for the plot. They did have some cute moments and I definitely do enjoy their relationship, but more as confidents and friends than lover interests.

Zoya’s storyline. I feel like Zoya was done dirty in Rule of Wolves, which is kind of ironic considering she ends the story with pretty much everything she dreamed of and more. But i felt like in King of Scars, Zoya went through a very interesting journey. She was always this character than sticks almost stubbornly into a certain way things should be, she doesn’t like stepping out of her comfort zone because she likes to feel in control. And in King of Scars she went through a journey in which she gradually learned to step outside the box. But I felt like for the most of Rule of Wolves, she simply reverted back, completely ignoring her changes in the previous book, until the very last minute in which she has this sudden epiphany moment about letting go, which seemed unnecessary to me since she had already experienced it in King of Scars. Secondly, on a similar note with the whole Zoyalai being a Nikolina AU with a different character, I felt like in Rule of Wolves Zoya was simply shoved into the alternate role many of us hoped to see Alina in. Not just as Nikolai’s partner, but as a person. Think of it, she gained this power no one else possesses, she becomes pretty much one of a kind, she becomes a queen that represent reunification. It’s basically as if she became a version of what Alina could have been, but with a different personality. A soldier queen? Alina was a soldier. A grisha queen? Alina was grisha. A suli queen? Alina was not half suli, but she is half shu, which are pretty much equally discriminated against. And finally, there’s this part in which I think it’s Nikolai refers to her as “Soldier. Summoner. Saint”. Sounds familiar? Because it’s the exact same words written on every cover of the Shadow and Bone trilogy, referring to Alina. It makes me very upset that they gave Zoya this discarded storyline for Alina instead of building up her own storyline (Not to mention: it did Alina equally dirty because she lost all of those conditions because Mal couldn’t handle being in the shadow of someone extraordinary, but that’s another story). 

Not for things I didn’t like, but for much more rational reasons.

The Darkling. When I finished reading King of Scars, I thought bringing him back was a pretty good plotwist. But it was also a tricky choice, because it coul fall into the “He was such a appealing villain tor readers in the first trilogy, I’ll bring him back to have the same success” trap. And that’s exactly what happen. I feel like if a villain (or any character really) is going to be brought back, then they have to fill in a different role from the one they originally occupied. The Darkling is basically the same. Even his conditions aren’t fundamentally that different once he gets his powers back. All the Darkling really needs are his powers, his tongue and a group of people desperate enough for someone to follow. And he had all of those things in Rule of Wolves, so it was simply repetitive. It was like the Darkling, but in rags.Plus it didn’t feel so much as a storyline, but more like a constant reminder of “LOOK HOW EVIL HE IS HE NEVER CARED FOR ANYONE. THAT QUOTE YOU PEOPLE LOVE SO MUCH ABOUT CHANGING THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY MEANINGLESS LOOK HOW MUCH HE SUCKS”. Like, I don’t need to be reminded he’s a bad guy, I am fully capable of knowing this and still liking his character. He’s a fictional character, I don’t need to be reminded of it. I’m capable of rational thought. Not to mention his ending felt like a huge nothing. “And he impaled himself to a tree”. It just felt like more of an excuse to set up for a Six of Crows #3 book. It’s just disrespectful to the fascinating character from Shadow and Bone. It basically took away everything that made him such a good character.

David dying.Fine, not much rational reasons here. It’s just doing my baby dirty. Why, oh why is Mal still alive, boring, toxic Mal who spent most of his time putting his love interest down; while David, sweet David who compromised and made an effort to do things that would make his wife happy even though it was hard for him, dies? It’s just cruel. 

All in all, I felt like the Ravka storyline pretty much fell apart in Rule of Wolves. I almsot felt tempted to skip it if it wasn’t because I didn’t want to miss any Nikolai quotes. I felt like Leigh Bardugo doesn’t really know what to do with the characters, and it became pretty obvious to me during the titanium heist with the special guest starring of the Crows. In like two chapters, I felt like Kaz, Jesper and Wylan were more smoothly written than any of the Ravkans. Which was really sad for me, considering how Nikolai is my favorite character in the entire verse, and Zoya was such an amazing character in the original series (and in KOS too).

What I DID LIKE.

Nina’s storlyine. Just, all of it. It was exciting, and dynamic, and you could perceive Nina’s character arc while still never straying into ooc territory. The way her griedf was treated, her loyalties, her desire to fight, her desire for revenge but also her desire to honor Matthias’s memory. All of it was so flawlessly written. I thought I’d be bored with her stuck in the Ice Court, but it was the storyline I actually enjoyed the most. The Fjerdan intrigues and political battles, and Nina in the midst of it. trying to do what was best for her country and the people she loved.  I love what was done to her character.

On the same note, I love Nina and Hanne. This, unlike my problem with Zoyalai, is a case in which, while I adored an original ship, I actually ended up enjoying the new one. Matthias and Nina were perfect for each other. But I loved how Hanne came to offer a new love. (I’m not sure if I should refer Hanny as she or he, so I’ll just use they until I get a better notion of what pronouns the character identifies with). It genuinely felt  like they were not a replacement for Matthias, or an upgrade. They were a love interest on their own, with their own story, not a “what if” version of another love story. Plus, Hanne is just objectively great.

The Shu-Han storyline. I didn’t even know I needed it, but it was so fascinating to read about the Shu. I find there is a lot to unpack and I really hope in the future, Leigh Bardugo will write a new series  following those characters. I loved Mayu and Ehri and grandmother Leyti. Plus, Mahki would make a great antagonist. And it would suppose a new colorfun addition to the countries we already know well, like Ravka and Fjerda, plus the city of Ketterdam.

The Crows. I know it was probably pure fan service, but I love just how well written they are, how you can really tell that Leight Bardugo has the complete hang and understanding of the characters. Plus, it’s always nice to see how my babies are doing.

FINAL THOUGHTS

All in all, I felt that the book had some highlights, but some decisions just pretty much ruined it for me. I hope the good parts are picked up and carried on in different sagas, and the rest...well, I guess I’ll keep on pretending the Ravka story finished when Alina and Nikolai were watching the stars fall and from then on, imagine they got marries, became an awesome power couple, and were the godparents of all of Genya and David’s beautiful, clever children. While Zoya looked upon all of them like “These are a pack of idiots but they are my pack of idiots and I am so proud”.

If you read this rant until the end, you’re awesome. If you liked Rule of Wolves, damn you are so lucky and I am glad you enjoyed it like I wish I had. But at least we can all join together under one common thought: Jarl Braum is a little bitch.

[guidingsbolt]

3, 15, 37, & 50 + one of your choice for will!

3. Did they have a good childhood? What are fond memories they have of it? What’s a bad memory?

yeah! will loved her family a lot. i think she reminisces a lot about just the regular stuff that she lost, like bickering over what movie to watch and going to school and playing board games with her family. she had some girlies she was friends with too, and she has totally lost all of those connections and the girlie she once was.

i think she remembers a lot of instances where she snapped at someone, or got a little too angry, or maybe shoved her sister a little too roughly and it makes her worry about how much she can really stave off the wolf

15. Are they good at cooking? Do they enjoy it? What do others think of their cooking?

i think she never really got the chance to develop a lot of skills around cooking. her parents probably did most of it pre-lycanthropy and they didn't cook in the woods! i bet yaz can teach her though pleading emoji. she eats a lot of stuff straight from the box.

37. Do they like to read? Are they a fast or slow reader? Do they like poetry? Fictional or non fiction?

yeah, she read a lot pre-lycanthropy. she was a really good kid and student, and liked reading a lot. she read a lot of biographies and memoirs, i think. beowulf probably doesn't "believe" in "books" so she hadn't read consistently for a long time pre-game and reading makes her feel "normal" now

50. If they could only take one bag of stuff somewhere with them: what would they pack? What do they consider their essentials?

will, for obvious reasons, is mostly fine with just a few things and therefore a pretty light packer. she would stuff a drawstring with some granola bars and beef jerky, change of clothes, big knife, toothbrush and toothpaste, a book, her wallet, keys, and some chapstick. if all her shit can't fit in her pockets if necessary then she's failed. (she also doesn't have a lot of shit).

38. What do they admire in others? What talents do they wish they had?

will thinks it's crazy how well parch is able to talk to people and get them to trust him, it's something she fundamentally doesn't understand how to do, and her weird werewolf aura probably makes it worse. she really admires when people understand and are content with themselves, when they seem like they've made peace with whatever is going on in their life. seems impossible!