#you wouldn’t show this shit to his face so why post it publicly where he CAN find it

[axamdotvbs]

i said this on twt but please don’t make OCs/AUs and headcanons of vinny bc he’s a real actual person with boundaries and it’s weird, he has also expressed his opinion on this before

this extends to vlinny and vdub. there’s a history of bad air around treating those two as ocs:

[carooosa]

Kindred Hearts: Valentine's Gift

Word count: 2.1k Rating: Fluff Pairing: Astarion x Named Tav (Auri) Warnings: None AO3 link: Kindred Hearts: Valentine's Gift

Summary: After realizing that Auri is the type to probably enjoy holidays, Astarion scrambles to try and figure out the perfect gift to give her.

A/N: This is a Valentine's gift as a part of a Discord server's writing exchange for @aevallare's Kindred. I know it's well past Valentine's day, but publicly posting it just got put on the back burner lol. I've only read up to Chapter 32 of Kindred so that's about where this takes place character story wise.

The camp is unusually rowdy around the campfire after a grueling day of traveling. Astarion pinches the bridge of his nose as he makes his way over to the fire. Auri and Viv are weaving a fantastical tale about one of their numerous shows, obviously adding embellishments to the story. Astarion stays on the outskirts of the group, watching Auri from the shadows. Viv was a creature of beauty, no doubt, but Auri had a way of captivating anyone. Or maybe it was just him that was engulfed in her theatrics.

Wyll gets up from where he sits to begin cleaning up the dishes from dinner and Gale helps, the two of them making their way to the river, passing Astarion as they go. Wyll nods to Astarion before looking at Auri and says in a hushed tone, “Have you thought about what to get her for Midsummer?”

Astarion lets out a forced laugh. Did anyone really celebrate those stupid holidays? Surely Auri, a very logical and sensible person wouldn’t partake in such a trivial, childlike…

Shit.

Why wouldn’t Auri celebrate a holiday about music and love? She’s practically the definition of music and love wrapped up in sunshine. And Astarion was not . What would he even get someone for a holiday like this? He hasn’t courted anyone in centuries, and while it may be too soon to call whatever he’s feeling love, it’s definitely different from anything he’s felt in a while.

Wyll clasps a hand around Astarion’s back, forcing him out of his frantic mind and into the present. Astarion stumbles forward as Gale shoves some dirty dishes into his hand and the three continue down to the river.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t planned anything for Auri,” Wyll chides.

Astarion responds with a half-hearted glare, his mind occupied with raking his brain for any kind of idea on what to get Auri.

Gale has moved a couple of paces ahead of the other two men and doesn’t look back when he says, “I know that I would certainly ensure Auri knows her worth if she was seeing me.”

Astarion snarls at the back of Gale’s head, willing himself to shoot fire rays through the wizard’s head. “Well, since she isn’t , it’s not something that you need to worry about.”

Gale stops and briskly turns around to face Astarion head-on, pushing a dirty wooden spoon into his shirt. “You don’t appreciate her enough, Astarion ,” he spits out the vampire’s name, “and sooner or later she’ll realize that she doesn’t need to put up with your meltdowns.”

“I don’t need to put up with this,” Astarion says while pushing the dishes he’s carrying into Gale’s hand. He turns around and slinks off to another corner of the woods, the sound of Wyll berating Gale not bringing him as much joy as it normally would.

As Astarion walks through the woods trying to scratch off the bit of food that got smeared on his shirt from the altercation with Gale , he stumbles upon Viv and Halsin sharing a few words. Well, it’s more like Viv staring starstruck at the druid as he talks about some life lesson that involves nature and kindness, or whatever.

Astarion clears his throat as he enters the clearing. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything here.”

Halsin turns towards him and grins, oblivious to the slight glare Viv sends toward Astarion. “It’s no bother at all. Is there something on your mind?”

Astarion shifts the weight between his legs as he tries to figure out how to word all the thoughts racing through his head, not blind to the impatient stance Viv has taken up. Of course , Viv is the perfect being to ask for help with this. She knows Auri better than anyone else, and if her previous comments are anything to go by, she at least approves of Astarion somewhat .

“Uhm, yes, actually. I had a question for Viv,” Astarion stumbles out, “But I suppose I could ask you both for advice on this.”

Suddenly, Viv’s face lights up with excitement and she rushes over to grab onto Astarion’s shoulders and looks down at him. “Don’t tell me: it’s something to do with Auri and it’s something to do with Midsummer coming up. Am I right? ” she asks with a squeal. Astarion barely shakes his head before Viv embraces him in a tight hug, slightly picking him up off of the ground as she spins around. He pries himself from her grasp and readjusts his clothes as Viv starts to ramble about what Astarion could get Auri. “It doesn’t need to be anything extravagant . As long as it’s from your heart, Auri will love it!”

Ah, his un-��beating heart. Halsin notices the slight squint of Astarion’s eyes at Viv’s comment and offers his own advice. “Why don’t you make her something with your hands?” he suggests, at the same time procuring a carved duck from his pockets.

“Ooh! Why don’t you make her something from your heart, like a poem!” Viv interjects. “I could help you if you’d like. We would just need to decide on what kind of poem you’d want to perform. Something short, like a haiku? Or perhaps a sonnet to express your-”

Astarion takes a brisk step back, straightening his back as he excuses himself before Viv says a word he isn’t quite ready to use. “Well, you both have certainly given me a lot to think about. If you’ll excuse me, I best start working on this gift.”

As Astarion starts to walk off, Viv begins to follow. “Oh, I could help you with-”

Without looking back, Astarion denies her help with a simple word.

“ Alone. ”

For the next couple of hours, Astarion tries (and fails) to carve something out of wood. He was skilled with daggers, no doubt, but for whatever reason he was unable to get his dagger to cut into the wood correctly. Broken chunks of wood lay scattered around him, his hands covered in splinters. He gets some leverage on a knot on the piece of wood he has and he’s just about to finally make some progress when his hand slips and he cuts a gnash in his hand instead. With a yell of frustration, he hurls the dagger into a nearby tree, missing Shadowheart’s head by a few inches.

“I thought I heard a wild animal rummaging through the woods. It appears I was half correct,” she says with a scoff while removing the dagger from the trunk.

Unamused and with little patience, Astarion spats at Shadowheart, “What do you want?” The moon is directly above them, and his time is running out to come up with a gift for Auri. He tried to write a small poem, but thinking of and putting words to his feelings was far too intimate far too soon. 

Pulling him out of his thoughts, Shadowheart teases Astarion again. “Like I said, I thought I heard a wild animal and thought it might make for a good morning feast. Auri and Viv couldn’t stop going on and on about the different Midsummer celebrations they’ve had over the years, and while I certainly can’t cook, I can help in some sort of way. It’s not a holiday I’ve ever acknowledged but… I don’t know, the way they talked about it made it seem like it was the most magical occasion.”

Well, shit. Even Shadowheart is doing something for Auri – and Viv – on this stupid holiday. Next thing he’d know, Lae’zel would be making friendship bracelets for everyone. Was Astarion really so useless that he couldn’t get something for his… for Auri?

Trying to hide his insecurities with a smirk, Astarion pushes himself off the ground and holds his wounded hand out to Shadowheart in a silent attempt to get her to heal it.

She crosses her arms at his piteous attempt to ask for help, and instead of healing him asks him a question instead. “What are you doing out in the woods? I’m the one on watch, and,” she nods towards the broken pieces of wood on the ground, “by the looks of it, your little arts and crafts session hasn’t been the most productive.”

Astarion pulls his hand back with a snarl. “It’s none of your business how I spend my time.”

Now Shadowheart is the one smirking as she turns around and heads back toward the camp. “Why don’t you just give her a night of pleasure like you usually do? I’m sure Auri would be perfectly happy with that as a present,” she says nonchalantly.

Astarion coughs at the bluntness of her response. Before he can think of a witty response, Shadowheart disappears into the trees, but not before whispering a healing spell to heal his hand.

When morning comes, the camp is even more rowdy than the previous night, this time in celebration of Midsummer. Everyone except Lae’zel and Astarion is dancing with each other even though no music plays. Even Rocky is jumping about while weaving through the legs of everyone. The owlbear runs towards Astarion as he sulks against a tree, Auri bounding after him.

With a smile as bright as the sun, she asks “What are you doing over here by yourself? Why don’t you join us in the fun?”

She starts to reach for his hands before Astarion puts them up in front of himself. “I’m sorry, darling, but I’ve never had the chance to partake in these sorts of things. I’m afraid I would just put a damper on the whole thing.”

Hurt spreads across her face before Auri shakes her head and looks at Astarion determined. “That’s right, I almost forgot! I got you a gift.”

Well, shit. Here comes the end of whatever it was between him and Auri. She’d find out that he got her nothing and realize that she didn’t want to put up with his problems anymore. It was good while it lasted, at least. It’s a shame that all of this would have to end on a holiday for love, but Astarion always did enjoy a little irony.

“Close your eyes!” Auri says with a mischievous look on her face and he begrudgingly agrees. 

Of course Auri would want to surprise him, he thought to himself, what else was he expecting? She probably got him some meaningful, well-thought-out gift that showed how much she cared. Something that probably took days, no, at least a tenday to think of. Was it handmade? Or did she buy it? She probably didn’t buy anything, because he would have noticed it. Unless she got one of the others to buy it for her, of course. Maybe she–

His thoughts halt as Auri’s lips press a chaste kiss against his cheek. Astarion opens his eyes, his shock clearly showing from the way she laughs at him. Auri looks quite pleased with herself with how she caught him off guard, and Astarion can’t help but chuckle at the simplicity of the gift.

“I know we haven’t really defined whatever this is,” she says while gesturing between the two of them, “but I still wanted to get you something. I know it’s nothing out of the ordinary, and now that I’m thinking back on it this was honestly quite embarrassing, but nevertheless, I hope you liked it,” Auri says quickly, finishing the sentence in a question-like manner as she looks up expectedly at Astarion.

With his signature smug look, Astarion places a hand on her cheek and says, “It was quite a surprise.” Speaking before he’s thought it through, he continues, “You know, I have a gift for you, too. Close your eyes, darling.”

Auri’s eyes flash with excitement before she hurriedly closes them and waits in anticipation.

Astarion’s about to go in for a kiss when he pauses. He’s always been quick to kiss people to show a false sense of desire; it became automatic for him to secure a kiss before leading his conquests to their deaths at one point. Of course, it’s different with Auri – they’ve kissed multiple times by now to prove that fact. But would a kiss really be meaningful? After all, Auri just kissed him. He would just be stealing her gift idea, and Astarion knew enough about relationships to know that was never a good thing to do.

Auri jumps beneath his touch as Astarion tentatively wraps his arms around her. He makes sure that his chin is resting on her shoulder to ensure that she can’t turn her head lest she sees the uncertainty on his face. After a few seconds, she reciprocates the hug. And hells does it feel nice. Her arms are snuggly wrapped around him but not too tight to leave him feeling claustrophobic. Her touch was gentle and warm, just like Auri. In his own opinion, she fit quite perfectly into his arms, like a missing piece he never knew was missing.

With a tight squeeze, Auri whispers into Astarion’s ear, “Happy Midsummer, sweetheart.”

[icallhimjoey]

Caught Red Handed

♥ ♥  Joseph Quinn x Fem!Reader

 Summary:  You are a chronically-online girlfriend to a boyfriend who very much isn’t. You introduce Joe to an online world that surrounds him, and he hates it. A lot. Especially Steddie. 

CW / disclaimer: 18+, smut, rpf (don’t read if this makes you uncomfy), fem!reader, mention of Steddie, mention of the NSFW Eddie audio

 Author’s note: idk I have so much shit written, but this was nice enough to post on its own, pls don’t leave hate im enjoying myself too much within this fantasy OK PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF YOU DO ENJOY  Wordcount: 5.2k

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You were both spread out on the sofa. The coffee table held empty plates, bar some pizza crust and crumbs, and empty glasses. Each of you tucked into their own corner at opposite ends, but your legs had found each other and had intertwined. Joe had your left foot in his hands as it laid on his stomach and slowly kneaded it with strong fingers, eyes glued to the TV screen. You were on your phone, scrolling endlessly, sometimes laughing and showing Joe a funny video or reading a funny tweet aloud. Sometimes Joe would smile at what you showed him, other times he’d just slightly raise his eyebrows in acknowledgement. It’s not like you cared if he found the same things funny; you just wanted to make sure he didn’t feel left out. Joe wouldn’t feel left out though, even if you showed him none of what made you laugh, but he thought your giggle was cute and didn’t want to discourage you.   "Oh my God, no way!" you sat up abruptly, and Joe eyes turned to look at you, not moving otherwise. Your eyes grew big, and your grin followed suit as you had come across images of you and Joe, walking the family dog in the park earlier that day. You turned your phone to show Joe who just smiled and turned back to the TV. "We're so adorable," you commented, relaxing back into the sofa, scrolling through photos of Joe with arms around your waist, looking over his shoulder right into the camera. You zoomed in on his face in a couple other pictures. "Ugh, so cute," you whispered under your breath. “Look at that face.” “That face is literally right here.” You glanced up at Joe, finding him lazily watching you through half-lidded eyes, still kneading that same foot. Content, you thought. This man was so content right now.

You kept scrolling, and then you found the shot where you made a funny face and Joe was just about to push your hand down and step in front of you, his face panicked as your hand was holding up a peace sign. "Jackpot." you said smugly and saved the image to your phone. "If they think you're my sister still, I'm gonna have to publicly come out and tell everyone I'm not fucking a sibling," Joe said, eyes now on the foot in his hands, playing closer attention to what he was doing. Joe's fingers felt nice. Soft. "You're not going to publicly say anything about me," you stated, sending the image into two family groupchats - one that has your dad in, the other that has his mum in. Your dad’s groupchat because your sisters think it’s hilarious people think Joe’s your brother and therefore also theirs. His mum’s because it’s their dog in the image. Joe saw his phone buzz on the table, noticing the notifications are from you. "Oh God," he groaned. You weren't done though, as you sent the same message into each groupchat: Quinn siblings take family dog out on walk. You didn't know why you found it so funny, but you were sure the disdain Joe had for the sibling-comments just added to your giddy joy. Joe grinned to himself. He did really dislike the sibling-comments, but the fact that they would send you into fits of giggles meant that he knew you were right; he wouldn't be publicly announcing anything about you to anyone. He stared at you for a second, deciding to lean into the joke, seeing how would like it. 

“Come 'ere,” Joe let go of your foot, tapped your leg, and stuck out an arm for you to grab. You put your phone down and let Joe pull you on top of him, his arms wrapping around your back tightly. "Let your brother kiss you," he tried his best to sound seductive before sticking his head down to kiss you on the side of your face. "Oh no, gross," you groaned, immediately wanting to move away. "Don't do that.". But he kept kissing you, his grip strong and you shriek-laughed trying to fight yourself free. "Your older brother Joseph will take care of you," Joe was laughing now too and when his grip relaxed, so did you, your body heavy on top of his as both your laughter faded out.    Your cheek was pressed up against Joe’s bare chest, his open shirt only half covering him, as Joe’s fingers started scratching long ways over your back. You stayed like that for a bit, watching TV, listening to Joe's heartbeat, tingling skin from his touch. One of your hands found Joe's side, the fabric of his shirt ridden up slightly, exposing bare hip. You used a fingernail to lazily trail small circles there. When your fingers moved down and started trailing over the fabric of his underwear, Joe shifted his hips a little. It was a familiar move caused by the blood Joe could feel pumping into his groin. You noticed his heartbeat picking up, your right ear catching every beat. He kept trailing his hands up and down your back slowly though, not making any indication of wanting to move on from this moment fast. 

You decided you did, and snuck your hand way up his torso, pushing his shirt to the side, exposing his full chest underneath your face. You started pressing slow openmouthed kisses into it, using your tongue to swirl his skin, making him shiver. When you made your way over to kiss and touch a nipple which instantly hardened, Joe suddenly exhaled a breath he'd been holding in, groaning as he did. Joe's hands had also found their way underneath your T-shirt, going slowly up and down your sides. It made you shiver, his hands inching up the sides of your chest, almost grazing your breasts, before slowly cascading down towards your shorts and back up again.You felt Joe shifting his hips under you, one hand escaping your body and roughly readjusting himself in his boxers. "Oohh, hello," you joked, suddenly feeling his throbbing bulge against your lower stomach. Joe grinned and went straight back to touching you under your shirt. Slow hands and soft fingertips.

You pushed yourself up from his body, your legs spread over his crotch, knees on either side as you sat back on your calves. Your hands made its way down to the waistband of his underwear. Joe looked at you, smitten. The most relaxed man ever, you thought as you grinned widely, palming his penis over the fabric. Joe’s full body jerked at your sudden pressing touch. You remembered the first time you'd touched Joe like this. It was well before you confessed your love to each other, and you had both been very drunk. Too drunk. Neither of you properly able to consent in the state you were in, but both horny and eager and there. You were both there, wrong place, wrong time, wrong amount of alcohol in your systems. The whole ordeal had been clumsy, bumping heads, clashing teeth, scratching fingernails and it was all over way too fast. You weren't sure either of you had properly finished, but it had stopped just as quick as it had started and the day after, you both only vaguely remembered snippets. Joe had convinced himself for months that nothing had actually really happened. But you remembered sloppily tugging on his member, because it had made Joe growl in your ear and the way your body had reacted to the sound had really surprised you. The next time, you both knew that this was something you both also wanted in sober states, the situation had been nerve-wracking. You’d shared your first kiss, both of you with clear minds this time. You remembered that right in the middle of the two of you touching each other up, the vibe had suddenly shifted and Joe had changed demeanor in an instant. Confidence. You had asked him about it later. What was that? Joe had smiled and shrugged, knowing exactly what you were talking about. "Just realised right there and then that you were all mine."

If back then Joe had started stroking your back the way he had been doing tonight, you'd be long finished by now. Your hands would always clammer at each other, eager to be under each other’s touch, quick to take off clothing items and get straight to it. But you were a few years older and had learned to take your time. The rewards grew the longer you'd spend on each other, and you both knew it was well worth the extra attention. Joe's hands were under your shirt now, kneading your breasts, playing with your nipples and you felt yourself swell in tandem, pressure slowly building inside your body.

The sudden unlocking of the front door interrupted you. Joe froze completely as you ducked down over him, hiding his hands in your shirt and his boner pressed between the two of you."Don't come in here!" Joe's voice was shaky but loud as he called out to his flatmate who'd just entered the apartment. You tried to hold in laughter, barely able to, the feeling not unlike earlier today when Joe had tried to hide you from a photographer. Except this time, you were sure that if his flatmate walked into the living room, he could see your wet patch in your underwear as you hunched over Joe with your knees wide apart."Ggggot it!" you both heard a sloppy voice from the hallway, followed by three loud footsteps. You both waited to hear a bedroom door open, but it stayed silent. Joe called out again. “Are you still there, mate?” Joe tried to look around you to peek at the doorway. “To be honest- I’m vvvery hungry,” his flatmate was obviously plastered, wanting to get into the kitchen. “Did you not just come back from dinner?” Joe started a conversation, making you roll your eyes. This was taking too long. “Go in the bathroom a minute!” you yelled, the directions loud and clear for his flatmate. And he obliged. You heard him mutter “all right,” before you heard the bathroom door open and close, followed by sloppy fiddling with the lock from inside.

  You nearly jumped off your boyfriend and leapt your way to the fridge. “Quick!” you instructed Joe, “Bedroom!”. Joe got up, picked up the remote to turn the TV off and made his way to his bedroom. You quickly grabbed two bottles of water before following him, finding him in the hallway, one foot and two palms pressed up against the bathroom door, making sure it wouldn’t swing open as you were about to walk past. You flew right past Joe into his bedroom and heard Joe slap the bathroom door with an open palm. “Thanks mate, coast is clear,” before jogging after you and closing the door behind him. In the bedroom you barely have enough time to set the water bottles down as Joe grabs you by the waist and slings you onto the mattress. You squeal in delight, immediately clasping both hands over your mouth, now very aware there was another person inside the apartment. Albeit drunk, he still had ears.    “Enough with all this slow teasing shit,” Joe says before letting himself fall on top of you, mouth straight to you neck, finding the sweet spot that gave you goosebumps. “Teasing?” you breathe, your hands finding Joe’s dick in his boxers. “I thought we were loving on each other,” you grin, one hand slipping into his underwear, grabbing a firm hold onto him. “Oh, I’ll love on you,” Joe copies your moves and slips a hand into your panties. Your breath catches and Joe grins deeply as he makes strong eye contact with you. His fingers are everywhere, outside, inside, on top of, behind, pinching, rubbing, tracing – it makes you whimper, and you forget you’ve got a hand full of hard flesh, twitching, begging for your hand to move. But your brain-space is completely taken up, not a single thought behind your eyes, stilling your arm as you enjoy what Joe’s doing to you. You start to wiggle, trying to snake your way out of your undies. Joe helps, pulling them down your legs for you before his hand is back at you, pressing hard, feeding touches right where you want them as he hovers over you.   “My God, Y/N,” Joe looks down in between your bodies and sees the shine on his hand, not stopping his fast firm movements. Joe said it like he was surprised, but it was like this every time. This man could shoot a simple look at you, and you’d feel moisture escape you. It was embarrassingly easy for him to get you wet. But Joe was surprised. Always afraid that one day, he wouldn’t be able to get you there anymore. And so he kept his expectations low, not allowing himself to get used to anything, even after years of the same. You felt yourself edge closer to ecstasy, and Joe could tell by your facial expression, the twinge of your eyebrows, the high quick breaths and so he stopped at exactly the wrong time, leaving you panting.    “Fuck you,” you muttered through a smile, your orgasm ebbing away from you fast. Joe was quick to guide his penis into your warm squeezing walls, going excruciatingly slow at first. It felt great, but you needed more after Joe left you aching. Your hand finds your bundle of nerves in between your bodies, but Joe is quick to try and stop you. You swat his hand away from yours and place it right back where you want it most right now. “You- you gotta let me,” you pant, applying pressure and moving in quick circles.   And so he lets you, picking up the pace in his thrusts and it doesn’t take you long to get back to the point you were before. Joe is still wearing the opened short sleeve shirt; it’s hanging down between the two of you as he hovers over you. You decide to bite into the fabric of it, plastic buttons slotted between your teeth, as you feel your orgasm inching closer. “Oh, shit” Joe pants, his face falling into the crevasse of your neck, his body heavy on top of yours, your arm stuck in between the two of you leaving just enough room for your hand to keep moving. His thrusts become deeper, and you whine – it’s high pitched and shaky from Joe filling you entirely.   “You’re close,” Joe grunts into your ear. It’s not a question. “Joe,” you’re louder, warning Joe to keep doing what he’s doing. “Shh, he’ll hear you,” Joe hisses, trying to shush you, but his hips keep rutting into you in the same pace, steady on. It finally tips you over, your pants and moans high and loud. Joe quickly caps his hand over your mouth to muffle the noises escaping you as he lets you ride out your orgasm, your walls clenching him inside you. It makes him moan, closing his eyes and pushing his forehead hard into yours. Joe doesn’t let up, now chasing rapidly after his own satisfaction. You let your hand escape the tight squeeze of your bodies and you bring both up to rake through Joe’s curls. Joe’s grunting, making intense eye contact you’re scared to break. He’s working up a sweat, and as you notice his breaths becoming shorter you decide to toy with him the way he had toyed with you earlier. “Quick,” you pant, doing your very best to sound as sexy as you can. “Do an American accent for me,” your voice is breathy, but Joe detects the laugh stuck in your throat. He immediately halts, pulls out and rolls off of you, annoyed, still rock-hard, groaning at you for absolutely killing the mood. “Fuck you,” he says, copying your earlier statement, emphasis on you. It only makes you laugh louder.   It had been a couple weeks ago when you’d told Joe to listen to an audio file you had sent him. Joe had absolutely hated you for subjecting him to it, and absolutely hated himself for listening to the full 25 minutes of it. “Does he not sound like you?” “No!” “I think he does. That’s Eddie.” “It’s fucking disgusting, is what it is.”   Back in bed, Joe glares at you from his new spot next to you on the mattress. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry,” you’re still laughing, two hands apologetically clasping one of his biceps, not meaning a word of what you’re saying. “I had to!” “You absolute bitch.” Joe grins catching his breath, head turning and staring up at the ceiling, his dick twitching in the fist of his right hand. You watch it for a second before positioning yourself on your knees next to it.   You move his hand out the way, flip your hair over to one side and start treating Joe with you mouth. Joe reaches behind him, positioning a pillow folded under his head, propping it up so he can look at you. You take him like a champ, occasionally looking up to see him staring right at you with your sucked in cheeks as he pants and groans. “Louder,” you instruct, your voice stern. His noises do something to you.   Joe shushes you through a grin, eyes shooting from you towards the door and back. The two of you can hear clattering in the kitchen, and if that noise can travel to your ears, Joe knows that whatever’s happening in his room is making to his flatmate’s. So you direct attention to his balls. If Joe doesn’t want to be louder, you were just going to have to make him.It's works. Obviously.   Joe’s hands fist into your hair, his head tilting back firmly into his pillow, loud growls escaping his throat. Your hand works fast along his shaft, the other cupping his nuts, tickling, and your mouth covering his tip, tongue swirling. You keep up the pace until Joe’s breaths scatter and his built up pleasure breaks, riddling through his body and right into your mouth, hips spasming under you.   Joe tries so very hard to be as quiet as he can, bottom lip tightly tucked and bitten into. It’s exactly what you don’t want to see and you pinch the skin of Joe’s balls, making him cry out in pain loudly. The instant karma is evident as, in turn, the hand that's still in your hair yanks a clump of it harshly. Joe’s hips stop bucking and he relaxes, his breathing heavy, his voice seeping through his exhales lowly. He then reaches over for a water bottle, passing it to you, knowing you don’t like the lingering bitter taste in your mouth. You take a sip and look at Joe’s face, skin glowing, flushed cheeks the perfect colour and that fucking perfect lone curl stuck to his forehead. “Pretty,” you compliment him, using his usual praise for you on him for once. He really was. “Prettier,” he breathes back at you, the hand that previously had strongly pulled at your hair now apologetically combing softly through your strands. When you twist the cap back onto the bottle, Joe grabs your arm and pulls you close to him into a cuddly position. You wipe your mouth on the linen fabric of his open shirt on his shoulder and swing your right leg over his lap. But it’s hot, and you’re both sticky and sensitive so your limbs only linger there for a second before you roll back off of him.“Nooo,” Joe whines, reaching out, doing his best to place your body back where it was. “This room is a sauna,” you fight against Joe’s grip. He manages to pull your face close enough to press a kiss against your temple, then relaxes his grip and lets you find your own space on the bed next to him.    But Joey’s a needy man and he craves at least some physical touch, so he opens a leg to stick out his knee to touch yours. You move away again, just out of his reach and instead inch your right foot over to his.“We can touch big toes,” you tap yours against his, “That’s it.” You state, opening your water bottle once more, rehydrating as you take big gulps. Joe shakes his head as he laughs and does as he’s told, resting his foot against yours. This was usually prime time for the two of you to talk, your thoughts would flow freely as you slowly came back into your brains, your bodies recovering from the physical activity. Except you didn’t have words to say, so for too long, it’s just the two of you, next to each other on the bed, looking at your feet as you both wiggle them in an out of contact. “Man, if I had foot fetish, this would be such a turn on.” Your random statement made Joe smile before he frowned in thought. “You don’t have any strange fetishes, do you?” he asks, genuinely interested, trying to think back to previous escapades but nothing out of the ordinary coming to mind. You peek at Joe from the sides of your eyes, confused. It had only been a couple of minutes since you referenced it. “Well…” you start. “There’s one…”. You know he knows what it is – had you not just mentioned it to him? You also know he fucking hates it. It takes him a second to get what you’re hinting at. You peer at his expression when suddenly he squeezes his eyes shut in a deep frown. “Okay,” he groans, moving his foot away from you, regretting innocently bringing the topic up. “Oh, you have it so difficult,” you couldn’t be more sarcastic. “Oh no, my girlfriend’s celebrity crush is me, this is the worst thing that could ever have happened to me! Woe is me!” you mock him, crying out theatrically. Joe grins softly, but it doesn’t fully reach his eyes. “It’s so weird!” he complains, wanting to forget how he had discovered this pivotal piece of information you had withheld from him. Sure, Joe knew you liked him in the wig; he had sent photos and short clips from early fittings, and you had replied with heart eye emojis. But Joe was disturbed to find out that it was just the tip of the iceberg with you. 

You snapped your laptop shut fast as lightning and quickly squeezed your thighs tightly together spinning onto your stomach, head propped up on your hand. You’re facing Joe who’s standing in the doorway, who had clearly just seen you scramble before pretending to be casually relaxing on your bed. What had he just walked in on? “…… hi.” he states, side eyeing you suspiciously, absolutely not trusting the situation in front of him. Your cheeks are flushed, pupils blown wide – you’d obviously been caught red-handed, but you tried not to let Joe catch you smelling yourself on the fingers underneath your chin. “What’s going on here?” Joe circles his finger at you, his eyes darting to your closed laptop before finding your eyes again. “Nothing. I was just… reading, something.” You stutter, trying your best to sound super casual, wishing Joe would turn on his heels and leave, the whole thing far too embarrassing to confess to. “Reading, huh? What, like, an article?” But Joe doesn’t leave, instead stepping closer to your bed, suspiciously slow legs taking suspiciously slow steps. “Mmh mmh,” you nod all innocently, big doe eyes look up at him and holding his stare. Joe’s too quick for you, pouncing towards your laptop, landing his full body on top of it. You shriek as you try to get to it before he does, obviously failing. Joe gets back up onto his feet, now holding the laptop and threatens with wiggling fingers to open it. “No,” you warn him. “Do not open that.” Your arms are stretched out in front of your body, reaching for him to give it back to you. “Oh no,” Joe’s face suddenly falls. “Is this where I discover you’re into some obscene shit, like beastiality or something?” “Ew, no!” It’s worse than that, you think. Joe’s eyes linger on the device in his hands, seemingly pondering his next move. “Want to tell me what I’m about to see before I actually look?” his eyes twinkle, but you’re seriously petrified. The way Joe had told you time and time again to not search his name on the internet so much. To stop spiraling down deeper into fan sites of his. It’s unhealthy, Y/N! And he’d been serious about it too, not a hint of playfulness in his voice. You think it over half a second before clambering up to your knees, sitting on your calves and taking a deep breath. “So,” you start, squeezing your eyes shut tightly and pinching the bridge of your nose. You’re not sure where to start. How you were going to break this to him without him absolutely losing all interest in you for the rest of his life. “Okay. I was browsing the internet-” “You were watching porn.” Joe translated your statement. “I wasn’t.” you defended immediately. “Not- … not watching porn.” you corrected your boyfriend, wincing at your confession. Joe’s face broke out a wide grin, eyebrows raised high. “Look at you, so intellectual!” You held your breath a second, wishing your very hardest that time would rewind, and Joe would put the laptop down back next to you on the bed and walk out of your bedroom in reverse. “You were reading porn.” Joe nods encouragingly at you when you take too long – the truth of his words pushing the air right out of you, almost in an annoyed sigh. “What kind?” Joe pressed, way too into what he had walked in on. “You’re not going to like it.” You squeeze your brows together apologetically. Joe studies you for a second and then groans loudly. He knows. “Y/N….” Joe wants you to say you’re joking. You can’t lie and instead just nod, your face a painful grimace. “Fan fiction?” Joe cries out. “Joey, it’s so good! These girls are unbelievable writers and Eddie-” you reach for the laptop, now wanting to show him, but before you can take it from his hands, he hugs it tight to his body. “If I had known…” Joe can’t even look at you, his voice raised, very stern. “That this,” still not looking at you, but flailing an arm in your direction. “Is what Eddie fucking Munson was going to do to you-” “Not Eddie.” You interrupt, regret washing over you fast, your brain apparently on the truth-train and needing to get all of it out. Joe’s eyes snap back to you again, studying you face, hoping you were about to deliver some good news. “Not just Eddie, anyways,” you face still reads apologetic to him, but he’s not following you, so he decides to check for himself, now opening the laptop and scanning the screen as it lights up. “Who the fuck is Steddie?” “It’s- it’s Steve. Steve and Eddie.” The disgust he had shown you before had now ten folded. “Steve?! You’re fantasizing about fucking Joe Keery?!” he is practically shrieking in your direction, and you grow frustrated, because no, you weren’t. He’s not getting it. “No, I-” “Right. That’s it.” His voice suddenly way softer in volume, but still just as annoyed. “We are – you are, never hanging out with Joe Keery again, especially- especially! not without me!” “It’s Steddie!” Your frustration made you find your voice too and you decide to argue back. “It’s Steddie - not Steve!” Joe is taken aback slightly, but his stance remains. He’s not backing down. “Fuck Steve!” you say, but when you hear it, you backtrack. “Wait- no, that’s not- Not fuck Steve, I mean – yes, but not me- it’s Eddie. It’s Steve,” you hold out your left hand. “And Eddie,” you hold out your right, and then fold them together, your hands too close to Joe's face for his liking. “This isn’t helping!” Joe had finished the shouting match.   You didn’t know what to say to help the situation. Joe didn’t know what else to add about what he had found his girlfriend doing. You thought he was overreacting. “It’s just innocent fun,” you tried to carefully to save yourself.   Joe had had a long day, and really didn't know how to cope with anything that was going on at the time. This had been the last drop. Joe looked at you for a bit, trying to make up his mind but then granting you your wish as he handed you your laptop back and left you in the room by yourself. Joe had needed to step out, have a think by himself, just some quiet time to reflect. He had gone for a walk, and when he came back he just walked in and before you could let any words pass your lips, he had hugged you, squeezing your body tightly. It was a hug that told you more was at play; an emotional embrace that only broke when limbs grew tired of gripping. He had nuzzled apologies into your neck, he’d been silly, and you had done the same, saying you’d never google his name again, and everything was fine after.   It had all turned back to normal; Joe had cooked for you, and you had told him about things that happened earlier that day at work. Normalcy is what he had needed, and walking into your apartment earlier, he had come in looking for you to ground him. Instead, you had thrown information his way he didn’t know how to process.   You didn’t talk about it for a while, but it popped back up after you had gone to a concert with a group of people. Joe Keery had been there too amongst others, and your boyfriend had been dangerously touchy that night, hands barely ever leaving your body. He mostly stuck to your shoulders, upper arms and the top of your head – places where he would quite literally touch his stepsister – your privacy always at the forefront of his mind. But hidden in the crowd, people closely surrounding you and with the safety of everyone’s attention on the stage, Joe had held your hands and would touch your hips and he’d sometimes rest his head atop of yours as he hugged you from behind. It felt like a dangerous game, but you weren’t the focus of the night. It also helped that Andrew fucking Garfield was stood at the edge of the balcony. It had made Joe feel the most anonymous; when people weren’t looking at the stage, they were looking up to see if Andrew Garfield was still there. No photos of that night had found its way onto the internet afterwards and you’d been glad, because you didn’t need reminders of how flushed your cheeks had been. Head bopping along to the live music, you had admitted silently to yourself that, yes, reading Steddie fanfiction was a fucking weird thing to do, because now you were there, in a crowd of people, Joe’s hands on your shoulders as he stood behind you, easily looking over you and the rest of the crowd and a few people over was Joe Keery, clapping hands and cheering as the band finished a song on stage. They weren’t Steve and Eddie, but at the same time, yes they were and it was icky. So very icky. And then Joe had teased you, threatening he was going to tell on you, his eyes on his friend. The absolute embarrassment you had shown in your cheeks had made it up to him completely. 

[hookingminor]

“i hate what i’ve become.” with mat? ty 🫶🏻

“I hate what I’ve become.”

this got very real and deep very fast don't ask me if I'm mentally okay after reading this because I'm clearly not

warnings: intense talk of insecurities

-

Social media was your worst nightmare even after years of handling it, you thought you had it mastered. You thought you could step back and block out negative comments and everything that made you feel like shit, but it was so much easier said than done.

And as much as you hated to admit it, Mat only made it worse. Being with Mat only made it worse. It was bad enough before you were his girlfriend, but now that you were officially public, it was exponentially worse.

The doom scrolling was the worst part of it all. You were so wrapped up in the toxicity of it all and couldn’t let it go. For hours you’d sit on Instagram, scrolling through the comments on his posts of you. Even if the positive comments outweighed the negative ones, you could only focus on every criticism of you. How you weren’t the typical WAG standard, how Mat must be cheating on you, how much better he could do.

Then came his tag posts, which were sometimes filled with vapid remarks about his alleged hookups or hateful judgements of your profile. Not to mention all the women he still followed that were stick thin and blonde and clearly got paid just to post bikini photos. You weren’t one to be bitter and misogynistic, but it was hard when everywhere you looked there were reminders of every beautiful ex Mat had or how ugly you were next to him.

It was all consuming and to the point where you just couldn’t handle it anymore. Like physically, you feared this comparison and criticism of yourself would be the death of you.

Realistically, you knew there was only one solution to this problem.

“We need to break up.”

Mat could not have been more blindsided by your words, his whole body coming to a dramatic halt at your blunt words. He was in the middle of making a sandwich for god’s sake. “Is this a joke?” Never in a million years would Mat have expected you to spring this on him.

“No,” you stated. “I think we should break up.”

The silence felt like it lasted hours while Mat’s brain tried to catch up with what you were saying. It was out of the blue and made no sense, and Mat still half believed you were just fucking with him.

“Why would we break up? Is there something wrong with us?” If he weren’t so genuinely confused by your outburst, he might be mad, but he was just lost. As far as he was concerned, you two were solid. Nothing big had happened to warrant a fight, let alone a breakup. “What’s going on, babe?”

“I just can’t do this anymore. I hate what I’ve become, and I can’t stand being like this, Mat,” you explained, which only confused him even more.

“What the hell are you even talking about? What can’t you do anymore? What’s wrong?” He walked to you in two long strides, enveloping your face in his hands while he scanned it for something. Anything.

“I can’t do being your girlfriend anymore,” you said. “All the comments and trolls and you being the literal hottest man to ever grace hockey while I’m just some girl.”

“Woah, where is this coming from? Who said this? Where are you getting this?” His questions came out at double speed, real fear setting in now that you might actually leave him.

“Instagram, twitter, those stupid blogs, I’m tired of it all, Mat.” Your voice broke on his name.

“When did all of this start?” He asked.

Mat never spent much time on social media anymore except to post something then log off, and you were sure he somehow had notifications set so only his friends showed up in his mentions. Of course he wouldn’t be focusing on all the bullshit they were saying about you.

“The day we met,” you snorted humorlessly. “We’ve been dating publicly for months now, and they’ve never slowed down. They’re never going to stop. As long as I’m with you, I’m always going to be hearing this shit and comparing myself to other girls.”

“As long as you’re with me?” The anger was starting to hit now. “I’m sorry, but am I missing the part where this is my fault? Have I ever made you feel like this? It shouldn’t matter what other people think. They’re all spineless assholes who have nothing better to do with their time but tweet insulting shit. I think you’re amazing and wonderful and hot and sexy and incredible. Doesn’t me loving you count for something?”

“Of course it does, Mat. And I love you, but this shit never stops. You don’t get it. You don’t get what it’s like to look at every single woman and wonder if you’d be more attracted to them than you are to me. To wonder if you’re just waiting until you find something better.” And he didn’t get it. Not when he looked like that and had all that money and fame and success. He would always be too good for you.

“Jesus Christ.” Mat’s heart broke at your confession. “How long have you been feeling like this?”

It was painful to hear about your insecurities, and that was the reason you never brought it up. It wasn’t Mat’s job to reassure you every time you were feeling down, especially when your bad days greatly outnumbered your good days. You felt like a burden when you told Mat about your problems.

You shrugged. “A long time.”

“And you really think breaking up will solve this?”

“It can’t make it any worse.”

Mat rethought his strategy. He clearly wasn’t letting you call off nearly a year-long relationship over something you hadn’t discussed more than just this one time, but it was also clear your mind was made up.

“Okay, well, I’ll just delete my Instagram then,” Mat said casually. So casually your eyes snapped up to his.

“What? No. You can’t do that,” you said defensively.

“If it’s the only way I can keep you then yes, I can,” he shrugged.

“Mat, don’t be stupid,” you scoffed, pushing him away with a hand though he wouldn’t budge.

“If anyone’s being stupid here it’s you,” he said without hesitation. “If you think I’m letting you breakup with me having not even discussed this with me, you’re insane. Clearly, this has all been taking a toll on you, and you won’t even tell me about it so we can handle it as a team.”

“There’s nothing to handle. I’ve already figured it out.”

“Totally.” Mat nodded. “You know that in a relationship we handle things together, right?”

And maybe he had a point, but this wasn’t his battle to fight. It’s not like he was the one whose self esteem had taken drastic hits.

“I just don’t see how this can work out when I’m constantly thinking about how awful I feel or look,” you said.

“Well, I can tell you how we can work this out,” Mat replied confidently. “First, you tell me when things get bad like this so you don’t have to be alone. Second, I will tell every single bastard online to fuck off if you want. Third, we both take a step back from social media. No name searching or doom scrolling or even posting, if that’s what you want.”

“It won’t work, Mat.” You tried the whole ‘taking a step back’ and ignoring shit. It doesn’t work.

“Have you tried it with me?” You shook your head. “We’ll spend our evenings learning new hobbies like it’s the 1800s or something. You can teach me how to crochet or bake bread. We’ll start new shows and explore the city doing stuff we never thought we’d do. We can go to every single bagel place in New York and rank them.”

“That’ll take years.” You couldn’t help the laugh that slipped out.

Mat continued on, a smile tugging at his own lips. “We’ll go on vacations to the most remote places in the world with no cell reception. We’ll take pictures on polaroids and disposables like old people so that the only pictures we have are just for us. We’ll buy a house in the woods where we can go to escape whenever we think it’s all too much. When I retire we’ll move to the most secluded small town in Canada and put all of our efforts into starting a small business. There are so many things we haven’t tried yet.”

It all sounded so beautiful coming from Mat, and you couldn’t fight the smile that crept across your face as he listed off a million things for you to do. “You’re planning quite a far way into the future.”

“That’s because you are my future. I love you, and I want this to work. Your bad days are my bad days, and we should be handling this together. Like a team,” Mat said.

“We’re not qualified to start a small business,” you remarked, and he scoffed.

“Then we’ll both go to business school,” he teased. “We have years to plan that out.”

You knew he was joking about half the things he listed, but the fact that they were mostly all plausible options had you pausing to consider.

“Just give it a chance for us to work this out,” Mat pleaded.

And maybe it was the thought of hiking through South American mountains miles away from civilization or the thought of settling down with Mat in a home with your possible future children or the fact that you just loved Mat with all your heart, plain and simple, but you nodded in agreement.

“Okay,” you said softly. “We’ll work it out.”

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

Sorry but what exactly is up with the bad batch arc? I've heard people talk about the issues with echo's white skin but I haven't heard that many bad things about the arc itself? (ik you said you don't want to be negative on your blog so I would absolutely understand if you didn't answer this ask)

Oooooooooooh boy. Well I just had a long, long, LONG rant about it with someone, but I guess I’ve got an excuse to put all of my points onto a post and talk about it publicly now that I got an ask x) I’ll keep it under the cut so I don’t throw my salt in people’s face. I really don’t want to upset people who love that arc - it has redeeming qualities, but overall it pisses me off so much for so many reasons. So here:

The first issue is obviously two members of the Bad Batch (minus Echo) being being just about the furthest thing from maori no matter how much you're willing to stretch it. 

Like... yeah, nah. I wouldn’t even accept Crosshair and Tech (grey haired guy and goggles guy) as Jango’s natural biological sons, nevermind as his clones. 

The problem is that their different appearances are justified by them being described simply as clones with desirable mutations (i.e superpowers). But why the hell did the creators have to change their appearances for that to be a thing? How does that correlate? Sure, the concept of clones with different faces is interesting, except... no, no it’s not, and I’m gonna rant about it in a few secs. But basically it's like they thought giving them different faces would be a good substitute for having different personalities (another thing I’ll come back to). If they really wanted to have buff clones with super eyesight or whatnot they could have just done that, without making them lose what little melanin the lighting of the show had allowed the other Clones to keep. 

But the gigantic problem is... showing that the "regular" clones have VERY distinct identities despite their identical faces has been one of the themes of the show from episode 1. Literally, the first episode of TCW has Yoda taking time out of a mission with galactic stakes to tell the three clones he’s with (who tell him they’re all the same because they have the same faces) that they’re wrong, and that they’re very different in the Force, that their appearance doesn’t matter, that they’re all equally unique and important, and he lists all of their individual skills, strengths and weaknesses. 

And it’s not just me being bothered by that, here’s a post by @cacodaemonia​ saying the same thing. 

Introducing the Bad Batch as "unique" clones who are "different" and "not like their brothers" because they have different faces and skills completely breaks that theme of the show!! Because the entire point of the Clones in TCW is that their faces don't matter, they ARE unique! 

(Plus the Bad Batch’s character designs are so cliche and uninspired it’s just laughable to try and justify bleaching their freaking skin for the sake of visual diversity. 

This took like 10 seconds. I found the first guy by literally googling “soldier movies,” and the other two are Team Fortress characters that look a LOT like Wrecker and Crosshair. One is “Heavy” and one is “Sniper” lmao.

And behold:

The above picture is a Team Fortress reference that I found just by looking up “bad batch clone wars,” so I’m not the only person who sees it.) 

And the batchers don't even have personalities to justify calling them unique! They have no character traits beyond the most cliché american soldier tropes ever. We have a token loner sniper, a token "smart tech guy" who knows everything from xenoanthropology to biology to Separatist computers to sound waves to encryption, a token Badass Brooding Leader and a token “dumb muscle guy.”

I dare anyone to find more about their personalities than this: - Crosshair is the perpetually grumpy sniper who looks down on "regs,” - Wrecker likes to blow up stuff and doesn't like heights, - Hunter is the leader and is friends with Cody, - Tech is smart doesn't trust Echo. 

That’s it, that’s literally it. Four episodes about them and that's all we get. These character tropes are literally the least inventive ever. FFS, Hunter even has a freaking KNIFE! Not a vibroblade, mind you, like in kriffing Star Wars. A knife. Against metal droids. Why. They couldn’t make this more of an american-war-movies cliché fest if they tried. (And sure, he can feel electromagnetic waves so maybe it does make sense for him not to carry a vibroblade and maybe this is nitpicking, but he looks like a ripoff of a Predator character and it pisses me off).

Another thing is that when you introduce characters you have to make them likable - and them despising the normal Clones is a terrible way to do that! And they don't even grow from that because at the end of the 4 episodes arc they just see Rex as not bad "for a reg" and they see Echo as no longer a reg, and both of these things are infuriating! 

The worst thing imo is that Echo then becomes part of them (and irreparably loses his melanin in the process, uuuuuuuuugh) when there is nothing to justify this. 

The dialogue goes like this: 

ECHO: You coming? TECH: Not really our thing. CROSSHAIR: Accolades. WRECKER: Yeah, we're just in it for the thrill. Yo! HUNTER: You sure it's your thing? ECHO: What do you mean? HUNTER: Your path is different. Like ours. If you ever feel like you don't fit in with them, well, find us. (they leave) REX: Those are some of the finest troopers I've ever fought alongside. Echo. You and I go way back. If that's where you feel your place is, then that's where you belong.

Echo doesn't feel like he belongs anymore, okay, but why would he feel like he belongs with the assholes who up to the last five minutes of the mission thought he was probably a traitor, and also verbally expressed that he was not worth saving?? In all of the arc, Echo himself never voices that he feels he’s not ‘like the other Clones’ anymore and that he feels it’s a problem. His relationship with Rex immediately picks up where they left things off - the first thing he does upon being lucid again for the first in over a year is cracking a joke for Rex’s benefit. 

Why would Echo feel like he doesn’t belong in the 501st anymore, when we don't even see him interacting with anyone from his past life except for Rex and Anakin (who are both extremely very supportive of him)?? If there had been one scene of a “regular” Clone (ugh) looking at him with horror and disgust or something, or just Kix and Jesse cracking jokes with Echo awkwardly standing by the side not getting it, I could forgive the show trying to make it feel like he has an identity crisis, but this was so shallow!

The only thing that makes Echo and the Bad Batch’s experiences similar is that they *look* different. It’s so against the themes of the Clones I’m seething just from thinking about it. And what the hell? Echo ALREADY didn’t fit in. That was the WHOLE POINT of Domino Squad. They didn’t fit in because they thought they were better than anyone else because they had trouble getting along with their brothers, so obviously it had to be their brothers’ fault (ahem, Bad Batch?). And you know what happened? Domino Squad OVERCAME that. And Echo and Fives still didn’t “fit in” because their personalities were unique and creative, and they became ARC Troopers because Cody, Rex and the Jedi VALUED THEM FOR PRECISELY THAT. Echo having new and unique skills and a modified appearance is the most bs justification for him feeling like he doesn’t belong!! 

And that brings me to my biggest issue: Rex telling Echo the bad batch are some of the best troopers he's ever met. I'm sorry, based on WHAT? What Rex values above everything is loyalty and brotherhood, and the Bad Batch DOESN'T DISPLAY ANY OF THAT. We never see them even expressing concern for each other! Wrecker treats saving Cody’s life like a trivial issue, because it’s just ‘sO eAsY’ for him, and beyond that we never see them supporting each other or genuinely expressing affection for each other beyond boasting about each other’s skills... 

Sure they can destroy a lot of droids, but they're dismissive of Rex's brothers, and the entire Umbara arc and this arc showed what he thought of that. They keep saying things like "not bad for a reg,” don't show any trust in Rex's skills or experience (even though they can't have been fighting in the war for more than a year and a half when he’s been there from the beginning, and he outranks all of them), they are essentially guerilla fighters which has only minimal value in a galactic war, and they never grow beyond their views of what regs are, and can and can’t do. 

None of that should make them good troopers in Rex's book. Going back to Echo not fitting in, remember who taught the Domino Squad the importance of seeing all of your brothers as important and equally valuable? Shaak Ti, true, but more importantly? 99! The guy the Bad Batch are named after. He did have value and was important and was no less of a trooper than his brothers, even though his mutations made him LESS powerful, not more. (And btw, just from a writing standpoint, the batchers don’t have any weaknesses, which is shit.) Cody and Rex mourned 99 as a true soldier even though it wasn’t his sacrifice that brought them victory (which would have implied that he had value as a soldier and a brother because he saved them, as opposed to him having that value intrinsically), because that’s what a fine trooper is to them. A BROTHER first a foremost, someone altruistic, brave and loyal. The Bad Batch distort the meaning of 99's character with their behavior. They’re not altruistic, their bravery is mitigated by the fact that they’re freaking invincible, so of course they take risks (again, see Wrecker saving Cody without a care because it’s easy to him, as opposed to Rex being ready to run into a burning ship about to explode because his brother is in there, and having to be physically dragged away). The Bad Batch denigrate their brothers for being less skilled, thinking their own abilities make them unique somehow, when 99 could barely fight and was still the one who taught Hevy about being a good soldier. 

And again the batchers don't grow from that. Which is all the more frustrating because the original ending didn’t have Echo joining them, from what I remember of the unfinished episodes, and the arc actually ended with them receiving their medals in front of regular troopers who cheer for them, as opposed to them smugly ostracizing themselves and dismissing the ceremony as trivial and meaningless. (original ending vs s7 ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1eCfzKamw) 

It’s so annoying. Do you know what characters never had an entire arc dedicated to them and still have far more personality and more interesting designs and more symbolic weight?? 

Jesse, for starters. Kix. Dogma. Cut. Slick. Keeli. Ponds. Rys, Jek and Thire. Commander Doom. Commander Fox. Wolffe. Hevy. Hardcase. 

Cody was a more interesting character just in his RotS appearances. 

Waxer and Boil had one episode about them and then only two cameos plus Waxer’s death, and they’re still some of the most memorable, beloved Clones of the whole show. And Boil was grouchy and prejudiced like Crosshair, but he has so much growth that we could make a whole thread about it. 

I'd say the last problem with the Bad Batch is that it has cash grabbing money hungry vibes. Different faces are more marketable, cliché personalities are more toy-friendly, and it's basically a big ad for the Bad Batch series. And they throw Echo in the Batch at the end for bs reasons (again, it wasn’t in the original ep from what I remember) and they tease Cody in the show to make sure fans will still watch even if they notice the lack of soul. And less melanin sells more at Disney apparently. 

So that’s my whole pissed rant. 

[mummybear]

Borrowed Time - Chapter One - The New Guy

Words: 3173

Warnings: Swearing... think that’s it for this chapter :)

Characters: Dean Winchester, Reader, Mark (OC), Tiffany (OC), Mentions of Sam Winchester

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Reader

A/N: So this is the first series I’ve written in a while or at least the first one I’ve posted! So I hope you guys like it! The next chapters will be out every Friday, until it’s finished :) The series will probably only be around 6 chapters long, but I really hope you enjoy it! Let me know If you want to be tagged in this series or in any of my other taglists :D

Beta: @negans-lucille-tblr​ Thanks babe ❤😘

Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/mummybear

Series Masterlist

You let out a shaky breath as you take your seat at the back of the class, hoping that he will just leave you alone today. One of the new guys at school had developed a thing for you, ever since you’d ignored him on his first day, it was like he was determined to get you to talk to him. Lately though he’s been getting under your skin, and you’re so close to giving in. Sure the guy was hot, in fact, he may have been the hottest guy you’d ever seen, but he was also one of the biggest players in the school. The exception being in the last two weeks, where he had barely spoken to another girl who wasn’t you. Safe to say that had started the rumour mill. Then you hear the murmuring starting in the room, and that unmistakable feeling prickles across your skin.

You fight the urge to look up, but it’s like your eyes are drawn to him, like some kind of magnet is connecting the two of you. You finally give in and look up to find him already watching you, gorgeous green eyes locked on yours. Trying to look away is pointless, you know that by now. You do you best to calm your nerves enough so that you’re finally able to drop your eyes to your desk, and start pulling out the things you need for the upcoming lesson. 

That doesn’t stop your entire body tensing when the chair beside you scrapes along the floor loudly as it’s pulled out. It’s almost like you can feel the eyes of everyone in the hall turn on you. You can’t control the way that your body responds to the sound of his deep voice.

“Mind if I sit here, Y/N?” he asks quietly. You try and ignore the gasps that practically echo around the large room, as you force yourself to look up at him again.

Swallowing around the lump in your throat you nod.

“Um, yeah, sure. If you want to,” you answer shakily. You hate how your voice sounds, but if he’s noticed then he doesn’t let on. He gives you one of those panty dropping smiles as he takes the seat next to you, and you could swear your entire face flames bright red.

You inwardly roll your eyes when you see Tiffany Chase heading over to your table. You never understood how she had come to be the most popular girl on the campus, but clearly dating every guy in existence was a good trait to have these days. That was yet another reason you were glad about not being “popular”, whatever the hell that even meant. 

She leans on your desk, until her tits are practically in Dean’s face, but to his credit, and your surprise he doesn’t look. Instead he sits back in his chair, eyes immediately fixed on hers, not wandering her body, or the cleavage she's so blatantly offering him. She makes a point not to even spare you a glance, which is completely fine since you have no interest in what she’s giving away.

“I thought you were gonna show me your car, baby? Why don’t you ditch the charity case and come and have some fun with a real woman?” she purrs seductively, curling her fingers around Dean’s loose tie.

You wish you were anywhere but here, but you know there’s no other seats in class now, so your only other option is to pray for the ground to swallow you whole. You’re a little taken aback though when Dean’s large hand wraps around her tiny wrist and pulls her hand away, still remaining surprisingly gentle, especially with the look of thunder that’s overtaken his features.

“Sorry, Tilly. Change of plans, I told you last week, and a few times this week… if memory serves. Besides, there’s only room for one woman in my life.” As he says this you feel his hand resting on your knee, and you turn to look at him to tell him to move. But you stop yourself when you see the pleading look on his face.

Tiffany scoffs in disbelief, and has a look on her face like he just slapped her. 

“It’s Tiffany,” she corrects him sharply, before she turns her gaze on you. And you have to fight every instinct not to push your body back into your chair, instead you sit straighter, trying to keep your face neutral.

“Can you like… move or something. Dean and I really need to talk, I think you’re making him uncomfortable,” she huffs, as if your mere presence disgusts her. 

“Sorry, Tiff. I think you're the one  who’s making my boyfriend uncomfortable, actually. He’s just being too polite, could you please just leave us alone now? I believe he’s asked you enough.” 

It takes everything you have not to throw up the contents of your stomach, where the fuck did that come from?! You inwardly scold yourself, trying to hold your nerve. But to your surprise, Dean takes your hand and gives it a squeeze, and throws his other arm over your shoulder.

His lips press to your ear, and you can’t hold back the shiver.

“Thank you, I owe you,” he whispers, and you can already feel the blush creeping up your neck, the entire class is staring at the three of you like you’re aliens. But Dean’s currently more than enough of a distraction.

Her shrill laugh echoes around the room, followed by most of her bitch club behind her.

“Oh sweetie, no. Don’t be silly now. There is no way on this planet that you could be his girlfriend, you’d be extremely lucky to get a pity fuck with a normal guy, but Dean? No way. Now move, before I move you.” 

Your heart drops into your stomach, but you refuse to look away from her. However, before you can even utter a word, Dean’s voice drops to a low growl.

“I don’t give a shit about your name, or you. You don’t get to talk to her like that, and you lay a finger on her, I promise you’ll regret it. So, whatever your name is, unless you want me to tell Mark that you’re trying to fuck me... and just about every other guy you set your eyes on, I suggest you go back to your own seat. But first, I think you owe my girlfriend a fucking apology.” You watch the colour all but drain from her face.

You lick your lips nervously as you turn to look at him, seeing the fire burning in his eyes, but his eyes don’t move from Tiffany’s face. 

“Dean, it’s okay. It doesn’t matter,” you whisper sounding a little desperate even to your own ears. You rest your hand on his tensed bicep, trying to ignore the way you're clamping your thighs together, because this might just be the sexiest thing you’ve ever been a part of. Even if you had only started this ruse to get him out of an awkward situation. Nobody had ever defended you like this before, especially not this publicly.

“Oh, it does matter, baby girl. Isn’t that right?” Dean asks, mock sweetness in his voice and his arm tightens around your shoulders.

“F-Fine. I’m sorry, Y/N,” she responds the best she can with the amount her voice is shaking, before hurrying back to her friends.

The teacher walks in the classroom, forcing everyone's attention to the front, and you try to ignore the sense of loss you feel when his arm leaves your shoulders. But that feeling is quickly replaced when he takes your hand and links your fingers with his, and rests them on the table top between you.

“Dean, we should talk,” you whisper, when the teacher turns back to the board.

“Later, sweetheart, wouldn’t want you getting in trouble,” he smirks, pressing a lingering kiss to your already flaming red cheek.

-

Unfortunately, you don’t get time to talk to Dean, and you don’t see him after your last lesson either. You try to ignore the snickering and staring as you start to walk through the parking lot to make your way home, though it affects you more than you’d care to admit. When you don’t see any sign of him, you continue to walk lost in thought, knowing that it will take you at least half an hour but it’s worth it, because you can’t stay here. 

You’ve been walking for about ten minutes when you hear a car roll to a stop behind you, the soft purr of the engine calming slightly as the window is wound down. You can’t help but smile as you turn around, and sure enough, there he is. Sitting in the driver's seat with a cocky smirk on his face. He leans over to the passenger side and pushes the door open, “you gonna get in, sweetheart? We can talk while I drive you home.” 

You walk closer and fold your arms over your chest, raising your eyebrows at him through the now open car door.

“And what makes you so sure I wanna get in your car?” you ask through your own smirk.

“Come on now, is that any way to speak to your boyfriend? Just get that sexy ass in the car so that we can talk.” There’s a teasing note to his voice, and your smile widens despite yourself.

“Fine. I’ll get in… but only because we do need to talk,” you tell him, trying not to laugh as you climb in the front seat and close the door behind you.

“Whatever you have to tell yourself, princess,” he laughs, tossing his sunglasses in the backseat. You give him your address, and he quickly works out the new route, before starting to drive again. He clears his throat and shifts awkwardly where he sits, before glancing between you and the road.

“I owe you, for what you did today in class. You didn’t need to save my ass, but you did it anyway. I really appreciate that.”

You blush shyly as you look at him, “I was going to apologise honestly. I don’t know what came over me, I guess I just wanted to help out… somehow, I know people can be a lot for anyone, no matter who you are,” you laugh awkwardly, rubbing your clammy hands over your skirt.

Dean shakes his head, and a smile crosses his plump lips. 

“Sweetheart, don’t apologise, you did me a massive favour and I really can’t thank you enough,” he sighs regretfully, as he pulls into your driveway. 

You thank him for the ride, but before you move to climb out of the car he grabs hold of your wrist gently, and you turn back to him questioningly.

“Is everything okay, Dean?” you ask nervously, wondering what he might say. You’re not sure whether to lean in or turn away when he turns in his seat to face you.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and hands it to you with a smile, “can I have your number?” You’re a little surprised at how shy he sounds, but you smile as you take his phone. 

“I just think it might be a little odd trying to play along with this, especially if we can’t even get ahold of each other.”

“You make a good point there, Winchester. But for the record, I would’ve given it to you anyway,” you smile fondly, phoning yourself from his phone, so that you have each other’s numbers, before handing it back.

“So… How long do you wanna play boyfriend and girlfriend?” you wonder aloud, noticing the way that he blushes and scratches at the back of his neck, before focusing back on you again.

Dean clears his throat and shifts closer to you.

“About that…” he trails off, and you feel a blanket of nervous confusion settle between the two of you.

“What about it?” you question nervously.

“Would you be okay if we stayed together, at least until I have to leave town, I know it’s a lot to ask, but…” before he can continue you cut him off, resting a hand on his thigh.

His eyes snap to yours, and you quickly pull your hand away and clear your throat.

“You don’t need to explain, Dean. Besides, it was my dumb ass that got us into this mess. It’s really the least I can do,” you smile genuinely, and an obvious moment passes between the two of you, a moment which is completely unexplainable. But there’s a knock on the window closest to you that pulls the two of you out of it.

You jump back harshly, your back practically slamming into Dean’s shoulder when someone leans against his car, and his head is already half way through the window.

“Damn, I almost didn’t believe it when Tiff told me you were seein’ some frigid bitch, Dean. You hit that yet?”

Dean growls, and you can feel him stiffen beside you as he wraps a protective arm around your waist, like he can shield you from Mark’s words. It’s actually really sweet of him.

“Maybe you should tell your girlfriend to mind her own fucking business, and you should do the same, Mark. Before I put you on your skinny little ass.” 

Mark lets out a deep boom of a laugh, and leans further into the car, his eyes sweeping over your body, clearly not taking Dean’s words seriously. It makes you feel nothing like Dean makes you feel when he looks at you, this guy makes your skin crawl and your stomach lurch.

“Shit, that’s gotta be one sweet pussy if she’s got you so whipped already.” 

Before Dean can speak, you sit up a little straighter, and glare at Mark. Feeling Dean stiffen behind you gives you the confidence you need to get these words out.

“Why don’t you tell your whore of a girlfriend to stop trying to fuck my man, it’s really kind of pathetic. He’s not interested,” you huff out, hardly able to stand looking at him, so you turn to face Dean who’s smirking right at you, and way closer than you’d first imagined.

Mark starts to grumble something behind the two of you, but neither of you are really listening, and you can’t stop staring at Dean as he cups your cheek in his big hand.

“What she said,” Dean agrees easily, his husky voice sending shivers up your spine. You let his thumb brush your bottom lip, “you’re even sexier than usual when you’re jealous,” he smirks confidently, leaning in a little closer.

You swallow thickly, your fingers just barely manage to wrap around his wrist.

“Kiss me,” you whisper, watching as his eyes flick down to your lips, and he licks his own. There are so many reasons this is a bad idea, but for the life of you you can’t currently think of any. 

Dean doesn’t even hesitate, before you can blink his lips are pressing against yours. The kiss is firm and his lips are so soft that you quickly lose yourself in the kiss, and you feel like your entire body is being drawn in by him. 

He pulls back all too soon. His eyes are lidded as he looks at you, and his hand moves from your jaw, to cup the back of your neck. His hands feel huge, as he tugs lightly at your hair and you gasp against his parted lips. 

“I s-should probably get going,” you whisper shakily, letting your fingers trace over the skin of his chest, where his shirt buttons are undone.

Neither of you even attempt to move, and before you think about it too much your lips are brushing against his again. He pulls you against him tightly and deepens the kiss, making you all but melt against him, and his hands remain firm against you as he effortlessly takes control of the kiss. You feel yourself edging closer, heart pounding in your ears and your head foggy, it takes everything you have to pull away from him, but you just about manage it. Looking up into his lidded eyes as you both pant hard, you swallow thickly and look over your shoulder, relieved to find that Mark has gone.

Dean cups your cheek when you turn back to him, his face the perfect picture of lust. 

“You should go in, sweetheart. Or I might change my mind about letting you go… but I’ll text you tonight, okay?” he rasps, pecking your lips.

You can feel yourself blushing as you nervously bite your lip. 

“What makes you think I want you to let me go?” you giggle as he leans in closer again, he’s so warm and smells incredible. 

“Oh trust me, if this had anything to do with what I want to do, you’d already be screaming my name,” Dean all but growls.

“Dean.” His name is a whisper on your lips, and you can hear the blood rushing in your ears again.

Dean lets out a deep groan and shifts awkwardly in his seat.

“Shit, you don’t make it easy on a guy, sweetheart,” he smiles, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

“You live here by yourself?” he asks suddenly, nodding over to your house, clearly trying to change the subject.

You shake yourself from your heady daze, trying your best to concentrate on what he’s saying.  Clearing your throat you give him a small nod, unable to stop the smile from crossing your lips.

“At the minute, yeah. It’s usually me and my best friend, but she’s away visiting family this week. It’s good though, much closer to campus than my parents’ house,” you explain happily, remembering the way that she had told you to take advantage of the free house, but then you notice a strange look crossing his face.

“Sounds nice. I’ve never really had anywhere like this, my family didn’t really stay anywhere too long, not since my mom died. My dad has to travel a lot for work, and I’m learning the ropes, so I can take over one day.”

Your heart aches for him, and you have no idea how it’s even possible to feel this close to someone you’ve only known for a little over a month.

“I’m so sorry, Dean. It doesn’t sound like you’ve had much time to just be you. If you ever need to get away, I have no intention of moving any time soon, you’re welcome to stay here,” you tell him softly, resting a gentle hand on his arm, until he finally looks at you again.

“Thanks, sweetheart. That means more than you know, and I promise I’ll text you later. We can talk more then, okay?” 

You lean in close and press your lips against his, the kiss lingers a little, before you finally pull away and whisper against his lips, “I’ll be holding you to that, Dean.”

Bold wont tag guys sorry!

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[playlistmusings]

I had him right there where I wanted him

3,252 words

Jude Duarte x Cardan Greenbriar

read on ao3

A very big thanks to @yourlocalautisticoverlord for giving me the prompt: Knife Wife Jude teaches Cardan basic self defense (he is very bad at it).

Jude is bored and wants someone to spar with. The only thing stopping her from having a sparring partner is that, Cardan sucks at fighting. Luckily, Jude doesn't mind teaching her husband how to defend himself and Cardan doesn't mind the way Jude teaches him.

-----

Ambiguous time period, could be set during a slightly AU TWK if Cardan and Jude had their shit together and Jude wasn’t exiled or post TQoN with pretty much no changes to canon.

-----

Cardan felt oddly at peace in the training room of the Court of Shadows. He knew he probably shouldn’t, after all he was surrounded by more weapons than he could count and some of the most gifted and terrifying warriors and spies he’d ever met. But one of those warriors was his wife and everyone else had, at one point or another, actively worked to keep alive and on the throne, so perhaps the peace was justified. So, he sat in a chair off to the side, pieces of parchment in his hands that he read through whilst desperately trying to ignore the group of spies that was taking turns sparring each other. He was just flipping a letter over to read the back—because reports on crop growth were so interesting—when a knife flew past his face and thudded in the wall. Ripped from his thoughts, Cardan looked up and towards the person who threw the knife—of course it was Jude, who else would risk even nicking the High King? —and gave her a sardonic glare, daring her to let a second knife already held between her fingers go flying.

“Come on, Cardan! At least try to spar with us!” Her voice rang out as she grinned at him, as if all it took for Cardan to give up was a taunt and a smile (which, to be fair to Jude, usually that was all it took).

“I have important work to do, you know, as High King of Elfhame I actually have to do things.” He held her gaze, shifting from a glare to a equally sarcastic smile, the type of smile that usually made her jut out her chin and glare at him—the smile that usually followed some offhand comment meant to rile her up and preceded Jude muttering something about how insufferable or intolerable or in- something Cardan was before she crashed her lips into his. But here, in the training room, surrounded by people, Cardan was pretty certain she wouldn’t do anything—after all she always seemed off when publicly showing affection. And if they only kissed or hugged when they were alone, it didn’t really bother Cardan, if anything it made moments like these, where he could taunt her like he did back when they were in school—minus the part where she thought he was genuinely trying to kill or main her—all the more fun. So, as Jude glared, obviously trying to come up with some clever retort, Cardan’s smile softened, turning genuine for only a second before he forced himself to focus on the papers sitting in his lap.

“Ah, yes, High King Cardan has to focus on his work, because he’s so important, and does nothing but focus on work…” Jude muttered half formed insults under her breath while walking to rip her knife from the wall. And if someone saw Cardan smiled wider when he heard her, then he would claim that he was just happy that Elfhame was having a good farming season and it had nothing to do with his wife.

-----

Jude was exhausted. The good kind of exhausted, though, where you could feel your muscles work through every movement, growing stronger as you pushed them. Yet, all of her sparring partners were apparently too exhausted to continue training. One by one, over the course of an hour or so everyone had made their way out of the room, first it was the Roach claiming he had somewhere to be, then it was the Bomb claiming she had a meeting with someone— acting like no one knew that someone was the Roach—and then, all too quickly, it was only Cardan and Jude in the room. This would have been a welcome change, if Cardan weren’t more focused on those God damn papers than Jude. She had been trying to get him out of that chair for hours, taunting him and “accidentally” losing grip of her weapons and strategically letting them fly past his head in an attempt to break his focus on his work and look up at her instead.

So now she stood in the middle of the room, exhausted and exasperated, trying to think of some way she could get Cardan’s attention. At this point it was less about the way he seemed to have a stick up his ass and wouldn’t interact with anyone else, or her wanting her husband to pay attention to her, or anything like that, Jude was filled with determination and spite, if he would work so hard to not pay attention to her then she would refuse to let him do anything other than focus on her.

She pulled her arm back before swinging it forward, letting the thin throwing knife slip out of her fingers and spin through the air past Cardan’s ear and into the wall behind him, it was the second time she had done this today, but luckily that didn’t mean it surprised Cardan any less. His eyes snapped up to hers before wandering around the room briefly, as if just noticing that they were alone in the training room. His gaze latched onto hers right as she started stalking towards him, Nightfell swinging in one hand, a random dagger in the other.

“What are you up to?” His voice was uneasy, but just barely, his discomfort hiding in the waver his voice had as he ended his question—he was trying to hide his discomfort in the way that only Jude could see through.

She kept walking toward him, stopping an arms-length away before holding the dagger out to him, “Take it.”

Cardan looked at her face, as if searching for a reason for her actions, before gingerly taking the dagger from her left hand.

-----

Cardan held the dagger in his right hand, feeling its weight, trying not to slice a finger on the blade. Jude was certainly up to something, he couldn’t figure out what quite yet, perhaps she was going to make him spar her or perhaps she had snapped and was going to kill him here in the Court of Shadows, tucked away where only a select few people could find his body. However, while Cardan was left wondering what was going to happen, he was pretty certain it was happening because he had been very purposefully ignoring her all afternoon.

“Stand up.” Her chin was jutting out again, and Cardan could see her jaw clench as he took a few seconds before sighing and setting the parchments on the floor and standing, making a show of every action he made.

“So, now are you going to tell me what’s happening?” Something in Jude seemed to momentarily soften as he looked her in the eye plainly, with no pretense or sarcasm, just searching for an answer in her face.

“I’m bored and you’re here and I’m going to spar you,” Her voice made it clear that even if he wanted to ignore her, she wouldn’t make it easy for him.

“Well, my Queen, that would be a wonderful idea if I were a partner worth sparring.” Cardan thought back to days spent attempting to refine what few combat skills he had, forcing himself out of his memories before they could go down a dark path consumed by Balekin’s taunts and servants whipping his back.

“Then, I don’t know, I’ll…” Jude turned on her heel, exasperation coloring her voice as it faded off, “I’ll just have to teach you. I know you can fight a little, so I’ll teach you, I mean it makes sense for you to at least be able to try to protect yourself.”

Cardan once again forced his thoughts away from other lessons he’d been forced into, knowing that he couldn’t hide the discomfort Jude’s words brought on.

“Oh, I don’t mean to—I won’t make you, if you don’t want to, it’s fine, I forgot about all that. It’s okay, Cardan, I’m fine,” Jude stuttered her apology as her mind drifted to the time she hid under a table in Balekin’s house.

Cardan’s heart softened, the realization that despite all of Jude’s rough edges, she’d do anything before hurting someone she loved sunk in as he said words he didn’t know if he’d regret, “No, it’s fine, let’s do this. Teach me to fight, your Majesty.”

-----

Jude nodded, still feeling guilty for forgetting why Cardan didn’t enjoy endless sparring sessions like she did. She quickly pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind, trying to take Cardan’s reassurance, after all he couldn’t lie to her even if he wanted to, so it had to be fine, right?

“Okay, let’s start with defensive positions, then.” Jude approached Cardan, loosely holding Nightfell in her hand before swinging directly towards Cardan’s side, stopping inches away from his arm that did nothing but flinch. Dear God, he really has no self-preservation, no wonder he always got into messes. Jude groaned a little before looking at Cardan and asking, “So, in that scenario do you really just want to lose an arm?”

He shook his head, “Obviously not, but what am I supposed to do? You have a whole sword and I have, what? A tiny knife?”

“You could at least try to block me. Like, here, like this.” Jude moved towards Cardan and lifted his harm and hand to make a motion so that his dagger would intercept the path of her blade. And so, it went on like that, for what felt like years. Jude slowly showing Cardan a motion, working with him until he could do it cleanly, eventually moving on from defensive maneuvers to offensive jabs and slashes. It was progress, however clumsy and unpracticed his movements were, at least it was progress. Jude kept telling herself it was unreasonable to expect Cardan to perfect anything she showed him but something in her ached for him to understand faster, to understand more.

-----

Cardan had been trying to execute the same movement for about fifteen minutes now. Jude kept claiming he was going wrong when he did something wrong with his wrist, right there after you reach out, but he still had no clue as to fix it. And while Cardan could see the merit in knowing how to defend oneself, he did have an entire legion of knights whose sole job was defending him, so he didn’t have to and on top of that he had a wife who was more than happy to ride off into battles for him, so there was really nearly no scenario he’d need to know any of this stuff. The last time he could even think of getting attacked was when Jude held a knife to his throat in Dain’s study—which to be honest, he didn’t exactly mind repeating that event. But alas, despite all the repetition and scolding and sweat, Cardan loved seeing the way Jude’s face lit up whenever he mastered a movement or successfully blocked an attack. Something about Jude just seemed right when she fought, like this was what she was meant to do. Her eyes had a fire in them, and her body moved with a practiced ease that Cardan was only now noticing, when for once he could focus on her and her movements without a threat looming over every action. It was intoxicating, seeing someone so in their element, seeing Jude so clearly doing exactly what she was trained to do, exactly what she loved. Even now, when she wasn’t doing anything other than glaring at his arm—as if that was the solution to his problem—there was something in her that made it clear that she wasn’t actually mad or upset, she was purely focused and full of intent.

Cardan made the same movement for possibly the hundredth time, which elicited a drawn out and dramatic groan from Jude as she threw her head back in exasperation, “I keep telling you, not that, you need to—” Jude groaned again before stepping behind Cardan and reaching around his body to grab his wrist, “You need to do this.” Cardan felt sparks erupt across his skin as her breath hit the back of his neck, trying desperately to focus on the way her hand twisted his wrist and pushed out his arm and not on the way he could feel a ghost of her lips right above his shirt or the way his tail was flicking back and forth, wanting to reach out and around one of her legs, trapping her against him.

After a few repetitions, Jude stepping back, and Cardan didn’t know whether to thank her or beg her to come back. He tried the movement again and this time he thought Jude was going to kill him with the glare she shot at his hand. He tried to shrug, and she groaned again.

“Perhaps this is a signal that we should stop?” Cardan offered, hoping that Jude would take him up on his offer and he could stop pretending like he even knew what scenario he would need use this movement in.

“Perhaps.” Jude echoed, looking lost in her thoughts, no doubt still trying to think of some way she could help fix his issue.

Cardan walked over to a table and placed the dagger he had been using next to a variety of other knives before he was interrupted.

“You know what? No. That’s not happening. I taught you all of this so that we could spar, so before we’re done, we’re going to spar.”

As Cardan turned to face Jude, readying some response about that being unnecessary and there always being tomorrow, he was faced with a fearsome sight, Jude standing just behind him, Nightfell drawn and a blaze in her eyes. His throat bobbed as he reached to pick up the dagger just in time for Jude to make her first strike.

Cardan didn’t know how he blocked it, his arm instinctively reaching out while his wrist twisted so he could stop her blade from slicing his side.

“Of course, now you get it,” Jude’s voice filled the training room as she stepped back, so that they could spar in the middle of the room.

As soon as Cardan reached Jude, he knew he made a mistake. She was relentless, all offense and power and grace, and it felt like all he could do was struggle to hold onto his dagger and hope he wouldn’t get cut.

She swung her sword around in mesmerizing arcs before reaching out to continue her attack, stepping towards Cardan so she could push him away from the center of the room. Cardan knew he should lash out, at the very least he should find a way to move away from exactly where Jude wanted him to be, but he couldn’t find any openings. She was unstoppable, a force of nature pushing against him and forcing him to use every ounce of training he had just to stay in one piece.

As soon as Cardan felt one of his feet hit the wall behind him, he knew he was done for. He was trapped and definitely the worse swordsman—knifeman? —and he knew he couldn’t get out of the reach of Nighfell or block Jude’s attacks forever. Jude’s eyes lit up when she saw Cardan freeze, using the opportunity to let her sword clatter to the floor, take Cardan’s dagger from his hand, and push him against the wall, holding the knife to his throat, all in one maneuver.

Cardan breathed heavily, looking into Jude’s eyes hoping she understood this was him surrendering.

“Come on Cardan, how do you ever expect to win a real fight if you can’t even stop me from unarming you?” Jude’s voice was a little breathless, despite the lack of sweat on her body and the steady heartbeat Cardan could feel through her chest and she pinned him to the wall.

He grinned.

-----

Jude suddenly felt unsure of her victory. Yes, she had a weapon poised in the perfect position for a killing move. Yes, she had him trapped. Yes, she had the upper hand.

But then his hands were on her waist and he gave her one of his stupid smiles, the one that she didn’t know how to respond to, and he whispered, “Come on, love, we both know I’m already winning in this situation.”

Jude forced herself to keep her grip on the dagger, but she knew he could feel her pulse stutter then speed up, and suddenly she didn’t know whether to curse or thank her past self for deciding the best way to beat Cardan was to use her body to trap him against the wall. It felt oddly reminiscent of their first kiss, where she thought she had him exactly where she wanted him, but then he somehow gained all the control. As his hands pulled her even closer—she didn’t even realize that was possible—she resigned herself to losing just this once and let her hand fall down to her side and the dagger slip from her grip.

His lips were on her jaw first, making her head fall back with a groan as he worked his way down her throat. Jude felt a little stupid for letting herself give into Cardan’s charms so easily—was that really all it took? A cocky comment and a touch? –but quickly pushed thoughts of stupidity and regret out of her mind as he took her face in his hands so he could crash their lips together. It was a breathless mess of teeth and lips and tongue, as their hands pulled on each other, trying to get closer, closer. Jude felt like she was making up for that first kiss, where Cardan was drunk, and she was confused, and everything was hiding behind too many falsities and lies to even begin to unravel the truth about either of their feelings. But now—when she had Cardan in her arms and her feelings sorted and a ring on her finger—she felt like this was what that first kiss could have felt like, in some different life where things weren’t as complicated.

All the thoughts of the past were quickly shut out as Cardan flipped them around, so that Jude’s back was against the wall, and lifted her up so that he could kiss her deeper. Jude felt lost in him, she knew she must be doing something, after all Cardan was gasping into her mouth, but she couldn’t take her focus away from Cardan and his hands and his lips long enough to even think about where her hands were. As Cardan pulled his lips from hers, leaving Jude making a rather undignified noise in the back of her throat—a noise she would most definitely deny making if asked about it at a later date—he panted and held a finger to her lips.

“Jude.” Cardan’s voice was rough and low. “Jude, I think someone is coming in.”

As soon as he said the words, Jude could hear voices and nearing steps through the door. She groaned, letting her face fall onto Cardan’s shoulder before unwrapping her legs from around him and walking back to where she had dropped Nightfell. As the door opened to reveal the Bomb and the Roach, Jude turned back to Cardan who had just barely reached the dagger he had been using all afternoon, she grinned dangerously before asking, “Want to spar again?”

[alexstorm]

Yep, that’s the thing I’m asking myself the whole time as well. Why is nobody pointing out how problematic her behaviour is? Why is everyone ok with her cosplaying one of their friends? How is everyone ok with the way HE treats her? Like, do these people not know what a dysfunctional and unhealthy relationship is?! They probably think because he pays for everything he’s the greatest boyfriend of all time. // exactly. Glad we agree. They probably mind their own business a little to much at this point.

But tbh Katie’s stories make it seem like it was mostly her and Kirstin who hung out together, which is understandable I wouldn’t babysit frenchie at a wedding either, even if Alex paid me. Can we talk about how she’s the only one wearing high heels as the only one( on grass that’s a big no if you don’t want your feet to fall off) and her dress and colour, YIKES. It really shows the lack of communication she has with the other gfs, they didn’t even bother to give a “ British wedding attire 101”. Where’s the girl sorority now lmaoo. Frenchie looks like a fool but she brought it onto herself, she’s ignorant and never give a shit to learn English or anything about Alex’s culture.

Katie and Jamie seems so genuine together. Alex & frenchie basically gives the opposite energy, how nobody in that group pointed that out hmm. It must hurt frenchie as well knowing that the love Alex has for her will never be as genuine and he will never publicly stand with her, if that were the case I’m sure she would post a lot about them to rub it in our faces. So happy it ain’t me who’s in that situationship tbh. But Louise is snake and brought it onto herself to be treated like that imo. 😂

I don’t think Louise got drunk out of fear to embarrass herself even further and drunk-propose to Alexa. She had to stay sober to keep an eye on Alex and her English. 😂 She tried to hang onto Katie but it seems she got rid of her at some point. And Miles surely didn’t wanna deal with her. That’s why he brought his girlfriend. 😄 Louise was handed off from one person to the next while her boyfriend was probably making the eyes at his ex.

[snowonthebeachmp3]

July 2016

Jul 3rd - Taylor's 4th of July festivities kick off at her Rhode Island house. Guests include Tom Hiddleston, Abigail Anderson, Matt Lucier, Claire Winter, Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively, Karlie Kloss, Josh Kushner, Austin Swift, Ruby Rose, Harley Gusman, Halston Sage, Gigi Hadid, Cara Delevingne, Britany Maack, Ben LaManna, Martha Hunt, Jason McDonald, Uzo Aduba, Chioma Aduba, Jordan Masterson, Kesha, St Vincent, Ed Sheeran, Cherry Seaborn, Rachel Platten, Kennedy Rayé and the Haim sisters. (x) (x) (x) (x)

This is the day Tom wears the infamous 'I <3 TS' tank top while they're all at the beach. (x)

Jul 4th - The online mockery for the 'I <3 TS' shirt is quick to pour in. Daily Mail commenters are yet to shut up about it in 2021.

The party continues with a giant inflatable waterslide, body painting, karaoke, charades and fireworks. (x) And also Kesha and Haim getting tricked by Cara, Uzo and Ruby into thinking they heard scary noises in the night, and trying to call the police but not knowing their own location. (x) (x)

Jul 5th - The day after the party, when all the guests post their photos online.

Britany posts a photo of her & Ben, Blake & Ryan, and Taylor & Tom. (x) The internet has a field day with Ryan's unimpressed facial expression. (x) (Ryan later says that it's just his resting bitch face as he wasn't aware a photo was being taken. (x))

Taylor posts several photos to Instagram of her celebrating the 4th July with friends, but doesn't post any pictures with Tom. (x)

Claire Winter posts a bunch of Polaroids, including one of Taylor and Tom kissing. (x)

Abigail posts a photo to Instagram showing the banners Taylor put up to celebrate her engagement to Matt and the anniversaries of Cara & St Vincent (real name Annie Clark) and Ed & Cherry. (x)

Jul 6th - Taylor and Tom fly out of Rhode Island (x) and arrive at LAX that evening. (x) They then get on a plane to Australia.

Joe attends the Warner Music Group summer party in London. (x)

Rumours are swirling that Tom is no longer in consideration to be the next Bond, due to his relationship with Taylor. (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Jul 8th - Taylor and Tom are flying on a commercial Quantas flight so someone is able to take a pic of them on the plane. (x)

According to another passenger on the plane, Taylor plays Scrabble during the flight (presumably on her phone because nobody takes big physical board games on commercial flights and the creepshot of Hiddleswift on the plane suggests she wouldn't have had anywhere to put the board anyway). In hindsight, knowing how Taylor and Joe play lots of Scrabble together including online Scrabble aka Words With Friends, and how they stayed in touch largely via texting that summer, it’s very possible she was playing against Joe.

Taylor and Tom arrive in Sydney, where Tom is about to start filming for Thor: Ragnarok. (x) Aussie media, including daytime TV, goes nuts over Hiddleswift's arrival in the country. (x)

Flying from LA to Australia involves crossing the international dateline, so they would have left the US on the 6th July local time and arrived in Sydney approx 15 hours later on the 8th July local time.

Calvin's new song Olé, written for John Newman, is released. There is speculation that it's a Hiddleswift song, written from Tom's perspective and containing lyrics implying that Taylor cheated on Calvin with Tom. However, sources also told multiple outlets that the song was written and recorded months earlier, and its supposed links to Hiddleswift were just for publicity. (x) (x)

Jul 9th - Tom goes out for a run (x) and avoids answering questions about Taylor. (x)

Jul 10th - Taylor and Tom go out for dinner to Gemelli Italian restaurant in Broadbeach on Australia's Gold Coast. (x)

Jul 11th - Taylor is named as the highest earning celebrity on the 2016 Forbes Celebrity 100 list, with earnings of $170m mostly due to the 1989 World Tour. If she and Calvin had not split up, they would have been the top-earning celebrity couple. (x)

Jul 12th - Taylor visits Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital in South Brisbane. (x)

Jul 13th - Us Weekly makes a wild claim that Tom is planning to propose soon, and Taylor is going to say yes. The magazine cover also claims they're already talking about babies. (x)

TMZ claims that Taylor wrote TIWYCF, and that Calvin disrespecting Taylor following its release was the reason for their breakup. (x)

Taylor Swift really is the creative brains behind Calvin Harris' monster hit "This is What You Came For," and their relationship fell apart because he disrespected her when the song was released ... this according to sources connected with Taylor.

It's a fascinating story. We've learned an early fan rumor about the song is true, but to a deeper extent than anyone suspected. During their relationship, Taylor wrote the song, sat down at a piano and did a demo into her iPhone. She sent it to Calvin, who loved it. They both went into a studio and did a full demo with Taylor on vocals and Calvin doing the beat.

They both knew the song would be a hit, but Taylor wrote it for Calvin and both agreed it was a bad idea to let the world know they collaborated as a couple ... it would overshadow the song.

So Taylor, who kept the publishing rights, used the pseudonym Nils Sjoberg on the credits.

//

The problem in the relationship came the day the song was released. Calvin appeared on Ryan Seacrest's radio show and Ryan asked, "Will you do a collaboration with your girlfriend?" Calvin responded, "You know we haven't even spoken about it. I can't see it happening though."

We're told Taylor was hurt and felt Calvin took it too far.

It was a quick downward spiral from that point. One source called it "the breaking point in the relationship." The Met Gala was several days later, when Taylor danced with Tom Hiddleston.

Tree confirms to People magazine that Taylor did write TIWYCF under the pseudonym Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Calvin also confirms that Taylor wrote TIWYCF and goes on a Twitter rant:

Katy Perry tweets a gif of Hillary Clinton with a smug/'told you so' expression. (x) She also retweets an older tweet from May 2015 which reads, 'Time, the ultimate truth teller.' (x)

#TaylorSwiftIsOverParty trends on Twitter (x) (x) and Taylor's Instagram comments are spammed with the snake emoji. (x)

Following Calvin's tweets, TMZ publishes another article claiming he is downplaying Taylor's involvement in the song as she wrote the melody in addition to the lyrics. (x)

Jul 14th - Taylor goes out shopping in Gold Coast. (x)

Tom mentions Taylor in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter: (x)

You're in the middle of a cultural frenzy right now because you're dating Taylor Swift. How would you respond to people who claim that you're involved in some sort of publicity stunt?

(Laughs.) Well, um. How best to put this? That notion is — look, the truth is that Taylor Swift and I are together, and we're very happy. Thanks for asking. That's the truth. It's not a publicity stunt.

Martha says at a Pepsi/World Emoji Day event that Taylor and Tom are 'both happy and free together. It's amazing, I'm all about people being happy in love.' (x)

Kim talks about Taylor and the Famous controversy in a clip from an upcoming episode of Keeping Up With The Kardashians. (x)

“I never talk shit about anyone publicly, especially in interviews. But I was just like I had so had it,” Kim says in the clip to her sister Kourtney. “I wanted to defend him in it. She legitimately quote says, ‘As soon as I get on that Grammy red carpet I’m gonna tell all the press. Like I was in on it.’”

“And then she just didn’t like the reaction?” Kourtney says in response.

“Yeah, and you know just another way to play the victim,” Kim replies. She then brings the infamous VMAs moment from 2009 by saying, “It definitely got her a lot of attention the first time… I just don’t think he should be punished for it still to this day.”

Jul 17th - Kim posts an edited recording of Kanye and Taylor's phone call. In it, they discuss the 'I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex' line and Taylor says, 'Go with whatever line you think is better. It’s obviously very tongue in cheek either way. And I really appreciate you telling me about it. That’s really nice.' However, nowhere in the Snapchat video does Kanye consult her about the line, 'I made that bitch famous,' which is the line Taylor insisted she had never approved. (x) The other Kardashian sisters retweet and support Kim. (x)

(The full recording of the call, leaked in 2020, confirms that Kanye never told Taylor he was going to call her a bitch. It also shows her reminding him that she sold 7 million albums before he had even heard of her, in response to him suggesting the lyric, 'I made her famous.')

Kim takes to Twitter to call Taylor a snake.

Taylor posts a statement on Instagram responding to Kim's Snapchat video. (x)

Selena tweets, 'There are more important things to talk about… Why can’t people use their voice for something that fucking matters? This industry is so disappointing yet the most influential smh' (x)

Katy Perry tweets, '#RISE above it all' and links to her new single. People interpret it as a dig at Taylor. (x)

Martha Hunt tweets, 'It's pathetic how quick our culture is to sensationalize a fabricated story...' (x)

Jul 18th - #KimExposedTaylorParty spends the day trending at number one worldwide on Twitter. (x) To the point where 0.8% of all tweets posted in the entire week from the 18th-24th use the hashtag. (x) (Assuming that 1/7th of the week's total tweets were posted on each day, that means more than 1 in every 20 tweets on the 18th used the hashtag.) #TaylorSwiftIsOverParty also returns.

TMZ claims to have a copy of a letter from Taylor's lawyer, dating back to February, demanding that Kanye destroy the recording of their phone conversation and reminding him that it is a felony to secretly record a phone conversation in California. (x)

Taylor changes the name on her writing credits for TIWYCF on the BMI songwriters database. She is now listed as Taylor Swift instead of Nils Sjöberg. (x)

Camilla Belle, the subject of Taylor's 2010 song Better Than Revenge, posts a quote to Instagram which reads, 'No need for revenge. Just sit back & wait. Those who hurt you will eventually screw up themselves & if you’re lucky, God will let you watch.' (x)

Abigail tweets against Kim and Kanye, saying, 'May God forgive you & your wife for doing to others the very things you pray are NEVER done to your daughter.' She deletes the tweets after receiving death threats but leaves a tweet which reads, 'Guys…I will always stand by my best friend. There's no point in fighting over that.' (x)

Joseph Kahn (director of many of Taylor's music videos) defends Taylor on Twitter. (x)

The aunt of Dinah Jane from Fifth Harmony tweets, 'I always knew @/taylorswift13 was a SNAKE! Trying 2 break up my girls & use @/camilacabello97 as her protégé bitch bye you’ve been exposed!’ (x) The tweet is soon deleted and she claims her account was hacked. (x) (Camila quit the band at the end of 2016 and has since said that Taylor had nothing to do with her decision to leave.) (x)

Paula Erickson, Taylor’s former publicist from 2007 until 2014, likes a two-and-a-half-week-old tweet dragging Hiddleswift for being a badly executed bit of PR by Taylor and Tree. (x)

James Corden spoofs the recorded phone call on the Late Late Show. (x)

Calvin is rumoured to be dating Tinashe. (x)

Jul 20th - Todrick Hall defends Taylor, saying, 'She's one of the most genuine people I've ever met in my entire life.' (x)

Uzo Aduba says Taylor is 'a beautiful person and strong' and that she will overcome the Kimye drama. (x)

Paula likes another tweet shading Taylor and Tree. (x)

A graffiti artist creates a mural in Melbourne 'in loving memory of Taylor Swift' (misspelled as Smith). According to the artist, they are then contacted by Taylor's lawyers and threatened with legal action. (x)

Jul 21st - Taylor's Wikipedia page is vandalised with insults. (x)

Taylor and Tom fly back from Australia into a private airport in LA, and are seen out and about. (x) (x)

Jul 22nd - Fergie, who had Kim appear in her M.I.L.F. $ music video, says she thinks the Kimye-Taylor feud was planned and 'they’ll probably all come together at the MTV Awards or something.' (x)

Taylor goes to the gym in LA. It is the first time she has appeared in public since Kim posted the edited video, and her phone screen is now shattered. (x)

She also returns to Instagram to wish Selena a happy birthday. (x)

Jul 23rd - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Tom is at Comic Con in San Diego. (x)

Calvin lip-syncs to Kanye's song That Part in a video posted on his Snapchat. (x) He also attends J-Lo's birthday party and is photographed with Kim. Apparently they have a friendly chat. (x) A source claims to E!, 'When Kim walked in Calvin saw her and stood up. He was clearly excited to see her and said 'hi' to Kim backstage.' (x)

Jul 24th - Taylor blocks the snake emoji from her Instagram comments section using a new Instagram feature. (x)

Tom is seen at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills with members of Taylor's security team. (x)

Jul 26th - Tom flies back to LA from NYC, where he has just spent a couple of days. On the same day, Taylor's plane arrives back in LA from Nashville, where she has spent a couple of days. (x)

VMA nominations are announced. Taylor is not nominated in any category, despite Out Of The Woods and Wildest Dreams being eligible, leading some people to think she has been snubbed. Gossip Cop, an outlet widely used by celebrity publicists to quietly squash rumours, says that Taylor did not submit any videos for consideration this year. (x)

Jul 27th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

John Newman, singer of Calvin's song Olé, jokes, 'Supposedly we had a holiday where he was movin’ on from his ex-missus,' referring to the trip to Mexico to film the music video, which involved girls and a yacht. He also says he doesn't think it's his place to say what inspired Calvin to write the song. (x)

Taylor and Tom go for dinner at Hillstone restaurant in Santa Monica. One source claims they 'seemed to really be enjoying each others’ company.' (x) It is the last time they are papped together.

Kanye makes a surprise appearance at Drake's concert in Chicago where he responds to Kim's Snapchat video for the first time, saying, 'All I gotta say is, I am so glad my wife has Snapchat. Because now y’all can know the truth. And can’t nobody talk shit about ‘Ye no more.' (x)

Cara appears on James Corden's show and talks about how she, Uzo and Ruby pranked Kesha and Haim at Taylor's 4th of July party. She mentions consulting Taylor and Tom first so that security knew what they were up to. She also says that Taylor and Tom got woken up at one point by all the noise they were making, and came upstairs together to find Cara and Uzo still making ghost noises. (x)

Jul 28th - Taylor goes to the gym in LA. (x)

Jul 29th - Sources close to Calvin deny rumours that he is planning to collaborate on music with Kanye. (x)

Abigail likes E! News' Instagram photo of Tom and Taylor going out for dinner on the 27th, which has a gushing caption about them. (x)

Jul 31st - Taylor is seen entering her gym in LA through the back door. (x)

A fan sees Tom and Taylor at The Church Key restaurant in LA. (x) The outing is not papped.

Intro // February // March // April // May // June // July // August // September // October // November

[mysteriouslybrokenmentality]

All of this stems from me thinking about that time All Might punched Izuku on the beach. Also none of this really expands on how the other students of 1-A and U.A. interact with Izuku.

Hey, y'all ever think about the fact that before U.A. Izuku had never had any good teachers, (that we've seen) all of his teachers were complicit in or encouraging of his bullying. So he probably doesn't have much trust in teacher figures. I mean, sure All Might is the #1 hero and his idol, but during his first ever in person interaction with him he shattered his dreams and then flimsily builds them up again with the 'gift' of a quirk, training Izuku for the power. (Kind of telling him he needs to change himself if he wants to be worthy of having a quirk, even if All Might means in the physical sense). ALSO, All Might (who was quirkless before Nana gave him One For All) is implying to Izuku that the only reason he's worth effort is that when he is given OFA he won't be quirkless. Izuku is gifted the status of human. A quirk is necessary to be treated right, granted human rights, and considered of worth. Ok he gets into U.A. then in his first ever class with All Might as a teacher, he's essentially complicit in Bakugou's treatment of Izuku just like all other teachers he's had. (Also he has no teaching license?) (Bakugou should have been trained in the correct and appropriate usage of his gauntlets). Now Aizawa is another story teacher & trust wise. When he first meets him with the quirk test Aizawa seems to write him off, yes he doesn't have the full story of Izuku's life previously but it should be in Izuku's file that his quirk status was recently changed, Aizawa should have known. Teachers don't normally read all their students files in upper grades (idk about other countries but in the U.S. I mean). Though I know they all at least have important information skimmed. Like IEP's and learning disabilities and special needs. However because this world is different from ours and Aizawa is meant to be training these kids and that's his main focus, taking care of them, he should read all of their files, not just like extreme basics (I'm not even going into my thoughts about treatment of other students in 1-A).

During USJ I think Izuku kind of begins to develop the first dregs of trust in Aizawa, or at least kind of develop the idea that Aizawa won't just outright let him die, because of how hard Aizawa fought for the kids (and Izuku knows his fighting style and abilities so he understands what this fight is for Aizawa) but he wouldn't trust him emotionally what so ever. That brings me to the Sports Festival, All Might tells Izuku to 'show the world he is here' but he gives no Izuku 0 guidelines and no guidance for how to do that or to what extent so Izuku just tries his best to frantically fit what he thinks is All Might's standards for him are to avoid upsetting the person who gave him worth (😒). Then after his fight with Todoroki where he breaks his arms terribly, to the extent of nerve damage and permanent disability, Recovery Girl tells him she won't heal these types of injuries again. So Izuku is back to patching himself up just like he would after Bakugou's beat downs, out of his fear of angering his teachers, without any support. Isolated again. Next is internships, Gran Torino is actually pretty good, if a little harsh. He treats Izuku like he would a perfectly normal teenager but Izuku is anything but, he's got truama all over the place. Gran Torino'a prank is not funny for someone who's been told to off themself and beaten down their whole life. Then all the Stain shit happens where Izuku is literally just trying to save his friend from dying and he actually calls for back up like he should! And gets reprimanded for it (like should he have just let Iida die??? Damn). After internships is final exams. His idol, his teacher, beats him down, using him as a baseball bat to smack another student. (Why are they fighting people who should be taking care of them and guiding them, and does All Might not understand that these are 15 year olds. Like sure villains won't go easy on them but god damn dude). Not only that but while Izuku attempts to work with Bakugou, he gets punched in the face. And no one acknowledges it so he's right back to previous school experiences where Bakugou hurts him for no reason and no teacher does anything. Izuku is perfect at working with others, using his quirk ingeniously, strategizing against a wide range of foes and more, why is he being used to correct Bakugou, to help Bakugou. Why aren't they helping him better himself?? Why aren't they giving him a challenge that's right for him. It's not like he won't work with Bakugou for lack of trying, and Bakugou is his abuser so I don't think it's wrong of Izuku to not want to work with him. They had to have been watching! It's an exam. And after that is training camp, and Bakugou's kidnapping. Not only does Izuku shatter his arms saving a like 7 year old from a sociopathic mass murderer. Izuku then feels it's his fault that Bakugou was kidnapped by the League, thus he feels responsible to rescue him, and none of the teachers even give them the reassurance that they're actually doing anything to save Bakugou so they take it into their own hands. (Also, counseling, excuse me U.A. get these kids some therapy??? So much trauma, from just their time at U.A. alone not counting previous traumas). And then Kirishima basically guilt trips him into going to get Bakugou back while Ixuku is still recovering from shattered arms, yet again. So Izuku goes and then his friend (Someone he saved from becoming a murderer!!! Well, saved him from death via serial killer.), punches him in the face while Izuku is trying to, PEACEFULLY, reason with him.

Then, after they succeed and Izuku watched his idol, his teacher, his mentor, get almost killed. And Izuku meets All Might on the beach probably thinking All Might will try to comfort and reassure him, and most likely wanting to check on All Might. And he walks up to this paragon of safety and peace, and gets punched in the face. WHAT THE HELL. Okay sure All Might then goes on to tell Izuku he's proud of what he did and blah blah blah. But it's never acknowledged that All Might, his teacher and idol, punches him in the face for doing something risky??? No adult should use injury and violence as a punishment against a child. No matter how frustrated, annoyed, upset, and/or angry with the child they are. It's unacceptable.

And that's not even taking into account everything else that happens later. Like dorms happen, Aizawa and All Might come to everyone's house to talk about taking their children and boarding them at U.A together. But when they come to Izuku, Aizawa let's the man with no teaching license talk to the Midoryias alone (😒). I'm with Inko, they've failed Izuku in so many ways already! Why should she let them take him from her completely? But All Might uses his social/political weight as ex-symbol of peace to 'convince' her to let Izuku move into the dorms. So now they all move in and gather on the front lawn with Aizawa. And he basically publicly shames the kids who went to Kamino for going, even though they didn't tell them what was happening or reassure the kids that they were already planning to rescue him. EVEN THOUGH the kids didn't fight, didn't engage, they literally were all released from the hospital and out of school, under the watch and care of their parents, not explicitly told not to go, weren't told not to follow Momo's tracker, and actually acted in a logical manner to save their friend (though Bakugou is not Izuku's friend 😒😒😒). What they did wasn't even technically illegal because even if there was an attempt to charge them with public quirk usage; Todoroki was the only one to use his quirk and they could claim self defense. The school has no control over them being in Kamino, it's a place you can't forbid someone from going to a public place. So they shouldn't be reprimanded. Honestly Aizawa should have been proud of them (I think he's jealous there was nothing he could do for Oboro when they lost him during school). And next is the license exams which is a whole other thing. I should stop here because it's a lot. HAHAHA NOPE. Okay, so they develop their special moves but not really given and guidance or hints on how or anything. Like I get this is something they need to do for themselves but there should be some sort of basis. They're still kids, 15-16 years old. I understand that they're training to be heroes (which I have thoughts on child soldiers man but that's not what this is about) but still! License exam day comes and Aizawa hasn't really given them much on what they'll be doing, how it will work, and who else will be there (😒). This is about as far as my rant will go until I've watched more of the anime and read more of the manga. I'm a little behind but that stems from personal problems so. I'll update this further when I watch/read more of the story.

This was originally posted like 3/24/21 but it's been edited 3/28/21.😘

[baejax-the-great]

Hey I realise you’re getting hate for this and I genuinely understand if you don’t want to explain, but if you were willing I’d like your input as to why you thought the finale was terrible. I personally loved it, but I acknowledge that there’s a lot of room for discussion and I’d love to hear yours! If you don’t want to post it publicly where you could receive tons of hate you can always message me, or ignore me entirely that’s absolutely fine!

Hoo boy. I really did not expect my 4 note post to get noticed by more than just like two mutuals, so this is all a little confusing.

I don't generally like to spell out my dislikes, because like I said, I think it's good that people enjoy things. I don't want to ruin things for other people. If you liked the finale and don't want to see someone's negativity, by all means, ignore this post.

But since you asked, I'll put it all under the cut for my negative feelings about a beloved show (and what is apparently a beloved season) and massive spoilers.

First, for what it's worth, I enjoyed the first 8.66 episodes and probably would have overlooked most of this had I not hated the ending as much as I did. It was pretty and fun!

I think my two main issues with this season come down to two major writing issues. The first was a lack of planning, the second was the Marvelization of the series.

1. Castlevania is a 10 episode show with 20 minute episodes. Given this, having two big arcs was a mistake. They simply could not wrap everything up in one season in a way that made any sense, so they chose not to. Everyone in Carmilla's arc acted wildly out of character, including Carmilla herself, who went from being shrewd, cunning, and a planner, to suddenly completely deranged. Lenore had also previously been cunning, and was now demoted to uselessly hanging out with Hector. Hector, who previously was easily manipulated and not cunning, now had secret plans that master manipulator Lenore had no inklings of. And three minutes after the four women agreed on their plan, they all suddenly had issues with it. Add in Hector having no real motivation for wanting Dracula back (he never agreed with his agenda in the first place?) and it was just a messy arc and the writers took the easy way out by literally bombing it before it went anywhere.

2. The Marvelization: Sypha, Trevor, and Alucard all looked fantastic in this season, had incredible fight scenes, and dropped witty one-liners. Fun! But beyond that, there was no character growth, no moments of love or tenderness between any of them and just no depth.

Alucard-- Alucard was traumatized by season 3, opens season 4 drunk, alone, miserable, and with bodies on spikes outside his house. Turns out two minutes with the FOURTH "Woman-who-can-kick-my-ass-and-is-slightly-unhinged-but-super-clever" cured him of all his issues. Haha, isn't it funny I killed my ex boyfriend and girlfriend after they tried to murder me while we were fucking teehee? I'm so glad Julia Sypha Saint-Germain's non-verbal GF Greta was there to give him a nice, heteronormative ending or whatever.

I would have been MUCH happier if they didn't throw a random romance his way and if they had, you know, dealt with ANY of the trauma both in S3 AND S4. I mean the man just watched his parents get brought back from the dead and then die AGAIN IN HIS CHILDHOOD BEDROOM, but, you know, a quirky woman held his hand so it's fine.

Belmont-- The ENTIRE point of Trevor's character growth was that he made friends and that made him better. He starts the show alone, miserable, drunk, and over time he finds friendship (not just romantic love but friendship, come ON). But he ends the show facing off death alone while his friends do nothing to try to help him (they are both capable of flying?? Oh well, you got this, Trevor). This battle added no new info about Trevor and added no emotional depth to him. We know he does shit alone and doesn't care enough about his own survival. That's been true since ep 1. Trevor getting the shit kicked out of him while he fights is just an average day, so I don't know why they dragged this fight out.

Sypha-- This is where my qualms with S4 became fury. Honestly, I was willing to overlook a lot of the bad writing until the writers leaned hard on the "man dies but leaves woman pregnant so part of him kind of lives on and it's not a total tragedy because she got a baby out of it." This was the trope and the part of the ending that personally offended me deeply (and it's my own issues with this trope so I don't expect everyone else to hate it as much as I do!). But blah blah man of the old world dies but brings in a new world and also his spawn will live in it or some shit. Even if Trevor ended up surviving, it was garbage, and like I said above, did nothing for Trevor's personal character arc. Being a father? That would be a much more meaningful arc for Trevor than anything that happened this season.

Sypha, I guess, grew this season in that she swears now. That's fun. Oh, and she's better at Greta's job than Greta is, so... cool, I guess.

Like Marvel, S4 basically didn't show a deep connection between any of the characters, not even Sypha and Trevor, tbh. But the fact that S3 showed how deeply Alucard missed Sypha and Trevor, and the two of them never once even thought about him? That also stung. I loved seeing the reunion, don't get me wrong, but it was still weird. It wouldn't have taken much for Trevor and Sypha to learn about the plan taking place in Dracula's castle and then express some sort of concern about Alucard. Instead, they reunited with him without even knowing they were going to. It was just emotionally very flat, and I found this a missed opportunity given how much their friendship made the show fun.

Oh, but hey, Dracula got a happy ending? Because I was really, truly, worried about that. ?????????

So yeah. Everyone in the Carmilla arc acted out of character with the previous season, and everyone in the Dracula arc was very hot, very shallow, and in the case of Alucard, very out of character.

[harringtonstudios]

you’re perfect.

plot: the famous life isn’t for everyone, sometimes the comments can get to you.

A/N: i got distracted while working on a request haha! let me know your feelings :) 

reminder: you are all beautiful the way you are, no matter what anyone says. there is inner beauty hiding in corners of your skin, and outer beauty glowing, lighting you up.

taglist: @iamdorka​ @no-shxt-sherl​ @bakerkells​ @lovemythsworld​ @rosegoldrichie​

Dating a celebrity came with its own struggles. You’d been with Machine Gun Kelly for almost a year now after meeting him through a mutual friend. It had all been surreal, you’d know this kid since high school and now he was playing guitar on stages with actual rockstars. He’d invited you to a recording session where he had introduced you to Kells.

It had been a rollercoaster after that, flying across the country to go on dates, sitting backstage at rock shows, getting to hang out with this generation’s greatest artists. You two had made it official after six months of the coolest dates you’d ever been on in your life. Honestly, half the time, you’d have preferred to sit on the couch and watching a shitty Netflix special, but you knew this was his lifestyle and you didn’t really mind. 

That was until the paparazzi started.There had been nights where both you and Kells had been fucked up, tripping on some kind of drug, trying to walk your way across the path to the Lyft you had ordered as people gathered around you shouting. Other days, you would be enjoying a bagel, laughing at Colson’s dumb jokes when a camera would come straight into your face, asking you about rumors. Once, you both had just left his house when three reporters had stopped you in your tracks, focusing their cameras on you as they started filming. Those days you would feel thrown into the spotlight, awkward in your skin, bees buzzing in your mind.

You had tried to get use to the ugly comments and the nasty posts that came with dating Colson. It was hard at first, trying not to search your name and see what came up. Sometimes you wouldn’t even have to search, people would tag your Instagram in posts, making fun of the way you looked on a certain night or criticizing your features. You didn’t really fit the criteria of being famous, a bit bigger than the models that usually walked around in LA, acne scars dotting your cheeks, frizzy hair usually flying around your head. 

In the beginning, it had gotten to you fast. People calling you talentless, spamming your comments with gold digger, theorizing on twitter that your relationship wasn’t real because why would Kells fuck with a girl like that? 

It had hurt, left you spiraling, spending days sitting next to Colson in the studio completely numb. You would just sit on the couch, scrolling through comments, trying not to let your insecurities get the best of you. The fans weren’t necessarily wrong, you didn’t have a special talent, you weren’t beautiful by any standards, and you had kinda just showed up out of nowhere. 

-

Sipping on the coffee Colson had bought you this morning, your eyes widened as you stopped at a particular comment. The user had typed it in all caps, screaming through the screen about your weight. It was on a picture Colson had taken of you, sitting in a bathtub, bubbles sitting on top of your head. You read the comment once, twice and then suddenly your phone was being taken out of your hands. 

“Baby, I asked if you wanted to go on a walk with me?” Colson repeated, looking down at you while loosely holding your phone in his hands. 

“Uhm, yeah,” you mumbled, reaching up to grab it.

“Nope, this is a no-phone walk,” he responded, turning around to put your phone down on the table. As soon as he lifted the screen up to his face, you grimaced knowing he was going to see the comment you’d been looking at for the past five minutes. 

“Wait, what the fuck,” he murmured, running his thumb over the screen. “Who the fuck wrote this,” he scoffed, turning back around towards you. 

“It’s not important. C’mon let’s go on this walk,” you responded, trying to smile as you got off the couch. 

“Nah, we’re not going anywhere till I find out who’s been talking shit about you online,” he said, plopping himself down on the couch. 

“Cols, it’s not that serious. I mean it, I don’t even read that shit,” you tried to distract him, extending your hand out to get him back up. 

He gave you a look over your phone screen, and you could see the anger brimming in his eyes. You sighed, sitting down next to him. You two weren’t going anywhere soon. 

Kicking off your shoes, you pulled your legs under you, shifting to face him. “I just get a couple of mean comments every now and then. People hate on things they can’t have, you know?” you tried to rationalize, watching him scroll through your comments. 

“Baby. These aren’t just a few. What the fuck, why didn’t you say anything,” he looked up straight at you, and you looked down at your lap trying to avoid eye contact. 

“Cause I mean they’re not wrong,” you muttered under your breath. 

“What?” he questioned, leaning down lower to catch your eyes again. 

“Nothing, what would have happened if I told you huh? You would have beat up the big, bad bullies? Newsflash, not everyone is going to just fucking love you,” you bit out, voice cracking as you tried to fight through the feeling in your throat. You didn’t want to cry, not here in his studio. 

He was quiet for a beat, then two and you bit your lip, knowing you had fucked this up. 

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say that,” you mumbled out before continuing, “they’re just internet trolls. I’m really trying not to let it get to me. I’m trying hard, but some people are just mean and I can’t fix that.” 

He cleared his throat and then you could feel his arm wrapping around you, pulling you closer. You moved in, shifting so that you were pressed up against his side. Your head rested right around his shoulder, and he softly pulled at your hand. You could see your fingers shaking just a little and you were so tired of letting everything get to you, so you closed your eyes, letting your head fall back. His fingers intertwined with yours and you could feel him rubbing at your knuckles. 

“You’re fucking perfect. Everything I’ve ever wanted and needed in my life. There’s nobody else I’d rather be with,” he spoke into your ear. 

Your eyes were still closed, but you felt a blush rise on your cheeks as he continued. 

“All these flaws they comment on? I love them all. You’re just so real, realer than anyone I’ve met in this city.” 

You felt his fingers touch your chin, slightly tilting your face to see his. Opening your eyes, you saw the clarity in his blues. 

“I think I love you,” you blurted out, eyes widening when you realized what had just fell out of your mouth. He let out a little laugh, and you could feel yourself turning even more red, burning up. 

“C’mere,” he mumbled, squeezing your hips a little, pulling you even closer. He kissed you, hand resting on your warm cheek, stroking his thumb back and forth as you kissed back. The words sat unspoken between you. He wouldn’t say it yet, you knew it, but you could feel something loosely resembling love as he pushed into the kiss, breaking off only to kiss your forehead. 

“Why don’t we show these haters something,” he muttered, moving his hips up so that he could get his phone out of his back pocket. 

“Ayo, Rook, bring your ass here,” he shouted, and you heard a cymbal crash followed by the studio door opening. You laughed as Rook showed up, beanie skewed on his head. 

“Take a coupla picture of us,” Kells instructed, throwing his phone up in the air. Rook caught it and then you were being lifted onto Colson’s lap. 

“Hmm?” you whispered, as he placed both his hands on your hips. 

“Kiss me,” he responded back, smirking and you smiled. Kissing him softly, you cupped his face in your hands. You could hear the sound of Rook taking pictures in the background and you couldn’t help but laugh just a little as your lips met Colson’s. 

“Get a room fuckheads,” Rook shouted before lobbing the phone back your way. It hit the couch and you broke the kiss off, reaching for it. Before you could get it, Colson grabbed it, laughing as he looked at his camera gallery. 

“Holy shit, these are GOLD,” he barked out, swiping. 

“Lemme see,” you reached out your hand, trying to get a glimpse. 

“Nope, you just have to wait,” he winked as he opened up the Instagram app. A part of you tremored with the anxiety of it all, you got enough hate without being publicly posted on his social media, but another part of you was excited, knowing that no matter what you had Colson on your side. 

A minute later, he nudged your shoulder with your phone and smiled as you took it off his hands. Going on Instagram, you went to his profile. Laughing, you clicked on the picture he had posted. Your hands were on him, focused on kissing. One of his hands was wrapped around you, while the other flipped the camera off. The caption read, “None of y'all got anything on her.” 

You liked the photo before grinning at him. “You’re my knight in shining armor,” you said in a mocking tone, raising your hands to your chest, posing. 

“Well then princess, let’s go slay the dragon,” he responded before picking you up. 

“Colson, wait, my shoes,” you shouted, laughing as he brought you to the door. 

Everyone needed a little reassurance sometimes, and your goofy boyfriend knew exactly how to cheer you up. There was nothing better than this and your heart beamed at the pure love you felt from him. Flaws and all, you had something special here and you had never felt this happy before.

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episodes 8-12

All caught up with RWBY now! (Except for the premium only episode.)

So, two things first: 1. From now on, my blog will no longer be spoiler free for RWBY! I don’t have premium access, so no spoilers for that, but beyond that, I might now reblog spoilers for everything that’s been released to the public. Blacklist “#RWBY spoilers” if you don’t want to see them.

2. I was going to ask what the spoiler policy in this fandom in general is when it comes to premium access. From what I’ve seen, Youtubers usually wait a week before uploading their reaction videos, which I appreciate – but here on tumblr almost no one seems to hold back. I saw a spoiler for “Creation” before it was released publicly. The day episode 13 was released for premium access, I had to unfollow people for posting untagged spoilers for it. And when I went into a RWBY-related tag for one second, I saw a really big spoiler that put me in a very sour mood because it also happened to be very aggressively worded against fans of a certain character (basically, along the lines of “I’m glad X bad thing happened to Y character because I hate them and their fans”). So, that scared the shit out of me and I ended up looking up more specific spoilers about what exactly happened because I wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise. So, from what I’ve seen, this fandom’s spoiler policy is just “fuck anyone who doesn’t have premium access” 😒. Always nice to see people being so considerate.

With that said, let’s get into my thoughts on episodes 8-12. Under the cut, because unlike some people, I try to be considerate of others who might want to avoid spoilers.

- So, the Hound really was a person. Specifically, a person with silver eyes and that’s probably what happened to Summer. THANKS, I HATE IT. This is exactly what I feared it would be and what I didn’t want it to be. (I don’t want Ruby and Yang to have to fight and kill their grimm-ified mom, that’s too sad, okay?)

- I love that Whitley really came through and came up with a plan for evacuating everyone! He’s a good bean after all! And that he managed to press that button on the computer before running from the Hound? Amazing.

- Willow Schnee being one hell of a mama bear and summoning a thing to protect Whitley was epic. She was so close to breaking down before that, but then her child was in danger and she just jumped into action right away. Protective mom instincts ftw!

- Blake’s talk about how she looks up to Ruby and how she herself lost the youthful optimism Ruby still has was SO sweet! (Also, Ladybug is an underrated ship/friendship and I really don’t get why people say they never interact? Have you all just forgotten volume 1 and how Bumbleby’s first meeting happened because Yang was trying to wingman Ruby who was trying to befriend Blake??)

- Penny fighting the virus from the inside was amazing, she did so well! I also loved seeing Nora encourage her (and echo Blake’s earlier words back to her).

- Unrelated to these episodes specifically, but I tried to think about who my favourite RWBY charactes even are right now, and I find it super hard to narrow down because I love so many of them, but if I tried to somewhat narrow it down, then (in no specific order because don’t ask me to also come up with an order): all of Team RWBY (though Blake is a personal favourite), Ilia, Penny, Salem, Cinder. (But then again, I also love Winter and Qrow and Robyn and... you get it, it’s hard to narrow down. Oh, and of course Pyrrha, but... you know.)

- “Witch” was honestly my favourite episode of the bunch. That one was just so full of epic stuff. (And now I’m wondering if Salem being one of my favourite characters has anything to do with my love for witches. I used to be obsessed with witches as a kid. In every story I read that had a witch, the witch was always my favourite character.)

- Yang and her team sure found a way inside that whale fast! Also, really handy that Ren’s semblance evolved just in time for when they needed it. But hey, I don’t want to complain about convenient plot stuff too much. Sometimes the heroes are allowed to have a little bit of good luck.

- Hazel listening to Oscar and deciding to get both him AND Emerald out of there was amazing! He really does have a soft spot for kids and wasn’t kidding about not wanting more kids to die – we love to see it! I also think it makes for an interesting parallel that Hazel decided to do this right as Ironwood was sending students to fight on the front lines and Marrow was calling it out.

- I really liked Ren telling Yang she doesn’t have to hide her fear behind jokes. Ren being able to see emotions is going to bring about so many more good moments, I just know it!

- Emerald and “Hazel’s” talk with Salem gets so much better when you know “Hazel” is actually Oscar – Emerald has gotten so much better at illusions and fooled Salem herself! That’s impressive!

- It’s really practical that Ren could sense Emerald’s fear. But also, the group really didn’t have the time to discuss if Emerald was trustworthy – they needed to get out of there asap.

- The way Salem spits out the word “semblance” when she talks to Emerald shows again that she not only underestimates these “new humans” and their powers, but also considers them inferior. It’s a nice little detail how just her tone when she says that word says so much about her worldview.

- Yang straight-up running up to Salem and blowing her up was epic. It didn’t last of course, but it was still a super bold and epic move. I’ve talked before about how cool Yang is and she just keeps getting cooler.

- Yang calling Salem out was amazing and epic, too! And when she referred to Summer Rose as “my mom” that made me tear up just a bit 😢. (I really don’t like Salem’s smile when she says “her again”, though. I don’t want grimm-ified Summer, I really don’t want it, okay? keep it far away from me where I won’t have to see it.)

- I’m a bit sad about Hazel’s death, but it was a really fitting end for his character and a really cool way to go out. The way he looked at all of those kids in danger (proving again that that’s what it’s about for him), whispered “No more Gretchens” to Oscar, punched Salem in the face as she was about to hurt Emerald, injected all of those crystals into his skin (which looked epic, by the way), told Emerald to go, fought an epic fight against Salem and then grabbed her and set himself and her on fire, burning her like a witch – it was epic stuff! RIP Hazel, you died as a hero and went out in an incredibly epic way!

- Hazel’s sacrifice must have been super tough on Emerald. He died protecting her (and JOYR) and it worked. She got away from Salem, but only because someone else, a friend, died for her. Not only must it be awful for her to lose Hazel, she probably also blames herself. (And, as I’ve seen others point out, it was probably the first time in her life an adult did something to protect her. Wow. Someone get this girl therapy, please.)

- The whale getting blown up was an absolutely epic moment. From the music to the cinematography, I loved everything about it. (That said, I will miss the whale. RIP coolest villain lair ever.)

- I loved Watts’ speech to Cinder – and I’m saying this as someone who became a huge fan of Cinder this volume. I love her, but I also love roasting her, and a lot of what Watts said was stuff she desperately needed to hear. I honestly didn’t even like Watts before that moment, but that speech might have made me like him just a tiny bit. The way he just laughed when she dangled him from a building, the way he spelled it out for her that her methods haven’t been working and threw her failures in her face, the ending with calling her “a bloody migraine” – Like I said, I’m a fan of Cinder, but that was glorious and cathartic and beautiful to witness. But what makes it really perfect is Cinder’s reaction: The fact that you’d expect her to kill him or at least scream at him, but instead she spares him and just sits down and cries. I really love what they’ve been doing with Cinder this volume and that they’re finally showing her as someone way deeper than just a power-hungry villain.

- In general, let me quickly talk about Cinder, because even without having seen the last two episodes I can already tell you that she’s my standout character / favourite character of the season. (It was Ilia for Volume 5, Salem for Volume 6, Penny for Volume 7 – and now it’s Cinder.) I said back in my post about Volume 5 that I wish they’d do more with her because after becoming rather interesting in Volume 4 they just went back to making her a pretty flat villain – and I officially have to eat my words and apologize to RoosterTeeth right now! This volume proved to me that they know what they’re doing with Cinder and explained so much about her. I’m sorry for ever doubting the writing. I now want to go back and rewatch the whole show while paying more attention to Cinder and I can’t wait to see where her arc goes from here (yes, I want an eventual redemption, and what about it?). This volume is obviously setting up something big for her – I just have no idea what it is. And at the end of the day, she’s still the Maiden of Choice. She’s the key to the Beacon relic, and that’s going to become important eventually.

- Oh, and can I mention, just by the way, that I think Cinder looks amazing? I don’t understand all the people who say they miss her red outfits when this is clearly her best look yet. The black eyepatch, the cape, the earrings, the short hair, the high boots, the shorts instead of a dress, all the black – this is her absolute best look, period.

- I’ve also noticed that the scene between her and Watts is the first time Cinder has referred to Penny by name. She’s always referred to her with phrases like “some toy” or “Polendina’s creation” before, but this time she just called her “Penny Polendina”, then “Penny” again, and asked Watts how she’s supposed to take Penny’s power “if she’s dead” (not “destroyed”, which is what Watts said, but “dead” – something you say about a person, not a machine). I think somewhere down the line, Cinder has started to see Penny as a person and respect her as the Winter Maiden. Maybe it’s because of how Penny won the fight at Amity, or maybe (though this might be wishful thinking on my part) it’s because Penny questioned why Cinder serves Salem and showed her and Emerald mercy.

- Also, side-note: While I loved Watts’ speech, it sure is bold of him to call Cinder entitled when his own villain origin story is getting overlooked for a science project.

- Neo is an amazing little troll and I love her. From stealing the lamp and skipping along the ruins of the whale happily to those texts to Cinder, all of her moments were brilliant and hilarious.

- Some characters not just forgiving Emerald is totally fair and realistic. But, as I said before (and as Oscar also points out), they don’t have to. People think a “redemption” – or let’s just call it switching sides instead of using such a loaded term – has to include everyone’s forgiveness, but it doesn’t. If Yang and Jaune never want to personally forgive Emerald, that’s okay. They don’t need to forgive her to recognize that she’s changed and work with her. And, as Oscar and Ren point out, Emerald’s abilities would be very useful to have on their side. So, personal feelings are fine and all, but right now they don’t have the luxury to dismiss a potentially very useful ally. (And same for Oz, by the way. It’s fine if they’re still mad at him, but they also need his help.)

- Also, have I already said that I’m very happy for Emerald? Because I’m very happy for Emerald for getting out of there! (Mercury’s and then Cinder’s redemption next, please!)

- F*ck Harriet for trying to get Winter in trouble for letting JYR go. I’m hating her more every second. And then she seriously said “Who cares?” about Ironwood’s plan to nuke Mantle? She’s the most unlikable of them all.

- Everyone’s reunions were so sweet! I loved Ruby and Yang hugging 😭. And Yang cupping Blake’s cheek and their forehead touch had me all 🥰 🥰 🥰.

- After he threatened to nuke Mantle, I hope we can all agree that Ironwood is a straight-up villain now. The most infuriating part is that he didn’t even have to do anything! Whitley and Weiss had figured out a way to save everyone in Mantle and the SDC ships to evacuate people were already there. All Ironwood had to do was let them evacuate everyone to Atlas, and then Penny would have opened the vault willingly and Ironwood could have used the staff to raise Atlas as planned. Problem solved! He should have just sat there and ate his food – but he was so pissed about things not going his way (or maybe he just genuinely hates Mantle that much) that he thought sabotaging the rescue plan and threatening genocide was a better option.

- I loved Marrow’s arc in these episodes and how you could tell more and more that his conscience was making him turn against Ironwood. First he questioned Winter when she was going to nuke the whale before JOYR were back, then he seemed shocked when he thought they were dead, then he tried to talk sense into the other Ace Ops after Ironwood’s ultimatum, and then he straight-up called out Ironwood himself. That last one was dangerous though, and he was lucky Winter was quick enough to jump in and pretend to arrest him, because Ironwood was going to just shoot him in the back.

- Speaking of, I wonder how long Winter has been planning to double-cross Ironwood. How long was she already disagreeing with him, but waiting for the right moment to make a move? Either way, I’m glad she was there to save Marrow.

- The Renora confession scene was so sweet and got me a little choked up 😢. I’m glad they sorted out their issues and told each other how they feel. But like I said before, I think Nora’s arc of trying to find out who she is without Ren is really good and important and Ren respecting that was really good and important as well. It was just a very wholesome scene. Also, I like that we got a little bit more backstory for Nora (her mom abandoned her? that’s awful), and Jaune awkwardly leaving the room was hilarious.

- Robyn telling Qrow he’s a better Huntsman than Clover because he chose to do the right thing was a really important moment for Qrow, imo. (And just a side-note: I’m sure most Fair Game shippers are pretty chill – and I’m a strong believer in ‘ship and let ship’ – but a certain subset of them is starting to get on my nerves with how they ignore Clover’s canon character and story (acting like he would have rebelled against Ironwood if he were alive as if the whole reason he’s dead wasn’t precisely because he cared more about Ironwood’s orders than doing the right thing) and how they make every new plot point about their ship somehow (Oscar’s semblance? Better be a time-travel thing so Clover can come back. Staff of Creation? Better be able to bring people back from the dead so Clover can come back.) It’s so annoying.)

- Yang and Ruby’s talk about their mom was really intense. Ruby’s been holding all of these feelings in for so long, so seeing her say out loud what we’re all fearing (that Summer was turned into a Grimm) and seeing both her and Yang break down over it – that was a lot. I loved seeing Yang comfort Ruby and tell her that her plan for Amity wasn’t useless. Their sisterly bond is so sweet.

- Penny asking Ruby to kill her was another really intense moment. The look on Ruby’s face in that moment really said it all. Ruby has been through so much, has lost Penny before, so hearing that request – even though they fortunately didn’t have to go through with it – must have still been a lot for her.

- I really loved Emerald’s cute “newly reformed villain” moments. (“You guys have been getting your asses kicked… some of that my fault” & “I’m just going to be super pissed if you all finally decide to give up the moment I switch sides.”) I’ve said before (in my She-Ra posts) that my favourite part of any redemption arc is the “former enemies, now awkward around each other” stuff, so this was right up my alley!

- “The girl who fell through the world” was referenced twice now. Between that, the image of everyone falling in the opening, and the lyrics “sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall”, I’m going to predict that someone – most likely all of Team RWBY – will fall into that void and potentially end up in a different world.

- The group’s plan to defeat Ironwood, stop the bomb, and get to the vault was amazing all-around. I love the parts Emerald and Winter got to play in it, I love how we saw the plan’s execution before seeing how they came up with it and I love how everyone got to help, even the Schnees and Klein. I also love that the hole Oscar blasted through the ground of Atlas became relevant again.

- The design of the vault and the door are really nice and now I wonder what the other two are going to look like.

- Saving Penny like that was super risky, but they really were out of options. Just the fact that Ruby had to be quick enough to use her semblance and get to the staff before the virus kills Penny… jeesh, that was close.

- Ambrosius is a super fun character! I love that he looked at Penny and said “I’d love to meet whoever did this.” Also, the staff seems more useful than the lamp. The lamp only lets you ask three questions per century, while the staff can be used as often as you want – as long as you’re okay with whatever it previously created disappearing.

- I honestly still don’t completely understand what Penny is now. Is she meant to be human now? Or is she just a being made up of pure aura? How does this work? Ambrosius only created the copy that destroyed herself, so what’s left is Penny’s aura – but she somehow also has a body now? I guess we’ll find out more about what exactly this means later.

- Also, while I wasn’t sure how I feel about this decision re:Penny at first, now that I’ve thought about it for a bit, I think it works. It fits with the Pinocchio story, and I like that they didn’t phrase it as “she’s a real girl now”, but as “this is the girl who’s been in there all along”. Also, Penny saying “wow” after hugging Ruby and then going on a hugging spree was adorable.

- Watching “herself” self-terminate must have been really traumatic, though. Even if that copy was just a robot, it was still a disturbing scene.

- Who shut down communications in the middle of Jaune’s broadcast? I’m assuming it was Cinder, Watts and Neo.

- The whole dimension with the doorways that Ambrosius created looks amazing. (A while before watching this episode, I wondered if Raven could theoretically save Atlas by getting everyone to safety with her portals. It might not have been Raven, but I’m glad I was at least onto something.)

- “Do not fall.” So, about that… they’re all falling in the opening, (and we referenced “the girl who fell through the world” twice now), so I don’t have a good feeling about that. Also, Watts has been dangled from somewhere high twice now, so the third time has to be when he actually falls down.

- And Cinder is there to ruin the plan because of course she is.

[lady-plantagenet]

What hasn’t already been said: The Spanish Princess 2

Episode 1: CamelNOT

[Lively Music Plays]

I shit you not... that’s what it said in the CCs.

Tower of London (?)

*Catherine looks at the array of crowns like a museum curator and the proceeds to strut down the halls*

Wolsey: *gives her this strange look which is a mixture between damn girl and the eagle is my spirit animal.

Then Catherine gets fake detained and taken to Henry in what must be a strange variation of the whole Robin Hood/Maid Marian roleplay they historically engaged in.

... did she just call his erhm manhood his kingship? Well that’s original, I’ll give them that. Also funny how Bessie Blount initially looks on in fright... don’t worry girl that will be you soon.

———————————————————————

*the four ladies have a brunch friendship moment together*

I see Blount is among them... I see they are setting her up as Catherine’s friend in order to play up the whole betrayal.

Alright. Jokes aside, I realised how much I’ve played myself. I was inspired by @melusineloriginale ‘s sporks (which if all this TSP episode posts got you in the mood for PG show mockery I urge you to check out here - you’ll thank me later). In truth, Henry VIII’s early reign is a bit too late from my main area of focus for me to make intelligent jokes.

I’ll content myself with just bullet-pointing random thoughts that came into my head, and if some intelligent thought gets through, well that would be the pinnacle. In any case I’ll aim to not parrot some of the stuff that’s already been said, repetition can get annoying.

This image embodies this post, but maybe not the show. I’ve noticed those Starz productions get better by the end.

First Scenes:

- The recap just reminded me how much I will miss Margaret Beaufort in the coming episodes. I know her portrayal was innacurate but Harriet Walter just made everything better.

- They are making such a big deal out of this whole ‘we were crowned together, we rule together’ thing in this episode - it makes no sense. Catherine was an influential Queen but she was definitely no more than a consort and never saw herself as more.

- Ruairi’s new haircut is pleasing to my eyes.

- When she says ‘Abuelo’ it’s super adorable awww

The Ferdinand and Charles V scene:

- Bessie Blount looks so much like Ursula Pole lmao. Also they totally got the Pole children’s birth order wrong and UGH WHERE IS GEOFFREY POLE???

- I like Mary Tudor’s actress and her facial expressions. However, this whole polyglot image they are representing is innacurate. I am fairly certain she knew no spanish and I recall reading a contemporary account which said that she was not very learned.

- I’m pretty sure it would be considered bad luck to prematurely crown your son ‘Henry IX’ while you’re still alive.

- I actually like the whole Grape motif in this episode. It’s probably the smartest thing they’ve come up with so far for this episode. I know a lot of you will be all like ‘there’s no record of Ferdinand being abusive’ but this choice sort of makes sense when you recall Joanna’s treatment. Also I appreciate them for not being tacky and showing flashbacks of more overt abuse eg physical. The sugared grape is also fairly symbolic (the sugar is like a gilding, the grape easily crushable)

- OMG the guy from Garrow’s law is playing Thomas More!

- AND PLEASE PLEASE TELL ME IM NOT SEEING THINGS? Margaret Pole x Thomas More is happening?? Please god that is a historical crackship I am getting behind. Yes. This is what I’m most invested about.

Margaret Tudor and Scotland Scene:

- The whole ironic cutaway to Margaret being all depressed after Charles Brandon’s statement about her charming Scottish king is such a cliché movie technique.

- If this were a more artsy film I would think the whole setup resembling a stereotypical middle-class family breakfast was done on purpose for humorous effects or to create a link with the past. But here I don’t have as much trust in the producers. I think they just failed to capture the time period accurately.

- The modernisms continue: ‘Negassi please stop playing’ idk, there just something so modern about this for some reason ahaha

- Also again, I’m getting tired of all this ‘Catherine is basically queen herself’, ‘Catherine is a political genius’, ‘Catherine Catherine Catherine’ ugh. I don’t think the producers understand that Henry VIII was a very autocratic and traditional ruler. He didn’t make any show of joint-rulership (correct me if I’m wrong).

- The teeth thing is funny, smart and I liked it.

Back to Westminster:

- I like Ferdinand’s actor!

- Also Catherine’s response to ‘who are you loyal to?’ was not that smart. I feel like the producers wanted us to be impressed. What if Spain and England’s interests conflict, ey??

The Joust:

- I care too much for the whole Margaret Pole plotline. I’m so invested.

- I could watch a series of More and Pole just exchanging lines. I love the actors too and this is my hope for this series. The whole frustrated parents is SO CUTE.

- I didn’t know More tutored Reggie, I would be curious to know more.

- The way compton says groom to queen’s stool is freaking hilarious. He looks like a pervert.

- Henry Pole is a darling and must be protected at all costs.

- Oh Christ oh Christ that eyeball shot was just... good job on the special effects guys. Don’t know what the point of that choice was.

- I found the whole armour mentions after interesting, it looked so set up as a PR campaign because Stafford speaking about the armour just sounded like a statement agreed on beforehand ‘should have worn the same’ and the Catherine with ‘steel in the bones’ and Ferdinand’s impressed face (it was him playing them?)

- Am I giving this show too much credit?

- Also whats up with “God save the Queen?”

War Counsel:

- Henry VIII’s actor is quite charismatic in this scene. It’s almost as if Catherine is the hothead and Henry the wise one that speaks less but more significantly. It almost feels like they gender-swapped them.

The Bedchamber:

- Did Catherine breastfeed the baby? I thought it was Anne Boleyn. Doubtful... I’m tired of the trope of ‘you’re a good woman if you insist on breastfeeding the child yourself despite social conventions’. For a feminist show, the writers seem very attached to some 1950s perceptions of motherhood.

- I feel like the age difference between Catherine and Henry is well conveyed.

Scotland Again:

- ‘All the sheep were pregnant’ 👀 oh touché Margaret. oh my. Did she just?

- I know they are playing out this disenfranchised Margaret arc to reinforce how great Catherine and Henry are (cheap technique) and to build up to her involvement in Flodden (innacurate historically but I know what the show will do). But I will say this: the humour is pretty good in the Scottish scenes! But I know it’s unintentionally so... (I highly doubt they wanted us to laugh at Margaret hitting James or calling Alexander a pig).

Westminster and the baby chamber:

- What’s are those red splotches on the babies face??

- Oh that shot of Margaret and silent Reginald :((( it makes me sad.

- And now the Poles are at church! I just love the look of them.

- That scene of Maggie and Catherine was needed, as we didn’t get the best friends vibe much in this episode. The whole thing looked a bit pagan though, but it was nice :)

The whole Ferdinand’s betrayal segment:

- The grape motif again was fitting, him snapping the fruit right before she gets to it even despite her knowing what he’s like and what he’ll do, was a good parrallel.

- I’m tired of hearing of this ‘Camelot’. Even in the novel, Camelot was Catherine and Arthur’s dream and... can we just live it up with Arthur?

- Ursula Pole’s, Bessie Blount’s and Mary Boleyn’s actresses look way too similar.

- I fail to see why Catherine thinks she’s turning into her father... she doesn’t strike me as much of a game-player or subtle two-facer.

- I’m intrigued what will happen with Oviedo and Lina... I feel like they won’t stay in England long.

- He was made knight bannaret... nice... but why does he thank Catherine publicly for this? It was in Henry’s gift that he was made a commoner Knight.. if this transpired irl Henry would have been gravely insulter.

Catherine’s Dead Baby and thereafter:

- Guys. In all seriousness, I don’t think the TV series is trying to imply that Catherine killed the baby with her negligence. I mean, they are so bent on us liking her they wouldn’t do that. It would be a bit too ballsy anyway. Remember the red splotches I mentioned earlier? Could those have been a sign that he was already ill but no one noticed/was in denial?

- The pebbles in hands would have had more emotional payoff if it had been established earlier if you know what I mean. Basically, this episode is too fast and entire arcs begin and end within it which extinguished any build-up.

- Oh man Henry is so sweet in this, how will they build him up as the tyrant he was historically if they keep this up?

Scotland Again:

- I must admit, I don’t like all those nicknames they keep using. But somehow James calling Margaret ‘Meg’ is nice and seems fitting.

- What’s a hermana sister?

England Last Mourning Scenes:

- YOU DID NOT BUILD CAMELOT ughhh

- Why is Catherine giving the speech and not Henry?? It turns out Catherine was more emotional historically then the whole perception of ‘perfect queen of stone’ to which some people hold her. However, I doubt it would have been proper of her to give a speech in such a emotional manner.

Conclusion:

6.5/10

Some of the dialogue was stilted, the costumes are confused as to which era they’re supposed to be (aesthetically distracting) and many other characterisation issues.

I don’t have high hopes for this series in terms of cinematography or art but I sure as hell expect it will be entertaining. So far, everything is just getting set up and I find some aspects promising. As you can tell I am truly excited over how the Margaret Pole plotline. I am also interested in how Henry will be portrayed, with Catherine being so OTT and pushy this episode Im starting to Stan him more. In this show he appears sensitive and serene and kinda... adorable. Kind of like a little brother hanging onto his sister’s skirts.

But in a way that is a disservice to the real historical figure which would not tolerate such a representation. I am very irritated by this whole ‘joint-rulers’ thing which is just sooo innacurate. These STARZ shows have an obsession with showing women turn into men for the purposes of feminism - I see.

Catherine overpowers Henry too often and it sometimes feels like he’s HER consort. Of course, the feminism in this show is schizophrenic as we get the overemphasis of Catherine as a 1950s motherly ideal with the whole breastfeeding angle (“you’re better than other noble woman who would find this beneath them”, “they’re not as motherly as you”).

So the relationship dynamic between Henry and Catherine is a bit off at the moment, but oh well.

Mary Tudor is a bit distracting with her dark hair but I find the actress extremely endearing and promising. I know there will be emphasis on her storyline too and I hope they’ll not be clichéd with it.

[snapetrash]

so I wrote a crack fic where Snape and Harry smoke weed and talk about their problems. kinda.  It’s posted on Ao3 if you want to read it there. It’s pretty ooc and an adult smokes weed and tobacco with an underage student, so there’s your warning for moral ambiguity. Starts at the beginning of book 5, in an AU where everything is the same except Harry picks up a smoking habit to self medicate his slightly crippling anxiety and depression. Looking for a Beta so let me know if you’re interested!!!

Hermione and the rest of the Weasleys had been here for weeks while he had to deal with his relatives, and fucking demetors- what a load of bollocks. Harry dumped his trunk and bags in his room and made a beeline for the attic of Grimmauld Place, grabbing his pack of menthols and lighter as he went.

 They’d arrived at the Order headquarters a little after 2 am, so he knew no one would come looking for him until morning. He’d told Remus after a brief hug that he was exhausted before he’d headed to his room. Harry climbed the rickety, spiraling stairs leading to the topmost floor of Grimmauld without so much as a glance behind him. 

Harry knew Sirius was in the house somewhere, and probably awake, but anxiety and anger had tied his stomach in knots. He would go see his godfather after his smoke. After. Everything had to come after he’d had a moment to himself, or he’d blow up and regret everything. 

As he struggled to wrench open the window, he briefly considered smoking inside, smell and lingering smoke bedamned, but as the thought crossed his mind the window gave a little shriek and popped open. Harry crawled out onto the dirty shingles and moved to sit beside the window, looking out onto the backyard of the house. 

He opened his pack, pulled out a joint and popped it in his mouth, lighting up and taking a deep, fortifying breath. Harry’s eyes fell closed as he inhaled deeply, pulling in air after his hit and exhaling, long and measured. As he went to take another hit, he opened the pack of cigarettes one more time to retrieve a menthol and tuck it behind his ear, for later. His hair was such a mess that it covered the white of the paper completely, and kept the fug from prying eyes. It wouldn’t be fun if he was caught and chewed out by Mrs. Weasley for smoking. 

The sky was dark and overcast, sounds of the city muffled by the powerful wards on the house. It was a fairly hot night, temperature perfect for Harry and his penchant for being chilly in all seasons. After three or four hits he could feel the tension bleed from his body, finally making way for bone deep exhaustion.

“ Potter, what on earth-” If Harry hadn’t been halfway through his joint, he would’ve startled at the sound of Snape’s irritated growl coming from the window beside him. But he’d been awake for more than 24 hours, and hadn’t had a decent meal for just as long. The energy to care about being caught smoking on a roof by his professor? He just didn’t have it at the moment. 

“Are you smoking pot?” The utter incredulity in the Potion Master’s voice prompted Harry to actually turn and look at the other man. Snape was leaning out the window, arms braced on the sil with his wand in a relatively loose grip. He was wearing what looked like a long sleeve tee and worn sweatpants- both black of course- but surprisingly muggle. It made the older man look softer, younger; the small part of Harry’s brain that hadn’t checked out the moment he lit up was shocked at how Snape looked, even as he glared at him. 

There were other things Harry noticed about him too; his paler-than-usual pallor, the way his body seemed wound tight like a spring and the heavy-lidded exhaustion in his eyes. Snape wasn’t staring him down, not like usual. No, he seemed like maybe he’d come for a bit of solitude too. In fact, when Harry’s gaze flicked down to the potion master’s hands he saw a wooden pipe, shiny and black just like the rest of him, clutched in his non-wand hand. 

It was 2 am and everyone else in the house was probably in bed. Harry realized he’d been staring, not answering, and Snape was looking tenser and moodier by the second.

“Are you wearing pajamas?” He blurted out, immediately regretting everything. Fuck, he was gonna get so many detentions. But Snape was wearing pajamas, it was beyond strange, and Harry had gone ahead and said the first thing that’d come to his mind like a complete idiot. 

Snape gave him a look of utter loathing, like he was thinking the exact same thing. Harry couldn’t help but notice the dark bags under his eyes, and again did something incredibly stupid. Marijuana in the wizarding world didn’t hold the same weight as it did for muggles, but still. He was sure there was a rule written somewhere that said ‘thou shalt not smoke cannabis with thy potions master.’ or something. 

Harry offered him the joint wordlessly. It was quite a normal gesture, in general terms; Snape stared at the offending apparatus in what seemed like numb shock, his eyes a little wide, his mouth drawn down into a tight line. It hung in the air between them, and just as Harry thought that maybe he really was going to die at the hands of his teacher that hated him, the older wizard reached out and plucked the burning thing from his fingers. 

The moment Snape took it, instead of watching him(his fucking professor!) Harry grabbed the cigarette from behind his ear and lit it up, just to have something to do with his hands. He looked up just in time to see Snape exhale a fat cloud of smoke and look at the joint with a thoughtful expression. After a moment they swapped; Snape had the cigarette and Harry had the joint. 

The younger wizard watched the other inhale and grimace, before his professor quietly muttered. “Of course you would smoke this muggle menthol crap.” 

Harry snorted. “You certainly aren’t the first one to give me shit for it.” 

This was probably the quietest, nicest moment he’d ever had in Snape’s presence. Who knew all it took was a little weed to win over the nasty dungeon bat? Harry had to force a cough, lest he giggle at the thought. 

The deserted city before them had infected both wizards with a sense of calm; no nightmares, or oaths or dark lords could reach them here. When Harry saw the joint going down, he pulled out another and put the other out in seamless rotation. Snape made a soft noise that might’ve been a scoff, but otherwise said nothing and took a long drag of the new joint. 

Neither man knew how they’d stumbled upon this fragile peace, but they weren’t going to go out of their way to break it now. Still, Harry couldn’t resist pushing his luck.

“I keep waiting to wake up from this bizarre dream, but it hasn’t happened yet.” He muttered with humor. 

Snape side-eyed him, blowing a bit of smoke out before fucking smirking “Why does it matter? No one would believe you if you told them about this.”

That had Harry fighting back horrified laughter, coughing a little on the smoke caught in his throat, because this was another level and who knew his evil git of a teacher could be so devious? In a funny way, not his usual ‘Potter, detention for breathing’ way.  Stealing a glance at Snape, he saw that he’d relaxed a lot more. He had an elbow on the sill, his chin propped up in his hand- and a little quirk on his lips that was almost a smile.

This side of Snape was completely new to Harry; but he vowed silently to himself that he’d try to draw it out as often as he could. Clearly the guy was under a lot of pressure, playing for both sides. Maybe he was a completely different person, outside of all the acting and playing the field he had to do. 

“You’re different, like this.” Harry’s brain to mouth filter had said sayonara at this point; the small part of his mind that was rational, and screaming at him to ‘shut up, Potter, you utter wanker’ was drowned out by his high and the strange night. 

“I know we have to keep hating each other- keep up appearances, I mean- um. But I wouldn’t mind doing this again. I just- I’ve been realizing how much you do for the war, for me and I- You’re not a bad guy at all, is what I might be saying. Who knows, I’m stoned. Ignore me.” Please, Harry, shut the fuck up now. 

Snape’s burning gaze bore holes into his forehead as he hurriedly stuck his fug in his mouth to silence himself. The younger wizard didn’t take his eyes off his own hands, cheeks burning, waiting for the end. 

“Why in Merlin’s name would you want to spend any more time with me than you have to? It’s not like I haven’t given you every reason to hate me that I could think of.” The older man replied, and oh god, both of them were way too tired and totally not sober enough to have this kind of conversation. If they were sober they would never have it in the first place. 

Harry didn’t say anything for a while, not sure how to respond. “Well it’s not like I didn’t figure that out eventually- and you’re one of the few people in this entire, fucked up secret society that treats me like a normal person. From everyone else it’s either hero worship, pity, or they hate me for shite I can’t control.” He paused and took another drag of his cigarette. “Or they expect me to be a carbon copy of my dad. I guess you also did that for a while too, but you have to keep up appearances for the all the kids reporting back to their death eater parents.” 

Snape turned his eyes on Harry again, showing a myriad of emotions across his face, all hard to decipher. He seemed almost angry. “Don’t be daft. I publicly humiliate you whenever I have the chance. I’m not a nice man, it wasn’t always an act!” 

“Well you just admitted that it’s an act now! Why are you so afraid to admit you like me, professor?” That shut Snape up pretty effectively, because all he did was relight the joint that had gone out in his hands. 

Harry sighed, pulling his legs to his chest and resting his head on his knees, facing Snape. “You’ve always reminded me of my muggle teachers in elementary, kind of. The ones that knew from speaking to Petunia that I was a delinquent, but were still determined to teach me. It gave me a sense of normalcy amongst all the magic, in a place where suddenly I was popular and sought after for a glorified tragedy I don’t even remember. I dunno.” he laughed bitterly, remembering his first year. The months after his letter came, wondering if he’d go to sleep after classes that night and wake up in the cupboard. 

Snape looked very tired, as if every word Harry spoke took what little energy he had left. “You’re not anything like your father was, as your age. How could you be, you’ve never met the man.” He mumbled the last sentence, but Harry heard it anyway. 

“Exactly! You understand. Fuck.” The teenager took a shaking breath, and then the joint when Snape passed it to him. They fumbled for a second when he nearly dropped it, hands brushing in the dark, but it made its way into Harry’s shaking hands and he hit it once, with feeling. 

After a few minutes of silence in which they finished the second joint, and Snape lit his pipe(which to Harry’s surprise) actually had weed in it. They passed it back and forth for a little while longer. 

“Albus wants me to teach you Legilimency this year. You’ll come to my office once a week after class, and call it remedial potions when anyone asks.” 

“Cool, we’ll be able to hang out more without anyone around to ruin it.” Harry replied absently. When he realized that he’d just indicated, verbally, that he’d enjoy hanging out with Snape(and his mind was really blown at that one) he looked up to see Snape staring at him with his eyebrow raised, a picture of unimpressed. 

“You realize you’re going to actually have to learn to be a Legilimens, right Potter?” 

“Oh yeah. It might just be the weed, but I’m feeling much better about it now than I would’ve if we hadn’t had this conversation.” The teen replied with good humor. It was true; he was feeling much better about Snape in general. Harry remembered how much of a hardass his professor was, and was quick to reassure him. “I’ll do my best to learn all I can from you.”

Snape’s face softened a little. “See that you do, Potter.” He straightened, Placing his pipe in his pocket and pulling himself back into the attic. The older man reached a hand out for Harry to help him inside. “Come now. It’s bedtime for wizarding saviors.” 

Harry smiled, caught the larger, rougher hand in his own and allowed himself to be lightly manhandled back into the attic. He felt beyond tired. When he stumbled on the stairs, Snape dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder and left it there. 

“To the kitchen first, I have a vial of dreamless sleep for you.” Snape said quietly. The younger man grunted a wordless acknowledgement and they made their way together through the house. The potions master beelined to a high cabinet in the corner and pulled out two small bottles, uncorking one and downing it and passing the other to Harry. 

“Thanks, professor. Good night.”

“Goodnight, Potter.” Snape was rewarded with a blinding smile as Harry made his way upstairs. He went to his room, and fell asleep quicker than he’d had in years.

[roguish-gallery]

Rogues + Internet/Social Media HCs!

Hello!!! this was requested by @geniusbee I struggled a bit with the initial prompt, so I kinda broadened the question, I hope you don’t mind! Once I got the ball rolling with this one, it was super fun to work on! Thank you again for your request!

If anyone wants to, feel free to send me send me more requests! I’d love to do more of these!

Everything is under the Read More bc this got LONG AS FUCK. (Slight TW for sexual references!)

Bane:

Doesn’t use social media. point blank

He’ll surf the web mostly for research or for communication purposes, but that’s mostly it... That being said sometimes he DOES look up stuff for fun because he’s a naturally curious guy who had limited access to education for the first 20-ish years of his life. It sends him down a rabbit hole of researching weird shit and sometimes you’ll catch him up at 4:00 am looking up how bread was made in Ancient Rome or what Cock and Ball Torture is bc he heard Joker say it once and he’s never EVER fucking heard of those words strung together like that before

Also… his fingers are simply too beefy for most keyboards. Dude tryna sit down and send Scandal Savage some fun cookie recipes she could try with her GF like

 Catwoman:

Not a lot to say here but tbh she probably has the most normal internet habits of everyone. Helps to promote cat shelter’s web pages, and will use some light hacking to find the locations of fur factories and animal abusers but that’s mostly it?

If she isn’t already an influencer, she has definitely considered it. Will sometimes post selfies of her wearing stolen jewelry just to flex. Has a legion of simps.

Clayface

Unknowingly gets into kin drama without trying to

He has... so many theather blogs, musical blogs, and obscure film blogs... someone help him... somehow he regularly adds shit to ALL OF THEM. 

He’s that one bitch who hoards all the canon URLs and there’s nothing you can fucking do to stop him.

Harley Quinn:

Her computer is slow and buggy as shit because she’s got so many viruses from trying to download flash games. Edward refuses to fix her computers at this point because he knows it’s a lost cause.

She vlogs sometimes, actually! And she’ll drag her hyenas or any of the rogues/batfam/GCPD she’s hanging out with atm into it.

She likes to go onto anxiety or depression forums and anonymously leave nice, helpful advice :)

Joker:

Mostly on the dark web, doing… things that you do on the dark web...

If he’s ever on the clean web I promise it’s only to start kin drama or to dm fucked up shit to random people he finds.

Has been known to catfish when the mood strikes him

Also? He jumps onto RP forums and either plays the SHITTIEST Batman, or an eerily accurate Batman.

Killer Croc:

He likes looking up funny videos online!!! Also! Art tutorials!!

He likes to post his artwork online under a pseudonym. He doesn’t expect anyone to really pay attention to his work, but it’s always a very pleasant surprise when someone likes or leaves a nice comment on his art.

 He genuinely cherishes all of his followers and the kind interactions he shares with them.

Mad Hatter:

It’s just hat porn and hentai. I’m sorry.

Mr. Freeze:

Normal internet habits tbh. Doesn’t really go on the internet that often because he doesn’t particularly care about keeping up to date with what’s happening.

He used to have a Facebook where he’d post pictures of himself and Nora, but he can’t really do that anymore due to obvious reasons.

Penguin:

Lightly dabbles in dark web shit (for business purposes) but otherwise he’s like an old man on the internet. Checks the stock market and shit. Responds to his emails in a timely manner. He keeps track of everyone’s internet presence but that’s mostly because he enjoys drama and he doesn’t want to be out of the loop in case Eddie starts something again and he needs to know WHY Jervis and Pamela can’t be in the Iceberg at the same time without trying to kill each other.

He REFUSES to make a social media account for the Iceberg Lounge!!!! It is too classy for that!!!

Other than that, though… don’t tell anyone… but he keeps some tabs open on some 🥺🥺🥺 some bird forums and uh 🥺🥺🥺 m🥺🥺🥺 maybe some blogs he has that are all about Jane Austen and Star Trek: The Next Generation 🥺🥺🥺🥺 n-not like he LIKES Star Trek, though!!

Also in Batman #448 it shows that him and Batman canonically play chess with each other online and you know what? That’s cute as hell so I’m gonna say that they still do that.

Poison Ivy:

Surprising no one… she mostly blogs about botany

Will ONLY go onto other parts of the internet to like and share Harley, Selina, or Waylon’s posts and THAT'S IT!!!!

She is not above getting petty in the comment section!! If she finds a video of some clown over-watering their ferns she will absolutely let them know and she will not be polite about it.

Riddler:

Canonically has the best hookup and 100% is the most active online. Like yeah he does a lot of hacking shit but he uses the internet for legit stuff too.

PURPOSEFULLY looks himself up and will argue with anyone who talks smack about him on literally any of the search results. He WILL remember your username and he WILL publicly mock you for it when he freezes your laptop or when he takes over the broadcasting waves in Gotham again.

You KNOW he has a social media account for everything. He WILL talk about how smart and sexy he is and he WILL get around any attempts made to get him blocked, suspended, or banned. 

“You fool… I have 70  A L T E R N A T I V E  A C C O U N T S”

He is the self-proclaimed tech-guru of the Rogues. He WILL harass you if you are using the wrong web browser or if you have TOO MANY FUCKING TABS OPEN FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU.

He calms down somewhat once he becomes a P.I. He’ll take selfies at crime scenes and livestream himself when he’s finding clues or chasing someone down! He’s absolutely obsessed with it and he gets super popular. He knows that he shouldn’t broadcast himself solving crimes... but... the clicks... the views... his stans...

Enjoys gaming and modding whenever he has free time.

Scarecrow:

He hasn’t been in a classroom in years but if you looked at his internet habits you would think he’s still teaching psychology at Gotham U. Responds to emails responsibly (but NOT on weekends or after 10 pm!!)

Probably wouldn’t blog these days, but when he was younger he had a page where he would discuss his psychology work.

He mostly uses the internet for research or to order chemicals but he’ll often get swept up in some inane message chain with Harley and Eddie and he HATES IT.

He has like two dozen tabs open on his computer because he forgets about them and even though some of the tabs have been there for so long that he GENUINELY can’t remember why they were there, he keeps them because it makes Edward break into hives every time he tries to watch what he’s doing online. Giving Edward Nygma anxiety sweats is easy and free and should be done often.

Two-Face:

He uses incognito mode… whenever he needs to google embarrassing questions…

He likes to peruse the dark web but sometimes he enjoys hopping onto r/legaladvice and r/relationships and reads that shit like it's the Sunday paper.

If he’s bored or is having a bad mental day, he likes to look up all the Google doodle games that Google keeps archived. they’re all really cute and are a lot of fun to goof around with whenever he’s wanting to play something light and quick!