#no drop left behind

[fannedandflawless]

The Veritaserum Paradox: When One Drop Became a Flood

He told Harry that a single drop was enough. "Veritaserum. A powerful truth potion. Three drops, and you would answer any question put to you." The implication? Lethal precision. Controlled power.

And yet—when the time came to extract the truth from Barty Crouch Jr., Severus Snape tipped the entire vial into his mouth. Not a drop. Not three. All of it.

Was it a contradiction? A mistake? A forgotten line? Perhaps.

But if you look closer—if you know Snape—perhaps not.

🖤 Theory 1: Tactical Intimidation

The "drop" line was never about dosage. It was theatre. Psychological warfare. When Snape speaks, it’s not just for information—it’s for effect. With Harry, it was a warning dressed as education. With Barty Jr., it was certainty dressed as silence.

He didn’t need to empty the vial. But Snape never takes chances. Not when the truth is this dangerous.

🧪 Theory 2: Variable Potency

Veritaserum isn’t static. The dose depends on the strength of the subject’s Occlumency, their magical resistance, and even their mental state.

Harry, a 14-year-old boy? A drop might do. Barty Crouch Jr.? A trained Death Eater with a gift for deception?

You drown liars. You don't drizzle on them.

🎭 Theory 3: Alan Rickman knew what looked good on camera

Let's be honest. A single dainty drop would not have carried the same visual weight. The steady, deliberate pour? The silence? The glint of the vial?

Rickman performed Snape as someone who embodied gravitas. He didn’t administer truth. He delivered judgement.

—

So was it a contradiction?

Maybe.

But more likely—it was Snape doing what he always does: Choosing precision when possible. Certainty when necessary. And theatre, always.

[parrish-the-thot]

Steve whose parents finally decided to try parenting and decide to take take his car away before jetting away for however long and entirely forgetting they even took Steve’s keys with them .

Steve who needs rides to and from school and none of his other friends have cars yet and the bus doesn’t even go anywhere Steve’s house in loch Nora so-

He hears that Eddie “The Freak” Munson has a variety of services he offers, and Steve isn’t 100% sure what all the variety includes besides weed but at this point Steve figures why not ask the freak to give him rides to and from school for a few weeks.

Eddie is absolutely floored by the audacity of Hawkins most elite golden boy to ask Eddie to drop everting he has going on to play chauffeur and drive Harringtons little pompous ass around and he wants to say no just on principle but well, the consist intake of money is a lot better then hoping someone wants to trek out to the woods for a joint, and a lot safer too. Plus, Eddie likes to idea of Steve having to beg Eddie for a ride and watching him squirm in the passenger of eddies van, his pressed polos and fresh white Nikes itching to get out of his van of devilry.

Eddie ain’t sure what he was signing up for but it wasn’t getting up at the ass crack of dawn to drive Steve to school because Steve actually liked showing up early, nor did Eddie realize driving Steve to and from school including to and from swim ball practices . Eddie is about to call it quits but then Steve starts bringing him snacks and asking about Hellfire and says he likes Eddie rings so now Eddie really has no choice, not really, you try telling the boy who picked up your favorite gummies from the gas station and looks so proud he remembered your favorite flavor that you don’t wanna drive him to basket practice.

[peace-hunter]

tfone au where OP is created as the last of the primes but way after them, a sparkling born at what were thought to be the last days of the war against the quintessons, the beginning of a new generation of peace after eons of war. a child meant to be loved and raised knowing nothing of war nor sacrifice.

he's kept mostly out of the spotlight by his siblings, who don't wish to expose him to everyone's optics so young, and want to wait until the war is done and over to properly introduce him to their people.

except of course the primes are betrayed and murdered by sentinel, the war is lost and everyone who knows and cared for the truth is either banished or outright killed in order to suppress it.

and the high guard, the ones the primes trusted the most, the ones that were supposed to protect them, the ones who failed in their most important duty, have to make a choice. to take the last prime, their last hope, with them to the surface, a hostile environment where there's little to no supplies and where they'll be hunted down by both sentinel and the quintessons as the biggest threat to their regimen.

or hide him in plain sight. place him where sentinel won't think to look for him. one more sparkling among many. and hope it will be enough to keep him alive. pray to primus that he'll protect his last child long enough for them to come back for him when it's safer (even if most of them have already lost their faith on him when he allowed the rest of his children to be massacred like that)

they almost lose their resolve when they realize they will have to take the little one's cog away in order to make him blend in with the rest of the newborns (and oh do they burn with murderous intent when they see what sentinel has done to their people but it's not the time yet-) but in the end they decide an impaired little prime is better than a dead one.

and so in the chaos of thirteen dead primes and a sudden energon crisis, a little sparkling who very few mechs really knew about and even fewer had seen completely vanishes. and in the depths of iacon a mech in charge of a new batch of newborns scratches their helm in confusion as they realize they must have miscounted the first time.

optimus prime is quietly erased from any official records by sentinel, written off as dead when they find a sparkling's frame mangled beyond recognition after an attack on the base of those rebels that insist on being a thorn on his side. killing the sparkling hadn't been precisely in his plans, he probably could've found some use for it after all, but he's not particularly upset about it either.

and orion pax grows up with an ache on his spark that tells him he's missing something far more important than a t-cog and dreams of gentle and loving hands, cradling him against the frames of mechs he cannot recall the faces of.

[cabbagege]

[canisalbus]

Sobbing over Machete, who can only be seen smiling in one part of the growing up compilation, as a wee little lad.

Sobbing over the face that he was a toddler in that part, a child who had yet to be separated from his family or know the abuse of his "teacher," who only knew the joys of cute snails and holding his favorite pet chicken.

It seems like all of his issues were compounded after his family left him :(

It is what it is. Considering the cards he was dealt, he managed to play his hand pretty well, I think. I've been mulling over this a bit lately, and I'd go as far as to say that in the eyes of his contemporaries, his childhood probably wouldn't even have been unusually unhappy or unfortunate. By most metrics he was a wildly successful individual.

Historically speaking, child abandonment has been more widespread than a modern day person might initially think.

(source)

I'd also like to believe that his parents meant well and the decision to give him up wasn't an easy one. They were going through an impossibly tight squeeze of financial and emotional hardship, and Machete, the youngest child, was constantly sick with mystery illnesses they didn't know how to deal with (anemia + weakened immunity system being the main cause for most of them). Rather than having the entire family suffer and starve, they arranged to have him be left at a monastery, hoping to give him a fighting chance to survive.

If there's a silver lining to it, it was a immense stroke of luck he ended up somewhere where he was looked after (monks were known to have better understanding and access to medicine than commoners). Moreover, he was also taught to read, a rare and priced skill at the time, which ultimately enabled him to claw his way into the upper echelons of the society. Not only did he survive, he prevailed against all odds.

Machete himself probably has mixed feelings about his childhood. He doesn't like to think about it, and (like most people) doesn't realize or admit the extent it affected him. His parents only exist on some conceptual, untouchable level to him, and I don't think he has any desire to try to find out who they were and if they're still alive. He might harbor some repressed, aimless and faceless resentment for them for deciding to wash their hands of him for a reason for another. Maybe it's the root of his inferiority complex and persistent sense of inadequacy, knowing there must've been something wrong with him for that to happen. But then again, it's hard to truly miss something or someone you don't have a personal connection to, or any memories about. In the end, he wasn't worth their time then and they're not worth his time now.

He can recall some of his time in the monastery and it was mostly a pleasantly uneventful existence, filled with strict but soothing routines and a sense of community. His mentor (father-figure, whether he likes it or not) was a cold and brutish man who disciplined him harshly. His relationship with him is tense and inflamed, but he realizes he wouldn't have gotten as far as he did without his tutelage, connections and patronage. If he hadn't sponsored his studies in Venice, he would've never crossed paths with Vasco either.

[decayedfrailfern]

all grown up

happy 1st anniversary ifa ♡

[starwarskawaii]

I think some of you don't get how many times Bob attempted suicide during the movie. At least twice, btw.

[messing-with-my-zen-thing]

Another Ares thought. I know the Dillingers and Flynns are very different, and this strategy will probably (hopefully) be condemned in the movie itself. But the way Flynn planned to use the Grid as a way to reshape medicine and art and philosophy, and this new system is basically just being used to create weapons and an army… idk. Considering everything going on in the world right now, that shift isn’t lost on me and it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

[rebouks]

Previous // Next

Ivan: If y'don't get that thing outta my face I'mma smash the fuck outta yours. Oscar: C'monnn you haven't eaten all day. Ivan: I ain't fuckin' hungry!

[quill-of-thoth]

The Saga of Great Uncle Asshole And The Priest From Hell

It's thanksgiving (in the US) so have a family gathering disaster that is old enough to be funny. Almost a decade ago, after a life of stirring up drama everywhere she went, my grandmother died. She was an unhappy woman who tried to be better to her grandkids than she was to her kids, and didn't always succeed, and she's the reason that when I smell cinnamon tic tacs they're accompanied by the reek of an illusory cigarette. This is not a sad post. This is a post about the fact that her funeral was a fucking disaster and it was ultimately about 50% her fault. See, my whole family was at one point or another catholic. Grandma really enjoyed going to church in her last years because it got her out of the nursing home, and priests have to listen when you tell them about the husband you divorced and the children who think they know better than you. Grandma did not consider the fact that the local priest she'd latched onto like a talkative moray eel in a cloud of nicotine smoke was an unmitigated bigot. She left instructions that she wanted her funeral to be at that specific catholic church and for that priest to do the sermon. It didn't occur to her that the person who would be organizing her funeral would be her gay daughter and her daughter's wife.

Shit started getting real about when the doors opened to recieve mourners. Over the course of ten minutes, my aunt summoned:

her elder sister, a paralegal

my father, who has never seen a conflict he would not cheerfully walk away from

Their younger brother, in order to swear at the priest

My mother, who hadn't had a good opportunity to fight a priest since we left our own church and was game to do it again.

This left me, the eldest grandchild, in charge of the receiving line, despite the fact that I knew approximately no one there. My brother and cousins were woodenly shaking hands and then whispering "who's that?" "I don't know." My aunt's husband was escorting the elderly and infirm up the stairs one at a time. My uncle's wife was also around but she knew even fewer people and was mostly listening at the door of the ongoing argument.

So when my brother and Boy cousin went to see if we could pry someone who knew who was related to us out of the argument and I was busy trying to convince an octegenarian that she did NOT need to figure out which of her cousins had married one of grandma's siblings before sitting down, Girl Cousin was alone at the door.

Great Uncle Asshole arrived in a storm of curses and a faux-coonskin cap. He blew past Girl Cousin, thumped his cane up the steps, and seized my hand. It was like shaking hands with an extremely strong mummy. "You look just like your mother! It's the hair, what a bird's nest. Where's your daddy? And the rest of Helen's brood."

I muttered something about them finalizing details with the priest.

"Well, they'll come see me soon enough. Bet you don't know who I am!" I didn't know who anyone was. Everyone older than me was having a verbal cage match with a member of the clergy or escorting some other old fogey to their seats, everyone younger than me had even fewer clues, and my only hope was to wrap this conversation as fast as possible. "Nope!" I said, "I haven't seen most of the people here in years." If I had ever seen them in the first place. He was going to be mad, but I figured if I had to be the bouncer I could probably take an eighty-something year old guy who breathed like the surgeon general's personal warning to smokers. I could at least shut the door on him.

"Of course you wouldn't! Your gran wouldn't have told you. I'm your great uncle Roger, and I'm here to bury the hatchet, by which I mean your grandma! She and I swore over our father's casket we'd never be under the same roof again while we both lived, and by god I kept my oath!" People were starting to stare, and it was at this moment that a thirty-something man in a suit sprinted up the stairs, and my uncle's wife, with a look of dawning horror, called her husband. "Roger's here." The middle aged folks descended immediately. Here is a snapshot of the ensuing conversation: "Roger, why don't we find you a seat?" - my mother in her best teacher voice "Glad to see you're doing well enough to make it" - My father, in his best 'good god I want to be anywhere else' voice. "Take me to the coffin! I want to see her with my own two eyes!" - Great Uncle Asshole, "And hang up my **** hat! Killed it myself!" "I'm so sorry, I didn't know he could walk that fast" - strange suit man "If you are QUITE finished, I am starting the ceremony in ten minutes" - the priest

As my father and his brother towed a grinning and cursing old man to the furthest reaches of the family section, my mother and my oldest aunt caught all the cousins up on the argument with the priest. My youngest aunt was still crying while her wife stared fixedly at the stained glass panes and periodically handed over tissues. The upshot of it all was that my aunt and her wife would be allowed to attend the funeral (on pain of the whole family literally walking out on the priest) but would not be allowed to take communion, because the priest didn't believe in their marriage. My aunt's wife had neglected to point out that, being Jewish, she wasn't going to take communion anyway. "That's fucked" said boy cousin, and the four of us immediately resolved in whispers to refuse communion as well. The priest opened his sermon with pointed remarks about the older generation's devotion and respect for the church. He continued on through psalms and all that until he got to the blessing of the eucharist and asked the family up to receive communion. My father, who hadn't taken communion since I could remember, stayed seated. My mother stayed seated. My aunts and uncles stayed seated. The cousins stayed seated. About a third of the church didn't move. "Well father, I'll have mine! These young folks think hey have all the time in the world to get right with the lord, but you and I know better!" The priest, who had been visibly hoping god would smite us, turned a wincing glare on my great uncle and the series of distant relatives and nursing home neighbors who were now shuffling up. The service dragged on. We were lined up to say goodbye to everyone, while the suit man (who would turn out to be my second cousin) bodily hauled great uncle asshole and his coonskin cap down the stairs. "I should have known my sister wouldn't manage to raise any good Catholics! Horrible woman." he said loudly as he was stuffed into a car driven by suit man's apparent twin. The priest approached as we were finally ready to leave, to ask why we were so stubborn that we deprived ourselves of communion. After all, unlike my youngest aunt, we weren't obvious sinners! "Oh, I'm Lutheran" - My eldest aunt. "I'm an atheist" - My uncle "I don't think you're qualified to bless anything." - My mother, who learned her religion primarily from a horde of socialist-leaning nuns.

With that, we left the wreck of my grandmother's funeral behind. "Helen," said my mother, very deliberately, when we were safely in the car, "would have HATED that." My dad started laughing. "Are you kidding? She would have loved that! It would have been all she complained about for years!"

[mintjeru]

me the entire time i was drawing this: i wish i was that cat happy birthday xiao my beloved 💜

open for better quality | no reposts

[hogletthe2nd]

why the fuck does everyone outside of the dsmp fandom act like we all died after 2023

[havenshereagain]

Random YJ98 thought: Cissie becoming a doctor/medic for the Justice League

We know she has some field medicine training from the whole Our Worlds At War arc - she wanted to help without getting back into the fight itself

What if that stuck? If she decided that helping people that way was something she wanted to do?

She would never be a hero in the traditional sense again, but what if she was a hero to the heroes? The one to help them when they were hurt, stablize their injuries and help them recover to go back in the field?

[sophsun1]

Queer as Folk – 2.15: Rage Against This Machine

[depmode]

crack idea on my mind today: davrin trying to rizz up the inquisitor, not knowing they are Them. over a period of time to make it extra awkward. rook knows from the start that davrin has no clue but pfht he's not saying anything. it's funny. (and the quiz probably likes not being recognized)

[sunb0ts]

got told today that my build looks like.... adoptive brother's did at this age...... peace on earth.........