#Contrary to that assertion

[fideidefenswhore]

Though she was oblivious to any revelations Cromwell had made to her husband about her alleged conduct, Queen Anne was becoming increasingly uneasy in the hostile atmosphere surrounding her. So much so that on or around 26 April [1536] she approached her chaplain, Matthew Parker. Anne trusted Parker implicitly and implored him to do something for her: if anything should happen to her, she charged him with keeping a watchful eye on her child. Elizabeth, Anne's chief jewel and the daughter whom she adored, was her foremost priority.

Young Elizabeth: Elizabeth I and Her Perilous Path to the Crown, Nicola Tallis

[gawrkin]

(From The Romance of Tristan and Iseult by Joseph Bedier)

Hm-hmm. So, it is kinda acknowledged in-story that it's illegal for Mark to do a summary execution without trial...

[fiapple]

but also like literally want to emphasize the “including other trans people” part of that last addition. like there is a reason the times i’ve personally written posts about the issues with how tmes speak over transfems regarding transmisogyny in the name of “having our own terms” or the issues with the trans mra movement, i get anons positioning my motives within the realm of trans women’s fuckability by other tme people. & that’s still nothing compared to what transfeminine users on here go through while trying to self advocate .

[the-darkness-does-not-bargain]

For Beatrice in your transmasc!Ava AU: How many ppl have they had sex with?

Not many. I'd say about 3 or 4 people prior to meeting Ava, at least 2 of which were semi-longterm girlfriends. I haven't fleshed all that out yet though, so consider this subject to change at any time.

As for the other asks, I'm planning to get to them tomorrow since they'll take more time🙂. I just have to go to bed now.

[diazpoems]

It just occurred to me that while I was still on here heavily I used to be very wishy washy with whether I supported proshipping or not. And whilst it’s not that big a deal to me now bc I’m no longer quite so chronically online I feel the need to mention that idk how it’s controversial to say that shipping incest or pedophilia is weird. Like you’re weird for that idk. I don’t know how many people that follow me are particularly opposed to that notion, I don’t really remember being hardline on it, but I guess I am now.

[aliosne]

We all know this is the celibacy website but even amongst the tumblrites who HAVE fucked/dated, it boggles my mind how many assume you’ve only ever been with one person like my brother in christ I am almost 37

[great-and-small]

You know what I hate about the internet? Sometimes people will just lazily slap a “citation” on an infographic and trust that they’ll be completely taken at their word and nobody is going to dig deeper. And it works all the time. As an example, please look at this photo someone posted to dispute my assertion that garlic can be toxic to dogs.

Okay well, kind of a pain to manually type in that link but obviously I am going to look into this study that is confident enough to recommend people feeding their dogs garlic. So here’s the article, kind of a weird journal choice for this graphic to reference from but looks like a legit (though 20 year old) study

Funny thing is, almost immediately this article acknowledges that garlic can indeed be toxic to dogs. The health benefits mentioned in the graphic are referring to human health, not canine. This section is literally in the introduction of the article and one of the first things you read. Emphasis here is mine.

Crazy to me that someone would imply that this article encourages giving dogs garlic when it in fact immediately asserts that doing so has the potential to cause hemolytic anemia. The article does explore the anti-thrombotic effects of garlic components in dogs and humans, but by no means does it say that “contrary to misconceptions garlic is safe for pets”. It is dishonest to assert this in an infographic. However the creator of the image correctly assumed nobody would check, because the person who posted it took it as fact without further investigation.

I am begging you to be skeptical. Check your sources. Check their sources. Check my sources. Learn how to dig deeper and exercise that muscle as much as you can, especially on the internet. You will be absolutely shocked how much misinformation is casually stated and received as pure fact.

[deathdxnces]

t-poses in ur inbox.

— @axewhirl

[fideidefenswhore]

Yeah I like to see some quotes please. I can't really get my head round people believing in Mary's bona fides when the law didn't even exist in England. It's like Americans obsessing over a law only Canadians have. But I guess loyalty/sentiment/status quo was a big part of it.

Well, I don't think most noblewo/men were deeply well-versed in succession/inheritance laws of England and all their precedents, unless they'd happened to also study law...the assumption was probably that what was the law in most of Christendom was for England as well, understandably. But, then, that's not even a subject that seems to be well-understood in 21c historiography:

“[Henry VIII] now argued she would would be barred by illegitimacy. This contention puzzled continental contemporaries because elsewhere in western Europe those children born to couples who in good faith believed themselves validly married were treated as legitimate. Nevertheless, Henry was right. After a period of some uncertainty, by the late fourteenth century England had opted out of the bona fides principle. As Sir John Baker notes, 'succession problems were usually debated in legal terms and in accordance with the common law canons of inheritance.’ A successful challenge to his marriage would thus automatically bastardise Mary and leave Henry no direct heir… [although] Mary could have been legitimated by statute.” - JF Hadwin, Katherine of Aragon and the Veil, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History

... so that's, for the 16c, like I said, an understandable assumption. (Also, their source was probably Chapuys, who was familiar with both secular and church law, but espoused many misunderstandings of their precedents, too...so did Fisher, they're enumerated in another article by the same historian, titled Leviticus, Deuteronomy and Henry VIII, I will post those relevant quotes too, if they're of interest to you, asw).

Yeah, the bona fides element was... an interesting one, nevertheless...like, all the interrogations I mentioned, everyone says they've heard Mary was bona fides but won't really explain what it meant, they admit their ignorance on the subject, and won't name the source of where they've heard it (although, like I mentioned, they are willing to point fingers to deflect suspicion off themselves of their former friends in other regards), just assert that they all sort of mindlessly (lol) repeated what they'd heard, all, understandably, to maintain plausible deniability and get themselves out of the hot water they've landed themselves in.

For the Exeter conspiracy, I've posted one relevant in the past, I'll see what else I can scrounge up from my notes of excerpts.

It was, but I don't think courtier opportunism should be underestimated. Just one example, but I always remember that the Marquis of Exeter was one of the delegation of nobles HVIII sent to pressure CoA to relinquish her rights as Queen, tell Charles V to stop interfering in the matter, and one of the conspirators named by Chapuys in the Boleyn downfall. Granted, his wife had been one of Mary's supporters from very early on, so I think that element is there.

Elitism is probably an overestimated element, like while it's true the Boleyns were not born of royalty (neither were the Seymours, tho, so like...); I think what was going on beneath the surface was more intricate. Take Nicholas Carew, for example: originally, he'd been of the Boleyn faction, understandably, since they were cousins (he also, initially at least, seemed to favour a French alliance, so there's that). But I think what began as , well, the King needs a son, and if he's going to marry another wife, it might as well be a woman of my family as anyone else, to my benefit as much as anyone else...well, I think the shine came off this as matters unfolded. The thrust of their expectations were probably that AB was going to have as much, or less, influence as her predecessor with Henry, and her influence and power quickly outstripped those expectations. As the Boleyns gained power, wealth, and influence, and as men like Carew felt their own influence ebb in favour of say, George Boleyn (and I use him as an example, because by early 1536, it's evident many noblemen hated George, Lancelot de Carles' report of those events really crystallizes this)...well, resentment only grew, and their desire for the return of the status quo was thus kindled.

[prokopetz]

Not posting this as a reblog because I don't want to screw with somebody else's notes, but the whole "theological implications of Tolkien's orcs" business has some interesting history behind it.

In brief, a big part of why the Lord of the Rings Extended Universe™ is so cagey about what orcs are and where they come from is that later in his life, Tolkien came to believe that orcs as he'd depicted them were problematic – albeit not because of, you know, all the grotesque racial caricature.

Rather, he'd come to the conclusion that the idea of an inherently evil sapient species – a species that's incapable of seeking salvation – was incompatible with Christian ethics. Basically, it's one of those "used the wrong formula and got the right answer" situations.

In his notes and letters, Tolkien played around with several potential solutions to this problem. (Though contrary to the assertions of certain self-proclaimed Tolkien scholars, there's no evidence that he ever seriously planned to re-write his previous works to incorporate these ideas.) In one proposal, orcs are incarnated demons, and "killing" them simply returns them to their naturally immaterial state; in another, orcs are a sort of fleshy automaton remotely operated by the will of Sauron, essentially anticipating the idea of drone warfare.

Of course, this is all just historical trivia; any criticism of The Lord of the Rings must be directed at the books that were actually published, not the books we imagine might have been published if Tolkien had spent a few more years thinking through the implications of what he was writing. However, the direction of his thoughts on the matter is striking for two reasons:

Tolkien's orc conundrum is very nearly word for the word the problem that many contemporary fantasy authors are grappling with fifty years later. They want epic battles with morally clean heroes, and they're running up against exactly the same difficulty that Tolkien himself did – i.e., that describing a human-like species who are ontologically okay to kill is an impossible task.

After all the work he put into solving this impossible problem, one of Tolkien's proposals was literally just "what if they're not really killing the orcs, they're just sending them to the Shadow Realm?"

[ghelgheli]

Historians are rarely challenged just for applying words like ‘woman’ and ‘man’ to the past; it would not inevitably cause a backlash to say that a historical figure wanted power, or grieved, or felt anger. A trans historian, though, is caught in the double-bind of the DSM-5. Our experiences and our desires are quite literally mad. We do not have the social license to see ourselves fractured and reflected in historical figures; we are standing in the wrong place to write. Put simply, if you foreclose trans readings, you foreclose trans writing. When we reflect on the similarities between our lives and those of historical figures, we are accused of spreading our social contagion to the dead. To read our own anamorphoses in a text, to communicate that to a cis academic establishment who have rendered our unqualified subjectivities unimaginable, we are forced to accuse historical figures of transness. And then, of course, we are chastised for pathologising them. For a trans historian, it is not viable to simply universalise our experiences of gender. In order to relate to historical figures’ gendered experiences in our writing in a way that is legible to cis readers, we have to assert that those figures were trans. There is a gap to be bridged, and the onus to bridge it falls on us… Transmisogyny and anti-effeminacy were and are integral to the structure of patriarchy and therefore to cisness (or vice-versa). In ‘Monster Culture (Seven Theses)’, Jeffrey Jerome Cohen proposed a methodology for reading cultures: ‘from the monsters they engender’. In concluding this sketch of Byzantine cisness, I would like to attempt to apply this method. To monster a group or an individual is a violent act, and through examining the way transfemininity was monstered in Byzantium, we can begin to understand the shape of the violent regulation of gendered possibilities that constituted Byzantine cisness… Synesius [of Cyrene] did not simply compare the image of the elegantly coiffed effeminate with the shiny dome of the soldier’s helmet; he went one step further, proclaiming that pretty hair was the give-away for hidden effeminacy. He rails against ‘effeminate wretches’ who ‘make a cult of their hair’, who he suggests engage in sex work not out of economic necessity but as an act of sex and gender exhibitionism, to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. Then, he goes on to say:

And whoever is secretly perverted, even if he should swear the contrary in the marketplace, and should present no other proof of being an acolyte of Cotys save only in a great care of his hair, anointing it and arranging it in ringlets, he might well be denounced to all as one who has celebrated orgies to the Chian goddess and the Ithyphalli.

The implication is clear: long, well kempt, perfumed and curled hair is not just hair, it is a signifier, one that signals total abnegation of manhood, and therefore of cisness. This demonstrates one of the mechanisms by which cisness was maintained and enforced in the Byzantine world. Relatively minor embodied gender transgressions, like too-long or too-pretty hair, could be linked to transfemininity and to sexual receptivity, the two farthest points from patriarchal manhood. That is not to say that this prevented people from committing such gender transgressions; rather that it made them risky, a weapon that could be used against you by anyone who wanted to do you harm. The other thing demonstrated by Synesius’ invective is the relationship between effeminacy, unmasculine vanity and presumed sexual receptivity. It would be tempting, based on the relationship Synesius draws between long beautiful hair and receptive anal sex, to suggest that the animating force of this antipathy is, if not homophobia, a narrower pre-modern equivalent. There is, however, a fantastically complicating detail in Synesius’ remark on the reasons such ‘effeminates’ engage in sex work: being sexually available is presented as an instrumental, rather than terminal value. In Synesius’ imagination, sex work is the means, but social recognition of the feminine gender of the sex worker is the end: to ‘display fully the effeminacy of their character’. The monster Synesius invokes to shore-up his own gender position, to guard his own cisness and his access to hegemonic masculinity, is an unambiguously transmisogynist fantasy. It is here that Byzantine cisness most sharply converges with twenty-first-century cisness.

‘Selective Historians’: The Construction of Cisness in Byzantine and Byzantinist Texts, Ilya Maude [DOI]

[ssahotchnerr]

Hello! How are you doing?

I don't have anything extremely specific (sorry, I'm just leaving work and haven't really thought about this).

But if you want to, how about jealous Aaron who has the, very rare, opportunity to go pick up the reader from her job and see her all smiles with another coworker? In this case I was thinking that there might be a age gap between them and the male coworker is more of her age? So a bit of jealous and insecure Hotch?

If you feel comfortable with this of course!

Have a good day 😊

in comparison

cw; fem!reader, age gap, insecure :( and jealous!aaron, some angst, small suggestiveness, fluff <3 wc; 1.2k

You were exiting the building with a few of your colleagues, partaking in what appeared to be an entertaining conversation from Aaron's line of sight. The liveliness on your face was vivid, undoubtedly enjoying whatever the whole of you were collectively discussing.

You looked comfortable, relaxed, happy. You molded into the group well. One of your male colleagues in particular was inching a bit too close, a near awestruck expression on his face as a laugh escaped you. If he took one step to his right, his shoulder would be touching yours. While you were clueless, he was enamored.

Aaron felt his eyes harden involuntarily, a jealous heat swarming through his body; he wanted to march over there and assert his role as yours. However, the feeling wasn't long lasting. A profound sadness climbed up his spine, as he gained a different perspective.

It wasn't that you didn't fit into his life. On the complete contrary: you were the perfect addition.

But something about seeing you with others, with someone closer to your age, was daunting. Intimidating. It sickened him how natural the visual appeared. Reality has smacked him in the face numerous times over the years, he wouldn't be surprised if it happened again. That somehow, someway, you would prefer the latter. The one that had nothing to do with him.

As you walked towards Aaron's car, you glanced back at your coworkers, offering a wave and a smile as they jointly headed to the parking lot. His window was opened a crack, and he heard you call back towards them, "Have fun tonight!"

Aaron exhaled a breath.

"Hey." You chirped as you slid into the passenger seat, leaning over the center console to place a kiss on Aaron's cheek. He was rather stiff as you did so, causing you to lightly scrunch your nose in confusion, pulling away slowly. Something was up.

"Hey," He echoed, greeting you with an almost forced smile. The abruptness of his thoughts had unsettled him deeply - he couldn't shake them. "You ready?"

"As I'll ever be." You responded hesitantly, searching his face as you buckled your seatbelt. You added after a moment, happy to be in his company and the emotion overtaking your heart. "I missed you today."

But your words went unnoticed, as he had already reentered the void that was his unwelcome thoughts.

In result the car ride home was silent, Aaron's pout unfaltering. His mind was plagued by the image of your coworker being in his place, driving you home, or the two of you huddled together amongst a night out with friends. It caused an uncomfortable, sad pit in his stomach.

"You missed a turn."

"What?"

Your statement jolted him back to earth. No he didn't... did he? His eyebrows furrowed in a line, reassessing the current surroundings. Nothing out of the ordinary, all familiar street signs. When he confirmed he, in fact, did not miss a turn, he turned to you, only to find a knowing smirk plastered on your face.

His eyebrows quirked softly, obstructing the line drawn above his eyes. "What was that about?"

"To get your mind off whatever you're stewing about."

A smile threatened his lips, due to your witty expression and observation, "I'm not." His tone found a slightly lighter note - amusingly guilty. Anything but convincing.

"Aaron, darling, you're gonna break some teeth if that," Your playful demeanor dropped for a moment, your eyes tracing back and forth, as if you were in a trance. "Jaw of yours tightens anymore."

Your brief distraction eased a notion of his jealousy, he still had that effect on you, thankfully. He readjusted his grip on the steering wheel, his stare forward.

"So what is it?" You asked, "Did you have a bad day?"

He shook his head.

"Bad bout of cases?"

Aaron grimaced, his knuckles letting up only to secure his fingers over the wheel again, "They're always bad."

"Something I did?"

He opened his mouth to respond, but only silence came out. His hesitation caused your face to fall, your shoulders dropping and posture succumbing to the back of your seat.

"No honey, no you didn't do anything." He was quick to reassure, feeling entirely worse. "I can assure you."

Your eyes met his, needing more.

He sighed defeatedly, surprisingly not afraid to bluntly admit, "I'm jealous."

"Jealous?" You froze, but then it clicked. You gestured behind, as if your colleagues were somehow tailing the two of you. "Of...?"

Aaron bit his lip, nodding slowly.

Your expression lightened, a soft and genuine wonder in your eyes, "Why?"

"Are you okay with this?" Confusion arose on your face once more, so he clarified. "This. Us. You signed up for a lot, quickly at that."

Truth be told, the two of you had progressed at a rate neither of you expected, due to the sheer infatuation you possessed for one another. That, too, had been natural.

"I'm divorced, widowed, a father - I come with baggage. My 'going-out' are days long gone. I don't want you missing out."

"Aaron." In a way, you could laugh. It tore your heart into pieces he was thinking this way, doubting himself but he was clueless in an adorably, idiotic way. In summary, he simply never gave himself the credit he deserved. "What could I possibly be missing out on?"

"You could be spending your weekends out, socializing, with people closer in age. And yet, you're..." He came up with an example. "Making pillow forts. These are supposed to be the best years of your life. I'm terribly boring in comparison."

"Hey, I make a mean pillow fort."

He gave you a look.

Your hand grabbed his bicep affectionately, clinging onto it as if you were knocking some sense into him. "I chose this. I chose you. Jack is the addition to my life I never knew I needed. And I don't want to be out galavanting bar to night club to bar. I jump at the opportunity to deny a night out to spend it in. With you. When have you ever seen me wanting to go out and party?"

An expression of distaste flashed across your face at the concept, and Aaron's head tilted to the side as he considered your point.Yeah, that was true.

"I'm a homebody. And if there's anything I've realized over the course of the past months, you're my home. You."

Aaron let out the breath he didn't know he was holding.

"I know what I'm in for. And I embrace it with open arms. I want it." Your face was content, even more so than when you were talking with your colleagues. "I love you. And I love the life we're creating. It's so special, beyond my wildest dreams."

"Really?" A boyish, hopeful expression graced his face.

"Really. I wouldn't want it any other way. I can promise you. This- you're everything I could ever want."

Aaron's hand found your thigh, giving it a gentle, loving squeeze. "I love you too, sweetheart."

You beamed in response - you'd never get tired of the words leaving his lips.

"That one guy though," Aaron raised his eyebrows, taking a quick glance at you. Envy began creeping back, "He seemed interested. Wasn't a fan of that."

You scoffed, unbothered. "I'm into men, not boys. Which again, you are the utmost depiction of." Your delightful smirk resurfaced, admirably looking him over. "Believe me, I couldn't be more satisfied."

He wanted to play into your suggestive remarks, but he needed further confirmation. Once more. "You sure?"

"Oh, I'm positive."

Finally satisfied himself, he surrendered, "Okay."

"In fact, I can think of a few ways to show you just how much later."

[allthegeopolitics]

Last week, President Joe Biden amplified a dangerous myth when he claimed that the Middle East has long harboured an “ancient hatred for Jews”. This assertion, made during Holocaust Memorial Week, suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of the region’s history. By alleging that Hamas is “driven by an ancient desire to wipe the Jewish people off the face of this earth”, Biden not only spreads falsehoods but also engages in a troubling revisionism of history. It is no exaggeration to suggest that the rhetoric of the US President serves to justify Israel’s genocidal actions in Gaza and its takeover of historic Palestine. Biden’s statement effectively transposed the historical anti-Semitism prevalent in Europe and the ancient animosity toward Jews within Christendom onto the Middle East. How can Hamas, a group established in 1987 in response to Israeli occupation, be attributed to an “ancient hatred”, especially given the absence of a historical precedent for such animosity towards Jews in the Middle East compared to Europe? In fact, for centuries, Jews found sanctuary and co-existence in Muslim-ruled lands while facing persecution in Europe. This fact is attested to even by some of the staunchest critics of Islam and Muslims. “The coming of Islam saved [Jews]”, an essay in the Jewish Chronicle concluded.  The author goes on to state that Islam provided a new context in which Jews “not only survived, but flourished, laying foundations for subsequent Jewish cultural prosperity.” The historical reservoir of anti-Semitism that led to the Holocaust did not originate in the Muslim world, but rather in Christian Europe. Contrary to Biden’s assertion of “ancient desires”, the Middle East, where the three Abrahamic faiths were born, was not the breeding ground for such sentiments. In fact, Muslims and Jews have a rich history of peaceful co-existence and mutual support, dating back to the time of Prophet Muhammad. As early as 622 CE, the Prophet ratified the constitution of Medina, a ground-breaking pact that unified Muslims, Jews and others into one community, as part of the Ummah, demonstrating a long-standing alliance and shared heritage.

Continue Reading.

[awearywritersworld]

gratitude

gojo satoru x reader summary: gojo wakes up early one morning, suddenly aware that he can't live without you. w/c: .5k tags/warnings: fluff. gn!reader. a/n: happy jjk day!!! masterlist check out my latest work for gojo here

gojo satoru is something of a stranger to gratitude, but can anyone really blame him? he was born with unmatched strength, unaccustomed to the blood, sweat, and tears many people shed to gain even a fraction of the power he possesses.

he's the son of one of the wealthiest clans in japan, so he's never gone to bed hungry, nor has he ever had to wear a pair of shoes that were past their prime. he's also blessed with good looks, always flaunting the kind of smile that makes people turn their heads.

now, that's not to say he's never felt thankful in his life. quite the contrary. he was thankful when nanami returned to jujutsu tech and when yuuji came back to life even after sukuna ripped out his heart. hell, he was thankful for the kid at the bakery who served him a particularly exquisite lemon loaf last week.

but he's never felt true gratitude. you know, the kind you experience when you're given something you can't possibly live without. the kind that moves you, shakes you to the core.

that is, until he's laying in bed beside you, already awake as the sun begins to kiss the morning sky. his eyes trail over your face in the pale blue light of dawn, taking great pains to commit every little detail to memory.

it's then that he feels it, gratitude that seeps into his bones and fills him with relief, hope, and elation all at once. gratitude that changes him as a person, because how could he exist without you? without the soft curve of your nose, without the fullness of your lips, without those cute little snores that let him know you're still sleeping peacefully?

you're laying on your stomach, your back exposed and the sheet bunched around your waist. he traces each divot of your spine with a careful and loving touch, acutely aware that there isn't a thing in the world that could possibly compare to the feeling of your skin against his own.

"'toru? what're you doing awake?" you ask groggily, pulling him from his thoughts.

"hmph.. can't sleep 'cause you're such a blanket hog."

"yeah? are you sure you're not just staring at me again, all googly eyed and creepy?" you pop one eye open to discern the look on his face.

"i've got no idea what you're talking about," he asserts, pulling you against his chest in an attempt to obscure his guilty grin.

you've already seen it though. "i think you're delusional or something, you should get some more sleep."

you feel his chest shift, a breath of a laugh passing his nose. "yeah, you're probably right."

you hum, satisfied with his answer, then tangle your legs with his and close your eyes. "i love you."

gojo has taken a lot of things for granted in his life, he's smart enough to know that, but those three words? from your lips? he'll be grateful for them until the end of time.

"i love you, too."

taglist: @torusmochi @moonmalice

[heartfullofleeches]

[Submissive Yan, Pet Play, Biting, Reader is mentioned to be shorter than Sam]

Puppy Reader employed at a local convenience store- A convenience store a street across from the funeral owned by the family of a certain mortician they've become well acquainted with in recent years. Needless to say, reader's job is far more relaxed with its dress code than the standards someone in Sammy's position should be held to.

"My ears and tail? My managers never say anything about it so I guess it's chill. I dunno what I'd do if I was in your shoes, Sam...Not that the way you dress is bad or anything!"

Darling can sense jealousy emanating off of Sammy whenever he visits for his nightly run. It's moreso directed at customers Darling allows to pet them, but Sam would be lying if he didn't think the collar they wore might fit better around his neck. Darling comes to the brilliant solution to buy Sammy his own accessories he can wear whenever he stops by their place. He's too embarrassed to do it in public, but he's comfortable enough around them- isn't he?

"This way we can both we dogs- What do you think, Sam?"

It's a sweet gesture- Sammy can see how happy Darling is to have someone share their interest, and if they're happy - Sam is too.

"You're such a good boy, Sammy- I have this leash I used sometimes to walk myself around my apartment. Maybe we can take turns with it!"

Sammy's more into it than they are- Dropping down on his hands and knees soon as they pull out their leash. They're kind enough to let Sam use their collar until they're able to purchase one for him. It was custom made for Darling so it bites into Sammy's skin whenever he puts it on, and that's just how he likes it.

Darling's never really been intimidated by Sam's height over them, but they use it to their advantage to assert their dominance over him. Playfully nipping at his fingers or neck when he bends down far enough- Climbing on top of him while he's seated and resting all their weight on him to keep him glued where he lays. It's all in good fun and they made sure Sam knew that before they started playing with him

"You give up, Sam?... S-sammy?! Did I bite you too hard?"

On the contrary.. Sammy wishes Darling was rougher with staking their claim over him. Sinking their teeth deeper into the side of his neck, till bruises ring every each of his throat for days. Being the submissive to a cute puppy like darling would fix Sam more than their innocent teasing breaks him