#also yes two of them are *ahem* very legitimate

[thefrogdalorian]

The UCS Lego Razor Crest figure of Din made a fine addition to my collection...

[shirohige-pirates]

Just Like Fire

CisFem Reader x Portgas D. Ace

CW: angst, language, erotic, violence, serial killer, stalking, poisoning, over-bearing controlling parents, attempted forced marriage, possible dub-con, Munchausen by proxy (aka Factitious Disorder), wildly cute and fluffy despite the warnings. 18+ only

Summary: You're Sabo's biological sister in this AU. After college you moved in with your dear brother and his two sworn brothers in order to avoid going back home. You and Sabo despise your family equally.

Chapter 7: When it Rains

Sabo returned shortly after Penguin and the others had left, and he was carrying three lidded trays stacked on one another. You and Ace caught him up on what he missed while the three of you ate.

“You didn’t get a tray for Luffy?” You question.

“I’m sure if he hasn’t eaten the vending machines dry yet, he’s almost there.” Sabo says with a grin. “The cafeteria’s also opened for another six hours, so if he comes back and is legitimately hungry he can get more food.”

“Is his appetite part of his curse?” You ask, turning toward Ace.

He shakes his head as his eyes flick toward Sabo. You look over at your brother who still has shock scrawled on his face.

“He stretched in front of her.” Ace offers and Sabo’s shock fades.

“I see.” He says with a small smile. “You handled it well then?”

“Of course.” You say, turning your nose up into the air. “I’m not so rude as to gape.” You tease.

“She did though.” Ace says, telling on you as you turn to him with a gasp. “She gasped too, just like that.”

“Traitor!” You squeak, swinging your hand over to smack his arm.

“Ruffian!” Ace asserts, fending off your mock attack with a wide smile.

“Tyrant!” You both say at the same time before you fall into a laugh, Ace smiling at you.

Sabo watches the two of you quietly, before clearing his throat, and tapping your tray of food. “So we’re stuck waiting for now, it seems.”

“Ah, ahem, yes.” You reply, turning your attention back to your meal.

Sabo leans back and sighs, looking up at the ceiling. You’re concerned you’ve upset him with how you and Ace were acting, but he clears the air before you start to worry.

“Waiting is the worst part.” He sighs. You and Ace agree quietly, both of you visibly relaxing as you focus on your meals.

The minutes tick by. Ace takes everyone’s trays back to the cafeteria and you’re alone with your brother for a while.

“A distraction,” Sabo says, standing to close the door to the room. “I think a distraction is a good way to pass some of this awful time.” He hums to himself as he turns toward you with a knowing grin and sits on the edge of the bed. “You like him.”

Your face heats up so quickly you can’t even begin to argue. “I… I won’t let it affect the living arrangements, I promise.” You assert, face hidden in your hands.

Sabo almost snorts a laugh, patting your leg comfortingly. “Unless you began screaming cruel ideas about the cursed I don’t think there’s anything you could do to disrupt our home. I’m not admonishing you, lil’ spark.”

You clear your throat, looking away. “I still… can’t, can I?”

“Eh?”

“I can’t like him.” You repeat, looking down at your hands. “Not until we’re Emancipated. Ichiji would - our parents would harm him. How could I-?”

“Shh.” Sabo interrupts. “My apologies, I meant to distract you, not distress you. Don’t worry about it too much. Ace is very strong, so is Luffy. I wouldn’t worry about either of them with whatever you decide.”

“And you?” You question, trying to smile.

“I’m the strongest one, of course!” Sabo assures you with a smile, before his expression hardens a little. “Don’t let the shadows from our youth hold you back. Not anymore.”

You take a deep breath and let out a heavy sigh. “I will… do my best.”

“…Have you fallen that hard?” He asks with a smile.

You’re sure your ears are red, you can feel your blood rushing into your face so hard. “He’s… very comfortable.”

“Hmm.” Sabo hums affectionately, looking away when you shoot him a glare.

“Not a word.”

“I would never.” He asserts, putting his hands up in surrender.

A knock at the door gets your attention and Sabo calls out. “Enter! Though we’re hardly decent in here.” He adds as the door opens.

Ace is grinning as he comes into the room. “Am I closing all the indecent people in, or am I leaving the door open?”

“Open’s fine.” You say a little hurriedly.

“So says the only decent one among us,” Sabo says smoothly. “Ah, but that makes me think of opposites - where’s Luff?”

“Hey!” Luffy grumbles, coming into view as Ace comes further into the room. The freckled brother is laughing as Luffy pouts, cheeks puffed in indignation.

Sabo laughs too. “How many beetles did you harass today?”

Luffy’s face lights up. “I found seven! I tried to bring them in to show you, but the guard at the entrance wouldn’t let me.”

“You cannot bring bugs into a hospital Luffy!” You gasp.

“That’s what the guard said, but I could! I had a good hold on them and everything.” Luffy pouts more as Sabo and Ace are nearly wheezing with suppressed laughter, trying not to disrupt the whole floor with their laughing.

“Get in here and sit down, you little gremlin.” Ace says, tugging Luffy into the room. “You’ll get us kicked out before we find out about (Y/N).”

Luffy’s cheeks are still puffed out but he goes and sits in the back of the room, looking out the window. The three of you try to soothe Luffy’s hurt pride for a few minutes before the conversation tapers off.

The late afternoon sun sinks it into your bones how long you’ve been here. Even though you hadn’t been doing anything, the stress looms over you, and it’s eating away at everyone’s mood.

It’s almost 3pm before there’s a knock at the open door. Luffy’s soft snoring breaks as you all turn toward Law and Chopper. As they step in, you catch sight of Penguin, Sachi and Bepo standing guard outside before they close the door. Your worried eyes travel from the two doctors to Sabo, Ace and Luffy.

Three brothers stand on one side of your bed, Sabo’s fingers laced in yours, as Law and Chopper come to the other side of your bed.

“I apologize for how long this took, but we wanted to be absolutely certain before we said anything.” Law says as he looks over everyone in the room. Somehow the dark circles under his eyes look worse than they had just earlier this morning.

Chopper steps up onto a stool so he’s level with you and not the edge of the bed. Law gives one more glance toward the door before continuing.

“There’s no easy way to say this, but your mother has been poisoning you for years.”

[exhokai]

nagisa smut weewooweewoo

cws; breeding, overstim, rough nagisa, doggy, caught (or in the theme of that), probs poorly written bc i haven’t written in years, this was written in a comedic narrator perspective, dom!nagisa

gn reader

note: i wrote this in class oopsies (I ALSO FINALLY FINISHED THIS)

————————————————♥︎——————————————————

you were face first into the pillow, grabbing the sheets while nearly tearing em out, and getting destroyed by nagisa.

you had no idea how you got here (neither do i) but all you know is Nagisa came back to the hotel room after an Eden concert, saw you, and started biting and toying with your hole (hehe hole)

“mmph!! nagis- AHH!!” you were met with a specifically hard thrust while saying his name as he just stared at the marks and sweat decorating your neck and back. he was so into the moment that the didn’t realize he was basically jackhammering you with how he was thrusting.

“n-mmm!! nagisa!!♡” how do you moan an em…OHHHH nvm. ANYWAYS I GUESS THAT JACKHAMMERING FEELS GOOD READER-MI 🤨. nagisa felt a reaction to you saying his name, so cute getting wrecked by his cock aren’t you? (you slut) he spoke no words besides constan breathing and grunts “god you look so cute” until now. making my narrating job harder you mf

“ple- please nagisa- hahh” “yes my dearest?” he actually decided to reply. wow. “please- hhn let me cum!!” bro 💀 im…(whispers) NOT DONE NARRATING?! BROOOO HUHUHUHHHBNN. you begged him to let you cum but your words went in one ear and out the other (minus the moans of course you pretty thing ♡)

he picked your hips up a bit to rub you while laying on you, you started nearly screaming while he was stimulating two parts you. you started bucking your hips up towards him and twitching as you your voice went silent from all the screaming in a silent moan with only little breaths as you came, but whats this? the fucker decided ‘im gonna be a bitch’ and still was fucking you as rough as ever

your voice returned while you were screaming your lungs out. you felt your body getting too much while he still rubbed you, starting to gradually groan louder, turning it into moans very quickly. he still wasnt even close to cumming and made you suffer for it. the sound of his cock colliding with your slick hole were one of the many sounds filling the room

“nagisa!! nagisa please stop!!” you pushed your body up almost off the bed till he pushed you back down. you propped yourself up on your arms, grabbing the pillow (you pillow princess) to help yourself so your body didn’t hurt

“not a chance my dearest, just lay here and take my cock like a pretty little slut. thats what you are anyways arent you dearest?” OHKAY READER MOVE ITS MY TU- ahem. . . he continued to fuck you, your legs tensing as you felt like cumming for a second time, and that you did as you started crying from too much of the sensation. tears started rolling down your face as you started begging for him to at LEAST slow down.

he started loosing his rhythm as his thrusts became staggered and his breathing became heavy, he started giving praises of ‘i love you’ and ‘you’re doing so well’ as he felt himself being close, yourself included for the 3rd time too.

“where do you want me to cum dearest” oh the things i would do to be called dearest by mr ran nagisa. “i- in- gnh!! in me please please!!” “oh? you- mnh- want me to breed you dearest?” HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH- he continued to thrust as your crying (verbally and legitimately) became louder.

he gave three more staggered thrusts has he pulled your hips closer to thrust the deepest he could as he let out a near pornographic moan (we all know it was pornographic cmon 💀) while letting out his load in you, you screaming your heart out and cumming for the third time.

he sat there for a minute or two before pulling out and checking on you since he FINALLY heard the hics of crying. “are you okay? did i hurt you?” BRO READER-MI IS CRYING AND YOUR ASKING IF YOU HURT THEM? okay im;;; “not *hic* really” lying ass. he stared at your fucked out face then turned you around to kiss you.

he picked you up to set you down on the carpet in the bathroom while he turned on the hot water and set you in. he got in himself and laid you against his chest while kissing your head and falling asleep

in the next room however…jun and ibara sat there in shock while hiyori was rolled up in a ball on the floor, not believing what the hell he just heard. “who knew nagis-“ “HES GONNA END UP HAVING THE NERVE TO PRETEND LIKE HE DIDNT BLOW OUT SOMEONES BACK” “hi-“ “NO IBARA DONT BEFORE I CRY.” yeah. uhm. good luck facing hiyori next morning nagisa “shut up” DONT BREAK THE FOURTH WALL. DAMMIT NAGISA.

[dreastmilk]

wuestion. what the Hell is up with luffy and law and luffy and. zolo? zoro? its zoro right. how queer is the code

umm law has this whole arc post time skip and somehow despite the 3 legitimate princesses Luffy meets that kinda fall in love with him there law is still the damsel in distress. they're literally sunshine x tired emo boy its great

also law is like a no funny business guy and loves plans and luffy is a yes funny business guy and loves ruining plans so their dynamics are great

...also the two most likely characters to be cannibals ahem anyways

zoro and luffy have the intimate relationship of first mate and captain. it's very intrinsically gay but you can look into it as much as you want tbh I don't ship them personally. however the moment zoro accepts that he's on luffy's crew he's Loyal loyal. also they're both asexual

zoro and law? uhh idk what people see in it genuinely I know they got something I just don't know what it is

all of them together? zoro and law are supposed to be serious but also luffy and zoro just ruin shit everywhere accidentally. it's law and his two very stupid boyfriends. it's zoro and his two captains. it's luffy and his sunshine protectors. they kill people and have fun what more can you want

[your-friendly-weird-guy]

I've seen this really old trend (I think it was a trend) on the KMFDM tag that I just wanna do for fun. So I offer my favorite my favorite songs per album

KMFDM favorite songs by album

I can’t believe as much as I love this band I had to go back through and see what songs are on what album smh

Opium - EASY! It’s “The Smell” Honestly? That album isn’t the best, and I can’t listen to any of the songs on it besides “The Smell”. Makes me imagine a killer with a murder cave of sorts with their newest victim.

WDYKD? (What Do You Know, Deutschland?) - Easily “Me I Funk”. Don’t know what it is about that song that I like.

Don’t Blow Your Top - REALLY tied between the title track and “No Meat - No Man”, though I am going to have to go with the title track. The first verse (is that right) is awesome.

UAIOE - The title track. Hearing Sascha Konietzko’s voice in that song? Look, I’m a simple man and needed a new voice to simp over after I found out Terrance Zdunich was a TERRIBLE human being, and after hearing that song? SOLD-

Naive - “Piggybank”. I wanna sing it to whoever becomes my partner if I ever learn how to sing tbh.

Money - “Spiritual House” I like the dark tone I say it has to the beat. Though I also like the title track because the opening reminds me of a fun secret spy thing or whatever (Even if the song is talking about drug dealing)

Angst - “A Hole in The Wall” Another one of those songs I wanna sing to whoever I get with. Plus the line “When I have to die then I want to suffocate between your sweet breasts.” is my favorite.

Nihil - I would say “Juke-Joint Jezebel” but “Revolution” is looking mighty fine over there- I actually like both songs so I’m saying both.

Xtort - “Power” Honestly? Gets me going into a burst of energy, so it’s a favorite. Plus “Industrial soundtrack to the holy wars!” is an awesome line.

Symbols - STRAY BULLET! FROM THE BARREL OF LOVE- Ahem… I love “Stray Bullet” more than anyone should, so it’s definitely that. Plus we must reclaim that song from the TCC people who like two very bad people WAAAY too much.

Adios - The title track because honestly? For a “farewell” album? IT SUCKS- like, legitimately.

Attak - “Sleep” Really underrated because I’ve never seen anyone talk about it ANYWHERE. I imagine two characters going undercover, one reassuring the other, before striking.

WWIII - “Bullets, Bombs, and Bigotry” Brace yourself for World War Three ;)

Hau Ruck - The title track! Makes me imagine all of the industrial/factory-esc areas I have for my characters, and them working hard.

Tohuvabohu - “Bumaye” I agree with anyone who says it makes them feel powerful, because it does. If I had the CD I would probably strip this track specifically and make a little animation to the german (is it german?) verse… IF I KNEW WHAT IT MEANT-

Blitz - This one is really hard because I’ve never really cared to listen to the entire album, but I’ll have to go with “Me & My Gun”. It gives me a trigger happy character from a video game vibes.

WTF!? - “Dystopia”! If I had better drawing ideas then I’d probably draw something to this. Gives me the vibes of someone promising something to another person.

Kunst - “Quake”, though the title track does tie with this song.

Our Time WIll Come - “Salvation”, easily, with no elaboration.

Hell Yeah - A tie between the title track and “TOTAL STATE MACHINE” (Especially with everything going on in the U.S by the time I post this.)

Paradise - “Megalo” A creepy, eerie, dystopian, futuristic version of Megalomaniac? YES PLEASE! Or at least that’s the feel I get from on.

That was a lot. Lots of opinions and shit, but it's whatever

...

Why are you still here?

[snappleapple]

soft gogy hc or like watching a movie with him ? <3 ur writing makes me very happy!

i love you, george

george x reader

headcanon

fluff

warning - i don’t remember so cursing?

word count - 1k

a/n: my first ever request! thank you so much <3

i am going to begin this ted talk by saying, the man would not stay awake

has a legit sleeping schedule of a two month old baby

absolutely terrible at multitasking

especially when he is tired

as most of you know, george is not that cuddly of a person

i mean, he enjoys hugs, but he doesn’t need them twenty four seven

and omg, don’t get me started on when you first cuddled

mf was awkward as hell

he would slightly chuckle to relieve the awkward tension in the air but that would legit not work

like he would wrap his arm around your waist, but in an awkward way?

kinda to not make you uncomfortable

now, he’s not as bad, but you two are working on it

also, he would definitely need to be big spoon

just wants to feel masculine

and he is, you can’t tell me otherwise

he also just loves it when you talk so passionately about random things

like you can be rambling about what you saw on tv that day and he would never even deter his attention away from you

one, because he is terrible at multitasking but two, because you’re so precious to him

i have a certain feeling that george is a homebody so, lots of dates at home which consist of movie marathons, minecraft or just keeping him company when he edits his videos

on the special occasions that you both leave the comfort of your own home, you go to quiet cafes and sit in a secluded corner

you would read a book while george works on his computer

every so often, the two of you would match eyes and smile before going back to what you were doing before

if it’s snowing, i guarantee that there is going to be a snowball fight

and it is going to be initiated by you

he would be scared to hurt you, but at the same time want to destroy you

when he’s streaming, you do not even touch that door knob unless you are bringing him snacks

once again, horrible multitasking skills

if you were to come in, he would legitimately slip up because he would give you all of his undivided attention

and fail at whatever he was doing

normally, you would go to bed by yourself but wake up next to george

but omg, one time, you went to bed by yourself once and when you woke up, george was getting into bed with deep dark circles

and you were like, “are you going to bed right now?”

“yes?”

“it’s eight am.”

“yes?”

“george!”

“y/n?”

“did you stay up all night?”

“yes?”

“we have to go to my brother’s birthday today.”

“yes, i’ve reali-“

“in an hour!”

so you had to drive because he was sleeping and once you got to your parent’s house, you took him up to your old room and let him sleep in there

your parents were honestly not surprised

once he woke up, he came down to see you playing with your nephews and a small smile formed on his face

and when your nephews saw him, they were like, “you’re dating georgenotfound?”

and you were like, “i told you like a year ago.”

and they replied with, “we don’t listen to old people.”

and your face was that surprised pikachu face

“i’m only twenty one!”

they ignored you the whole night and played with george instead

but going back to topic, if you are stressed about school work or other things, he would one hundred percent be there to support you because you are his number one priority

if you are shorter than george, congratulations, if you are taller, tough luck dude

this is for my shorties

since george is average for a male, a dwarf compared to his nine other boyfriends, ahem

he likes to tease you

puts his arm over your shoulders and patting your head as if he’s a foot taller

but you let him because let the little man have big dreams

OOH also, since george is colorblind, you basically describe everything for him

and he would just stare at you so lovingly

but most of the time, you would just make fun of him

like asking him what color a flower is or holding out a random piece of clothing and asking if he likes the color on you

but george is a patient man, so he will take those jokes

“george, does this look good on me?”

“uh, yes?”

“uh, no. it’s an orange sweater with blue polka dots.”

“yikes.”

but most of the time this is how your conversations go,

“these flowers are so pretty!”

“you’re pretty.”

“you’re pretty, george.”

“y/n! i’m being serious.”

“george! i’m being serious.”

the both of you have lots of bursts of laugher

and cannot be serious for the life of each other

like please, do not go to a funeral

i’m begging you

one laugh at a funeral and you’re both getting kicked out

they’re like, “please leave.”

and you’re like, “i’m sorry for your loss.”

after throwing george out of the building because of his inconvenient laughter in the middle of the service

dream and sapnap like to make fun of george

because george normally declines their flirtatious advances but when you’re there, he’s like under a spell

like once, you were like, “george, can you please be quiet. i have to wake up early tomorrow for a job interview.”

and george was like, “got it.”

he stayed legit so quiet that night and his chat thought he was dead or depressed as hell

and dream and sapnap were like, “simpwasfound.”

when you yawn, he puts his hand over your mouth

and you are once again the surprised pikachu face

“george!”

“yes?”

acts innocent in situations of trouble

overall, george would be a very soft af boyfriend

like random gifts from time to time

most of the time, its his merch

but the thought is appreciated

and you like to gift him stuffed animals because he hates cute things, squishy things that deter his masculinity

besides you of course <3

[pdrrook]

Ok, regarding Reed's pining situation asks, may I make a little comment on how I see it? Well, as for my MC, at least? My MC knows (feels? hopes?) Reed has feelings for her, and yes, they are mutual. But she thinks he doesn't make any moves, because he kind of trying to get rid of them? Outlive them and continue on with his life? And she understands and thinks it is for the better. She thinks, Reed deserves so much more than she could be. She knows he wants a normal and legitimate life (well, as legitimate as it can be when you are - ahem - officially dead). And she's a five tier allurer, who's life is pretty much a constant clusterfuck of being under radars of SPD, while trying not to be under radars od SPD (well, more like being under their radars as little as possible). So yeah, there are two idiots, pining hard on each other and jumping on the thin ice of 'better leave it as it is'. Two idiots trying to be noble and protect each other from their 'unrequited' feelings to not make any harm, and thus harming themselves and each other. Yes, they are not very smart.

Completely valid! Especially since in the IF, you’ll be able to play as an MC with a crush on the ROs!

Okay, so about the latter part of your ask. Back when they were still at the Academy, Reed was kinda jealous of MC’s tier. For 4, a common thing to hear is, ‘oh, you’re a 4, so close to being a 5, huh?” There’s also the opinion that if you’re a 4, you might as well not be afflicted at all. It’s an exaggeration, of course, but that’s how people are. MC, on the other hand, knew the world a bit differently. Being a 5 meant that their own family wanted to get rid of them; their tier was a danger, a burden. By pure chance they got evaluated wrongly (which is a common thing bc children are harder to evaluate, especially considering the stress they are under after being separated from their families), which btw that’s why they have the final evaluation after graduating. Having been friends with MC, Reed finally understood it, and he gets it now, but he takes everything personally; he never thought that MC’s reluctance to form a romantic relationship with him could be caused simply by them not wanting to ‘ruin’ his life, etc. He’s a bit naïve, thinking that the differences between their tiers and their situation in life can be overlooked as long as they try, that they can make it work as long as they are together. That’s why he took Flavio’s joining the SPD as a personal betrayal.

[moiraineswife]

Jasnah Meta - The Importance of Context

AKA: PLEASE stop saying that Jasnah is pro-genocide when she is. Not. At all. In any way. Shape or form. Whatsoever. 

TL;DR: Nowhere, at any point, in four ginormous books of text, does Jasnah ever say ‘you know what’s great? Genocide.’ She never even implies. It she never even actually, seriously, suggests it. Please stop saying she does as though it’s canon I lose 12 years of my life every time it’s mentioned. 

AND NOW FOR THE LONG VERSION BECAUSE Y’ALL KNOW I CAN’T LEAVE IT AT THAT!!!!! 

PLEASE NOTE! THERE WILL BE SOME MINOR RHYTHM OF WAR SPOILERS IN HERE. PLEASE AVERT YOUR EYEBALLS IF THIS IS A DISTRESSING CONCEPT TO YOU.

So first things first, let us discuss The Scene Itself: 

“Yes. The answer is obvious. We need to find the Heralds.”

Kaladin nodded in agreement.

“Then,” Jasnah added, “we need to kill them.”

“What?” Kaladin demanded. “Woman, are you insane?”

“The Stormfather laid it out,” Jasnah said, unperturbed. “The Heralds made a pact. When they died, their souls traveled to Damnation and trapped the spirits of the Voidbringers, preventing them from returning.”

“Yeah. Then the Heralds were tortured until they broke.”

“The Stormfather said their pact was weakened, but did not say it was destroyed,” Jasnah said. “I suggest that we at least see if one of them is willing to return to Damnation. Perhaps they can still prevent the spirits of the enemy from being reborn. It’s either that, or we completely exterminate the parshmen so that the enemy has no hosts.” She met Kaladin’s eyes. “In the face of such an atrocity, I would consider the sacrifice of one or more Heralds to be a small price.”

“Storms!” Kaladin said, standing up straight. “Have you no sympathy?”

“I have plenty, bridgeman. Fortunately, I temper it with logic. Perhaps you should consider acquiring some at a future date.”

So the only time Jasnah actually brings up this concept it’s to, hyperbolically, point out that asking the Heralds to return to Braize and trap the Fused may not be the worst idea.

She’s not actually suggesting this as a valid or legitimate tactic. It’s to contrast the plan Kaladin just called her ‘insane’ for suggesting (I bet that’s gonna hurt a million times more than it already does in 900 years when we get Jasnah’s book and backstory but hey. Back on topic) and point out that, in the face of the apocalypse, this is the kind of level they have to think on. 

I’ve already talked about the nuances of this scene at length here, so I’ll just do a quick summary: Jasnah is not as composed about any of this internally as she makes out to be - even what she suggests with the Heralds. 

When we see her alone with Ivory, reading Taln’s repeated mantra, Ivory notes that she’s troubled. The words (and where he was/how he was being treated when they were recorded) is enough to trigger a twenty year old flashback in her. 

This scene is one of the clearest moments (along with the Kharbranth thug scene, I suspect) where Jasnah’s outward projection of her internal feelings and thoughts least matches up with reality.

In spite of the inflammatory remark that sparks this all off,  she doesn’t want to assassinate any Heralds. She quite clearly says she wants to “see if one of them is WILLING to return to Damnation.” She wants to have a conversation with them, understand the Oathpact, and see if any of them would consent to buying them some time. She is not suggesting they knife one of the Heralds in a back alley. That’s Moash’s job.

This is supported by what she does in canon. Jasnah is actually the one who recognises Taln and Ash and, somehow, manages to persuade them to join her at Urithiru and help. She treats them with nothing but dignity and respect in her scenes with them in Rhythm of War, and tries to find out more about the Oathpact and their options - as she said she wanted to do.

But since Jasnah is a Kholin, which means the ‘D’ in her DNA stands for DRAMA, she doesn’t say that, instead she says: “let us find the Heralds and kill them.” (I love her so much y’all. Ahem. Anyway).

But there’s method to this madness, too. Please click the ‘keep reading’ button to discover why! (have to turn my own posts into clickbait bc they’re so long I have to put in a cut to spare ur dashboards). 

Jasnah likes to push people. She likes to force them to think, and consider all angles of a problem, and come to terms with their own thoughts and opinions. This is one of the things that frustrates Shallan about Jasnah in TWOK: 

Shallan caught a victorious glimmer in her eye. She wasn’t necessarily advocating ideas because she believed them; she just wanted to push Shallan. It was infuriating. How was Shallan to know what Jasnah really thought if she adopted conflicting points of view like this?

-TWOK 36

Jasnah doesn’t want to brutally murder the Heralds and force them to return to their maddening idea of hell. But in phrasing it as she does, she can get an insight into Kaladin. Despite the fact we know him very well at this point, this is, this is the first time Jasnah has interacted with him on-screen, and only the second time she’s met him ever. 

“That Windrunner. What do you think of him, Shallan? I find him much as I imagined his order, but I have only met him once. It has all come so quickly. After years of struggling in the shadows, everything coming to light—and despite my years of study—I understand so very little.”

Oathbringer, 33

Jasnah in that scene is deliberately being as exaggerated, ruthless, cold, and harsh as she can get away with. She’s trying to push Kaladin. She wants to bait responses from him, to get an idea of what kind of man he is, and what he stands for. She focuses entirely on him on that scene, and the reactions we as readers get see that as well. 

“If you wish, Captain,” Jasnah snapped, “I can get you some mink kits to cuddle while the adults plan. None of us want to talk about this, but that does not make it any less inevitable.”

“I’d love that,” Kaladin responded. “In turn, I’ll get you some eels to cuddle. You’ll feel right at home.”

Jasnah, curiously, smiled.

 Jasnah likes to be pushed as well. She likes to have people push back with her, and stand up for themselves, assert themselves, make their arguments. She all but encourages Dalinar to publicly do so in RoW. 

Socially, in spite of Kaladin’s rank or status as a Windrunner, it’s probably 100% Not Acceptable to ask an Alethi princess if she wants a basket full of eels to cuddle because she is one, effectively. But Jasnah’s unphased - and even pleased - by Kal’s response. She likes that she’s seeing this from him, that he’s unguarded, and passionate, and more than willing to go toe-to-toe with her, which few people are.

Also, because I foresee potential problems in this meta that I would like to nip in the bud right now, I don’t think that Jasnah is doing this to play with people? That’s not really in her nature or who she is. There’s a purpose to everything she does, and there’s a purpose to her doing this, too.

With Shallan it was to encourage her to think for herself and form her own thoughts and opinions. Just before in that scene, Shallan asked why Jasnah couldn’t just tell her what to think and what was the right philosophy to have in life. Jasnah replied it was something she had to discover for herself - and that’s how she approaches all of their studies. 

Jasnah never teaches Shallan what to think, or even what happened, despite that being the meat of her study. Instead, she teaches Shallan how to think, how to study, how to learn, how to critically reason, and how to form and argue her own thoughts and conclusions. 

With Kal, I think it’s a quick and brutal way of quickly getting to grips with a new, very important, element in what’s going on in her world. Remember, too, that one of Jasnah’s most obvious aims, aside from protecting the world, is protecting her family. And Kaladin is very close to everyone that she loves and holds most dear, while she knows nothing about him. 

However, something else that’s important to note, which, for me anyway, RoW all but confirmed: Jasnah has low cognitive empathy.

She’d come to realize, early in her youth, that she didn’t approach relationships the same way everyone else seemed to. Her partners in the past had always complained that she was too cold, so academic. That had frustrated her. How was she to learn what others felt if she couldn’t ask them?

Chapter 99 really was an absolute fucking gift, I mean really. Asexuality AND low empathy, all in one go. What a delight.

This little snippet can be read as her being asexual, potentially, but I actually think it reads more heavily and obviously about her being neurodivergent? And specially low cognitive empathy. Brandon says that, to him, Jasnah is not autistic spectrum, but you just keep giving me more evidence to say she is buddy!! Anyway. Diagnostic debates aside. 

I would guess some of y’all don’t know what the heck I mean by ‘cognitive empathy’ (I didn’t before I researched all of this a couple of years ago). 

There are two types of empathy, in strict psychology terms (and then there’s the colloquial way we use it to just mean ‘a good person with feelings’ which drives me BANANAS but that’s a rant for another day): 

Affective empathy - which basically means ‘this person around me is happy/sad/excited, I am also now feeling that way. Because emotion is infectious like a cold! How thrilling’. 

Cognitive empathy - is the ability a person has to pick up on/know what others are feeling without having to be told. Using tone/body language/facial expression etc etc. It’s something I, and a lot of other autistic people, are bad at. 

So is Jasnah! 

Her previous partners disliked her probably verbally vibe checking them every other week to find out where they were at. Jasnah was frustrated because how the heck else is she meant to know wtf?? What an absolute mood this woman is. Anyway. 

This revelation/confirmation makes a LOT of Jasnah scenes make a lot more sense. Including: chapter 64, and her insistence, to the point of it almost being illogical, that she fight without her Surgebinding to try and get as clear a picutre of what her soldiers are facing as she can. Jasnah starts off that chapter by saying she’s never actually been in a war before, and states throughout that she wasn’t prepared for what it was actually like. 

Her low empathy means that, without a personal context/experience to relate to and draw emotional experience from, she struggles to understand exactly what her troops are going through. 

Obviously she knows that ‘war is bad, battles are scary and not fun’. But she has no way of emotionally relating/truly understanding what they’re feeling. This is one of the reasons I think it’s so important to her, despite Ivory’s chiding, to do it that way so that she can understand. 

Similar thing is happening here with Kaladin. Jasnah struggles to instinctively Get Vibes from people, so she goes about things in a very scholarly way. 

She does research and makes notes (see: her little folio on the highprinces (which, by the way, misses out on several important aspects of them Shallan picks up on pretty quickly by the power of Intuition), she asks questions - and she sets up scenarios that push people into blatant emotion so she can observe and get an idea of what makes them tick. 

TL;DR TAKE TWO: Jasnah does not want to murder all of the Singers. Jasnah never says she wants to. Jasnah only uses it as a ‘see, asking the Heralds to go back to Damnation isn’t actually that bad now is it?’ hyperbolic counterpoint after Kaladin asked her if she was insane. Jasnah is not actually what she pretends to be in that scene. She is but a hapless gay who cannot detect emotions so she has to conduct her Vibe Checks differently from other people. She is highly valid in every way and i stan her.

[drsilverfish]

The Triffid of Hope and the Stop-Watch of Despair - 15x09 The Trap

Hey everone,

I’m just catching up British time, as usual, and getting down my initial thoughts before I jump in and see what you’ve all been up to.

The much-anticipated Purgatory prayer episode - here we go!

First off - Chuck is a lying liar who lies, and also, how bad was his vamp Winchester bros script?! We know it’s a script, because he asks Sam - “So, what d’ya think?” writer-style, after AU!Bobby executes Vamp!Sam. I thought Bobo did great work here, distinguishing (for us) between his own writing and Chuck’s sucky (ha ha) vamp-Chesters ending. And oh boy, does Bobo torch the “Butch and Sundance going out together in blaze of glory” SPN scenario, because it’s one of Chuck’s shitty versions. I think we can rest assured we’re not gonna get that! 

“All good things must come to an end,” Chuck says, holding up a scalpel in the Lucky (pink) Elephant (in the room, ahem Destiel) Casino. Bobo’s meta way of telling us that yes, of course, there is pain to be endured (by us) along the way, before our heroes get their freedom. Pain, because Supernatural, our favourite show, is ending.

I loved the double-structure of the episode, which balanced Sam and Eileen’s story with Dean and Cas’ story - past, present and future folded into one another; see-sawing between the twin axes of hope and despair. 

The Triffid of Hope:

Isn’t this shot (and its symbolism) great? Dean is framed between the Purgatory-Triffid and the awesome three-eyed skull of a dead Leviathan (the “third eye”, in Indian spiritual traditions, symbolising higher self-knowledge).

Leviathan dude: “There’s a blossom, that grows out of the soil when we die.”

Ah-ha - I knew all the death symbolism in Michael’s God-locking spell had to mean something. It just didn’t happen the way I thought it would (Cas dying in Purgatory).

Instead, the Leviathan blossom is a monster-corpse feeding flower - it grows from death. And so it is a perfect metaphor for hope, linked to all the old vegetation Gods (like Osiris, like the myth of Persephone) as well as to those heroic underworld journeys, of Gilgamesh and Orpheus and Inanna which @prairiedust and I were talking about previously in relation to Purgatory 2.0. Because, from death, springs new life (just as Spring follows Winter) and from an underworld journey comes deeper self-knowledge and psychic growth (a la Jung). 

On a meta level, this is Bobo’s message to us too - yes the show has to “die”, but who knows what new and wondrous things will be born from its “corpse”. 

Dean was previously the one, of the two Winchester brothers, who’d lost hope as result of the “Welcome to the End” revelations about Chuck’s active machinations in their lives. Dean was the one who couldn’t figure out what was real especially his relationship with Cas:

Dean: “I can’t figure out what’s God and what’s real, and it’s driving me crazy” (15x06 Golden Time). 

He was the one who’d said (as emphasised in this week’s re-cap): “It’s God, Sam... How the Hell are we supposed to fight God?” (15x05 Proverbs 17:3). 

But, in Purgatory 2.0, Dean got his hope back. 

Why? 

We already know why, from watching Dean pivot from suicidal in 13x05 Advanced Thanatology, to happy cowboy cosplay in 13x06 Tombstone, as soon as he got Cas back from death. Cas is intimately tied to Dean’s sense of faith and hope.

And in Purgatory 2.0, Dean finally finds (some of) his words and gets his relationship with Cas back on track, and in so doing, he recovers that faith and hope. 

Hence that shot of him lying between death (the Leviathan skull) and the Triffid of Hope. Because Dean’s underworld journey to Purgatory 2.0 brings clarity to hs heart, just as it did last time. In Purgatory 1.0, “It felt pure”; in Purgatory 1.0, Dean’s mission was, “Where’s the angel?” In Purgatory 1.0, Dean let himself love Cas again (as I’ve said before) without guilt, despite the things Godstiel/ Levi!Cas had done, to Sam, and to the world.

In Purgatory 2.0, Dean (just like Sam, in the parallel story) is on the clock. Time is ticking - the rift Michael opened is finite:

 And so, in losing Cas for several frantic hours as the clock runs out, Dean finds clarity, just as he did before, and he prays (on his knees no less):

Dean: “Cas, whereever you are, it’s not too late. I should have stopped you. You’re my best friend, but I just let you go...”

And Dean cries as he prays, and there is absolutely no doubt, in those tears, and in that apology, that he loves Cas (although the text continues to embrace ambiguity as to the nature of that love). 

Imagine - Dean must also be reliving the last time they were in Purgatory together, when Cas actively chose to stay behind, which broke Dean’s heart so much he re-wrote his own memory. In the land of monsters once more, Dean is, finally, terrified it’s all going to happen again (because he pushed Cas away this time). 

As a romantic love-story, of course, it’s still subtext. The glass-closet still structures the narrative. We still get the plausible deniability “bromance” of; “Cas, you’re my best friend.”

And you know, it’s totally OK to feel disappointed, heart-sore, stricken or enraged about that. Nothing throws the heteronormativity of our world more into relief than watching Sam have a beautiful and tender kiss with Eileen (and I totally buy and love their relationship) when their love-story has had a tenth of the back-story and build-up that exists between Dean and Cas, whilst Dean and Cas get a hug (albeit a clearly very emotional one):

I think “queerbaiting” is, partly, a receiver-effect. Meaning, it’s partly subjective. So, some people may feel “queer-baited” by the show and others may not. It’s certainly perfectly legitimate to feel the pain of the closet, of almost-but-not-quite representation (and many queer fans have left the show over the years for that reason). The definition of “queerbaiting” however, is complex (and needs its own post). 

For myself, I absolutely do feel the pain of the closet, but I don’t feel a sense of “bad faith” from the writers’ room (and I used to). I certainly trust in Bobo, whose first episode was that paean to break-up angst, 9x06 Heaven Can’t Wait, to be telling Dean and Cas’ love-story as truly, madly and deeply as he can, within the constraints imposed by TPTB (the fact that also happens to suit TPTB is another level we won’t get into here). 

Because isn’t this the face of a man who had something else to say, when Cas cut him off with, “You don’t have to say it - I heard your prayer” ????

The Stop-Watch of Despair:

Chucks’ mission in 15x09 is to crush Sam’s hope, even as Dean is re-gaining his own hope in Purgatory. 

Chuck does that in two ways. First, he makes Sam and Eileen doubt how much of their love story is real, as he tells them he nudged Eileen’s resurrection along and then used her (unwittingly) to spy on the Bunker.

When Eileen leaves Sam, at the end of the episode, she says: “After what happened, I don’t know what’s real anymore..” 

Obviously, that is paralleled to Dean’s previous doubt about his relationship with Cas, which Cas answered expllicity in 15x02 Raising Hell (although Dean couldn’t take it in at the time):

Dean: “Nothing about our lives is real. Everything that we've lost, everything that we are is because of Chuck. So maybe you can stick your head back in the sand, maybe you can pretend that we actually had a choice. I can't.”

Castiel: “Dean. You asked, "What about all of this is real?" We are.”

Sam plays Cas’ part (but it’s his own part too - I don’t want to reduce Sam and Eileen to mere parallels for Dean and Cas - their story is their own) when he kisses Eileen and says, “I know that was real,” (so, he’s able to hold onto a little hope, after all - go Sam!):

Second, Chuck makes Sam doubt the possibility of a happy ending, for the Winchesters, for the people they love, and, importantly, for the world. If they succeed in locking Chuck away, Chuck claims, Sam and Dean will die as vampires, and monsters will overrun the earth:

We can see here, that Metatron  was right, in 11x20 Don’t Call Me Shurley, when he said to Chuck, of humanity: “They are your greatest creation because they're better than you are.”

Because Chuck manages to get to Sam, psychologically, only because Sam cares, with all his heart, about the fate of the world and all the people in it. 

This is where the time-construction of the episode gets clever. Because, the future-Dean, who Sam sees, has lost hope again. And why? This is the face of a man who has locked Mark-of-Cain crazed Castiel in a Ma’lak box (and don’t forget S14 established the Ma’lak box as a closet metaphor):

And oh damn, we see Cas take on the Mark as part of the God-trapping spell in the “Trifffid of Hope” portion of the story. Does he still have it now, even though Chuck destroyed the spell?

Chuck shows Sam an (apparent) future in which the brother who raised him, has abandoned all hope, which is the true definition of Hell (”Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” - Dante’s Inferno) and that is the other psychological lever Chuck uses to get Sam to despair. His faith in Eileen is shaken, and his faith in Dean is shaken.  

Chuck clearly admires Sam. He almost treats him as a worthy antagonist. He refers to him as “Promethean” and “heroic”, and, in a sense, perhaps he genuinely means it. But, of course, it’s also part of his ploy to destroy Sam’s hope. Prometheus, after all, got his liver eaten out by eagles on the regular, sent by the chief God of Olympus himself, Zeus (aka Chuck) for his pains.

Chuck (to Sam): “You still think you’re the hero of this story. You still think you can win.”

And Chuck succeeds (temporarily) in destroying Sam’s hope, by making him doubt the reality of his love with Eileen, and by making him doubt that his big brother will have the hope necessary to “Carry on my wayward sons,” in the future (all the more believable because Sam has, in fact, seen Dean lose hope before when he’s lost Cas).

But what changes, monumentally, at the end of the episode, is that Dean doesn’t blame Sam. He just says, “That’s good enough for me,” about Sam’s assertion he believed in the Chuck-in-the-Cage future Chuck showed him, and, “We’ll find another way.”

Dean brought the Leviathan blossom of hope back from Purgatory, and with it, deeper self-knowledge about how he has taken his feelings of helplessness out, as anger, against the people he loves best (Sam and Cas). This time, he doesn’t do that. For Team Free Will, once all together again, The Triffid of Hope wins out over The Stopwatch of Doom. 

Just as it’s right, on a psychological level, that locking Chuck in a cage isn’t a viable solution - because external cages are metaphors for the prisons of the mind. Team Free Will’s heroic and metaphysical journey through the realms of the God-machine is also a journey towards emotional wholeness, and freedom from the psychological prisons of their past.  

And so, to conclude, this episode (my favourite of Bobo’s since his first) is filled with love.... and love. 

The Winchester brothers’ love for one another, we see, undoubtedly, in Sam’s narrative. But that’s also interesting, because again, Chuck misses Cas out of the story - and so ends up with a bros-only Butch and Sundance ending. And Bobo emphasises Chuck’s version is stuck in “toxic co-dependency” - because it’s the two of them, as Vampchesters, as monsters, going out together against the world - specifically against even their own friends, Bobby and Jodie. Now there’s a potent metaphor. By contrast, a healthy Sam and Dean relationship allows the loving presence of others.   

And there we have it -  the.. and love (precisely, the loving presence of others) in the love between Sam and Eileen (whose faith in that love, Chuck has deliberately shaken, for now) paralleled to the love between Dean and Cas (whose faith has been restored in Purgatory, for now).

Bobo clearly shows us that hope is the key to defeating Chuck, because it is only when Sam loses hope that Chuck is free of the God-wound. 

And love is hope, because to love is to be hopeful - to be hopeful that you will be loved back, that love will endure, that a future with your loved ones is possible and so, worth fighting for. 

Supernatural has always, always (as we all well know) been about the “power of love” (despite Dean’s doubt in 5x18 Point of No Return). 

In the end both the Triffid of Hope and the Stop-Watch of God-Time will converge, ending God-Time and granting true freedom for Chuck’s “characters”. 

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

um hi who’s steve moffat??

Oh my goodness. Okay, my sweet summer child, buckle up. I’ll try and keep this short. I assume you’re asking this since I just reblogged that post about Moffat creating the new Dracula show for BBC, so I’ll explain the particulars of why that’s upsetting as well.

So, Steven Moffat is a British television show writer and creator. He created the very popular (and well-done) comedic show Coupling, which was a take on the modern-day dating world and apparently inspired by how Moffat met his wife. He was also a writer on Doctor Who, the long-running British science fiction series, and this is where the fun (note the sarcasm) begins.

See, Moffat wrote some very very very good episodes on Doctor Who. In fact he wrote two of my favorites: the two-parter “The Empty Child”/“The Doctor Dances” (which includes my all-time favorite television moment, “Everybody lives, Rose! Just this once–everybody lives!!!”) and “Blink.” “Blink” is considered one of the best, if not the best, DW episode as it works so damn well and is so well written and ALSO functions very well as a standalone episode. Someone who has never seen a single DW episode could watch “Blink” and enjoy it.

Given Moffat’s good writing chops, everyone was super excited when he became the showrunner for Doctor Who after Russell T. Davies, the original showrunner, left, and when Moffat also announced he was creating Sherlock, a modern-day adaptation of the beloved Sherlock Holmes character.

I will direct you to this highly entertaining video that explains why Moffat’s show running skills and BBC’s Sherlock are, well, garbage.

Please do watch that video when you have the time since it’s fucking hilarious but here’s the gist of it: Moffat relies on building cliffhanger after cliffhanger and never actually delivering any climax, catharsis, or answers to the questions he gives. He makes his shows about one “super special genius” male character whose only function is to be “super special genius” and never actually has any character development and really actually is an asshole to everyone around him. And he writes female characters horribly, Irene Adler just to start. He crams in LGBT+ characters and other such “minority” characters in order to get “woke” and “diversity” points but he doesn’t actually give them any legitimate layers or nuance. The genius straight white male always saves the day and he does it while being a dick to everyone.

Yay.

Moffat’s constant reliance on twist after twist after twist without any character development, conclusion, explanation, or even logic, means that eventually his shows spiral into the absolutely absurd, as happened with season four of Sherlock. I would argue the show went off the rails in season three but that was before I saw it completely jump the shark in season four. Holy shit.

Which brings us to Dracula.

Look, vampires are sexy, I will be the first to admit that. But Dracula himself is not a vampire you want to swoon over. In the original book he is a sexual predator (the passages where he feeds on Mina are particularly disturbing and evocative of rape) who brutally and mercilessly murders people by twisting their spines and bashing their heads in until their brains burst out, sending wolves to tear them to pieces, and ripping their throats out. He literally throws a toddler to three vampires who do something so horrendous to it that Jonathan Harker blocks it from his memory.

Dracula is also, to add to all of this, a metaphor for two things a) the powerful and charismatic but “forbidden” gay relationship/love (and the shame that comes with that because this was the 1800s) and b) the racist/xenophobic fear of the “pure Aryan race” being “corrupted” by the “impure” eastern/non-Aryan bloodline.

Yeah, you heard me. The second one is pretty damn obvious and it’s a real sign of continued xenophobia and racism if you ask me that no adaptation (save for the silent black and white film Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary) has addressed this issue. Dracula literally says that he will destroy the Western race of heroes “through your women, and through them your children! I shall have them and through them I shall have you!” and basically says yeah I’m gonna rape your wives and they’ll have my children and your pure bloodline will be corrupted. This is far from an uncommon fear. It’s a repeated threat from the non-white villain in racist texts and it’s a common rhetorical trick. You even hear it in historical films when the heroic leader stands up and is like “would you have them kill us and rape our wives?” The fear isn’t just death, it’s that the “oh so pure bloodline” will be corrupted by the “unclean” race mating with the “clean” one.

AND THAT’S IGNORING THE BLATANTLY RACIST STEREOTYPE OF THE ROMANI PEOPLE AS EVIL STOOGES OF DRACULA LIKE WTF STOKER I’M GONNA RAISE YOU FROM THE DEAD JUST SO I CAN KICK YOUR GODDAMN ASS–

*ahem* Anyway.

The first one is also pretty obvious given that the entire first third of the book is Dracula flirting with Jonathan up to and including making innuendos about Jonathan teaching him English by “showing him how to use his tongue” (NO I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP). Most people believe that Dracula was based on Vlad Tepes aka Vlad the Impaler but actually, while Stoker did research on good ol’ Vlad, Dracula was based on a popular actor and close friend of Stoker’s, Henry Irving. Dracula was originally supposed to be a play, written for Irving, with Irving in the title role. When Irving refused, Stoker changed it to a book.

In fact when people who knew the two read the book they all went, “holy shit Dracula is totally Irving and Stoker is totally Jonathan.” Contemporaries noted that the relationship between Irving and Stoker was toxic, with Irving being manipulative and narcissistic, taking advantage of Stoker, while Stoker was too damn in love with Irving to stand up for himself even as he knew that Irving was being an asshole.

SO THAT MEANS WE HAVE: queer subtext, racist subtext, and vampirism as a metaphor for sexual assault.

None of which Moffat has a history of handling well.

It’s a sad tradition in Hollywood to change Dracula into a sexy anti-hero, and to claim that Mina Harker, the heroine of the book who saves everyone’s goddamn bacon, was actually attracted to Dracula and wanted to be with him. Y’know, the man who in the book makes her drink his blood in a way that is explicitly worded to make it sound like she’s forced to give him a blowjob (no seriously reading those passages is genuinely disturbing). Seeing how Moffat treated Sherlock and The Doctor on their respective shows, he’ll probably turn Dracula from a monster that is legitimately scary (because y’know he rapes people) into yet another pale white super special genius Mary goddamn Sue.

Seriously, the next time someone asks me what a Mary Sue is I’m just directing them straight to the Moffat-run seasons of Doctor Who and BBC’s Sherlock.

And given how Moffat handled the character of Irene Adler by turning her from a woman who received the world’s first unsolicited dick pic and was forced to use it to protect herself from persecution by royalty in order to quietly marry the love of her life into a dominatrix whose bisexuality was used as a one-off line to show how “irresistible and sexy” Sherlock is and is beaten by Sherlock, is a villain, not just a villain but the lackey of another villain, and has to be rescued by Sherlock twice instead of being the clever quick-thinking woman who gets one over on him and teaches him not to underestimate women and that he’s not always right…

Yeah. I don’t have high hopes for how Moffat will treat Mina Harker, the meticulous wannabe journalist who loves her friends to death and has a fucking backbone of steel and memorizes train schedules in her spare time like the utter dork she is.

And even if you set all those things aside! Even if you hope that Moffat will do justice to the women in the series, that he’ll properly address the sexual, gay, and racist subtext in Dracula, even if you hope that he won’t make Dracula another annoying can’t-ever-do-anything-wrong-jackass that treats the people around him like shit but we’re supposed to think he’s cool for it and people still somehow inexplicably stick around him and forgive him for it…

EVEN IF YOU HOPE FOR ALL OF THAT

…there is still Moffat’s major storytelling issue which is that he never tells a complete story. He never delivers on any of the promises he makes to the audience. He dangles cliffhangers that promise some big revelation is upcoming, but he never actually makes good on that–he just gives another twist instead, so that you never conclude any story arcs. It’s like listening to a song but having no resolution in the music so it’s just hurting your ears. Moffat is all about sound and fury, about making things look and sound cool, but without giving them any actual substance.

Moffat has done some great writing work, but it was always when someone else was in charge reining him in and forcing him to tell a complete story. He was given carte blanche with Sherlock and look how well that turned out. Season four was so bad people actually wondered if it was a joke. Yeah. Seriously.

So, people are understandably frustrated about this upcoming Dracula adaptation and have zero hope that it will handle any of the characters or the complex issues with any kind of nuance or substance. My personal bet? The women will be treated as props who fawn over Dracula, Dracula himself will be an asshole that we’re supposed to somehow like, his bisexuality will be a throwaway thing and the men who fall for him will behave in stereotypically gay ways and God forbid he actually get a long-lasting substantial relationship with any of them, Van Helsing is gonna be a woman and be either his bitter ex or eventually fall for him, and oh yes the racism/xenophobia in the original text will never be addressed ever.

That, my dear, is Steven Moffat, and that’s why people hate him and aren’t happy about him creating a Dracula television series, bisexual vampires or no.

[psychopersonified]

Can your AI do this?

Post Are we ever going to talk about this? and Where was the wooing? (AO3)

Highly recommended to read the series first to get emotionally invested in their story arc. This short piece will feel a lot more satisfying once you know their backstory. But you can still read this as a stand alone.

Q-Branch gets a pet (for science! purposes). Bond tests a new vehicle, and Q gets thoroughly... well you know 😉.

Tags: *Ahem* Fun-times content (be responsible), newly established relationship, humour, fluff with feeling, banter.

-------------------------------

SIS Building - Q-Branch

The little bug eyed bright yellow creature stares up at him from inside its glass terrarium. From that angle, it looks like its smiling up at them.

Q closes the cover after replacing the water dish, “We’re studying its movements and ability to adhere to surfaces. With all the sensitives around drone use and anti-drone capabilities these days, we’re thinking a robot that is a little more discrete would be more effective. Something small, quiet, that won’t trigger existing alarm systems and a much longer battery life. Potentially it might not even need to enter the premises, it could make its way up the side walls and observe from outside.“

“You’re just using that as an excuse to keep something cute.“ The creature raises itself on all fours, head head high, staring at Bond curiously.

“Well I’m not denying it’s good for morale as well.” Q waves his fingers at the creature and it responds by licking an eye with a pink tongue.

“Not mine. I’ve seen your little machine learning side project. You’re working on replacing me with an AI, and a robot gecko. So much for job security.”

“Oh don’t worry. Not until we can fit a miniaturised poison dart gun to the robot, we’ll still need you around.”

“Thanks,” Bond huffs, mildly put out. “So is there anything I can do for you at the moment? Or have you called me here just to insult me?”

Q isn’t fooled, he knew Bond was looking for any excuse to cut short his meeting with M and 009. Agent 007 has a low tolerance threshold for bureaucratic meetings; once past the hour mark, his attention span wanes significantly and he becomes disruptive.

Q smiles at him, “Believe it or not, I’ve actually called you here for legitimate reasons. This way please 007.”

——

London River Thames

They’re standing on the dock under the SIS building. Bobbing in the water attached to a boat is what can only be described as a watercraft bearing an uncanny resemblance to a dolphin.

“It’s a modified Seabreacher; we’ve enhanced its submersible capabilities up to 15 ft and of course added a light weapons system. We’ve also given it an electric motor for low speed stealth mode.”

Bond turns him, expression hopeful. Q has to quickly clarify, “Before you get excited, it’s not assigned to you. But I do need a test pilot today.”

Bond exhales; a put upon sigh. As if he wasn’t internally itching to get into the machine. Q waits for him to change into something more comfortable. When Bond returns, he is in a black turtleneck that showcases the muscles of his upper body to great effect. His holster worn over it and he has driving gloves on. He looks every bit the rouge he’s accused of being.

Q nearly looses his tablet stylus to the Thames when it drops out of his distracted hand and rolls perilously close to a gap between the planks of the dock. He saves it by stepping on it quickly.

They tow the Seabreacher a short distance upriver, somewhere between Battersea Bridge and Chelsea Bridge where river traffic is a little less busy. Bond has an excellent time testing out the craft, quickly getting the hang of barrel rolls, executing spin stops and 90 degree surface breaches and finally, porpoising through the water mimicking the movements of real dolphins. The stealth submersible mode works excellent too, but the Thames has disappointingly poor visibility so there’s not much to see. However it gives them a chance to try the newly installed underwater sonar navigation system. Pity they didn’t get to test the weapons system - the London City Council and the London Port Authority wasn’t too keen on allowing that.

All this acrobatic splashing about draws a crowd among the park visitors on both sides of the river and from the few boathouses docked on the northside of the bank. When the test ends, Bond pulls the craft up along side the waiting boat. He exits the cockpit to a smattering of appreciative applause from a passing tour boat - Americans on holiday likely. Native Londoners are unlikely to be this emotive. Bond smirks and gives them a curt wave.

He’s in such a good mood that once he’s jumped on board the tow boat, he stalks over to Q who had just finished tethering the craft, cups one side of his face with a gloved hand and pecks him quickly on the corner of the mouth in front of everyone.

“Can your AI do that?”

“You’re impossible,” Q lightly shoves him away. Mindful that they are still on the clock.

“And you love challenges.”

“Not impossible ones.”

“Says the man who is trying to replace me with a gecko.”

“You know what, I probably could program an autonomous mode into the thing. For starters, it’ll be far less infuriating.”

“I wasn’t talking about the craft...,” Bond reaches for Q again, this time swiping a thumb over the corner of his mouth where the agent just kissed.

“Get a room!… Sirs.” Nish yells at them from the helm of the tow boat. He’s still peeved that he lost money on the bet about them getting together.

——

Quartermaster’s Residence - Sexy times

Bond’s good mood extends all the way to the evening when they get home. Dinner was abysmally quick because a randy agent wouldn’t let Q sit down to eat; pressed up against him from behind, groping and palming him between the legs as he rushed through his food standing at the kitchen counter.

A quick shower later and they‘ve exiled the cats and seconded themselves in the bedroom.

“Talk to me about the Seabreacher again,” Bond instructs as he lowers a well prepared Q into his lap. The entry is tight but smooth. The heat of Q’s waiting body intoxicating.

Q savours the breach, the feeling of invading fullness as Bond pushes in. “Hmm... turns you on does it?“ Q wraps his arms around Bond’s neck and kisses him playfully before sucking on his bottom lip and nipping up the line of Bond’s jaw to give the agent’s earlobe a playful bite.

“How many horsepowers?” Bond rumbles, squeezing a fleshy cheek in retaliation and to prompt him along.

“300 from the twin supercharged intercooled ICE alone…,” Q breathes into his ear, “…another 50 from the electric motor... Ah!” Q grinds down to meet his upward thrust.

-Fuck YESSss-. He didn’t think it possible, but Bond feels himself stiffen further. He snakes a hand from behind, into Q’s hair and tugs his head back. “Weapons?” He mouths against the delicate column of Q’s pale exposed neck, latching on and sucking with every intention to bruise.

“Ngghhh!… Dorsal mounted assault rifle. Ah!... Two rounds of compact mini underwater torpedos.. Ooh... with blast force that could sink a yacht—“ the next thrust sends Q wailing “—Jaaaames!” Feeding right into his ego.

Bond kisses Q deeply. -God how he loves this man-, “Manoeuvrerbility?”

“Jet nozzle trust vectoring— *gasp*…full tail articulation… *gasp* …giving the pilot complete control to execute high speed 360 degree barrel rolls—“ Bond changes angle suddenly, “Fuck! James!” Q’s grip around the agent’s shoulders tightens to brace himself against it. The things this man does to him! The sudden intensity of sensation as Bond hits the right spot brings tears to his eyes.

“Mmm… What else can it do?” Bond demands, pulling Q downwards even as his hips snap up - growling with the force it.

It takes a few seconds for Q to recollect his thoughts, gritting his teeth, eyes squeezing shut. “High speed, 90 degree underwater to surface breaches… Oh God!… Submarine mode up to 15ft dept …*gasp* …electric powered stealth mode up to five…*gasp* …five nautical miles—,” Q buries his face in the crook of Bond’s neck moaning, “… Bullet proof cabin pod.”

Q is panting hard now, fingernails biting into the muscles of Bond’s back, riding through the staccato rhythm the best he can. “James, please. I can’t think anymore…” he begs.

Bond tips them over onto the bed so he’s on top and continues their practiced rhythm. Alternating between deep and shallow thrusts. With most of Q’s weight now supported by the bed, Bond can put all of his strength into his hip movements.

The intensity has Q gasping his name at every inward shove, which just fuels Bond’s possessive fire. It turns into a blaze - spurring him on; harder, deeper. Q’s previously restrained cries turn into outright wails and Bond has to muffle them with deep consuming kisses lest they scare the cats or the neighbours call the police on them.

Soon, the friction between their bodies along with the sweet repetitive drag of Bond’s unyielding girth and length inside him, angled just right, has Q whimpering for release; for mercy. His entire body is shaking -Too much!- “Please James!… Please… I need…. I need…,” Bond swallows every word of his plea with greedy possessive kisses, all the while not missing a stroke.

When Bond finally responds, his voice is low, gravelly and teasing, “Yes love, what do you need?” The gentleness of his tone a direct contrast to the unrelenting strength of his thrusts. The bastard knows exactly what he needs!

Frustrated, Q bites down on a thickly muscled shoulder, but that serves only to stoke Bond’s cruelty. His pumping slows, turning into deep powerful grinds. The pleasure is agonisingly drawn out, the sustained feeling of fullness, arguably more torturous.

“Oh God! Jaa—mees please!… I can’t… Ah!…” Q sobs in desperation, his body strung so tight, clawing for release, wanting, needing.

“Sshhh…” Bond soothes, strong hands caressing the length of Q’s body but his hips do not relent. Then comes more deep claiming kisses - stealing the very breath from him before Bond finally reaches down between them, grabs a firm but gentle hold of him and starts stroking, from root to tip, milking him exactly as he likes it.

Q moans brokenly. Body shuddering. One more deep angled thrust and a slow swipe of a calloused thumb over his leaking tip and Q arches his back in absolute unconditional surrender.

Pleasure rips trough his body, muscles tightening and spasming with his release - clamping down hard around the fullness still inside him for long seconds before slowly going lax. His brain shuts down into safe mode.

When he first comes to, he’s vaguely aware that James is still thrusting into him, face buried in his neck. With a final stuttering push he too tips over the edge, rooting deeply and coming in long spurts. The loud rapturous moan that escapes him is one of unreserved release. Never has Q heard him this vocal on missions, the sounds of pleasure usually only coming from his marks - 007 is himself usually silent, a few grunts and he’s done.

James collapses on top of him, their chest rising and falling in synchronised rhythm. Once they’ve finally caught their breaths, they’re kissing again, slow languid kisses of pure affection. James is still on top, propped up on his elbows, Q’s head cradled in his hands, his heavy warm weight a secure blanket. Q has never felt this completely possessed yet this utterly worshipped at the same time than when he is with James.

With a final noisy kiss, Bond reaches for the towel he’d set aside the bed earlier. Q’s brain finishes rebooting while Bond gently disengages and cleans up the mess between them.

The first coherent thought that comes to Q’s mind is, “You know, I think there might still be space to fit an auxiliary air supply unit to extend the submersible range.”

Bond pauses his clean up ministrations to kiss him again, “Careful love, keep saying those things and you just might instigate a second round.”

Q grins cheekily up at him, “Oh you like that do you? Wait till I tell you about the car we’re planning for you... Ah! James!!”  

The next day Q has to wear a hideous brown and grey stripped turtleneck to work and explain to Ops why MI6 received a notification that a police patrol unit was dispatched to his residence at 12:30am that morning.

——FIN——

If anyone would like to name the gecko, I’m open to suggestions.

Notes: If you liked this story, there’s more on the blog or AO3. Please like, reblog, comment etc. Enjoy!

[zombizombi]

hummingbird heartbeat pt44

Nothing really changed, with Jeff and Kent. At least, it didn’t seem like it. Had Bitty expected things to change? Sort of. How was a more nebulous concept, it was just -- Kent and Jeff were boyfriends, now.

He thought.

He was like, 99% sure, anyway. Kent hadn’t given him many more details, even though an entire month had passed, and Jeff -- well, Jeff wasn’t interested in talking to Bitty about Kent. Bitty knew, at least, that they hadn’t been… intimate, knew that Kent hadn’t slept with Jeff yet. To hear Kent tell it, they barely touched each other. On Skype calls where Bitty saw them together, Jeff and Kent seemed the same as ever. They weren’t even sitting closer on the sofa or anything.

It was weird. 

And honestly, Bitty didn’t even know why he cared so much, it was not his business. Moo Maw always said people ought to mind their own business. Except, well… Kent was Bitty’s business, so by extension, his relationship with Jeff was, too. Kind of. Right? Which meant minding it was a little more acceptable. Reasonable, even.

“I guess I thought something would happen?” Bitty said to Jack, curled up in bed one night. Their nights together were becoming more rare, would be rarer still. Jack’s season was upon them.

“Something happened. You said they talked.” Jack turned on his side a little more, tucked closer to Bitty. He ran hot fingers down Bitty’s side, tucking them up under the hem of his shirt. “Maybe they’re just still figuring things out.”

“I don’t even know if they’re dating,” said Bitty. He shivered.

“You know you have to be patient with Kent.” Jack pressed a kiss to Bitty’s neck. “Why is this bothering you so much?”

“I don’t know, I --” Bitty sucked in a quick breath as Jack’s teeth closed on his earlobe. Jack was right, he should worry about something else. It was just so hard to stop thinking. He’d never been good at that, not really, because Bitty’s mind was always sort of going, worrying about something. It was -- “Honey,” he said, as a little shiver ran down his spine.

“Maybe you need a distraction.” Pushing Bitty’s shirt up further, Jack pressed his hand flat against the small of Bitty’s back and brought his lips down to Bitty’s collarbone.

Bitty’s breath caught. “Oh?” This was probably going… good places.

“Mhm.” Jack’s breath was hot against the hollow of Bitty’s throat.

Jack was a very good distraction.

Bitty spent the rest of his time in Providence trying not to worry too much about Kent and Jeff. He had enough on his plate, anyway. It helped to pick Jack’s brain about captaining a hockey team -- the NHL season would be starting soon enough that if he wanted to really get Jack’s full laser focus, Bitty had to do it then. And he really, really wanted Jack’s full attention. Jack and Kent were different in a lot of ways, including the way they played hockey, and the advantages that could come from being able to talk to not just one, but two NHL players in leadership roles weren’t something Bitty could pass up. Advice from different perspectives and leadership styles would come in handy, was worth spending some precious boyfriend time on.

And it was apparent, several games in, that Bitty’s extra attention and work was paying off. Samwell’s season was going well -- really well, actually. A brand new first line meant big changes in play, new hurdles to overcome. The new guys were fast, good skaters, but sometimes lines took chemistry, and sometimes chemistry took a few months to build. They didn’t really have months, though, and if running drills on passing was what Samwell needed to make it to the Frozen Four, well.

Bitty spent extra time going over tape with the coaches. He worked with the boys on passing and drills, organized a couple of game nights for team bonding, tried to ensure that he was available to any of the guys if they needed him. It was great. The guys were really getting it together, and Whiskey was honestly amazing. He was really focused, really talented, and really… intense. He was the best player they’d had since Jack, and so far, they’d even managed to avoid any real injuries. Bitty allowed himself to hope for the Frozen Four.

Stirring the custard ingredients together, Bitty balanced his phone on his shoulder with his chin. “I think it might not be completely out of reach?”

Kent laughed. “Why did you say that like a question?”

“I don’t want to jinx it,” Bitty said. “You know, it’s like -- if you say too much about it, it’ll definitely end up not happening?”

“You guys are having a good season so far, though.”

Even though Kent couldn’t see him, Bitty nodded. “We are!”

“And you’re, like, working on your thesis, right?”

Bitty sighed. “Baby, that’s not until Spring. School’s barely started!” And his thesis was kind of not his highest priority at the moment. Or like, ever, but definitely not now.

“Well yeah,” Kent said, “but you’ve, like, thought about it. Right?”

Right. How did he end up dating two insane overachievers, again? Bitty poured the vanilla buttermilk custard filling into the blind-baked pie crust. “I’ll get it done! Worry about your own dang GPA!”

“Mine’s really good,” Kent said, smug and satisfied in a way that was both irritating and adorable at the same time.

“Yes, your brain is very sexy, dear,” said Bitty. “Isn’t it your bedtime?”

Kent gasped. “Not for another, like, two hours!”

Bitty opened the oven. “You are absolutely ridiculous, and I --”

“Oh my god, Eric, don’t you want to talk to me?” Kent’s voice sounded farther away, and the sound of running water filtered through the line. “What kind of pie are you making?”

“Mr. Parson,” Bitty said. “Am I on speaker phone?”

“Yes,” said Kent, after a small silence. Bitty heard the sound of a door shutting in the background.

“It’s chess pie,” Bitty said. “Who’s there?”

“What the fuck is a chess pie?” Jeff asked, and Bitty sighed. Why didn’t anyone know this?

“Y’all really need to come visit.”

“It’s good,” Kent supplied.

“All right, super chief. We play Boston on our first roadie, I think.” Jeff’s voice was closer. “Make one then.”

“We do,” Kent said. The water in the background shut off and, after a minute, Kent picked the phone back up. “I was gonna get you seats, if you wanted. And maybe you could, um.”

“Stay?” Bitty finished for him, smiling a little.

“Yeah,” Kent said. “And you can tell me all about your boys in person, so I can see how cute you look when you’re all focused.”

“Gross,” said Jeff, and Bitty laughed.

Those fuzzy, warm feelings of confidence about their season couldn’t last. Bitty should’ve known that, but everything was just going so well. The new lines were starting to gel, plays were making sense -- they could do it. They could totally do it.

At least, that’s what Bitty thought until Derek Nurse gave himself the most idiotic hockey injury ever. The game was beautiful otherwise, honestly. Everyone was playing gorgeous hockey, and Bitty was really, really proud of their progress.

In the third, Nursey slapped the puck on a rebound, sending it careening into the net over the unprepared goalie’s shoulder. It was a filthy goal. Grinning, he returned to the bench, bumping gloves with the guys as he came within reach.

“Nice goal!”

“Top shelf, Nurse!”

“Fuckin’ s’wawes--”

“Hey, thanks for the assist, Poindexter!” Nursey grinned over his shoulder.

Dex rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck crashing across the boards like that, Nursey.”

“Jeez, Dex,” Nursey said, “I’ll interpret that as ‘you’re welcome, keep it u--’” the door clicked open just as Nurse was about to swing over, and somehow, despite literal years of playing hockey, he fell. As luck would have it, he broke a bone with that foolishness, which would not only screw up everything about their game but also serve as the catalyst for the Haus becoming ground zero in a not so cold war.

Honestly, this was the universe’s way of paying Bitty back for thinking that they were doing well that season when it came to injuries. He should’ve knocked on wood.

Dex and Nursey were absolutely ridiculous -- everything one of them did irritated the other, and they weren’t, apparently, able to be reasonable in any way whatsoever. Bitty probably should’ve anticipated it, as they’d always nitpicked each other, but after the injury their feuding was on a completely different level. Slytherin and Gryffindor level, even. Everyone had assumed there’d be some nonsense with them moving in to the Haus, of course they had, it was just -- it was so, so much worse than anyone imagined. Complaining about a lack of privacy, Dex attempted to turn his bunk bed into a private oasis. When that didn’t work, he vanished into the basement, accompanied by some power tools. Bitty wasn’t sure what was going on down there. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know, truth be told.

When Shitty invited Bitty and Jack to come up to Cambridge to see their new place, Bitty leapt at the chance to escape the Haus for a visit with old friends. It would be great to get away from the world’s most annoying d-pair, and it’d be good for Jack to take a quick trip before his season really got going. It was their last chance.

“Welcome,” said Lardo. “To Haus 2.0.”

“This is interesting,” Bitty said, looking around the house. It definitely had the same feel the Haus used to have. Messy, lived in, vaguely gross. Rent had to be insane.

“Right on,” Jack said, accepting a beer from Shitty as he looked around. “Samwell after Samwell. I’m jealous.”

“Ahem! Allow me to give you a tour of our buckwild best friend abode,” said Shitty. He waved an arm. “It’s several degrees of dece!”

“And pancakes every Saturday,” Ransom added.

“You guys have another roommate?” Jack asked, talking around a mouthful of pie.

“Yeah,” Holster said. “She hates us.”

“Like legitimately wants us to die,” Ransom added.

“Hey, not our fault!” Shitty shoved his shades up on the bridge of his nose. “The Craigslist ad said, and I quote: must be motherfucking down to motherfucking clown.”

“That’s kind of a big ask,” said Jack.

“Oh yeah, how’s my old room at the Haus, Bits?” Lardo asked.

Bitty sighed. “Well, Dex now lives in the basement. So.”

Lardo raised a single brow.

“It’s a long story,” Bitty said.

“To rooming situations from haus to shining haus!” Shitty raised his beer, and everyone else followed suit.

“Hear, hear!”

Hanging out in Cambridge felt like old times, complete with Lardo slaughtering them all in Mario Kart. She was gracious enough to let Bitty be Peach, but the niceties ended there. They were taking a break from the game, Shitty and Rans and Holster and Jack all occupied with a board game, when Lardo leaned over a bit, bumping shoulders with Bitty.

“How’s Kent?” Lardo asked. “Are you guys still…?”

“Yes, we are.” Bitty drained the last of his beer. “He’s doing really well. Season starts soon, so he’s just been busy.”

Lardo nodded. “How many years is it, now?”

“Oh my Lord,” said Bitty. “It’s -- I don’t know. Three? Isn’t that crazy?”

“Yes,” Lardo said, passing him another beer. “Being in an LDR that long is pretty intense, bro.”

“It’s almost over,” Bitty said.

Lardo glanced at Jack, laughing about something with Shitty. “Is it?”

Ah. “Well -- no. I guess it isn’t.” Bitty rubbed the back of his neck. “But I’m going to Vegas after I graduate so it’ll just be… different.”

Lardo nodded. “Been planning that a while,” she said.

Bitty chewed his lower lip. He had been. He’d been thinking about it for a long time, actually, worried about logistics and appearances. Kent’s coming out had helped a little, but there was still no telling how the Bittles would handle their baby boy moving to Vegas to live with his boyfriend.

His boyfriend and his boyfriend, really.

Bitty spent his last night with Jack in Jack’s apartment, both of them snuggled up on the sofa with television and Jack’s favorite pie. Bitty ran fingers through Jack’s hair, smiled a little. “I’ll miss you, honey,” he said.

“I’ll miss you, too,” said Jack, curving gentle fingers around the back of Bitty’s neck.

“Yeah?” Pressing a hand to Jack’s chest, Bitty pushed up off the sofa a little. “Wanna give me something to remember you by?”

Jack laughed.

Kent put a new video up, and Bitty waited to watch it until he was home in his room, able to give it his full attention. Kent was in Jeff’s living room, sitting on the sofa wearing a faded Boston University hoodie that Bitty didn’t remember seeing before. Kent still didn’t put his face into the view of the camera, even though with Bitty out, it was truly only a matter of time before someone found the channel for real. There were a smattering of jumbled comments, a few coherently asking “IS THIS KENT PARSON?!?!?!!?!?!”, but nothing concrete. Yet.

In the video, golden sunlight streamed through the window behind Kent and Kevin curled up next to his side, her head resting on a little toy teddy bear. He scrubbed behind her ears with one hand before he began to play. The melody was sweet and familiar.

It was Rainbow Connection, the song from the Muppets.

Behind him, Jeff walked by, pausing for a moment. He laid a hand on Kent’s shoulder, for a moment, bent down, the ends of his dark hair falling into view, but the rest of him wasn’t visible on camera. His voice could be heard, just barely, murmuring something quiet — but Bitty couldn’t understand what he said. After pressing a kiss to the top of Kent’s head, Jeff wandered out of view of the camera. Kent played and sang without interruption, though Kevin had shifted, wagging her tail and staring up. Halfway through the song she laid her head back down, using the teddy bear as a pillow.

It was a serene little video, everything about it warm and soft. Domestic. Bitty’s stomach hurt a bit looking at it, and he took a deep breath. It was okay to be a little jealous, right? Surely Kent was a little jealous sometimes. Bitty was just used to having Kent all to himself, but it wasn’t bad for Kent to be with Jeff, too. He’d kind of been with Jeff the whole time they’d been together anyway, hadn’t he? And they’d had such a great summer.

It made him feel a tiny bit better to see a couple of comments asking where Sweetie’s boyfriend was, several of them decrying the lack of “cute baker” in the video.

When Bitty called on Skype that night, Kent answered from his own bedroom.

“Oh,” Bitty said. “You’re not at Jeff’s?”

Kent blinked. “No? Why would I be?”

“Well, I saw your video today and just thought --” Bitty squeezed Señor Bun. “It was really good, sweetie.”

Kent shrugged one shoulder. “You know I like to sleep in our bed.” Kit crawled into his lap and he buried one hand in soft fur. The purring was loud enough that Bitty could hear it through the computer. “Jeff’s downstairs, though.”

Of course he was. Jeff practically lived at Kent’s house. Bitty nodded.

Kent frowned. “Babe,” he said, after a moment. “Are you okay?”

“I just miss you,” Bitty said.

Kent softened all over, eyes warm and gold in the lamplight. “I miss you too, Eric,” he said. “I miss you all the time.”

“Even with Jeff there?” Bitty asked, hating how small his voice sounded.

“Yeah.” Kent slid his tongue along his lower lip before sucking it in under his teeth for a minute. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Eric,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay with this --” he waved a hand -- “whole thing?”

“Yes,” said Bitty.

Kent tilted his head, and the light flashed on the lenses of his glasses. “We don’t have to do this,” he said, after a bit of quiet. “Me and Jeff, I mean.”

“Yes, you do,” said Bitty. Even if Kent thought they could go back, they couldn’t. Shouldn’t. “You belong together. Just like you and me.”

“Eric.” Kent rubbed the back of his neck, glancing away from the camera. “C’mon.”

“It’s fine,” Bitty said. “I mean, it’s different. I’m getting used to it. But it’s -- it isn’t bad, honey.”

“Really? ’Cause you don’t seem, like, thrilled about it,” Kent said. “You’re being weird.”

“It’s fine,” Bitty said, again. Because honestly, it was fine. And he’d be there when school was over, he’d already been looking at the job market in Vegas. “I’m not being weird. I want you to be together. Besides, it’s not like --” he cut himself off, shutting his mouth before he finished that sentence. What Jeff and Kent did was only marginally Bitty’s business, even if he could not stop thinking about it.

“It’s not like what?”

“It’s not like it’s a whole lot different from how you’ve been the entire time I’ve known you,” Bitty said, voice soft, “is what I was gonna say. Is it?”

Kent flushed. “It’s different,” he said.

Holy shit. Bitty sat up straighter, ignoring the twist in his stomach. “Kent Valeray Parson,” he said. “Did you sleep with him?”

Kent’s blush deepened. “I --”

“Oh my god,” said Bitty.

“Not yet,” Kent said.

“Oh my god,” said Bitty. But it had been so long! And Jeff was so, so hot. “Why not?”

Kent rubbed his face with both hands. “Just -- because, okay? We just haven’t.”

“If it’s because of me,” Bitty said, “I --”

“It’s not.” Kent stared down at his hands for a minute. “It’s not you.”

Bitty frowned. Did -- did Jeff not want to, or something? Oh, Lord. Maybe it was some kind of like, ‘I love you but I don’t want to sleep with you’ thing. Jeff was kind of known for fucking around. With women, granted, but still. Surely it wasn’t that Kent didn’t want to. “Honey,” he said. “Do you not want to?”

“Oh my god, Eric,” Kent said, “you have eyes, are you serious? It’s just not -- we’re not there yet, okay? Fuck.”

“Well --”

“Can we not do this?” Kent pushed Kit off his lap. “I don’t ask you about Jack, do I?”

Oh. “Okay,” said Bitty, squeezing Señor Bun. Kent was right, of course. He didn’t ask for details about Jack like that, never had. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked, it’s not really my business --”

Kent was quiet for a minute, picking at a thread on his comforter. “I just don’t know if he, like. Wants to?” he said.

“Sweetie,” Bitty said. “It’s Jeff.” Jeff Troy’s reputation was well-deserved, he was pretty sure. The way he looked at Kent? Bitty was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.

“I know,” said Kent.

“He’s, um.” Bitty rubbed the back of his neck, trying to think of the word. He was not going to call Jeff a fuckboy. Even though he was, according to internet message boards. “He, like, you know.” Liked to fuck. Oh, Lord. That meant -- surely Kent would ask Jeff to get tested. Bitty didn’t need to worry about that, too, did he?

“But I don’t think he’s picked up in a while?” Kent said. He chewed on his lower lip. “So, like. Maybe he’s not?”

“Or maybe he’s just saving himself for you?” Bitty countered.

That sentence was too ridiculous to bear, and after a moment, both of them laughed.

“So,” said Kent, “how ’bout them Dodgers?”

“Smooth,” Bitty said. “Real smooth.”

He missed Kent more than ever over the following few days. It wasn’t that he didn’t have enough to do. Bitty had more than enough to do, and he worried, going to bed at night, about not having enough energy to do it all. Kent sounded relaxed on the phone. Happy. Their calls were the same as ever, sweet and warm and faithful. Bitty could almost forget, sometimes, that Jeff was there -- except that Jeff was always there, always had been, and it was… hard, maybe, to think about him watching Bitty and Kent together all that time.

There was so much Bitty wanted to ask him, so much he knew Jeff wouldn’t say.

Bitty couldn’t really devote his time to cross-examining Jeff, anyway. At the Haus, Dex living in the basement was turning out not to be so bad. He was handy enough to fix the place up himself, and Bitty was certainly not going to complain about someone doing work. It needed it, and having Dex fix things kind of took some financial pressure off of everyone else -- as well as giving him something to do. It kept a little peace.

The Haus wasn’t entirely harmonious, though. Whiskey still hadn’t come around, Bitty noticed, preferring to spend most of his time elsewhere with other friends. He wasn’t being team. And as Captain, it felt like Bitty’s job to make sure all the boys were team.

All of his efforts to do so, however, fell flat. Repeatedly. On Skype with Kent, Bitty sighed a little, flopping down on his bed.

“What is wrong?”

“It’s nothing, Kent. It’s just been on my mind,” Bitty said. It was probably stupid to be so uptight about it, anyway. Kent wasn’t the most popular guy in his dressing room, either, and he did fine. Right?

“So it’s something, then,” Kent said, voice about as placid as Kent’s voice ever got.

“At the end of the day,” Bitty said, “I don’t care. I just can’t stop thinking about it and it bothers me.” Kent would know what he meant. They’d talked about it before.

“That’s, like, the definition of caring, Eric,” said Kent, voice warm.

“His high school girlfriend came into town and he didn’t even show her the Haus --”

“You mean he didn’t introduce her to you.” Kent’s voice was a little softer. “Eric --”

Bitty sighed. “That is what I meant,” he admitted. “It hurts. What am I doing wrong?”

“Not everybody is going to like you, babe,” Kent said. “Doesn’t matter what you do. I mean, I know you hate that, but Brian says that’s life or whatever.”

“I know that.” Bitty sighed again. It didn’t make him feel better, though, knowing. It didn’t help at all.

What was he going to do? He’d tried basically everything he could think of, and Whiskey still spent more time with the lacrosse team than he did at the Haus.

“It’s okay if he doesn’t want to, like, experience college the way you do,” said Kent, slowly, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose with one finger. “You know that.”

“But I’m his Captain,” Bitty said. “And I can’t seem to get him involved in the team, you know? Team spirit?”

“Some dudes just, like, aren’t into that,” said Kent. He shrugged. “There’s always one or two in a room. It’s no big deal, guy’s good at hockey. You’ll be fine.”

“I just want --” Bitty chewed his lower lip. What did he want? A perfect senior year? Harmony across the Haus and the best team Samwell ever had?

Jeff pushed Kent’s door open. “Your phone’s ringing,” he said.

“Aw, fuck,” said Kent, “that’s the GM’s ringtone. I gotta take this, here --” he traded the laptop for his phone, leaving Jeff on screen. “Talk amongst yourselves.”

“I --”

Kent was gone before Bitty or Jeff could protest, and Bitty rubbed the back of his neck as Jeff chewed his lower lip.

“So,” said Jeff.

“So,” Bitty said. “You, uh. Y’all --”

“What did you say you wanted there, bro?” Jeff asked, interrupting Bitty’s question.

“Nothing,” Bitty said. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair as Jeff raised a brow, clearly unconvinced. “I don’t know. There’s just one guy on my team, y’know, I just. He’s not like, a part of the team?”

“Ah,” said Jeff. He sat, then, just quietly waiting. After a few minutes, Bitty somehow ended up ranting to him, too. When he paused to breathe, Jeff cleared his throat.

“Why don’t you go ahead and take about twenty percent off ’er there, bud,” Jeff said. “Nobody’s perfect, fuck.”

“But --”

“Some guys just don’t wanna do the whole, like, thing,” said Jeff. “It’s fine. If it’s not on the ice, it’s not important. I mean, like. You said he’s playing well. So stop trying to force everybody to be all Happy Days with you.”

Bitty sighed. “I am not,” he said, “forcing anybody to --”

“Just let the guy live, damn,” said Jeff.

What sucked was that Jeff was right, and Bitty knew it. He was trying to think of a decent comeback when Kent returned, the sound of the door interrupting Bitty’s train of thought.

“Jeff, stop antagonizing Eric,” Kent said.

“Oh my god,” said Jeff, “I wasn’t even doing anythi--”

“Yeah,” Bitty said, “stop antagonizing your boyfriend’s boyfriend.”

“Hey!” Jeff ran a hand through his hair, pulling it out of his face. “I’m just being honest, man!”

“Horizontal violence,” said Bitty, and Jeff rolled his eyes.

Climbing back into bed, Kent had to crawl over Jeff. They paused for a moment, Kent half in Jeff’s lap, and Jeff leaned in to press a kiss to Kent’s mouth. When they parted he was grinning, and Kent swatted at him before pushing away to settle on the bed again.

“I miss you,” Bitty said, and he felt it with his whole heart, wasn’t sure if he meant just Kent or both of them. Watching them, Bitty realized that together they felt like home.

His chest felt tight. He missed the warmth of their Canadian summer, laughing in a rental house and sharing ice cream. Leaning his cheek in one hand, Bitty smiled softly, just looking at them on camera.

Looking back, something in Jeff’s face softened a little, and he turned to look at Kent.

“I miss you, too,” Kent said, and when Jeff reached out to run his thumb over Kent’s cheekbone, he closed his eyes for a moment. “Wish you were here.”

“Soon,” said Jeff. He glanced at Bitty on the screen, smiled softly.

“Soon,” Bitty agreed. Soon they wouldn’t have to rely on Skype at all.

( the whole fic is here on AO3 )

[cuddle-porn]

Two Things Porn Sites are Doing to Make Billions Annually, and How You Can Too

Internet creation could be a multi-billion dollar trade. Is it as a result of the common young man's thirst for creation and sex is instatiable?

Well, in a word, yes ...

But there is a lot of thereto than that. it is also that creation marketers area unit merely brilliant. generally they are unashamed and unethical, however they are still brilliant.

The following 2 techniques area unit quite polemical ...

Their ethics area unit questionable ...

But the very fact remains that they're driving the billion-dollar web creation industry and creating their house owners a fortune.

Non-porn web Marketers will learn from these techniques to spice up their sales as well.

I don't excuse the employment of those techniques, however I do excuse adapting them!

You may got to change them to fit your trade and your personal moral boundaries, however with a touch imagination you ought to haven't any drawback boosting your response dramatically with these techniques.

tough mastercard Upgrades

How it Works

You're water sport on and you are hot for the total length version of that short sexy video clip you only watched.

All of a unexpected, before you'll be able to read it, you discover you have one fast step before you'll be able to get the products.

For one in every of many reasons, you are asked for your mastercard and you mirthfully give it. a number of days later, your card is charged for a full one year's subscription.

The reason for giving them the mastercard varies.

It may be that they have to verify that you are eighteen years older, in order that they raise for a sound mastercard range to prove that you just area unit.

It may be that they're giving a $1 trial for the primary few days of access ...

What they do not reveal within the fine print is that if you do not cancel during a few days your card are going to be beaked.

And billed.

And billed.

Great for the creation sites.

Bad for unsuspecting shoppers.

Problems

30 days later you get your mastercard bill and you do not, ahem, acknowledge the charge. What does one do? You invite a chargeback, of course.

The trickier and a lot of deceptive you're at obtaining your customers to deal out their cash, the a lot of possible they're to invite a chargeback.

How to Adapt and change

Ethical marketers still use this type of manoeuvre so as to form it easier for consumers to form a shopping for call.

Here area unit some guidelines:

a. ensure individuals perceive up front what they are entering into.

If they do not, they are simply attending to complain later. Be up front and honest. Yes, you'll be able to get them to allow their mastercard for an endeavor, however you wish to let them apprehend that is what is happening.

b. build a good product.

People invite chargebacks if they do not bear in mind the charge. They conjointly roll in the hay if the charge was for a product that sucked.

Don't suck.

Make merchandise that build individuals happy and do what you'll be able to to require care of your customer when the sale.

This way you get the simplest of each worlds. You get the exaggerated sales of aggressive techniques and you get happy customers.

c. supply refunds quickly and simply.

If somebody needs their a reimbursement, why fight it? you'll acquire 2 new customers within the time it'd take you to persuade associate angry one.

Do your best to form them happy, however if they do not reply to your overtures quickly, simply allow them to go.

File Sharing Hijacking

How it Works

You're on your favorite file-sharing system making an attempt to transfer a song by your favorite creator. You load the file and suddenly resolve it is a clip from a porn film with the command to go to a web site to ascertain the total length clip.

Problems

Obviously if somebody expects a song from Coldplay and gets a video from Jenna Jameson they could be a touch stunng.

But area unit they? clearly it should be operating or individuals would not be doing it. Perhaps it's simply that individuals area unit therefore drawn to creation that they overlook it.

At any rate, i do not advocate making an attempt this for yourself. That is, unless you adjust it a small amount ...

How to Adapt and change

The ethical analogue to the present is fusion.

Fusion selling is after you see one company riding on the advertising of another.

For example, after you see movies publicised on the cups of sentimental drinks served at McDonalds, that's Fusion selling.

When you see films advertising merchandise subtly (and generally not therefore subtly) in the contents of the film that is Fusion yet.

So, what is the difference?

The distinction is that Fusion selling still offers individuals what they're asking for. you do not enter expecting a movie and walk out finding you have seen a billboard (unless you only viewed Fahrenheit 9/11). If you doBusiness Management Articles, you're angry.

The Fusion seller still offers you the film (what you want) and rides along with his selling message (the advertisement).

Porn purveyors area unit advertising one factor and giving another (the smart recent "bait and switch") that is bound to worsen your customers.

How are you able to use legitimate Fusion selling to spice up your business?

[leakinghate]

Do you think there is any chance for lotura now, when we've just seen romantical teasing of Allurance that can be foreshadowing? (If it's so, showrunners go to hell)

Hello Anon,

Yes. I do believe there is still a very legitimate hope for Lotura to be endgame.

I was going to take some time to mull things over and plan before making a post. But, you took the time to ask, so here are my thoughts.

*ahem*

Lotura is Endgame, Y’all can Fight Me

In for a penny, in for a pound, eh?

I cannot promise you 100% that Lotura will happen, but there are two things I know, and that I can promise with reasonable asurridy. One, allurance is not going to be endgame. It may happen for a episode or two; but it’s not going to work out.

Two, Lotor will be returning, and as an eventual ally to boot.

Let's tackle our rival ship problem first.

Lance’s character arc has always been about him maturing to a point where he can believe in himself and grow some self confidence. He’s a classic case of a young man insecure about his place in the world overcompensating in an effort to make sure no one else notices it. He’s probably struggling with imposter syndrome, though I doubt he’d recognize it as that. The ironic thing, is that he’s so caught up in his own head that he doesn’t notice his team’s genuine appreciation of his talents and friendship. He’s the emotional support of the team, and possesses a genuine talent for leadership and calm headedness that even Keith is shown to struggle with. Despite flying the Red Lion now, he’s still obviously a Blue Paladin at heart.

The fandom’s perception that Lance hasn’t had an arc is because his arc is a long one, and it’s not going to pay off completely until near the end. Hunk’s arc was early, and his most dramatic developments took place in season one. Pidge’s arc happened in fits and starts, but was obvious and telegraphed from the beginning - it also focused on tangible goals rather than personal growth. Shiro and Keith’s arcs were intertwined, and formed much of the backbone of the show - when one wasn’t in focus the other was. Allura is the central character of Voltron, and her arc won’t be over until the show itself is - her arc is the plot of VLD itself.

Lance’s arc is slow, and has tackled small bits of his character development at a time. It’s always been about his self confidence, but it started from the outside-in. Beginning in season one with his jealousy of keith over the other’s physical abilities and natural talent in areas Lance wished to accomplish. Moving on through developing security in his value as a team member and place among the paladins. Finally, we have yet to tackle his emotional security.

Lance desires romantic attention. He thinks that he’s in love with Allura, but he really isn’t. He’s in love with the idea of her. Her beauty, her personality, her position, even her seeming unattainability - all things that attract Lance to her, but attraction does not a stable relationship make.

I’ve said it before, several times, so I’ll be brief. Lance and Allura’s life goals, positions, interests, and lifespans are not compatible. Lance wants to be with his family on Earth - a major component of his characterization is his family inclination and homesickness - he’s very young with no political experience and has shown no inclination to gaining any, he’s dismissive of and uninterested in Altean culture, and his human life expectancy is unlikely to exceed 100 years. By contrast, Allura is the last remaining Altean royal, and one of only two Alteans who remember what life on Altea was like. She’s going to want to be in space with the recently revealed still living survivors of her people. She’s the leader of the coalition and the owner of Voltron, she has countless populated planets to oversee and diplomatic negotiations to attend to. Her culture is precious to her, and she values it highly. And her lifespan is likely at least 1000+ years - Coran, a non-magical Altean, is at least 600 years old and appears to be only slightly older than a middle aged human equivalent.

And she’s only a few weeks, a month or two at most out from a very nasty breakup.

Allura is absolutely still in love with Lotor - you can’t just turn off loving someone like flipping a switch. It takes time - a lot of time in many cases, and it takes processing, and dealing with those emotions.

It may be, that Lance and Allura attempt a relationship for a few episodes, but it’s not going to work out.

As Lance is faced with the prospect/reality of getting what he thinks he wants, his character development in other areas is going to come to the fore. He’s going to be aware of and have to deal with the realities of having a relationship with the Altean Princess, and realize how very incompatible they actually are. There is a very good reason that Lance’s realization about his feelings towards Allura happened in the B-plot of s6e2, ‘Razor’s Edge’. The episode in which the A-plot revolved around the impossibility of a relationship between a human man and an alien woman. VLD likes it’s parallels, that wasn’t an accident.

He’s also going to realize that he deserves to be more than somebody’s second choice. Lance deserves more than being a rebound - and he knows that now, even if he hasn’t expressed it.

Because that’s what’s going on here.

Allura’s sudden apparent reciprocation of Lance’s feelings this season feels like a rebound because it is a rebound!

Allura felt very off this season, and that’s almost definitely because she's still really shook up over what happened with Lotor.

She's NOT okay, and that hasn't been dealt with.

It will be, next season. But she was in focus in a major way the last two seasons, so she had to take a back seat this one so she could get focus for the end. It's the same reason why Keith was in the background for several seasons before stepping back up in s6 and s7. And it's why Lotor was such a late addition to the cast. He's a huge plot mover in s3-6 (arc #2), and he will be again next season. So he was absent from 1-2 (arc #1), and again from 7 (the first half of arc #3). Same as why Haggar was absent this season, it's about balance.

I was majorly sketched out by the few little out-of-nowhere allurance moments.

But I think, that it's supposed to come across as odd, and uncomfortable, and abrupt.

Because I think it's ultimately leading up to Lance turning down Allura.

He's going to realize that she doesn't actually care about him romantically. She's hurt and lonely, and feeling like she failed her team for falling for Lotor. So she's overcompensating, and trying to force herself into liking Lance. Because he's there, and he likes her, he’s dependable and safe. So when she’s desperate to move on and salve the pain? She kinda feels like she owes it to him to give him a chance.

Allura has lost almost everything. Her people, her culture, her planet, her father - twice! Last season she lost the castle, after just barely snatching it from the metaphorical jaws of death she then has to voluntarily blow it up to save the universe. She lost Lotor - the person she’d fallen in love with, who she’d connected with and come to rely on - and she had to ‘kill’ him with her own ship.

Her people, that she only just learned weren’t entirely wiped out, have vanished without a trace before she even gets to see them.

By the end of season 7 she’s lost all that was left of her castle, her crown, and even the clothes on her back. She’s been stripped of her distinctive cultural clothing and garbed in the generic military uniform of an alien people.

It’s no coincidence that she didn’t begin ‘reciprocating’ Lance’s feelings until they arrived on Earth - where she was even more isolated without her lion and Voltron. She’s feeling so incredibly lonely and is looking for comfort and love anywhere she can find it.

It can’t work out though, for all the reasons we've already identified.

There was zero flirting this season, and other than the weird blush there was NOTHING.

Contrast that with the solid two seasons of beautiful and mutual Lotura buildup - even more, some would argue, if you consider Allura and Lotor’s clash in s3e3 ‘The Hunted’ as foreshadowing.

The biggest things for me. Is that nothing happened to prompt Allura to see Lance in a new light. We go from her irritation at him in e4, to neutral, average team members, to a sudden blush in e10, and lion-look-framing in e13.

And amidst it all Lance still managed to manipulate the situation to get himself alone with a pretty girl. It backfired on him pretty spectacularly when Romelle turned out to be far more rambunctious than he could handle, but that doesn’t change the fact that he chose the passenger arrangement. This is long after his apparent realization of ‘loving’ Allura, and pretty handily demonstrates that Lance isn’t really ready for a long-term commitment.

So are Lance and Allura being set up for endgame?

Nah. There's something else happening here.

Especially when it was twice emphasized this season how Allura got them into that mess by getting them close to Lotor. Nevermind that it wasn’t the team’s friendship and alliance with Lotor that fucked them over, but the Paladin’s betrayal of him.

But we're still waiting for the other shoe to drop there.

We haven't had the big emotional Allura moment that’s been alluded to, and we haven't had Keith still having a lesson yet to learn.

Referring back to VLD’s pattern for character prominence, we should expect Lance to fade out towards the second half of next season, since he had major POV framing in this season and the last one.

If what I think is going to happen actually happens, Lance should be dealing with his romantic issues at the start of next season to complete his arc. I’d imagine it will be in the first few episodes of season 8 that this will happen. This should line up with Lotor's return to the story, and thus trigger the 'cool story arc' we were promised with both of them.

This brings us to our next point: Lotor’s return.

We already have confirmation that Lotor is alive in the rift - Rhys, Coran’s VA, let that slip during an interview at SDCC. And if he’s alive, he’s going to be returning.

But as an ally? Maybe not at first, but eventually.

I found it interesting that Lotor was never once brought up this season in conversation with people who didn’t already know about him and about the Paladin’s fight with him.

Even when it would be logical to do so.

When briefing the Garrison. Sam Holt, who was exchanged with Lotor as a hostage and was present on the castle ship during the Kral Zera, specifies that Zarkon is dead but never mentions that Lotor is now - as far as he knows - ruling the main Empire force.

Lotor was an ally of Voltron when Sam returned to Earth. The biggest, most powerful ally they had. They were present on the castle at the same time, and even if they didn’t interact it’s impossible that Sam wouldn’t have been aware of Lotor’s existence and position as the new Galra Emperor.

Why not mention that Voltron had a huge swath of Zarkon’s former empire allied with them?

Because it would necessitate explaining the fallout when the paladins did eventually reach Earth. So? Why not do that? That’s two to three lines of dialogue, and would serve in-show to heighten the drama for our Earth based characters, who might have been hoping for aid from the other half of the empire.

Why specifically leave the position of Emperor in limbo? Why not have Sendak officially assume command?

There’s no reason in story to have things be that way.

So there must be a narrative reason.

The only thing I can think of?

Narratively speaking, they’re avoiding tarnishing Lotor’s reputation in the wider universe. The only people who know what happened in that fight? The paladins. And they left his throne unclaimed, so that he can take it on his return.

It’s the reputation thing that really cinches it for me. There is only so much time, only 13 episodes left in the series, and it would be nonsensical to waste a decent portion of it on doing damage control for Lotor when what’s ideal for the stability of the wider universe is to return to the way things stood at the beginning of season 6; with Lotor in control of the the Galra Empire, and the Coalition - and Voltron - allied with him.

At the beginning of season six the only outstanding major threats were Haggar and Sendak’s Fire of Purification, Haggar is obviously our final arc antagonist, and hey! Wouldn’t you know it? Guess who just just got offed? Sendak.

There is no damn reason to preserve Lotor’s standing with the coalition forces. Except if he’s to return as an ally. Especially when everybody should be asking for explanations of where they’ve been. But they don’t. For a reason.

So will Lotura be endgame?

I believe so.

They’ve said before that they crafted Lotor’s character to be someone Allura could relate to and find comfort in. They redesigned him, literally made him for her.

Every one of our characters in VLD has had to suffer terribly throughout the course of the show. So far though, Lotor and Allura are unique among focus characters in that their suffering has been without respite, recourse, or reward. They have both lost everything.

At the end of s7 Allura does not even own the clothes on her back, and it's doubtful that Lotor is even in control of his own mind anymore.

They literally have nothing left to lose.

They’ve been stripped bare of everything that has ever mattered to them.

So perhaps they can find peace, for themselves and others, by giving themselves to each other.

The love between an Altean Alchemist and the Galra Emperor started the war 10,000 years ago, it’s only fitting that love between another Altean Alchemist and Galra Emperor end it.

[weaverlings]

in the dining room, with the ring

so for @cecilos-week‘s “proposal” prompt... in which Cecil and Carlos are, theatrically speaking, huge hams.

listen I don’t know that I can communicate to you how foolish this is?? just ridiculous. but in a fun way? I had fun with it anyway and also it’s extremely gay, promise. check it out.

Cecil stood at the front of Old Woman Josie's dining room in an outfit of clean lines and matching colors. The outfit was, in the strictest sense, a costume. He raised his arms to throw back his cloak, and grinned.

"Welcome back," he proclaimed, "to tonight's mystery dinner theater!"

He clasped his hands back over his chest, a gesture that was all fluttering red silk and black velvet settling around him.

"Unfortunately, trying to hold a murder mystery dinner theater would have led to a severe fine and jail time for misusing emergency services, so it was just a regular mystery dinner theater." He opened his hands, peacemaking, apologetic, and soothed, "But as you have learned tonight.... There are other crimes. Arson. Fraud… oh, and of course, theft."

He allowed himself another moment of silence, both for the pacing and to luxuriate in the stir that passed through the players.

Josie Ortiz tapped the arms of her chair, grinning a challenge back at him from under her deerstalker hat. No detective was pluckier, but perhaps she had claimed a prize beyond a puzzle that night.

Abby Palmer, one half of the ominous housekeeper couple, folded her arms over her chest. Did the pastel iridescence of her tuxedo hide beneath it a different kind of shine?

Dana Cardinal in a double-breasted coat, medals gleaming, did her best to maintain governmental solemnity. It was a good effort, but she could not quite stop smiling. Maybe it was because she had not had such a good time in quite a long one, or maybe she was eager to share a secret which would, ultimately, harm no one.

And the beautiful heiress, strung with pearls and draped with feathers over the simple silhouette of a black dress. Carlos' eyes were bright, attentive; his teeth pressed into his lower lip with anticipation. What did he know? So much. Maybe because he had never lost his family heirloom, after all.

All eyes were on their host, who offered his most decorous smile. "Yes, something terrible has happened tonight. No, not merely happened - it was an act of willful malice. A crime, indeed, has been committed-" He ducked down to whisper quickly into a nearby potted plant, "But not for real, guys, okay? We're totally just pretending - Ahem. Yes, a crime! The prized jewel of a noble family has been stolen!"

"Oh, darling, no!" Carlos exclaimed, and swooned in his seat. He sobbed desperately, "It's just too terrible!"

Maggie Pennebaker fanned him with the book she was carrying. Tamika Flynn leaned over the table, and offered, "Ooh, hey, I've got real smelling salts in my emergency kit! You wanna try some?"

"...Honey? Are you okay?" Cecil started around the table, unable to curb an instinctual response to his boyfriend's distress.

Carlos lifted his head just enough to wink at him, and then fell against the chair again, this time pressing the back of his hand to his forehead. Tamika smirked, and sat back down. Maggie fanned harder, and nudged a glass of wine toward Carlos with her free hand.

Cecil reclaimed his place at the front, and gathered their attention by spinning into place and swirling his cloak around him. He went on, "Yes! And it happened tonight! Right. Under. Your. Noses. No one has come or gone from this house since the jewel vanished. Even now, the criminal… is among you! Among us! They must be, and their ill-gotten gains must be, as well.

"Now, the time has come." He pushed back his sleeve, and made a show of fiddling with his watch. "You have had two hours to sniff them out. And I have here what exists nowhere else in Night Vale. The truth of two hours." He smiled at Carlos. "Have any of you solved this mystery, or will the criminal and their treasure escape justice, as well?"

Carlos' faint gasping caught, and then he was laughing, still with his head thrown back. A high, dramatic sound; intentional, delighted syllables. When he deigned to sit up, everyone was staring at him. He set his chin in in one hand, and twirled the end of his feather boa slowly in the other.

"Oh? What's so funny, зайчик?"

"Why, darling… Of course, I've solved it. I know who the thief!"

"Oh, my. Did you all hear that?" Cecil placed his fingertips just so over his heart. "Does anyone have anything they wish to say before, perhaps, their true nature is revealed?"

He let silence settle again, as complete as it could be in a crowded room.

"No? Well, alright." He offered Carlos an exaggerated bow, beckoning him to continue. "Go ahead, зайчик."

Carlos stood up, but his movements were deceptively demure. He batted his eyelashes, and crossed the ends of the feather boa over his chest. He began to pace around the table, stopping by each seat as he spoke.

"It could have been any of us. At first, I thought it must be…  the housekeepers! Between the two of them, and their access to the house, well, who else could it be?"

Steve clapped his hands to his face, the very picture of indignation, nowhere near the reality. "Oh, but we've served this family for generations!"

"Mhm. We would never," Abby agreed. She tipped her head onto the shoulder of Steve's matching tuxedo, and smiled easily up at Carlos.

"But did they?" Cecil suggested in a stage whisper. "Maybe… they did."

Carlos held up a hand. "No. You wouldn't. I didn't want to believe it, so… I didn't. And I started thinking about other possibilities. Once I had opened my mind to them, it seemed so obvious… My little cousin! Ever since she arrived last night, she's been so sweet. Opening doors, fixing things, laughing at everyone's jokes - even those which were not scientifically accurate. So, maybe a little too sweet. Very suspicious, darling."

Cecil mused, "And even the sweetest faces can hide dark secrets…"

Tamika fluttered her eyelids right back at Carlos. "What? Me? But I was going to have a share of the estate, anyway. Unless you think I wanted more? Oh, how could you ever suggest that?"

Carlos stopped, once again teasing the end of the boa between in his fingertips. "I didn't. Actually, I was really confused about what your motivation would have been until just now - it didn't make sense. So, I mean, I know it's not you. But that's really useful information, thank you, darling. I'll keep it in mind."

Tamika folded her arms, and settled back into her chair with a firm nod. "Oh. Good. Glad we're on the same page."

Carlos moved on. "Professor Pennebaker… I thought you might be interested in studying the gem. Then I remembered that you're a professor of geology, rock-based divination which is not a real science at all, as opposed geonomy, which is legitimate earth science. Major Cardinal might have wanted the gem to decorate her pocketwatch, so that she could at least have one that was pretty, even if it was still completely useless..."

"Oh, um. But I-" Dana coughed, and tried again, lowering her voice and speaking gruffly. "I forgot the pocketwatch that went with the costume. Sorry."

"Aww, it's alright, darling. These things happen. And it means you couldn't have done it. Neither could Josie, because she has a dog, and everyone knows dog owners are morally infallible, because dogs are so precious that their inherent goodness rubs off onto their owners, a little more with each pet. Mhm. Scientific fact, darlings."

Erika, standing beside Josie's chair in a dog-ear headband, said, "Woof."

"And that leaves…" Carlos whirled, and pointed across the table to a dour figure in an eye patch and rain slicker. No one knew her relationship to the family, only that one Janice Palmer had shown up late last night, storm-drenched, with the appropriate invitation and enthusiastic glower for everyone involved. "The mysterious stranger!"

Janice glowered harder, but this resulted in a strained expression that was more like a pout. She said, "Aye! It was me!"

"Oh! A confession!" Cecil exclaimed. "But why did you do it?"

"Yes, darling, you must tell us why! None of us have any idea who you are!" Carlos insisted.

Janice pulled a card from the pocket of her slicker, scanned it, and proclaimed, "It's because I am the descendant of your long-lost cousin, Reginald, who your parents left stranded on a desert island! But over the years, the island became a popular vacation resort and got its own airport! I just flew in last night for my revenge and… boy, are my arms tired…?"

She looked down at the card again, then gave Cecil a dubious look. He nodded encouragingly behind Carlos' back. Tamika caught Janice's gaze, and rolled her eyes in solidarity.  

"Oh, no! My dear mamà and papà!" Carlos gasped. "And that explains the greatest mystery of all - why you arrived storm-drenched when we live in a desert that averages less than twenty-five centimeters of rain per year!"

Cecil pressed a hand to his chest, and declared, "Ooh, what a twist!"

"Yes! But you know what? If I can't have the jewel, no one can! I'll never tell you where I hid it!" Janice cleared her throat, and cackled distinctly, "Mua-ha-ha!"

"Hmm. I wouldn't be too sure, darling." Carlos smiled slyly, and waved away any concerns with a flick of his wrist. "I solved that mystery, too. I know exactly where the jewel is!"

Janice huffed. "Impossible! My hiding spot was perfect!"

"Oh, but of course, it's possible. In fact, not only is the jewel here, in this house, it is in this very room!"

Cecil pivoted, and threw out one arm, holding the cloak so that the lush, crimson lining spilled forth as an invitation. "Then reveal it to us, зайчик."

"I will. Just you watch, darling."

Carlos crossed the dining room. No one else made a sound; the click of his heels echoed and died as he swung aside a framed landscape on the wall. Behind it, Josie kept her fine porcelain, as was typical, and under the gravy boat on the bottom was a panel, the usual storage space for the dining-room beehive. Josie's, however, did not contain a beehive, nor even a few final segments of honeycomb. Instead, Carlos pulled out a plain, wooden box with a gilded latch. He spun to show them.

"Behold! The stolen jewel is inside of this box! My stolen jewel. It's been in my family for all eleven years of recorded history!"

This time, it was Carlos who paused to absorb the reactions. Gasps, a collective shift forward in seats, even polite applause from Maggie.

"You're right," said Cecil, once everyone had settled again. He had to wait. He spoke much more quietly than before, as though he would cry out if he did not keep his voice low. He held out a hand. "It is yours, зайчик. Come here, and let's have a look, shall we?"

Carlos, however, had been waiting all night. Perhaps the heiress, languid even in triumph, could have waited a moment longer, but the heiress was not real and Carlos was, and he was a scientist. Curiosity was deep in his nature. He opened the box, and looked inside.

And then he looked up.

"Cecil." He said, and then he thought he should say something else, but nothing came to mind by the time his voice came out. He just repeated, "Cecil!"

"Oh, Carlos, wait! You- Well." Cecil took a breath. "Well, you can open it. If you want to. It is yours."

Over Cecil's shoulder, Steve was already crying. Abby dabbed under his eyes with a handkerchief, and Dana leaned forward to see around her. Josie gave Carlos a thumbs-up.

Carlos wore an odd expression. At once reserved and bursting, and he, too, spoke gently. "No. No, I was thinking. I mean, I've been wondering. You were the one who got everything ready. Even when I wanted to help, you were very insistent, and normally you are so eager to do things together, so. I mean. Scientifically speaking, so."

He passed the box back to Cecil, and looped the feather bow over his elbows, hands clasped over his stomach. "I want to hear you say it."

Cecil accepted the box, and pulled another, smaller box from inside of it. He set the former down on the table, and held the latter clasped in both hands, and already there were tears in his eyes but he wanted to say it as much as Carlos wanted to hear it. He pushed the cloak out of the way, so he could get down on one knee without stomping on the fabric.

He offered up the little box on his palm, his eyes squeezed shut as his fingers found the seam. His heart was hot in his throat and his throat itself was tight around it so he didn't know if he would be able to speak, after all. But he flipped open the box, and he looked up in the same instant into Carlos' dark and delighted eyes, and Carlos was bouncing at the knee because he could not rock up and down on his heels, Cecil's зайчик for the evening and his bunny always.

Cecil said, "Carlos. Clever, beautiful, imperfect, oh, I had so much I wanted to say, but it's all running out of my ears, but, but you said you wanted to hear something and I know what you meant! Carlos, will you marry me?"

"Yes! I absolutely will!" Carlos shrilled. "I will do this because, personally speaking, I love you!"

"Oh…" Cecil nodded back, almost unable to express himself beyond a thrilled grin. "Neat!"

"It is! It is neat! It is the most neat, oh, honey-voiced honey!"

Cecil slipped the ring out of the box, and Carlos offered his hand to his fiancé. Cecil slid the ring on, and then just held Carlos' hand, and they both stayed there, breathless, until finally Cecil kissed the ring and then up to Carlos' knuckles. Then Carlos dropped to his knees and threw his arms around Cecil, catching him in a kiss. Cecil rested his hands on Carlos' hips, wrapped in silky fabric, and Carlos slid his arms down to hold Cecil under his cloak.

The moment broke when they separated, but beyond its crystalline fragments waited the rest of their lives, which would be one life, joined where they chose. In that beyond, their family and friends congratulated them. Cheers and hugs in a confetti-shower of noise and contact. Erika trumpeted, and Josie nudged them with her elbow, as everyone had to wait for their ears to stop ringing. And then there were decorations to take down, false mustaches to remove. Carlos finally reclaimed the wine Maggie had offered him, and Cecil found some, too, as she shared a small toast with her friend and his fiancé.

At the end of the evening, Cecil held Carlos' feather boa as he slid into his lab coat. Cecil tugged the lapels straight over the silky black dress, and murmured giddily, "Oh, you look just so… so scientific. Beautifully scientific. Scientifically beautiful. Hey."

Carlos beamed. "Yes... darling?"

Cecil offered him the boa. "Have I told you that I love you recently? Because I do. I really do."

Carlos took the boa back, and ran it through his hands. He spun one end thoughtfully. Then, he swished it up and over Cecil's neck, and tugged downward. A suggestion, absent any real force, but Cecil bent so quickly that their lips smashed together. Neither one of them had any complaints about this. Carlos felt the cloak slide heavily around his shoulders, and lifted his arms around Cecil inside of it.

"Mmm! Oh..." Cecil broke off the kiss without pulling away.

"Thank you, Ceec. Tonight was… Oh, it was wonderful! I had such a good time!" Carlos said, his breath soft on Cecil's lips. "I could not have asked for anything more, which means…"

"What does it mean, Carlos?"

"It means it was perfect, scientifically speaking. Nothing to be added, or taken away. People can't be perfect," Carlos whispered, running his hands through Cecil's hair. "It's just not scientifically possible. But maybe some things can be. Some nights."

"Then, every night I spend with you." Cecil leaned his forehead against Carlos'. "Every one. Good, or bad. Because I wouldn't change any of them."

[askpetethelibrarian]

Arrr! The Pirate Library

Yesterday, someone over at King Shot Press found himself in a little hot water over some tweets that were...not pro-piracy, I guess, but not AS anti-piracy as some people wanted. 

It turned into a whole thing. Because this is the internet, so one person’s opinion on piracy shatters too many worldviews or something. 

Frankly, it turned into a big mess. I wouldn’t want to get involved, until...

And when someone said “I honestly don’t see the difference with a library” I felt compelled to say a few things. And to ask myself: Why is checking out a book from the library different from piracy?

Before we get into it, however, I just want to say that the opinion of someone at King Shot isn’t something that induces anger in me. I think it’s an opinion that I agree with in some ways and disagree with in others, and I’m not looking to pile on here. After the library bit, I’ll share some of my opinion on piracy, in general. 

1. Scale

When piracy puts a book up online, an infinite number of people can download, possess, and read it simultaneously. 

When a library buys a print copy of a book, that’s obviously not true. That book can only go out a limited number of times (50 checkouts is usually too many for most books, physically). It can only be held by one person at a time. And, it can only be in any person’s possession for a limited period. 

When a library buys an ebook, similar rules will apply. Overdrive/Libby, the most popular library ebook service, does require us to buy licenses for every copy. Not every title, every copy. So, if we have two copies of something, we bought two. If we have one copy, only one person can have it out at a given time. 

Hoopla, another service, has a different model. We don’t buy individual licenses for individual items, and any number of people can have it at the same time. However, the time period is limited, and users are limited to a given number of titles per month. So, one can’t use library service to stockpile a bunch of books that they keep forever.

Piracy and borrowing might not look different from a user POV, but from a view that’s bigger than the individual, the difference is big enough to start having its own gravitational pull. 

2. Purchase

It certainly seems like I can check out something from the library for free, so what’s the difference between that and downloading it for free?

The library isn’t “free.” It’s a pre-paid service, meaning you’ve already paid for it, it’s just a matter of whether or not you make use of it. Much like a road, street lamp, or public park. You pay for those things, and then you choose whether or not to make good use of your money.

You’ve also paid for ebooks held by your library. Your tax money goes to the library, the library buys ebook services.

Now, in theory, SOMEONE paid for a copy of a book at some point before it was up for free online. So there’s a similarity here. However, let’s look more closely:

If a library buys a title and it’s very popular, they will buy more. Our system has a policy that says we’ll buy another copy of something for every 5 simultaneous requests placed. If 50 people requested The Martian when it came out, our guiding principle is that we should have at least 10 copies. 

There’s no such system in piracy. That one copy is all that’s ever purchased.

To cross over with the above argument about scale, let’s say that my library system bought 10 copies of The Martian. Consider that this is ONE library system serving a portion of one U.S. state. Even if we were overly generous, we could say we cover a quarter of the state. Multiply our purchase four times to cover Colorado, then multiply times 50 to cover the U.S., all of a sudden you’ve got 2,000 purchased copies of The Martian. This is very quick and dirty math, and it’s almost certainly a lowball. 

Also, you need to factor in that libraries will be replacing copies of books. So, in the 5 years or so since The Martian came out, the initial number has likely doubled. 

There’s another effect here. Once The Martian is a hit, you’d better believe libraries are all over Andy Weir’s next book, Artemis. Pre-orders play a big part in sales. Pre-orders count in the first week of a book’s sales, and large pre-orders help a book climb onto bestseller charts. 

You might not care about putting money in Andy Weir’s pocket, and I’m not here to argue about that (for THAT portion, see below). It does warrant talking about, however, in terms of the difference between pirating material and borrowing it from the library. The library is a positive factor in the economics of books. Piracy is not. 

3. Mutual Support

There is oftentimes an argument for piracy that’s about piracy being a positive force for folks who can’t afford books. Let me tell you why using your library is better. 

The library works like this: you support us, we support you. 

You come in, check out some stuff, and that gives us better stats to take to the local government and say, “See, this is important. The community needs this.”

When you pirate something, we lose out on those stats. We become less busy. The local government sees that the library needs less cash. And then, that economically destitute person who can’t afford books? Where do they go now? Piracy? Bad news, economically destitute people are far less likely to have a computer, an internet connection, and maybe even a place to plug a computer in if they DID have one. Oh, and they probably don’t have a fancy-ass e-reader either.

Piracy may be an option for some people who can’t afford books, but if you are concerned with the availability of books to all, the library is a better solution.

~

Let’s talk about some of my personal feelings on piracy, in general. 

We Hurt The Ones We Love

I spoke to a very well-known author. This author told me that they’ve had some contractual trouble with their publisher because this author’s books are VERY frequently pirated, which means that the books are popular, but the publisher won’t pay as much because they will have a hard time getting a return on their investment. 

Pirating material can have a ripple effect that makes it more difficult for the artists we love to put out more of the material we love. Some might see it as hurting a large, faceless company, but the truth is that we’re hobbling someone whose work we love. 

The Money Question

When talking about piracy, there’s always an element of class warfare going on. Why should someone pay the multi-millionaires like Metallica for an album they had to work 2 hours to afford? Why do I care if Harper Collins loses out on a few bucks?

I’m about to enter some uncomfortable territory because the stats are impossible to find. Because, frankly, piracy is something that many people wouldn’t admit to doing. It’s pretty difficult to get a good bead on this whole thing. I tried to find out whether or not piracy is a result of economics, and I could find no evidence supporting or denying that. What I will speak from is personal experience. Because that’s all I’ve got. 

Yes, there is probably some kid out there who is economically destitute and the only way he’s getting his hands on sweet books is through piracy. 

However, my personal experience tells me that a whole lotta piracy is committed by people who could afford the things they’re pirating and end up stockpiling things they never use. 

Let me put it like this: I don’t really have a problem with an individual sneaking into an art museum because they can’t afford to pay their way, and they really want to see the art. 

But I think it would be wrong, while sneaking into the art museum, to grab yourself something from the gift shop. Even something small you don’t need. 

My morality on this is somewhat flexible, and somewhat capitalistic. If you genuinely can’t afford books AND you’ve exhausted the options to come about them legitimately (libraries, friends, etc.) then I don’t think I’d have a problem. However, if you, like most people, justify the collection and hoarding of electronic files that you could afford to come by legitimately, you’re in a bad moral spot. 

Short version: If you are that person who can justify piracy because you pirate only that which you actually view, and you wouldn’t be able to experience art otherwise, you get a pass. But if you’re the person justifying it because someone else is probably too broke to buy books, therefore it’s okay for YOU to pirate, I respectfully disagree.

The Value of Art

Some piracy is justified through saying that pirated things don’t necessarily equate to income loss because they wouldn’t have been purchased anyway. In other words, maybe I would pirate a movie I would never actually pay to see. 

*Ahem*

Sure, like Speed Racer. Maybe I wouldn’t pay a single dollar to see it, but I would watch it for free. This means that the makers of the movie don’t really lose anything. Maybe I wouldn’t PAY for a new Metallica album, but I would listen for free. 

For books, I don’t know that this is nearly as applicable. Who is going to put in the effort to read a book that they wouldn’t pay the paperback price on? It’s not a passive medium the way movies and music are. The book isn’t just going to happen in front of you. You actually have to do some shit to get the information inside your head. 

The real issue on this point is that of de-valuing of art. 

Writing a book is hard work. Damn hard work. I think writers deserve to be paid for their work. 

There’s a long-standing tradition of de-valuing artistic work as work. Because artists aren’t out there busting concrete. 

But I’m here to tell you, art is work. It’s not a blast to sit down and type out a couple hundred thousand words, edit them, re-edit them, send them out for publication. No part of this is more fun than watching Speed Racer. 

The writers you want to read, while you’re enjoying a book, binge-watching something, doing whatever you like to do, they are working, many of them doing so in addition to their regular day jobs. Many of them in addition to being parents, partners, and doing all the same bullshit we all do every day. 

I also feel, in this time of plenty, that there’s really no need to watch movies you hate, listen to albums you don’t like, and read books that’re no good. If it’s not worth the cost of admission, it’s not worth your time either. Just leave it be and move onto something else you’d pay for.