#i know this post mostly reads as angry and it is but i wrote it a few days ago and saved it in drafts

[oaxleaf]

actually, fuck swedish state television (svt) for being so fucking dedicated to spreading moral panic about trans people. i haven’t seen anyone talk about how far this country has backslid into transphobia these past few years, but no small amount of it can be rooted back to svt. there's not much social awareness on trans people due to our culture of not involving ourselves in other people's choices, and this lack of general knowledge is now being exploited by goverment funded news and entertainment networks. how they spew out badly researched articles about puberty blockers and like one or two people who detransitioned or were not one hundred percent happy with their diagnosis. they deliberately make it seem like hrt is just being handed out to any child expressing discomfort in their gender rather than the truth that you have to wait 2-3 years in this fucking country to even get a consultation. it’s really fucking hard to get gender-affirming care here, and svt seem dedicated to rile the people to make it harder - because apparently a child going on reversable puberty blockers is worse than a child killing themselves because they don’t get the care they need. they so badly want to call this a debate, but it’s not, because a debate has two sides and they have not done a single thing to do their duty of being unbiased and show multiple view-points. they even took the opportunity to spend large parts of their special program on stockholm pride to spread factually incorrect and dangerous anti-trans view points. fuck them. fuck this country. we pride ourself on being so good on human rights, but we’d prefer children take their lives rather than recieve the healthcare they need

the threat against trans people is not just a us thing. this shit is happening everywhere

[loganlermanstanaccount]

PLEASE! I BEG THAT YOU WRITE AN MIGUEL O’HARA FICTION! IM BEGGING!! PLEASEE!!!! (Sorry if I come off harsh)

Ask and you shall receive!! A quick thing I wrote (not proofread), thanks for the ask <3

Touch

Miguel O'Hara x reader

(AO3 Mirror), Part 2, Main Masterlist

summary: Miguel misbehaves. You teach him a lesson. part one maybe?? idk y'all let me know if u want a pt 2. (Part 2 is out!)

warnings: pwp!! light f-dom, angry (ish??) sex, grinding, slight m-sub, (m) begging. mostly just filth. I am soooo desperate for any character played by Oscar Isaac. 18+ Minors DNI

a/n: I apologise in advance, native Spanish speakers. Me and reverso tried our best. 

wc: 1.4k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

A great crash from the workshop has you running from all the way in the kitchen, apron still on. 

He looks tired, hunched over his desk. Great hulking shoulders hang, tense in the dim light of a single lamp.

"Miguel?" It's soft, in the metallic hum of lights. "Everything okay?" 

He shifts, looking over his shoulder at you. "M'sorry for the noise mi sol, just tired." 

"...maybe it's time to call it a night, baby."

He waves you off with a flick of the wrist.   "Give me ten minutes, I'll come to bed."

"That's what you said half an hour ago, Miggy." It's under your breath but loud enough that his super senses pick it up.Your voice is fraught, frustrated - no doubt at the nights he'd spent away from you. Whether coming back late from tinkering in his workshop, or on the streets; he'd meet you fast asleep in bed, and wake up to an early morning rush. Either way, he seemed like a stranger in your own home; consumed with his work. It was taking its toll. 

You pad back, returning to the kitchen in silence. You clean up the remnants of a dinner Miguel had picked at, sighing. You loved him, and you knew he loved you; but he lived in his own world sometimes. Sure, the world needed him; but what about you? After everything you had given each other, how could he discard you so easily? 

It's only after a while Miguel realises the noises of you clearing up have long subsided, that he heads into the kitchen to investigate. It's meticulously clean, your apron hanging up on its peg by the door. On the counter, the remainder of his dinner boxed up in tupperware, with a post-it-note on the lid. 'For Miggy <;3' , it reads. 

His heart aches as he walks towards your room. You're dressed in nothing but his t-shirt, knees drawn and curled up into yourself. He slides into bed, staring up at the ceiling. 

"Mi vida?" He mumbles. "Mi vida, I know you're awake." 

You respond with an unceremonious grunt, back still turned. You're mad at him, and he deserves it. 

"I'm sorry." He says, listening to the rise and fall of your chest in the dark. He sits up. Sighing, he cradles your arm, tracing circles into the flesh. Gentle, and oh so soft. "I'm an idiot, you know that. I fucked up. Couldn't see how much you were hurting."

You stir, turning to face him. In the neon lights that stream into your room, his face falls. He brings a hesitant hand to cup at your cheek. 

"Say something. Please." Imperciptably, he watches your eyes fall to his lips. 

You kiss him, passionate and hot and angry. He can barely breathe when you envelope your plush lips around his, snaking your hand towards his back. You claw at his shirt, raking a hand into his hair. When you separate, it's obscene; a sliver of saliva still connecting his lips to yours. His scarlet eyes are low as he licks his lips; chasing your taste. You both sit up. 

"You haven't touched me in weeks, Miguel." Your voice is dangerously low, hand wrapped around his neck.

He wraps strong hands around your waist, guiding you to straddle him. For once, he's grateful for the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt - thin around the apex of your pebbled nipples. He paws at your hips, hands trailing towards your bare thighs. Just as they come to rest towards their crook, you snatch his hands away. 

"Let me make it up to you," He hisses at the contact, leaning into your touch. "Por favor, sólo una probadita, just a taste, my love."

"No touching." Dramatic, he protests, cursing in Spanish before you bring a thumb to his mouth to silence him. 

"No. Touching."

Eyes lidded, looking up at you, it takes everything not to break; you fight the urge to kiss the tip of his nose and whisper praise into the crook of his neck. Instead, you coax your thumb into his mouth; as he swirls his tongue around it, like he would on your clit. Miguel savors it like the sweetest honey, grateful you'll even touch him considering how he's been acting. 

He swells in his pants, hard as the crotch of his sweats graze your bare pussy. Beautiful tits pressed against his chest,  you draw small circles with your waist against the seat of his crotch. Precum spills as his hips jump up to meet you, desperate for contact. 

Immediately, you stop. With a pop, you pull your thumb from his mouth and Miguel moans at the loss. 

"Mierda. Baby, please-"

"No. Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to use you to get off. You're gonna watch, if you're lucky. And then I'm…" You swirl your hips, causing him to groan. "... going to bed." 

"¿Entiendes?" You croon, spiteful in the slow sway of your hips. "Do you understand, Miguel?" 

"-f-fuck, ok, ok-" Desperately nodding, he grips the sheets by his side. Closing his eyes to steady himself, he slumps his head on your shoulder. God, he's trying so, so hard not to cum right there; turned on by the lull of your sweet voice. He likes it when you get angry and treat him like a toy - painfully hard at the way you light him on fire. Everything about you; your scent, the way you taste, the grip you have in his hair; turns his senses up to eleven. 

You grind on his crotch, steadying yourself with your other hand on his shoulder. Plush lip tucked under your teeth, it takes all his willpower not to capture you in another kiss: hungry and consuming and overpowering. He can tell you're serious; everytime he grinds his crotch into yours, you will yourself to stop and tighten your grip. 

"Miguel…" You warn, moaning softly into his ear. "I m-meant what I said…"

When his hips snap up the third time; you growl, frustrated. Both your hands move to his chest, pushing him down onto the mattress so he's on his back. He looks good like this; at your mercy and putty under your hands. You push up the lip of his shirt to expose his midsection and pull down his sweats. A happy trail snakes down to his neatly trimmed cock; its deliciously curved tip springing free. Precum covers his cock, so when you slide him between the lips of your pussy it glides like he was made for you. You bite down on your lip so hard, it almost bleeds. 

With this new angle, you plant your hands by his head; grinding your clit onto his dick desperately. The slick sounds drive Miguel crazy, and when his hands fly to your waist to help you along, you don't move them. 

"You're s-so pretty, mi vida… prettiest thing I've ever seen. Need it. Need you. Use me, please, hump my cock like I'm your toy, p-please, please…"

He knows your body better than you do. You're close, dangerously near the edge. With the way your thigh shakes and the spasms that slow your rhythm, he knows. You don't break eye contact with him under you, moaning as you slide on his cock. Desperate, you chase that sweet spot, electric when he angles your hips just so… 

"M'gonna cum, fuck, Miggy-" You writhe desperately. He's close, too, shamelessly humping your pussy like a feral animal. He can taste it; white hot at the tip of his tongue. Finally, you cum: a leg shaking, biting orgasm that rips through you. You clench around nothing, but it's not enough for him. So, so close; and it's ripped away from him when you come down, in the aftermath. 

Unceremoniously, you pant and roll off of him; spread-eagle atop the sheets. Miggy curses softly at his ruined orgasm - still rock hard. He's glad you feel good, but he knows he can make you feel better, broad hands pawing at your hips. You slap them off, and turn your back pointedly. The slope and curve of your ass taunts him. 

"Fuck off, Miguel."

"Baby, I'm sor-" 

"Fuck. Off."

Sighing, he takes the hint. Grabbing the pillow, he pads off to the sofa in your living room, adjusting his hard on. He'd give you your space, tonight, and begin to win you back tomorrow morning. He needs you, more than you'd ever know. 

_

_

_

[areus-in-a-little-cave]

I am so fucking angry about Dream stans (mostly on Twitter, though they are here) being like “can you BELIEVE people are upset that a minor 😱😱😱 was messaging with an ADULT!! LMAOO wait until they get into the real world and find out that 17 year olds can be friends with 25 year olds. Next they’re gonna call Tommy messaging Schlatt dangerous!!”

It was not that she was 17 and Dream was 20. The age gap was not the issue.

It was that Dream had a position of power over her and abused it. 

He knew he had this position from the very start, as she was a fan of his and their first messages with each other was her telling him how much his content had helped her through depression.

[Image ID: a screenshot of an Instagram direct message to Dream that reads “Hi, the chances of you seeing this are very slim, but I wanted to let you know that your content makes me sooo happy. Ive been really depressed lately, all thats going on in the world and in my life and your videos give me one more reason to stay. You know how people type “LMAO” and dont actually laugh? I actually sit in bed laughing when im watching you. That means a lot [Unclear emoji]. Love you Dream!❤️ -Amanda”. Dream replied and wrote “aw thank you for the kind words :)”. End ID]

This means that he knew full well that her wellbeing was somewhat dependant on his content. She says that his videos gave her one more reason to stay alive.

He confirmed that the Instagram messages are real. 

[Image ID: a screenshot of Dream’s twitlonger regarding the allegations that reads “The second thread had instagram dms from me, again, having friendly normal conversation and nothing inappropriate. I believe these message are real as well. Once”. End ID]

Thusly, the Snapchat messages that haven’t been deleted are, without a doubt, real, because he tells her the name of his private Snapchat in the Instagram messages. They cannot be ignored.

It is incredibly inappropriate for Dream to message her on Snapchat knowing that she was 17 and a fan at the time and that messages can easily be erased. That on its own would be uncomfortable, but he was talking to her in a flirtatious manner.

[Image ID: a screenshot of a Snapchat message by Dream/Clay that is a reply to a video sent by Amanda that reads “ur gorgeous as fuck”. End ID]

This is not normal, friendly behavior. Especially with a fan who is underage and has said that she is emotionally invested in his content.

This is predatory. Several girls have come forward. This proves that Dream not only has more than once, but likely will again, use his platform and power to engage in sexual relationships with underage girls.

He cannot have a platform anymore.

Please, read this post about the Snapchat messages, this post about why Tommy messaging Schlatt and other CCs was completely different, and these two threads about his response to the situation (thread one) (thread two) and how it was manipulative and more focused on his audience rather than adressing the allegations. 

This thread includes most of the information regarding the situation.

[onepiece-fics]

Zoro x reader, enemies to lovers

Summary: Y/N joins the crew and Zoro is incredibly sceptic but yet his heart beats faster whenever you’re around him. He can’t stand the feeling but when the two of you have lookout duty together you have to come to terms with it.

Word count: 1864 

Content warning: Implied fem!reader, Zoro is rude, reader almost injures themselves while exercising. I kinda had the live action Zoro in thought as I wrote this but I definitely think anime/manga zoro fits too :)

Thank you so much @zorostan-2001 for requesting! I hope you enjoy it :)<3

You didn't really know what was wrong with Zoro. Ever since you had officially joined the crew, he had been the only crewmate who had been cold towards you. He would avoid talking to you, trying to never be in the same room as you, and never even looking into your eyes when you spoke to him. You wondered if he had figured out that you'd developed a little crush on him on the island where you met the crew, and that's why he avoided you, but you hid it so well, there was no way he'd know.

One faithful day, you had been told that both you and Zoro had lookout responsibilities in the crow's nest for the night. You figured that to make it less awkward you were gonna attempt to talk to him a little bit during the day so here you were, sunbathing with the girls on deck with him lifting his weights just a little bit away. Nami sighs and shakes her head.

"I really don't understand how that man can exercise in such heat… It's 30 degrees and a beaming sun! It's already hot as it is just laying here…" she says, making you giggle and Robin nods her head and hums in agreement. Zoro stops exercising and gives her an annoyed look.

"Oi, maybe if you actually exercised more we wouldn't have gotten into all that trouble on the last island" he responds to her. He's referring to how the king of your island had kidnapped her, and how they had to rely on you, the kind yet defiant servant, to break Nami out. 

"I think we're very lucky to have met y/n on that island, no?" Robin says, smiling at the annoyed man. He doesn't respond and simply goes back to exercising. Looking at his face you can't tell if he's in deep thought or if there are no thoughts going on in that pretty head of his, he just looks vaguely angry. Either way, you blush and look away from him, embarrassed at the lack of response from him. Nami shakes her head before she goes back to reading her book, eyebrows still furrowed.

"What a rude man" she whispers, mostly to herself. You figure you should at least attempt to make some type of conversation with him, you didn't want tonight to be painfully awkward after all.

"Hey Zoro… How heavy are your weights even? They look so big…" you ask him. For once he actually stops what he's doing and looks at you with a certain wonder in his eyes. It's the first time he looks at you in a positive way, and the attention leaves yet another small blush on your cheeks. 

"Uhm, I honestly don't know," he says, "I kind of just got the biggest ones I could find." Your mouth opens in surprise, he doesn't even know??? 

"Whoa…" you say as he goes back to exercising yet again, and you don't notice it but Nami and Robin exchange a knowing glance at your interaction.

Your duty in the crow's nest starts at 10pm and as you've climbed up you notice that Sanji had already been up there to leave you snack boxes for the night. Your box has post-it notes with hearts around your name, while Zoro's just says his name. You shake your head as you go to sit down a bit from where Zoro is already sitting on the floor. 

"That Sanji… Why does he only put hearts on the girls' snack boxes and not the men's?" you ask and for the first time since you've joined the crew Zoro actually laughs. His laugh really isn't as deep as his voice and it catches you off guard, but it makes you smile.

"That cook… He has some issues with women." he says and shakes his head as another snicker comes out of him. You smile at him, your heart pounding in your chest as you turn to look out the window to view the beautiful sunset. 

You don't notice it but he looks at you from where he's sitting, with a glimmer of appreciation in his facial expression. He hates how you make him feel, his heart pounding just at the thought of having to be so close to you all night. He hates how he has to fight a blush forming on his face whenever you smile at him, and most of all he hates how you treat him with kindness despite how he's treated you ever since you joined the crew. Zoro takes a deep breath.

"Hey y/n," he says, looking anywhere but at you, "maybe you're not that bad". Neither of you can fight the blushes on your faces. You turn to look at him, shocked. 

"Whenever someone new joins the crew I get very protective, I don't want someone with malicious intentions to join…" he's fiddling with his swords to make it easier to talk. 

"It's okay, really," you say. "I think it's understandable to be protective of the crew, and at the end of the day it's quite endearing…" he looks up at you with a wide smirk on his face as you slap your mouth shut. Endearing?!? Oh god, now you've really gone and done it. 

”Endearing, huh?” He gets up from where he was sitting on the floor and sits on the couch by you instead. Your heart is pounding like never before, cringing over your wording. ”You’re not too bad yourself, you know…” he says, that damn smirk still on his face.

”The way you helped us out and even betrayed your own king, despite not being particularly strong… It was very brave of you…” he puts his arm around your shoulders over the couch, looking up to the ceiling. After you had helped Nami escape the king had almost captured you and executed you, had it not been for Zoro finding you at the right time.

”Honestly that's nothing. I’m forever in debt to you though, for saving my life” the blush is creeping back up on his face again. ”I know it must be annoying to have a crewmate that's as weak as I am. I’m gonna have to find a way to get stronger and become an at least decent fighter if I’m gonna be an even okay pirate…” your sentence trails off as Zoro looks at you.

”You’re not annoying y/n. None of us were born strong, we’re all happy to help you.” He says. "Besides, I could always help you with strength training if you want." he offers and you respond with a big smile. Maybe you can be friends after all?

It's been a few days since your crow's nest duty and Zoro is giving you your first gym lesson. Since you're not particularly strong he decides that it's best if you lift light weights on the bench.

"So, this one is 10 kilos. You lift it a couple times to see how much you can take before you get tired. Then you make it into reps and see how many times you can do it with breaks in between, okay?" he explains. You nod, surely this won't be hard. You lift your arms a couple of times until Zoro stops you. 

"You're holding it wrong, you'll get hurt really quickly like that." he touches your arm to adjust your grip and you pray he doesn't notice the goose bumps that form on your skin. You start over and notice how much easier it got. He nods and smiles in satisfaction. 

He goes to his own weights, trusting that you've got it under control but you can't help but stare at him. The way his muscles flex, his sweat dripping down his face, and let's not even talk about his groans as he gets tired and–. 

"Oh fuck are you okay?!" he drops everything he's doing and rushes over to you, hovering over where you're laying, the 10-kilo weight having fallen off your grip and hit you in the stomach. He throws the weight off of you and helps you into a sitting position, eyes full of worry.

"It's okay, really. It didn't hurt that bad" you tell him. He doesn't believe you and takes his hand to hold your chin in place as he makes sure your face didn't get hit.

"Your face looks really red, are you sure you didn't get hit?" he asks as he lets go of your chin. You shake your head, unable to even form a sentence. His facial expression goes from worried to cocky suddenly.

"Then why is your face all red then, huh?" he asks with a shiteating grin on his face. "Is it because you were watching me the whole time?" he leans into you, making you lean back towards where you were lying before. "Or is it because of how close we are?" he whispers, clearly looking at your lips. Both of your hearts are pounding like they're about to beat out of your chests, and frankly, Zoro can barely believe he's getting the courage to flirt like this. 

You both stare at each other in silence, his arms having almost pinned you down on the bench, his face hovering barely 10 centimeters away from yours. He opens his mouth, about to say something as he's scared he might have taken it too far but you interrupt him, reaching up to clumsily push your lips against his. He clearly wasn't expecting it, his face dumbfounded, but as you pull apart his brain registers what just happened and goes back in for a proper kiss, pushing you down on the bench, his arms on either side of your head. As your hand creeps up to lay on his cheek he pulls apart again and rests his forehead on yours. 

"You know, I wasn't expecting that to happen, but I'm not upset about it." he says and the man is smirking again. You gulp, too shy to say anything. "You really aren't nearly as bad as I first thought." he continues, "I guess I just needed to… Listen to my heart." He whispers the last part, already connecting your lips again. 

"Your pretty face… Your kindness… The way you befriended everyone immediately… The way you laugh… The way you get shy the minute I walk in the room… All those things, they made me feel a way I've never even felt before." he whispers as he kisses your neck gently. You feel yourself panting, flustered to all hell. He looks back up at you with a gentle smile. 

"I think I know what that feeling is now." he says. Your lips clash again, but this time in the most gentle of ways. You never knew Zoro had it in him to be this gentle at all. One of his hands is at your hip, thumb drawing circles on your skin. 

"I take it you feel the same way?" he asks with a chuckle. Your face is beet red, lips swollen and panting. "Yeah" you say breathlessly and his smile widens. 

"Good," he says. "Because I'm not done kissing you yet." 

[lauraneedstochill]

The Greens headcanons (modern!au)

I was inspired by @phiasaban post. the second I saw these photos I had an idea for the modern au and just wrote it all down in 10 minutes (this has nothing to do with the show! it’s just me looking at the photos, mind you):

Alicent is a single mom. loves to cook (def cooks when she’s nervous or upset), has a record collection, loves to dance when she’s tipsy. can be a strict parent when she’s pissed (or really tired) but overall is a mama bear (to the point of getting into arguments with teachers — "yeah I think I know what's best for my kids"). she's an angry driver, keeps her car super clean. dresses casually (plaid shirts and jeans), but whenever she puts on a dress she looks so smoking hot it makes every man turn around after her. tons of them flirt with her but she mostly looks uninterested. deep inside is afraid to get her heart broken again. makes friends with her neighbor Cole (he let her borrow flour a few times). he is totally in love with Alicent and everyone sees it but her. he's okay with her taking all the time she needs.

Aegon is a fuckboy but a very apologetic one. has no cruel intentions, he just “loves women so much, he can’t help himself”. either writes songs or poetry. has the weirdest captions on instagram. drinks wine 24/7 but manages to look sober when needed. ends up falling in love with one of his closest friends who’s been tolerating him for years, helping him sober up, making him breakfasts, giving cruel reviews of his sappy poems. one day she just casually picks him up in her car, they’re driving in comfortable silence, she asks him how his day went — and it suddenly strikes him that she’s the one. he’ll probably tell her right away ("I think I'm in love with you" — and she sharply presses the brakes). but it will take a couple of weeks for him to fully sober up, convince her to go on a date with him and then to give him a chance. will plant kisses all over her face whenever she’s upset. he loves movie dates, but his sense of humor is questionable.

Aemond is into sports (pick whatever you like, but he doesn’t look like a team player to me lol). very competitive, self-disciplined, doesn’t talk much. girls swoon over him and he ignores them completely. secretly is a nerd, reads a lot (and pretty much anything). falls in love with a girl who challenges him but will also stand by his side in every situation imaginable even if he’s wrong (she won’t shy away from telling him the truth when it’s just the two of them, though). he’s incredibly protective yet very gentle. it's all about forehead kisses, leaving sweet notes for her, buying flowers for no reason. not a fan of PDA's but will hold her hand every chance he gets. remembers every single anniversary. they’ll probably adopt a dog. he gives the best hugs and loves when she plays with his hair. they can talk about their favorite books for hours and she loves being the only one who gets to see that side of him.

Helaena is into astrology and tarot cards. has a cat (or three) and probably a little pet snake. talks to animals (I also think she’ll be vegan but don’t quote me on that). buys a lot of plants (and gives them names), maybe in attempt to compensate for her smoking. some may say she has a resting bitch face, but those ppl clearly never saw her smile, 'cause it lights up her face and she looks absolutely adorable. she’s the first one to steal their mother’s car (Alicent is not surprised and just texts her "no smoking in the car!"). annoyed with her brothers most of the time but god forbid someone dares to hurt them. carries a pocketknife (it looks very pretty, decorated with crystals and stuff), wears long t-shirts. adventurous but it takes time for her to trust people. will fall in love with someone who’s kind (and maybe introverted?). they’ll get matching tattoos (smth very small and simple), go on road trips and music festivals. yes, I can totally imagine her being queer.

➡ next: modern!Aemond Targaryen, college au part 1 — “All yours” part 2 — First time for everything 💌 my masterlist you can also check out the playlists I made for Aemond and Aegon 🎵

[wen-kexing-apologist]

IS BROTHER ANURAK THE ONE ARMED MAN?

OKAY! SO! 

I feel like I am teetering on the edge of delulu for this fucking show, but…because I just wrote a post about the Left Hand Path and all the left hand/left side imagery, and because I’m…well, me, and hands in shows are My Jam. When I was watching the promo trailer for Episodes 8-14, I noticed something. I never once saw Brother Anurak’s left arm. So I went to the teaser trailer for the whole show, just to see if it was coincidental that the like 5 seconds total of screen time Brother Anurak had in the Part 2 trailer just happened not to show his left arm…but uh…

Brother Anurak holds his rosary with only his right hand…

And Brother Anurak’s left hand just hangs at his side, rather than resting on his lap like his right hand is doing…

And Brother Anurak is shoving Trin with only his right hand…

And Brother Anurak’s left hand is hidden from view by some books…

And this, naturally, started me thinking about the One Armed Man. We don’t know much about this man, only that lost his left arm in an accident and then engaged in some homosexual and substance use activity, he was arrested and executed. We know that Dan, after losing his lucid dreaming stone, had some sort of dream or vision about this one armed man. 

We do not know what purpose he serves to the story yet, we do not know if he is truly evil or just presented that way by the villagers. I mean, if the One Armed Man truly is a wild ghost, the Venerable Monk gave a few theories himself: a) The wild ghosts in the village got angry when the school was built and floating bodies down the water in sacrifice was banned after World War II or b) the wild ghosts take those who ask them for help, and who they like. 

And we do not, currently, know the One Armed Man’s identity. Or…do we, cause you see, I was thinking about the fact that in just these trailers alone, I had not seen a single instance of Brother Anurak using his left hand. 

And so…I did what any completely reasonable, totally non-obsessed, definitely completely normal human being would do….

…and spent the last few hours watching every single scene that involved Brother Anurak in Episodes 1-7 to see if he ever uses his left hand. (I don’t have photo evidence for all of these because trying to screen shot them all would be impossible but, trust me or you can verify for yourself. I also recognize this is a lot, so you’re welcome to just like, choose at random which ones you read).

Episode 1

Welcoming Dan The first time we meet Brother Anurak is when Dan first steps foot on campus. Anurak is the person who gives Dan the school tour and walks him to class. When Dan arrives, he does the traditional ‘wai’ hands that we have come to expect of any Thai show, that is, he presses the palms of both of his hands together when he says hello. Brother Anurak, whose arms are both tucked behind his back, does not return the ‘wai’ and instead just nods. When Rerng, the groundskeeper, runs in to Dan and Anurak, he does the ‘wai’ hands at Anurak and uh…once again Anurak just nods, he does not return the ‘wai’. When he introduces Rerng to Dan, he gestures at Rerng using only his right hand. Otherwise his hands remain tucked behind his back out of view. 

Rescuing Dan from Anan  We are introduced to Anan in the locker room where he immediately establishes his Utter Irrepentant Douchebag status and tries to control all the boys. Anan comes in at some point and puts a stop to Anan’s hazing, and you don’t really see his body at all, the camera mostly focuses on close ups, but if you watch closely you can see only his right shoulder moving because he’s gesturing with his right hand. His left shoulder stays relatively still. 

Talking to Dan about the Shadow

Brother Anurak has been working with Dan and his mother since Dan was about 7 years old. When Brother Anurak is talking with Dan in his office after his first Shadow dream, you can see Anurak’s left hand stays staunchly at his side, he does everything in this scene with his right hand. 

Visiting Dan in the infirmary  Dan spent the night in his dorm away from his dorm…the infirmary, after he faints in class. Brother Anurak comes to visit him, and both of his hands are hidden by the bed for the entire scene. 

Episode 2

Finding Dan at the lake  At the end of Episode 2, Dan collapses near the lake while coming face to face with the Shadow. Anurak and Rerng find Nai and Dan, and Rerng helps Nai carry Dan, Anurak takes the flashlight from Rerng with his right hand and that is his full contribution for Getting Dan Out of There.  

Talking to Nai  When Brother Anurak is scolding Nai about being off school grounds with Dan, his hands are once again hidden behind his desk, and he only gestures with his right hand. 

Visiting Dan in the infirmary → transitions to his office

Brother Anurak is standing on Dan’s right in the infirmary when he wakes up after his collapse at the lake. Once again, Brother Anurak’s hands are hidden behind the bed, so you can’t see them, and then when, out of nowhere, Dan and Anurak are talking in Anurak’s office, his left hand is hidden behind the arm of his chair. 

Dan wakes up from his dream

During their office session, Dan is shunted out of his dream and realizes that he has been in teh infirmary the entire time, and was not actually in Brother Anurak’s office at all. What has snapped him out of his dream is Brother Anurak shaking him awake, but… he is only using his right hand. 

[Side Note: I am taking careful notice of the fact that Dan’s ability to remain present and conscious in reality seems to slip often when he is in Brother Anurak’s presence. Then again, he also sees the Shadow a bunch when he is around the theater teacher, but I have already looked at his hands, and his left hand is real and he does use it so I at the very least I don’t think he has any relationship to the one armed man.]

Episode 3

Dan, Josh, and Nai are punished for coming back late.  At some point, Anurak appears to observe, but not deliver, the caning of Dan, Josh, and Nai for missing curfew after going to see the Venerable Monk. We get a wider shot, which means Anurak’s left hand is visible, but it is held in exactly the same position it always is, and he continues to only gesture with his right hand. 

Telling Dan not to wear the ring   Brother Anurak runs in to the boys in between classes, and he notices the lucid dreaming stone around Dan’s neck. Anurak reminds him that accessories are not allowed in school, and while standing there, his left hand still in the same position it has always been in, and he only points to  Dan’s necklace with his right hand. 

Teaching class 

Brother Anurak is writing on the white board with his right hand, this in and of itself is not all too suspicious because he could just be right handed, but when turns to face the class, his hands are covered by the students so you can’t see either one of them. He moves to the podium and his left hand, which continues to hang at his side, is hidden behind the podium, so we can’t see his left hand. But he places his right hand on the podium, and whatever brief glimpses of the left hand we see when it peeks out the side of the podium, it is in exactly the same position as it always is. 

Episode 4

Grabbing Dan from his room to take him to visit his Dad  When Brother Anurak visits Dan and Josh’s room to bring Dan to the hospital to say goodbye to his father, not only is Anurak’s left hand hanging at his side, but he is shot from the right side of his body so any potentially visible part of his left hand is hidden by the open dorm room door.

At the hospital Anurak is standing on Dan’s father’s left hand side, making his left hand visible… in exactly the same position it always is, his fingers never even twitch. When Anurak leaves the room to give Dan some time alone with his father, he uses his right arm to comfort Dan even though his left arm is closer to Dan’s shoulder. 

Outside the hospital room, after the flashback to Dan’s homelife  Left hand visible, in exactly the same position it always is, cut to talking to Dan outside the hospital room, his left hand is hidden between his legs. We get the best close up we have had of Anurak’s left hand and it is too smooth, and is lacking in any pores or spots, and it’s weirdly shiny. (Unfortunately like the one above, the way my computer works for screenshots, the play bar covers the part of the screen I would need to take a photo of).

Flashback to Anurak talking with Dan’s mother

When we see Anurak interacting with Dan’s mother, because she was his patient, his left hand is visible, still in the same position. AND HOLY SHIT, ANYONE READING THIS, YOU NEED TO GO TO TIME STAMP 18:27 AND WATCH HOW BROTHER ANURAK STANDS UP FROM HIS CHAIR. THAT LEFT HAND IS FUCKING FAKE. IT’S FUCKING FAKE!!! He gives the rosary to Dan’s mother with his right hand. 

Dan’s mother’s funeral  Anurak is sitting on a bench outside the temple, and we only see him after Dan drops the coin he has leftover from buying ice cream, and it hits Anurak’s right foot. We pan out into a wide shot, and Anurak’s right side is visible. Both his hands are in Anurak’s lap but his right hand is covering his left hand so we can’t actually see it. Then, Dan sits on his left side so we never 

Baby!Dan sees the Shadow and Anurak comforts him

Shortly after his mother’s death, Dan wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the Shadow looming over him. He runs screaming from his room, at which point Brother Anurak appears on the stairwell. (What he is doing in their home after Dan’s father accused his mother of sleeping with Brother Anurak, is beyond me but I digress). Brother Anurak’s right arm is hugging Dan while his left arm stays at his side, in the same position it always is 

Right before Dan fights his father

Dan’s Father’s funeral  Anurak comes up to talk to Dan at his father’s funeral, and as he does he places his right hand on Dan’s shoulder. Left hand? Does nothing, as usual.

Episode 5

Dan confronts Brother Anurak

We get the scene from the trailer where Dan tells Brother Anurak that he thinks Trin was murdered after seeing the visage of Trin’s dead body in the pool. This is one of my favorite instances of the hidden left hand, due to the creative use of binder placement. You get a little bit of skin from Brother Anurak’s right hand because it is further away from the camera, but in the foreground? We are not entitled to see what Anurak’s left hand looks like. 

Flashback: Talking to Trin in his office after his Student President Win

After Trin wins the student body president race in a unanimous vote, he is taken first to the Headmaster’s office and then to speak with Brother Anurak about the policies he hopes to institute (read: the traditional systems Trin is hoping to change). Like always, both of Brother Anurak’s hands are initially hidden behind his desk, but as he gets more engaged, more serious about the conversation at hand (haha) he leans forward and he only brings his right hand on the table.

Anurak gets a phone call about Trin’s medical records

I don’t remember if this is the first phone call where Anurak is told that Trin had bipolar, was off his meds, and was treating his bipolar with narcotics, or if this is the second phone call where Anurak is calling an unknown person, angry because he didn’t know how Trin’s medical records got leaked to the press. Either way, and in both cases, he answers the phone with his right hand, and never uses his left. 

In his office with Trin’s parents 

Trin’s parents (one of whom is an MP) are naturally, pissed that Trin’s medical records got leaked and storms over to the school threatening to sue. Brother Anurak speaks with them in his office, and he offers them tea, using only his right hand, his left isn’t even in frame.

And while he is speaking with Trin’s parents, trying to calm them and sort things out, he once again, only puts his right hand on the table. His left is hidden from view. 

In his study, listening to old recordings of his sessions with Trin  Anurak is thinking more about Trin, and digs out old files of his using only his right hand to pull the files out of his cabinet. When he sits in his chair to listen to the audio tapes, his left arm settles in to the same position at his side as it always is when he’s in that chair, and he hides the hand very quickly underneath the file folder when he opens it.

Episode 6

Brother Anurak does not have a lot of screen time in Episode 6, but he is at the student org fair where he meets the husband of the homophobic teacher that is sleeping with Anan. And here again, the people he is with all do the ‘wai’ hands, while he just nods.

Episode 7

Taking Dan from the headmaster’s office after Anan beats him up

Dan is the unfortunate victim of Nai’s decision to blackmail Anan, and gets beaten up once again. He and Anan are called in to the Headmaster’s office to talk about what happened as Dan left the Funhouse, when all of a sudden Brother Anurak appears, asking to take Dan away since Dan is under his care. Brother Anurak’s left hand is visible, but it is once again, still held in the same position, and his right hand is the one he is using to place a comforting hand on Dan’s shoulder.

Talking to Dan in his office 

We reach the final scene with Brother Anurak in the first half of the show, before the One Armed Man is introduced to the story. And it is, once more, the same deal as it has always been throughout the entire show so far. Brother Anurak’s left hand is sitting at his side, in the same position is has literally never changed from. And then he is gone from the rest of the episode, so we don’t have any visual reminders that he exists while the One Armed Man is being introduced and discussed. I have gone through every scene, I have watched to see if his fingers even twitch. They do not, his left hand, whenever it is in view, never moves. You cannot convince me at this point that Brother Anurak and the One Armed Man aren’t connected somehow. This man does not have an actual left hand. 

I do not know if Brother Anurak is the One Armed Man, if he is the scapegoat for the One Armed Man, if he is possessed by, a reincarnation of, or a legitimate ghost of the One Armed Man we learn about at the end of the episode. I do not know what the Shadow is, what it wants, if it is malicious, neutral, or good, I do not know what the ghosts of Trin or those two boys want, who the dead bodies are, what happened at this school. I don’t know any of it, I don’t know if all the pieces of the puzzle we need to figure it out have been revealed yet. 

But the one thing I do know, is that Brother Anurak does not have a left hand, and the level of detail that the show has done to both reveal and hide that is truly fucking impressive. Utt Uttsada who plays Anurak is doing a fucking phenomena job. I do not know how much time and effort went in to consciously never moving that arm. Like he has not once, not ever moved it. His shoulder remains completely still, his arm swings precisely as much as someone with no lower limb to control will swing. He has to be wearing some sort of prosthetic glove to keep his hand exactly in place, to make sure that his fingers don’t twitch. 

It is so incredibly clever to hide his hand like this. To give us enough glances at his left hand from a distance so we don’t question it. I mean, we see his hand, right? We see it is there, it looks real, and there are so many other things to figure out about what the fuck is going on, that the last thing in our minds is the fact that Brother Anurak never uses his left hand. 

Anyway, I don’t even know if this will end up being BL, but I need the entire rest of the BL fandom to deal with the occasional jumpscare and creepy smiles and stares and watch this show, so that I can scream about this with more people. Because holy fucking shit, if this show maintains the quality it has given me with the first half of the story all the way to the end, it might make a last minute grab for Show of the Year for me, with how intentional it has been. 

[farfromstrange]

the grudge | Matt Murdock x Reader

PART 4 of The Vault

See this post for more information on my Valentine's Day Special & Follower Celebration, but these fics can be read separately!

Pairing: Matt Murdock x Reader

Summary: You think back on your relationship with your father after his death, and Matt is there to put some things into perspective and take care of you.

Warnings: Angst, 100% self-indulgent (this fic is the definition of that word), death of a parent, daddy issues (not the sexy kind), song fic, conflicting emotions, hints at child abuse (mostly emotional), and everything that comes with it

Word Count: 1.4k

A/n: I was sad and angry when I wrote this. Growing older, I started realizing that the things my father did when I was a child shaped me, and that it will always stand between us. And when I heard Olivia's song "the grudge" for the first time, it hit me hard. So, this is how this fic came to be. Some of you may identify with this and recognize some of the feelings I've worked through with this. It may also trigger you, so please proceed with caution.

His favorite flowers were peonies. 

It’s a detail you’re not quite sure why you chose to remember. 

You can’t remember the last time he put in the effort to remember one of your favorites—because he never listened. Everything you once told him entered one ear and came out the other without processing your words. If he simply wasn’t capable of feeling empathy or if he chose not to because you were “too complicated,” you’re not sure. You’re not even sure if you want to know. 

Well, even if you did, it’s too late now. 

His favorite flowers were peonies, and yet, staring at his gravestone now, you wonder how a person can call a flower that resembles love and happiness their favorite and be incapable of those very same emotions at the same time. 

He never loved you. At some point, he stopped telling you. You got older, and you realized that fighting for a relationship that has been broken from the start is of no use. When someone can’t love you back, it’s not worth it to love them. The disappointment will only break you. That is what you have tried telling yourself for years, but where he lacked empathy, you’ve always had too much of it, and you quickly realized that you are incapable of hating him to the extent you wish you did. 

Still, even though you can’t hate him, you do resent him. You resent him for never caring the same way you saw other children being loved. You resent him for not sticking around. For not remembering the most essential details about you. For not putting in more effort. For not believing in you when you needed it most. For replacing you. For hurting your mother. For hurting you. There are many reasons you could hate the man who called himself your father, but you still can’t hate him. He failed you when you were just a child, and you still can’t hate him. What does that say about you? Resenting someone while you still love them; is that even possible? Or is it just the confusion that consumes you?

You’re not sure how you’re supposed to grieve the death of someone you once claimed you wouldn’t miss when he died, but it does hurt. It hurts, and you hate it.

Just because he was dead to you doesn’t make this twisted love you have for him go away, you realize that now. And now that he is actually dead, you’re not sure where to with yourself. Or your anger. Or your resentment. 

You wonder if you should have done more to get closure before he died. You wonder if there would have been any way to salvage what was broken between you if you both had just tried a little harder. But you were a child, and then you grew into a broken adult, and you did all you could have done. The blame is normal, someone told you once. It gets better though. It is supposed to get better. 

If it’s supposed to get better though, why does it still hurt so damn much?

The gravel next to your scrunches underneath a second set of boots. A hand finds your own. It’s larger, more calloused than your own. 

“Are you okay?” Matt asks softly. 

He knows how badly it hurts to lose a parent. The only difference is that his father treated him well for the first nine years of his life before he died. 

You wonder if your father was even just a little sorry or if he simply didn’t realize how shitty his behavior was, even though many people have told him over the years. 

You blink, the tears in your eyes an all too familiar companion. “Yeah,” you lie. “I’m fine.”

Your heartbeat doesn’t waver, but he still knows you’re lying. 

The man who was supposed to love you the most in this world did little to show you that. Matt is the first man who has ever shown you unconditional love and known you in a way that you can’t possibly put into words. Your father was insecure, too insecure to love you in the way you were supposed to be loved, and in the process of trying to survive through his struggles, he scarred you for life. 

He wrapped his hand around your heart and broke it without realizing it. 

“You know, I tried to understand why he treated me like he did,” your voice tears through the silence in a monotone line. 

Matt’s head tilts in your direction. “Some people are very insecure and unhappy with themselves,” he says. It’s more of a matter-of-fact statement, but he says it with such sincerity that it hits you right in your feelings.

“I know that, but–”

He cuts you off. He knows you blame yourself. You say you don’t, but every time you do, you’re lying. He knows you’re lying. “When a parent is like that, the person who is the least to blame for any of it is their child,” Matt tells you. “You were just a child, sweetheart.”

No matter how hard you try, you can’t let it go. 

“I think…” You take a deep breath. “I think he wanted a baby, not a child. And when I grew up, and he realized I wasn’t as easy as he wanted me to be, he thought removing himself from the narrative would fix everything,” you say. Your voice is still monotone.

He doesn’t deserve your tears. Still, you cry. You can’t help but cry because, in a way, you loved him, and now that he’s dead, it hurts. 

In silence, there is suffering, and in suffering there is always at least an ounce of unresolved anger. In your case, it is a lot more. And you don't have the strength to fight or forgive. You’re not there yet, and you probably won’t ever get there. Some people make it look easy, but closure and moving on from the agony of your childhood is harder than it may sound.

Another heavy breath leaves your lips. It weighs like a ton of bricks and drags the mood further down. “I don’t like holding grudges.” The cold wind whips you across the face.

“I know.” Matt squeezes your hand in his. 

“I can’t not hold it against him,” you continue. “We were both hurt, and hurt people hurt people, but…those cuts were never equal.”

He shakes his head. When you’re losing yourself in this sea of emotions that you don’t quite understand yet, he’s there to help you keep your head above water. He’s there to help you breathe when it gets a little too hard. And he’s there to be your common sense because yours doesn’t work as well as it used to.

“You have every right to hold a grudge. He made you believe that you aren’t worthy of love,” he says. “Yes, hurt people hurt people, but that doesn’t make it okay that he hurt you in a way no child should ever be hurt.”

He has a way of bringing you down to earth. Your father sucked at talking about what he was feeling or thinking; he sucked at finding the right words because he hardly ever believed in them. He made you believe that you weren’t worthy of love—emphasis on weren’t. When Matt came around, all of that changed. Now, you do believe you are worthy of love. His love, anyway. 

Though every time you think you’re not enough, his voice—your father’s voice—is still there. You can’t escape him, even now that he is dead. He will always live rent-free in your mind, and the damage he caused will always affect the way you see things.

“I love you,” Matt’s gentle voice breaks through the fog like a siren’s song. “He was wrong about so many things, and I think he died knowing that by not trying hard enough, he lost you a long time ago.”

 Your teary eyes are mirrored in his glasses, finally looking up at him. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” you ask.

He shakes his head, but there is a small smile playing on his lips. “There is nothing that can make this better, but there is a fine line between love and hate. You can’t let it destroy you.”

It’s true. You don’t want to turn into the bitter one. If you do, you are no better than him, and you will never know what it is like to be free. 

You wipe your cheeks. “I want to go home,” your wish is clear in the crispy morning air. 

Matt tugs you closer to him. “Okay,” his lips press to your temple, “let’s go home.”

Matt Murdock Angst Tag List: @acharliecoxedfan @gpenguin666 @linamarr @itwasthereaminuteago @norestfortheshelbywicked @yarrystyleeza @littlenerdyravenclaw @thychuvaluswife @schneeflocky @imjustcal @pipsqueakkitten @merlinbtch @thatonegamefish @amberritonicole @pigeonmama

[bohemian-nights]

No this fandom is actually insane

Do people think it’s ok to write “he was teaching her how to bathe”?????? I’m honestly scared to go read the post that they were talking about. The lengths that these people will go to just to prove that dettles never happened

Read at your own risk.

The person who wrote that is actually Black(or so they claim), but is willing to throw Black characters and Black fans under the bus and promote negative stereotypes about us for their mostly (racist) followers in defense of a racist characters desirability.

Sir/ma’am, if you are reading this, get some self respect. I’m actually embarrassed for you cause this shit is actually pathetic. You’re better than this.

Case in point they wrote this crap a while back with 100% sincerity:

(I should also note that I actually had a run in with them about a year and some change ago and they threatened to block me after I asked them if Corlys bathing with Rhaenyra would be normal father daughter figure bonding time so I blocked them first😊).

Like you don’t have to like Dettles, but when you are pushing harmful ideology and stereotypes (Black people are so stupid/dirty that we need the white mans help to civilize us) as a way to discredit them and make those who ship it look like angry Black women jealous of the poor helpless white woman and her stans, you’ve gone too far.

Let’s keep in mind that this poor helpless white woman was actively trying to kill a Black girl for a crime she claims she didn’t commit and that despite claiming that Nettles definitely didn’t sleep with Daemon her stans spazz out everytime you mention her name and actively want her cut from the show.

Or how about the fact that these same stans actively stalk and harass Dettles shippers whose only crime has been pointing out y’all’s bullshit.

Let’s keep in mind all of this shall we:

So who is actually jealous of who here? Who in this scenario wants racial revenge?* Who is the problem in this hellhole of a fandom?

Is it the people merely pointing out Nettles importance to the Dance and Daemon’s arc or the people who hurl racial insults and stereotypes? The people who want her erased from the narrative in its entirety cause she disrupts the status quo?

(The fact that someone would even fix their mouth to say that when Black people have been beaten, raped, enslaved, terrorized, tortured, disenfranchised, abused, subjected, and not even given common decency and respect for centuries by these people. If we wanted racial revenge it damn sure wouldn’t be off the back of a fucking fictional character).

The fact that they can’t see Nettles value and only see her as some irrelevant Black girl and reduce people liking her down to a gotcha/“woke” moment is fandom misogynoir in action.

They forget that she comes from nothing, claims a dragon, has a prince willing to give his life for her(six men or sixty remember that since y’all claim to be capable of reading🙃), survives the Dance and becomes a firewitch worshipped by a group of people, because they don’t want to acknowledge her importance.

It makes them uncomfortable to do so because she doesn’t look like them, but people like I’m not like those other Negros cover up for them so that when they are called out for it they can go see this n-I mean this Black person agrees with me.

Imagine being this butt hurt about a fictional character that you can’t even leave your racism or tap dancing at the door for five seconds.

Nettles doesn’t fit the mold, but that’s the point of her story.

They can recognize maester propaganda and scream about feminism when it comes to their white faves, but when it comes to the Black girl who is actively being stereotyped and maligned for her gender, race, and social standing in the source material they believe it no questions asked?

Again, what does it say about you that you are so willing to believe that a Black girl who was clever enough to claim a wild dragon doesn’t know how to bathe herself? What does it say about you that you think Daemon would never touch her with a ten foot pole just because she’s Black?

What does it say about you don’t want her on the show because of her race? What does it say about you that a fictional character who just so happens to be Black has you worked up into a tizzy.

Y’all claim to be for women(real or fictional), but in reality you only care about the women who look like you and shit on women you see as beneath you. Women who you think are a threat to the status quo. You’re no better than the men who oppress you.

[soleminisanction]

I think it’s so fundamentally telling of what sort of person Stephanie is when her reaction to Greta potentially being killed via 10,000 megawatts of electricity isn’t to be sad or devastated or beat herself up about it/ be disappointed in herself (like I think maybe Tim or Batman would be) it’s purely fear of punishment via Robin being angry at her. She did not care whether greta lived or died. She’s never been overly concerned with whether someone died or not and this has been a consistent characteristic of hers, but that’s usually only in reference to criminal characters who you could justify ‘had it coming’ and whatnot. This was just like. Greta read her diary? And Steph then tried to kill her for it? And did not feel any regret upon trying to do so? Tf??

You're not wrong, anon (aside from comedically exaggerating the voltage of a suburban powerline). I considered calling that out in the post and decided it was a tangent that would've distracted from the actual point, which wasn't so much "Yikes, Steph is an asshole" so much as it was, "And this is why you shouldn't always take characters at their word; with good writers, there's often a lot more going on when you pay attention."

Although looking back over the post now, I really have to wonder if the whole issue wasn't Peter David's way of, in part, criticizing how Chuck Dixon was handling the whole Steph-hunts-Tim's-secret-identity storyline.

Peter David is not shy or subtle about working his opinions into his comics, YJ especially, and he definitely knew where the story was going -- the last page of the issue, the one I didn't include on the post, includes a direct reference to the way the arc would soon end, with an editorial note pointing readers to Robin to find out more.

Throughout the fight Secret specifically calls Steph out on invading Robin's privacy multiple times; it lines up with the way David had, for example, negatively portrayed pair of sports hunters in issue #7, or how he wrote Cissie's "It was the guns you idiot" rant from issue #15. Whereas Steph's responses are mostly comments on the immediate situation and personal barbs that deepen Greta's arc, ie, the bit questioning whether she's even human.

And even though YJ was working with the exact same themes and narrative elements, there's never a comparative incident where a member of the team tries to learn Robin's identity behind his back. Again, despite the fact that Secret could do so easily, and despite all the tension the identity issue ultimately ends up causing on the team. Because even if they don't like that he's keeping secrets, they respect that they're his secrets to keep, and Stephanie doesn't. Or rather, Chuck Dixon doesn't, at least not when it comes to his precious pet character.

Heck, there's also the fact that the "lecture" Tim gives at the end, the one hinting towards the storyline's conclusion, hinges on how Batman and Robin is a relationship built on a bond of implicit trust... and how the relationship doesn't work if that trust is broken... and it's hinting at the end of a storyline in which that implicit trust is broken in a way that arguably took Bruce out of character and turns him into the bad guy while not only excusing Stephanie's behavior but rewarding her for it with her first round of actual Bat-training...

Of course, I have zero way of knowing what Peter David was thinking so this is 100% just my analysis but... I could see it. It's a way to professionally express his displeasure without publicly criticizing a colleague or sabotaging their plans. David's a good writer, I wouldn't put it past him.

[qqueenofhades]

thank you for your post i’m doing my best to stay informed on the conflict and i’m very young. i feel guilty being quiet as i understand to uplift voices helps prevent their silencing but this has lead me to not critically think about what i’m spreading

it’s been a long month. i’m only a kid and watching the world go to shit like this has been awful, I always wondered how millennials who lived through post nine eleven imperialism coped and god i’m still not sure how.

I am as a white gentile in a position of privilege and mostly my own person is unaffected by the uptick in violence and evil in the world right now. But my friends who i see every day are in more danger due to this conflict and i feel awful that i cannot ever fully understand or fix the deaths of people.

Right now I’m being a bit too reactionary. I’m doing my best but in the end I am not immune to fearmongering and propoganda, especially in these last couple sleepless weeks.

So thank you and everyone who is keeping level heads and desconstructing what’s happening. I’m sorry and i strive to be better. Thank you.

To anyone living in fear right now i’m so sorry. I will listen when you speak.

Once again I just want to say that I am a busy and uninformed student, and I wish that i had more teachers and authority figures that had objective facts to tell me. It’s suffocating to have fake news everywhere but feel powerless if you don’t know anything

it’s ok if you don’t respond to this

Thank you for your post

Thanks for this message and for taking the time to put it into words and to reflect on your own actions and rhetoric. It takes a lot of courage and self-awareness to admit that you were wrong and that you want to do better, and I'm not going to rip into you or blame you or otherwise shame you for it. So I hope this gives you the confidence to read on without feeling like you'll be raked over the coals for it, and open you to hear some ideas for doing things differently.

First, I do have a ton of sympathy for you as a young person who feels overwhelmed and exhausted by all the evil in the world, and is wondering how to get through it, react to it, or otherwise make some kind of moral response in the face of this soul-crushing trauma. I will say here that I am a little bit older than your average Tumblr user (the majority of this site is in their early-mid twenties), I do personally remember 9/11 and its aftermath when a lot of people here weren't even born yet, and I am an academic historian with a doctorate. That does not mean I am better or smarter or More Perfect or whatever at what I say, but it means that I do have a considerable amount of institutional, formal, and professional practice at analyzing a lot of complex information, putting it into words, breaking it down for less-specialist audiences, pointing out logical fallacies, and so forth.

That is not a skill that everyone has, and in the face of nonstop 24-hour news-cycle social media information overload, it can be incredibly difficult to parse it or understand how you're supposed to respond to it or what your moral obligation in response to this knowledge might be. I wrote this ask the other day in response to someone else asking how to improve their critical thinking skills and be more discerning about what they understood, shared, and analyzed. I strongly encourage you to read it, as it addresses a lot of what you're saying about feeling negative, depressed, panicked, angry, and all the other emotions that are naturally evoked in you from reading this stuff nonstop and feeling like the only thing you can (or should) do is immerse your brain in it at all times. In short, that is absolutely the worst environment to do actual substantial analysis or critical thinking, and it is designed so on purpose.

It has been said before, but it bears repeating: the human brain simply is not designed to be constantly aware of all the atrocities in the world and thus (thanks to social media) feeling as if the only way they can do anything about it is to then post the Correct Opinions on social media (regardless of whether these are informed or relevant or otherwise useful). Especially now, the rush to demonstrate Correct Thinking has warped a lot of otherwise well-meaning young people into becoming eager disinformation mouthpieces. There are a TON of explicitly bad-faith actors and far-right fascists who are posting pro-Palestine content (factual or uh, otherwise) because they know that's an instant way to get an audience of said young left-leaning people who will then be suckered into and exposed to their far more dangerous content and mindset, because that is how radicalization works. Even in the support of an obviously worthy cause, you and everyone else ARE NOT IMMUNE to fearmongering, disinformation, and virulently anti-Semitic propaganda, especially when it's being eagerly and constantly offered in a deliberate attempt to radicalize you further into violence and conspiracy theories, turn you against other vulnerable groups and people, and explicitly disengage you from the electoral/political process, which will harm the Democrats and other liberal establishment parties in favor of more far-right radical fascist theocrats and otherwise make everything, everywhere, many orders of magnitude worse.

I know the feeling that you need to do something, and since you're a long way from the conflict, it seems as if posting on social media is the best and/or the only way to go about it. In that environment, and especially right now, you will make mistakes. I know it is difficult in an online environment where popularity or acceptance by your peers often rests on never being wrong about anything (i.e. saying the same thing everyone else is saying), but it always helps to think about what you're doing, what you're saying, and if you actually need the approval of people who are conditioning you, implicitly or explicitly, into negative and violent ideological nihilism.

The hardest thing to understand is that yes, there is a lot of terrible shit going on in the world; no, you cannot personally fix it and you have to accept that as a limitation; yes, there are many multiple and complex causes and reasons for its existence and there is almost never a black-and-white simplistic moral solution that just hasn't been magically implemented yet; yes, it is always worth it to take the time to inform yourself and consider what you're saying, where it comes from, who it helps and who it hurts, and why you feel the need to say it in the first place. Of course you want to help. Of course you want to stop the needless suffering and death that has gone on in the world for millennia and unfortunately, as long as humans are humans, will continue to do so. But even so, take it away Gandalf:

[dre6ming]

A ménage a trois

Pairing: Austin butler x fem reader x Olivia Dejonge

Plot: none, mostly filth

Warning: smut 18+, threesome

A/n: wrote this a while back and didn’t post cause it felt like too much, like I was violating Austin and Olivia and so I held back on it. But I’ve been gone for months and thought to post it. I asked and you guys said that you wanted it, so here you go. It’s not proof read so edited or anything.

Masterlist

No matter how many times I come to set, I never get bored of watching Olivia work. She is so dedicated to making justice by the person she has to play, you can see it in every detail of her performance, though she'll tell you otherwise if you ask her. I love to see her so driven, but it breaks my heart that she puts so much pressure of herself. Yes playing Priscilla Presley brings certain expectations from people, but still there's only so much pressure one can take before breaking. And today seems like the day for Olivia.

They are filming the scene of Priscilla leaving Elvis, she told me how nervous this scene made her. It's a sad moment in the lives of both Priscilla and Elvis, so she wants to embody her perfectly. Olivia wants to be vulnerable, while playing strong, she wants to be angry, while fear of the unknown drowns her. Being the talented woman that she is it only takes he a few takes to get it right. There's no problem with that. The problem is that when she 'exits Graceland' the last time, when Baz screams cut, instead of going back to herself, she lets out a cry and falls to her knees.

Rushing to her side, I hug her tightly, holding her trembling frame in my embrace. I lift a hand up to signal to the rest of the cast and crew that it's fine. "Shh baby, let's go get this make up off and bring my sweet Livy back." She nods her head through the constant sobbing. I help her get up from the ground and walk her to the make up station. She keeps crying softly while the makeup crew works on taking everything off. As soon as they are done, I thank them and take her by the hand. On the way to her trailer, the sobbing stoped, but tears keep falling out of her eyes and rolling down her puffy cheeks.

Inside the trailer I make her sit on the bed and I start undressing her, careful to put her clothes on the hanger and in the bag the costume department provided. She's now just in her underwear, sitting on the edge of the bed. I come to sit in between her legs, running my hands up and down her arm. "You ok baby?" She nods bringing her lips to my face and pulling me towards her. The kiss we share tells me everything about how she's feeling now. It physically hurts me to know she's hurting. Her hands get tangled in my hair, deepening the kiss.

When we break apart to catch our breath,  her lips keep kissing all over my face. I hug her waist and she sighs in delight. Her legs hug my hips and I bring my lips back to hers, catching her in a hungry and lustful kiss. Pulling back to look at her face, Olivia still looks like she hanging on all those emotions form the scene, but her pupils are blown wide, lust clear on her face. I smile at her and she answers with a timid one, throwing her head back to let out a sigh. "Please!" She says as she grabs one of her breasts through her bra, kneading it in her small hand. My hands move up her back, until they reach the bra clasp, undoing it. The garment falls off her shoulders and I throw it somewhere in the trailer. I kiss her neck, alternating between kissing, biting and licking. She's a mess in my arms, arching her back and letting out noise that go straight to my core, making the wetness grow in my panties.

I move down, taking a breast in my mouth, sucking and grazing my teeth on the tender skin. "(Y/n) ahh so good, please, please, don't stop" detaching my mouth from her breast, I grab both of them in my hands, twisting the nipples in between my fingers. "Wouldn't dream about it, my sweet Livy!" I say. Her hips move against mine, trying to get some much needed release. Still playing with Olivia's nipples, I start kissing my way down her torso. At the hem of her panties I leave small red marks, then I go to lick a strip up her pussy over the soft cotton of her underwear. Her hips grind against my face, but I pull back to tease her a bit. "More, please!" She's breathless, she looks so beautiful, cheeks red, lips plump and nipples hard. God I love her.

Hooking my fingers in her panties I move them down her legs, finally exposing her to me. Olivia lays on her back, playing with her breast, spreading her legs and bending her knees. "Such a good girl, touch yourself while I undress, do it for me honey." She nods and a trembling hand goes to her clit, slowly drawing circles. Her moans fill the small space and cause me to rub my thighs together. I quickly dispose of my thin dress and the annoyingly wet panties. Kneeling in front of her pussy, I blow on it, making her shiver. She takes her hand away and I lick my lips in anticipation of tasting her.

Before I get to my goal, the door to the trailer swings open. I jump up and turn to look at who dared to come in without knocking. Austin is frozen in place for a moment, taking in the scene happening before his eyes. Olivia throws a bed sheet over my shoulder, covering the both of us. "Um, shit, I'm so sorry... uh I just wanted to see if she's ok.. sorry" he says, a blush creeping up on his face. He's not showing any signs of leaving and an idea comes to me. I look back at Olivia and she looks mortified, eyes wide and mouth agape. "Close the door Austin and come here" I can feel Olivia tensing behind me and Austin's eyes go wide as he sits frozen in place. "Now, big boy, or leave, your choice" I turn back to Olivia and mouth 'trust me' to her. She nods her head as one of my hands goes between her legs. "God you're so wet, baby." I moan circling her clit. She can't help or whimpers coming out of her mouth as her eyes close. I push her back down on the bed, the sheet covering is falling down. I hear the door closing, but I didn't hear Austin move so I assume he's still here, watching. "Tell me Austin, do you know how to eat a girl out?" I ask, toying with Olivia's pussy. I don't get a response, so I look over my shoulder. I smile, he's here, stuck in the doorway, dark eyes watching us. "Baby would you be ok with Austin eating me out?" I ask Olivia and she moves her hips against my hand, begging me to do more. "Yes, yes, anything, please!" I take my hand away from her and she whines at the loss of contact.

Turning over to Austin, I walk up to him. I can feel Olivia's eyes watching me closely. "Here is how is going to go, Austin. The three of us are going to have a good time, make my girl forget about the sad scene and then go on just as before. Can you do that?" I ask, he gives it a thought and then nods. "Yes, of course." I lift his shirt over his head, walking a confident hand down to the hem of his pants. My fingers dance over the soft skin there. I watch the muscles contract in response. Cupping his erection, through his pants with one hand, I squeeze him a couple of times, as my other hand works on opening his pants. Austin grabs my shoulders and throws his head back moaning. When I finally open his jeans, I kneel down taking them off along with his boxers. His cock springs free, hard and leaking precum. Standing up I take him in my hand, swirling around the tip to gather some sleek, then give him a few pumps. "Fuck." He starts to thrust in my hand and I step back. He opens his eyes confused.

I smirk at him and get up on the bed. "Remember the question I asked, pretty boy?" He nods and walks forward. I lay down on the bed, placing my head on the pillows. "Come sit on my face Livy, Austin is going to be a god boy and eat me out. If you do a good job, you get rewarded Austin" I say as Olivia comes up, straddling my face. I pat her thigh and she understands to turn around so she can watch Austin work. I grab her hips and lower her on my face. "Fuck!" She falls forward bracing herself on her arms. Olivia starts to grind against my face and I moan into her.

The bed dips with Austin's weight. His hands spread my legs and he licks a strip up my pussy. I arch my back, but one of his strong hands lays on my belly and keeps me glued to the bed. I moan as he focuses on my clit, sucking and licking, one finger circling my entrance. I squeeze around nothing and whine into Olivia's pussy. "Fuck, (y/n)" I move my face side to side, slurping on her juices as she rides my face. Austin pushes two fingers inside me, curling them upward and plumping them in and out. The coil in my belly grows and it's ready to burst. His calloused hand moves up and kneads one of my breasts. I scream into Olivia's pussy and that sends her over the edge, trembling on top of me, as my body shakes under her, with the force of my own orgasm.

I smack her bum and she gets off of me, shaking still. Austin has a big grin plastered on his face and normally I'd do anything to make it disappear, but he's earned it. "Did I do good?" He ask, he's so coy, he knows he did good. I giggle and I shake my head. Grabbing Olivia by the waist I make her lay down on her back. I get on top of her, scissoring her, moaning when our wet pussies touch. "Shit" she says. I throw my head back in pleasure. "Have you seen girls scissor before Austin?" I ask looking at him. He moans watching me start to slowly grind down on Olivia. "Not in real life, no" he admits. I smile at him and motion for him to come. "I'll suck your cock, while I grind my pussy against my girlfriend's. Reward for being so good." Austin closes his eyes, passing a hand through his dark hair.

I start to grind on Olivia, opening my mouth for him. He doesn't need being told twice as he confidently starts fucking into my mouth. Olivia is being so loud, making me three times wetter. Closing my eyes I moan around Austin and I can already feel him twitch. He's close, so am I and by the way Olivia moves herself against me, she's not far behind. After a few more thrusts in my mouth and a couple of squeezes to his balls, Austin stills in my mouth and twitching he cums. Groaning loudly, playing with my nipples. I cum shaking and Olivia follows suit, releasing the sweetest noises.

Austin pulls out of my mouth and collapses on Olivia's right side. I fall on the bed to her left and hug her close to me. She buries her head in the crook of my neck and falls asleep almost immediately, exhausted from everything. I look over at Austin, who's just laying on his back, looking at the ceiling, not really believing what just happened. I brush his shoulder and he looks at me. "Thank you!" I say and he nods. He gets up to take the bed sheet from the ground and coming back in bed he covers the three of us.

We stay like that until Olivia's little snores, lull us to sleep as well. We'll deal with the mess of what we just did, later.

Tags:

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@samaraannhan20

@marlowmode

@myradiaz

@areuirish

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[bcacstuff]

The Zanzibar Saga

Disclaimer: Everything is open to interpretation. Opinions, theories or speculations I write are my own, they are not facts I merely try to make sense using logic. Opinions, theories or speculations in the comments belong to the commenters and do not necessarily reflect mine. This also goes for all the Anons quotes, which I posted in italics. I had to take parts of Anons, and could not post all I've received. (Sorry for the ones I left out)

Some advice in advance, put the kettle on and make a good pot of tea or coffee, whatever you prefer. This is going to be a very long post. I tried to be thorough expressing my thoughts during and about this saga and as unbiased as possible. I also want to do as much as possible justice to the many people who sent me their messages.

For people not having the time to read the whole post, I wrote a TLDR/some end conclusions at the end of the post.

Where to start... perhaps at the beginning. Two weeks ago, on a Friday (night my local time) 1st of September stories appear on accounts that were involved in the SS-tour having a boat party. At first on private accounts, which I did not use, but soon they were reposted on public accounts as well. So I reported about what I saw. Some accounts we know were tagged on it so it wasn't that hard to find more footage. A tiktok was posted and later on posted on the SS account as well. Another tiktok occurred later on. Little was I to know about the aftermath of this party.

What enrolled in the following days or week could be best described as a soap worthy masterpiece saga script writers would be envious of. Depending on the agendas of the several fractions in this fandom the most fantastic fiction was written in no time, all mostly based on some tiny snippets of the videos. I was honestly wondering if I was watching another season of Bravo's Below Deck.

But first let me introduce you to the producers, the main cast and the guest stars in this saga. (for the full experience, sound on!)

Besides some nasty messages:

[I shall spare you the ones with more colourfull language and the one that took more that 5 paragraphs to share her angry thoughts with me... 🙄]

...my inbox got flooded with generally one question:

Did you recognize the girl with the white sunglasses sitting next to Marina?

At 0.11 second of the video, you can see a girl with blue bikinis and white sunglasses and Sam is sitting next to and behind her could be his date?

I suddenly noticed a new person on the boat!!!!! She sit next to Sam and Marina. She has a bandana, white sunglasses, blue bikini and some kind of white skirt. Sam is very close to her even when he sit with his back. She lool like a model and I doubt she is from the team.

... and numerous similar ones...

Oh blimey, I thought, he appears to be sitting NEXT TO A WOMAN!!!! 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄 Seriously....????

All about a few tiny snippets in the tiktok videos, blink and you will miss her. But yes, we all know how this fandom is superior in examining videos frame by frame and analyzing it into dept.

The snippets, I'm sure you've seen them, but for the sake of completeness:

Both where he sits with his back towards her, more interested in the sea and as it looks having a conversation with Marina. It does look close, but those seats on the boat are rather large and deep. She appears to have a conversation with Melissa.

And there is one he's seen from the front, watching Joshua dancing as all others did. Joshua is blocking the view on the woman next to Sam.

In another snippet you can see the size of these seats on the boat as well

There's one more snippet she appears in, and seems to be standing alone while the food has apparently arrived, and again look at the size of those seats.

In other parts he's just having conversation with others, here with Marina and her friend Michelle

So far the snippets. I called it a day for that night, it was already quite late and I felt slightly disappointed and appalled by the reactions. Only to come back the next day to feel even more appalled finding a name in my inbox and learning that on another blog, well known for creating fanfic only from a name drop in an inbox as we have seen since the hiatus began, the woman was already declared as the new one, as well as 'she's the one'. Not only on that blog btw. but also in my inbox.

Sam is not going to join Matt because he is with his new date, Sam is so excited about this one. They are already in a romantic place together.

I think Sam has made his best choice. I like her. Sam seemed very happy and excited both on the boat and with his meeting with the fans. Maybe he has finally found the love of his life,

Sam wants everybody to know about her maybe he never thought her name will be out too soon.

And a fair number similar ones. Now I admire all your romantic feelings Anons, but I'm afraid you read too many dime novels or have seen LA a couple of times too much. I often get these Anons telling me I know nothing because social media isn't showing the real life. So it looks to me turning these one frame snippets into a romantic novel DG could use for her last book, is a bit too much for my taste to make all kind of these assumptions on.

🤦‍♀️

What if that is not her at all, those were my thoughts. This woman will just get bombarded with all kind of idiocy, as we could already see how the number of followers on that private account increased. While at the same time other sides quickly created versions of the saga including some horrific names the woman was called fitting a certain agenda.

Haven't we seen this all before a fair number of times? Haven't we been appalled by this before a number of times? Does this fandom never learn anything from the past?

My inbox had questions

For months, no one reveal CM's name, then this girl's name is outed immediately, why?

and

How did we learn bikini woman's name? How did someone first figure out who the woman was?

and

The whole thing is suspicious to me. Who is this or these people who give info to Purv? No way she could be recognized so fast. someone is playing here

To be honest, I was looking for the same answers and had the same suspicious feeling as well. Profiles were searched out on other platforms, her job and a picture from Linkedin was found. Now I do the same when a name gets dropped as well, but to post it already in a fashion that it is all a fact before anything can be confirmed...not so much. And quite honestly, identifying someone from a few snippets where the person is wearing huge white sunglasses and a bandana hiding most of her hair and face.... doesn't gave me a positive confirmation at all.

Now I do not believe in some kind of PR plants or TPTB narratives dropping names in inboxes. Even me and my blog have been accused of being part of his PR team when I merely posted just a pic or video of some events happening, when it didn't fit the agendas of said fractions of the fandom. Now if only they would tell me where to send my bill!

But in all fairness I must say, this summer, or already since OL S7 wrapped, the number of names dropped of totally unknown women who could not be connected to him in any sense, got quite astonishing to me. Yes, in my inbox as well, but I just don't like to put names of women out there just throwing them under the bus, or against a well known wall just to see what sticks. We've seen quite some curious ones, just reminding fake Emily and Cinderella's Hyrox patches and all the innuendos of women being in Miami, NYC, LA, places where many go. I'm not accusing P of mischief or making things up herself, let that be clear. If anything, than I rather think she's the one that has been played on, she turned out to be an easy target. She posts most of the time blindly without any or sloppy research and doesn't question where the information actually comes from if it fits her agenda.

I chose to step away a bit, besides the weather here in the Netherlands was extraordinary for the time of year. All week temperatures in the high twenties, and last weekend even 30+.

My inbox didn't calm down, more messages but now asking me to shed my lights on things, valuing my take on it. My silence didn't go unnoticed it seems. One Anon wrote:

Hi BC I am a little surprised that this time you prefer to be quite and not to tell us about your thoughts on the new date.

While another wrote

I really enjoy your blog, mainly because of you. Whenever something happens in Sam's life, and others present a different perspective, I tend to trust your viewpoint, and more often you are correct. However, this is the first time you haven't posted anything about Sam and the girl in the blue bikini. There are some aspects that don't quite make sense to me, and I was looking forward to you confirming or addressing that. It appears that this time you do agree with Purve and have decided not to post anything.

And

Are you not writing anything about the new SE girl or are you investigating to find out the truth? ☺️

Yes, I was quietly doing my own research, looking for information and here and there discussed some ideas and opinions in private chats. And no I do not agree with everything P wrote.

I also was (and still am not) in the clear whether Susie is the same woman on the boat. Therefore I call Susie, Susie and the woman on the boat SusieOrNotSusie. At the end of the story, it doesn't really matter as it doesn't really change my view on things.

Some Anons were a bit more humorous

If you are on vacation again....come back right now....I repeat it is an emergency. Composition of the alphabet soup: ship, SH, dolphins, music, gin, employees with appropriate clothing, shirtless boss, new secret employee with seductive clothing, CP costume. Solution?

As well as some Anons using their logic writing to me, I had the same questions and misgivings [note some of these are parts of longer messages]

We REALLY need your take on this whole blonde in the blue bikini on the yacht with Sam story. P has already created a relationship with a couple name... again. The shippers are rabid to prove it was staged for PR and nothing else. Tell us your thinking..please! Do you think, based on Sam's patterns and history, that he would bring a date on this trip knowing she would be filmed more than once? So out in the open knowing this fandom would figure out who she is?

Can't really see SH having a date on a boat with his employees and cameras everywhere. Seems too public for him. Too hard to keep her hidden from every camera. P now thinks she's on holiday with SH. Marina tagged a woman in a story over the weekend about the yacht day and that woman follows this Susie on IG. Doesn't look to be a new follow either. Perhaps she's a friend of a friend who was visiting LA and joined Marina and her other two friends?? Just seems so different from Sam's normal MO. Especially since there were multiple TikToks.

Logically, I just cannot believe that SH would have an event for his team on a yacht, let them film what looks like some promo (AN with a gin bottle, for example), and allow his team to post two TikToks that would show a woman with him that he is dating. It also looks like his new manager, Duncan Millership was on the yacht with them. I can't imagine that private Sam (when it comes to dates) would have his new mgr, his work teams, Alex and Marina there with a new date. He knows, surely by now, how different elements of this fandom search through every photo and meeting of him with possible new gfs. I just can't get my logical brain to be okay with him allowing it to be out in the open.

Am I crazy? I just cannot believe that Sam would allow those boat videos and TikToks to be shared everywhere- including on the SS page- if he had a date on the boat. He has had some terrible experiences in the past with how potential dates/gfs were treated. He didn't even follow AM or MC when he was supposed to be dating them, probably to try to protect them or keep it quiet. Would he really do this? It doesn't seem to fit his patterns- especially since Gia. Loads of speculation about how he met the woman, but we don't even know if he knew her or if she was a friend of someone he knew was coming on the boat. It also just feels off to me. Do you think he would share or let others share so many videos with a potential date on the boat? Of course, on the one blog they've apparently known each other and/or hooked up since his visit to Austin. On the other end of the spectrum it's just fake- smoke and mirrors. Just can't see Sam going this public until he's really ready to make a relationship public.

Yes, that was, and still is, my first huge red flag 🚩 as well. I agree, he will not take a date he barely knows (even if people try to make it credible that he knew her for a longer time because of 'likes' 🙄). I don't think he had much time to date and get to know anyone that well that he'd be comfortable to take her on that boat trip with all of his team. We've all seen he worked all the while in Belgium with some visits to NYC for promo and his b-day in Miami with friends, no women involved. On top of that, if you look at the people on that boat, they're part of the SS team or the MPC team (or both), all associated to SS or MPC or GGC some with partners and friends who were invited along.

Marina posted a story of the dolphins, tagging 2 women. Michelle who is a friend of hers she took with her followed already by her and her boss as well. And she tagged Melissa P, who she started to follow after the boat trip, clearly met her first time during the trip. Melissa also followed Marina back a few days later on. However Marina didn't tag SusieOrNotSusie nor followed her! In fact nobody did.

After Marina posted her story tagging Melissa, it wasn't hard to find out that Melissa seems to be the only connection to Susie, following her on IG. She already followed Susie before the boat trip though. This is the only connection that can be made between Susie and anyone on that boat trip as far as I can see.

Now I do not know what the connection between Melissa (and her partner) to Sam, or his business is. I could find out that Melissa seems to be a sales manager at Hyundai. I don't know what the name of her partner is, he could as well be associated somehow to the business team on that boat and how these people were invited on the trip.

Anyway, for me, this boat trip was for team and the business associations. SusieOrNotSusie could easily be a connection to anyone else on that boat. What I did notice from what we can tell from the footage is how the SS (tour) team mostly interacted amongst the ones they know from the team on one side of the boat, while on the other side the rest was mostly placed and interacting. Looks a bit like 2 parties not really knowing each other.

So anyone claiming he must have met Susie in Austin, it doesn't occur they knew her to me. As for nobody following her from that boat trip nor Susie following anybody else from that trip than Melissa she already followed upfront, people claiming Sam told them not to sounds quite contradictory to him having her on that boat with everyone and allowing all the footage, not to mention the ones that are convinced they're a romantic couple for real and want to go public.

And a final thought on connections, I didn't hear or see from anyone, but what to me was quite curious. How is it that from all the people he met in Austin, or on his tour for that matter, or could have picked someone from Raya, how is it that Susie curiously is connected to one more guest on that boat! Now there's a coincidence, no? Or is it not a coincidence??? Did SusieOrNotSusie bring them along like her chaperone? I don't think so...

btw. The Anon mentioning Duncan Millership, I reckon this came from a shippers blog where this was mentioned, together with something Sam said during the private fan con in KC. Which I'm not sure was serious or just a joke. It's about this man with whom Alex seems to be in conversation:

Now firstly I doubt this is Duncan Millership, just search his picture via Google and you find he doesn't look like this man.

Secondly fwiw, Duncan Millership is an old friend of Sam, from even before his OL breakout. he's one of the first followers of Sam.

For the ones that do not know, Katie Rebekah, friend his London time and has been named as one of his first gfs. VickiLawson is his ex SIL, Faye Thomas took his first photographed for his Portfolio.

Meanwhile I was told by a number of people that

Susie Evans ALSO posted from Shutters a few days ago.

and it took a bit of time before this screenshot was shared...

Now, I'm not sure when exactly she posted this story, which as I learned from bts chats, was originally a video (so people saying it's photoshopped or anything, I rule that out).

It is the Beach House Suite at Shutters, as pointed out, the same suite the interview with the tastingalliance was conducted. I have no doubts about that.

The Tasting Alliance interview due out tomorrow was also done at Shutters , wearing the kilt he had on on Sunday .

Yes for the kilt, other shirt though. (where is the interview btw.?)

Sam's interview with the lady from The Tasting Alliance was filmed inside a suite at Shutters on the Beach that costs over $5,000 a night. Looks like that hotel is about 10 mins from Marina del Rey. P is sharing a photo supposedly from Susie Evans' IG inside a suite like that. She claims it's Sam's suite and that SE wouldn't have an expensive suite like that. She also posted late yesterday that SE is back in Austin now. .... Could this Susie E have been there as a friend of a friend, gotten to go into the suite where they were meeting/ working and took a photo of herself there? The photo looks really filtered. It's interesting to me that if you are staying in a suite that nice with a great view that you would take your photo in front of a messy table that doesn't really show the cool place where you are. Why not a video of the whole suite to show what an awesome and gorgeous place to be?

[note the above Anon is part of a longer message of which I took the relevant parts]

Of course the easiest thing is to conclude she was staying there with him in that suite, if that is what your agenda fits. And if you don't question yourself the obvious questions. Like would he conduct an interview in the same suite he was staying with a date? Quite a huge red flag 🚩 for me again. Turning it into some kind of romantic weekend or week sounds a bit reductive for my taste.

The screenshot of Susie seems to have been a video, as I was told, but not from the entire suite. As above Anon points out, why is there such a mess on the table? And for sure the helmet on the table indicated Sam was there, well we already knew because of the interview of course. But tell me if you are staying there, would you put your helmet on the table and bags on the chair, or put it in the hallway f.i. where there is room to leave stuff like that? And it is right when you enter the suite.

The suite was for biz. He has money but not thst kind of money. Shutters has no reason to comp him a suite. It was a set for interview which is often done, not as costly, and biz expense.

I tend to lean towards him driving on the bike to the suite on Sunday, that was hired for an afternoon or day perhaps to conduct the interview and for him to change and get to the event and back. The recent fan pic at Shutters shows him in the shirt (and SS pin) he wore at the event. It also gives merit to what Anon above wrote, being possibly a friend of a friend gotten to go into the Suite to record her video. And as the other Anon above points out, he has money and he does live the luxury live at hotels for what we can see, but he doesn't spill that kind of money on a date. And if he would do so, he better put her into the the Four Seasons Hotel, where he only stays when he's in LA on Starz's account.

I heard there were people saying other team members posted from that location or suite as well. I think that's a myth, I didn't see anybody from the team post from it. I do not think it was some kind of base for the team to stay and from there went for the boat trip. Only Chrissy stayed at a hotel, as she is not living in LA, and I haven't seen her posting from a hotel. So saying so in order to make it look like the hotel Suite was hired for the whole team is false information imo. However it's still credible to me it was hired for the Sunday interview and base from where he went to the event.

Other thoughts I had were, why is this the only screenshot of her in LA? Nothing from the boat, nothing from anything in LA we've seen. Didn't he take her out to diner somewhere? Not a fancy motorbike ride along Abbot Kinney and Venice? Btw. Where is her helmet? Only one helmet on that table! And to this day I haven't seen the white sunnies nor the same bandana in any of her pictures. Older or new ones.

Typically, my attitude is, if you weren't there you don't know what happened and don't get into the hoopla, be open. This time I felt the same, until the fan picture with him at the coffee shop displaying the helmet. He's really been caught the past years in LA by a fan or at least they haven't posted such encounters. This time within 48 hours, a coincidental fan picture with him in sane Shutters clothing with same helmet in the suite picture with the woman, who was the woman on the boat. Sorry too many coincidences to not be a story someone is selling. And as you know there are many stories around. This time, seeing the watchers, the drama creators, the examiners and researchers, all with an agenda, it's becoming more strange than ever. Thoughts?

Coming back to the part I wrote above about how Susie's name came to be known at all in this realm. My inquiries did put me on a trail of an infamous group in this fandom. I do not have the answers on the how, what for or why, and I think I don't want to touch that lid of a pot so full of 'Stranger Things'! 🤐 [for the ones longer in this fandom, this should tell you enough.] Don't sent me any (anon) questions about it, I wont answer, I do not have the answers. I just have my suspicions that I keep in mind and that's enough to me.

About the picture outside Shutters and the fan pic at the coffee shop on Abbey Kinney Blv. I do not think they were 'planted' though. This are not the things I wrote about above. There are bloggers pointing out how the picture outside Shutters is removed and the fan that saw him at the coffee shop is now private. The simple reason for that we can all guess. These people are bothered and even perhaps harassed about their post. We've seen it before, some told us about it, remember how the journalist in Ratingen showed us why she removed his pic? I even noticed how that Friday when the videos of the boat party were posted, some where on Joshua's account. I didn't mention him but his account name was on one of the pics. I caught the dolphin story, and was just in time to get the video of Sam dancing between his team members. A moment later he was private! And now even Melanie has changed her tiktok account name and removed one of the videos. Going by the things I find in my inbox, you can draw your own conclusions from that.

Some other thought that was sent to me

Why hasn't anyone assumed the woman or women were Alex's date? Does one dare ask that question and get hit with body shaming comments? Certainly he was in the suite too.

No Anon, others made that assumption as well. I feel hesitant to post this, yet took this one only to show people who wrote to me thought of this as an option. But let's not forget, the man has 2 young daughters so I feel very reluctant making assumptions like this. And in fact, I don't think so.

TLDR or some end conclusions:

Is Susie the woman on the boat or not? I do not have an answer on that. Many of you wrote to me and I posted these images to compare. Her nose and chin seem different. Opinions are mixed. But it's quite hard (and to me unlikely) to confirm a positive ID on the woman on the boat as her face is hidden for a great deal. And as an Anon pointed out to me, do these women he dates not all look the same...? 🤔

Anyway, it doesn't matter that much as eyes are now peeled on Susie who seems to be Susie and took a video in the suite at Shutters. No other footage, nothing else from this supposed weekend. Only this one screenshot from a video that miraculously reached this fandom #justsaying

Red flags all over, no I don't think he'd take a date he can't have known long, on a boat with his team members and business associates where video's and pictures about the event were happily shared on known accounts. Despite P naming how he took Abby and MM to work events, he learned what the consequences are. He's not always smart, but he isn't that dumb as well.

Conducting an interview and clearly using an hotel suite as base to get to the last announced event in the same suite he's staying with a date is a huge red flag and a big no to me. There are other options how Susie got this video recorded there with his stuff so obviously showing. In no way would he be okay her showing and posting this.

He stayed at AN's house all the time he was in LA, he does so since AN owns this house. Before Sam always stayed at Airbnbs when he was for a longer time in LA, when for shorter times, say a few days, like last year when he came back from LV and went to Mexico a few days later on he stays at Shutters. When he's there on Starz's account, he stays at the Four Seasons. We've seen him doing zoom interviews from Shutters and the Four Season, as well as from airbnb's in the past. When Nic R was there, he posted a picture of the motorbike at a fuel station, which I located and was near to AN's house in the HH. As to why not use that as a base, if you know this house you know it is not the most accessible place in the HH with a huge stairway to the entrance.

Social Media times showed, how he was online most of the usual hours. Though not posting that much, as he's restricted of course because of the strike. Liking and even commenting on posts was no less. Nothing that implicated dating or having someone over for a date.

I doubt we'll see anything more from Susie. Expect the usual innuendo, but I know where to put my money. Just another is/was she or is/was she not soap bubble for this fandom, gotta say a weird one because of the suite screenshot. I do agree with the many people that notice how things do not add up to what we know about SH and his MO. And frankly he's a creature of habits he shows that all the time. But hey, stranger things happen.

For all we've seen now, she was back in Austin quite soon after the weekend and currently in Denver. While we've seen him for a week in LA at least biking around with AN, and last we've seen and heard he's been all week in NYC. So much for the 'happy couple'....

[bethanydelleman]

Thanks for the tag @firawren & @glassslippers-n-cowboyboots

1. How many works do you have on AO3? 45

2. What's your total AO3 word count? 208,023. And that's a bit surprising because a bunch of my longer fics are only on AHA or my website.

3. What fandoms do you write for? Mostly Jane Austen, all novels, Elizabeth Gaskell (Wives & Daughters), and Anne Bronte (The Tenant of Wildfell Hall). I have also technically written Oscar Wilde and My Happy Marriage, but those were very transformative.

I also have written some fics based on Kdramas, mostly for Alchemy of Souls.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

A Ride to Netherfield - Jane breaks her leg on the way to Netherfield and must stay for a month. Short one-shot (6k) and the first Pride & Prejudice variation I wrote.

Of Every Elizabeth - short and sweet Pride & Prejudice fluff, Darcy has nicknames for the plethora of Elizabeth's he's met over the course of his life (it was a super common name at the time)

Carry Me! - three vignettes of Jang Uk and Cho Yeong from Alchemy of Souls after they are married

The Fourth Bennet Sister - long fic (30k words), Pride & Prejudice variation where Kitty Bennet becomes aware that she is in a novel. She desperately tries to protect her sisters from harm.

All's Fair in Love and War - short Pride & Prejudice variation. Mrs. Bennet has weaponized compromise, men live in constant fear of being forced to marry.

5. Do you respond to comments? Yep. Every time.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Umm.... I'm not good at writing angst. I don't like characters to suffer for too long.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? All of them?

8. Do you get hate on fics? Yes, because I dared to write Mr. Darcy marrying Anne Elliot. People get more angry about that for some reason than Elizabeth Bennet marrying Captain Wentworth in the same fic. Someone even told me Darcy would rather "throw himself off of Pemberley" rather than marry anyone other than Elizabeth. (Fic is called One Week Late)

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind? I have written smut a few times, it's pretty vanilla because I am pretty vanilla. I was reading Victorian erotica when I wrote my longest one, A Little Before Their Marriage (Jane & Bingley fic).

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? I constantly write crossovers, my first published novel is a massive crossover, Prideful & Persuaded. One of my fun shorts is Fall on the Sword, where every canonically single woman in Austen's novels decides if they want to try for the recently divorced Mr. Rushworth.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not as far as I know.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated? No, though someone did translate one of my meta posts from Tumblr. That was cool.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before? Yes, The Marriage Contest with Branch Cloudsky and two with Amelia Marie Logan, Poor Caroline and Inferior Connections. All Pride & Prejudice fics, all funny. (You need an AO3 account for that one, the other two are on my personal website)

14. What’s your all time favourite ship? Catherine Morland & Henry Tilney. They are the only Austen couple I cannot bear to break up.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? I am writing a queer retelling of Emma called "Different Ways of Being in Love", where Jane Fairfax and Emma were lovers as teenagers, Jane is bi, Emma is a lesbian, and Mr. Knightley is ace, but I got stuck on the middle part. Someday hopefully!

16. What are your writing strengths? I'm told I write some pretty hilarious farces. I am told I do characterization well, which is my main goal when writing fan fiction. I try to stick as close to canon as possible.

17. What are your writing weaknesses? I don't write enough filler or develop things well enough. I like writing action.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? I would possibly try my hand at French, but probably never. I also have a lot of trouble reading accented speech (looking at you Wuthering Heights), so I'd probably never write it.

19. First fandom you wrote for? I am fairly certain I started writing a fix-it fic for Nineteen Eighty-Four after I read it in high school. Not sure I would be able to locate it but it did exist. The first since I started writing again was a sequel to Pride & Prejudice.

20. Favourite fic you’ve written? Probably Unfairly Caught (my other published work) or The Fourth Bennet Sister. I NEEDED to write a Mansfield Park fic because I hate the ending, so it fixed my dissatisfied feelings. My goal is to edit The Fourth Bennet Sister and get it published sometime this year.

@wurzelbertzwerg, @kehlana-wolhamonao3 and @bad-at-names-and-faces

[failedaethercore]

Another chapter

So...I wrote that last mini fic I posted, but had this brewing for a couple weeks in the back of my mind, so...I just wrote it.

Obviously (if you read the last one) this is only my third fic ever. So I apologize for any inconsistencies or poor writing. I'm trying to improve.

Enjoy, and please feel free to let me know if you have any requests, I am willing to try!

Pairing: Rafayel x MC (reader, usage of "y/n")

Content: Some drama, mostly fluffy at the end.

✧𖤐✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧𖤐 ✩

Rafayel twirled his paintbrush idly in his fingers, he was distracted, lost in deep thought as he remembered your last visit.

He had always put up a strong, flirtatious front. He always winked and smirked, and said something to put you on edge, especially when he could pull a clever innuendo out and make you blush first.

But more often than not, your straightforward and candid remarks, gentle and innocent touches, would drive him wild, causing his ears to turn a deep shade of pink. His blood would boil in his veins, unable to control himself whenever your naiveity showed, while you drove him closer to the boundary between respecting your boundaries, and tipping over the edge into taking what he wanted.

You had forgotten. Again. And that in and of itself was enough to drag his heart into depths of sorrow reserved only for those who lost their soulmates to the deep undercurrents. So when you fell back into his life…heh…more like, he tempted you as subtley as he could. The coral he had ground into paint was no mere coincidence. He knew what he was doing, and had hoped that somehow, in some way, you would be pulled in.

He had heard of your new position as a Hunter, so he had hoped you would be a part of the investigation. When Thomas let him know via text a Hunter had come to investigate his paintings, specifically the one that Raymond had bought before his death, he wanted to sing. But when he discovered it was you yourself, he was ready to dance as if there was a bonfire in the center of his studio. He was selfish to drag you back into his life, but he was done being the silent observer. His heart had grown too impatient, too ravenous.

Too weak.

But he gave in to the temptation, finally. His heart had won, and he was slowly playing this game with you, trying to tempt you to choose him, one more time.

Except…

Every small glance, every tiny smile, your angry face when you argued with him, the way the light reflected in your eyes when you laughed. They made his heart beat faster, his temperature rise, and his eyes darken. It would make sense to him, except you were so innocent now. Your memories would flash in your dreams, but never linger long enough to make him feel comfortable to reveal the truth. When you would mention those dreams…or sometimes, nightmares, his heart ached and growled against his ribcage, begging him to tell you. But you would remain in the dark until the day you remembered on your own.

He couldn't thrust the past sins of both your lives onto you, when you were innocent now. He would wait to let those memories resurface on their own, and let himself enjoy the time he has with you now, before the burdens of history rip you from his arms again.

He got to see you often right now, and you had come to rely on him, even if only a little. His heart sung when you would call him out of the blue, or send him a poke for no reason. You wanted to see him, to hear him, you wanted him to think of you, too. But he never needed a reminder to think of you. His heart would never let him forget you, even when he had wanted to. You were his soul, his devoted follower. His heart of itself.

✧𖤐✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧𖤐 ✩

But now he was consumed by the thoughts of you, as it had been so long since he last heard from you…your recent silence was driving him slowly mad.

He dropped the paintbrush when the phone rang, his thoughts had dragged him far away into the depths of the ocean to reminisce. At first, his irritation overwhelmed him, but then he held a glimmer of hope. Could it be…?

It was Thomas. He left a voicemail mentioning an upcoming interview for a magazine. He had been really putting the pressure on him lately to be better at his media presence. But he sighed angrily, and threw his phone across the studio. It fell with a thud under the sofa, as he reclined against his elbow, sitting halfway up his ladder and staring at the unfinished painting before him.

The blurred smears of color weren't right yet, and he was already annoyed because of that. But you hadn't called him in two weeks. He knew you were on a mission, but the fact that you hadn't so much as checked in once yet, he was ready to snap. You usually at least sent him a text or something by now, just letting him know you were alive.

He refused to text you first, he wasn't the needy type. He meant it. He wouldn't cave. He wouldn't give in. You were the one being childish. Not him. He would hold out until you came to him first.

But when Thomas called again, and wouldn't leave a voicemail, but kept ringing back again and again until Rafayel picked up… He finally picked the phone up from under the sofa, and sighed as he answered. So when Thomas was saying that his bodyguard had ended up at Akso Hospital in critical condition, he didn't hesitate to drop everything and run. He didn't even bother to remember his phone, let alone change out of his wrinkled and paint-splattered clothes. He drove like a madman, the wheels of his sports car squealing whenever he took a turn too hot, and he didn't even apply the brakes if he could avoid it. Running lights whenever he could, if it weren't for the fact that the roads were quiet, he would have been pulled over and arrested for endangering the public.

He pulled into the emergency vehicle loading zone, parking and dashing in, ignoring the shouts of the understandably frustrated paramedics and drivers who now had to deal with his haphazard parking job. He sprinted to the reception desk, immediately asking for you by name.

"And what is your relationship to y/n l/n?" The gentleman behind the desk was clearly exhausted and overworked, nearing the end of his shift, as he glowered up at Rafayel's handsome face. Rafayel didn't even miss a beat, stating bluntly, as if you had agreed ages ago to this arrangement. "My fiancee, she's just been admitted in critical condition, where is she?" The gentleman takes a moment, before making a quick and quiet call to someone on the phone. After hanging up, his face hardened into indifference, as he looked up at Rafayel and motioned down the hall. "She's already been admitted to room C127. You can wait outside until the nurse is done in there."

Rafayel strides to the room without so much as a nod, and grabs the door handle. Before he can open it, he hears a long, painful groan from inside. Your voice. It sounds like you're in agony. He throws it open, shouting your name before the nurse can shush him for being loud.

Your body is laying on the hospital bed, weak but still very much whole. Scratched and battered, and clearly not doing well, but you are not missing anything that he can see. Maybe some hair got chopped off somehow, but you look beautiful to him regardless. He would love you even if you came back as a sea cucumber in the next life, he didn't care.

So when you locked eyes with him, startled by his shout and the slamming of the door, your blood ran cold. You had dropped your phone at some point, the screen shattered and the special hard case you had gotten completely useless, so the entire mission your mind had nagged at you at how worried he must be. You spent all your time teasing and sometimes flirting, but you hadn't been able to shake this feeling that you needed to tell him something more. Your thoughts had drifted to him frequently while you were out on your mission.

So when things started going wrong, and you mean very wrong, you couldn't let him know to wait for your call, or to assure him you were going to be okay, that your wounds were mostly superficial. His eyes, piercing and intense, bore a hole into your heart as if he was trying to make you pay for your betrayal, as if you had broken a promise from centuries past that you had made with him. You quickly tried to cover yourself in a defensive position, even from the bed.

The nurse immediately began to scold him, but he ignored her, as other staff began to run over at the shout. He was about to be escorted out, when you called his name. "Rafayel…" He stopped struggling against the orderlies in that moment. "Y/n! Tell them! You're my fiancee, are you not?!" You blinked through tears of fear, the repercussions of your actions would be indeed steep. "Yes! He is my fiance! Please, let him stay!"

The staff release him soon after, deciding to let it go. Before he could take a step into the room, he was pushed past by a tall, black-haired doctor. He felt familiar, but he couldn't place him. The door was shut shortly after with a cold, short "please give me a moment, she is my patient." And Rafayel stood there, dumbfounded. And a little embarrassed.

He glanced around as people whispered and stared, until he went to sit down outside the room on the chair, and folded his arms impatiently.

He was tapping his leg in annoyance until the door opened again. He stood and watched as the doctor left. He noted now that he was very handsome, and a pang of jealousy gripped his heart as he watched him solemnly nod to you in the room, and then ignore him on his way out. The nurse left shortly after.

You were laying there, in the room. You looked a little haggard now, as if the doctor's words had drained the energy out of you. He strode in, reaching your side in three long steps, only to grab your unbandaged hand and squeezing it.

You were looking down at your hand, as you tried to brace yourself for the barrage of questions, accusations, and the inevitable fight. But suddenly you felt tears on your hand, as his eyes blankly stared at you, large tears rolling down his gorgeous face. Your eyes locked onto his, and he nearly burst into an argument on the spot.

But you held your other hand up to stop him, before he could vent his anger. "I know. I messed up." His eyes softened as he took your other hand and pressed it to his cheek. "Don't do this to me, y/n…" The tears wouldn't stop, he was so angry. He had stayed home for weeks, absolutely worried sick over you, and the first thing he learns is that you've been injured like this, and you just ignored him instead of letting him know yourself.

Then he saw tears, returning his overwhelming emotions with your own. "I'm sorry…my phone…it got damaged…" You keep your hand clasped in his, the other still gently stroking his face. His eyes softened until he found himself holding you, his face buried in your neck. "Don't you dare ever do this again. Never again. You have to tell me when things happen…you must come back to me. Every time. In one piece." Before you could make another move, he scooched you over so he could sit beside you and hold you close. "This is why I hate your work…why can't you just be my bodyguard, and never leave my side? You're not supposed to be hurt like this, y/n…"

You wrapped your arms around him and held him for a moment. Your partner had kept you mostly safe, as he could handle himself, but you had fallen down a hill because of a misstep, which was the main cause of your obvious injuries. This was the first time in a very long time you had needed so many bandages, you usually just needed a quick patch on your way home. But this time you had messed up. You were such a clutz sometimes. But you would berate yourself later.

This man, this beacon of confidence and light-hearted whimsy, who always came bounding into your days with a smirk and a witty retort, was trembling in your arms, as if his world was shaken to its core. You stroked his back and buried your face in his collarbone, sighing softly in his warmth, as you waited for his quiet sobs to subside.

✧𖤐✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧𖤐 ✩

He was on top of your treatment plan after that, talking to the nurses, and even Zayne, your primary care physician. They were cold and calculated with eachother, and Zayne seemed especially displeased when he now knew the supposed relationship between you two, but you knew it was because Rafayel had wanted to see you right away, he didn't want to be hindered at the entrance. He didn't love you like that, but you were happy that he cared so deeply, nonetheless.

Zayne took him aside and spoke with him frankly in private, and you couldn't help but overhear some of what was said outside the door, as Rafayel was questioned mercilessly about his intentions, if he was lying, and if he truly even cared for you. When he flat out stated that he loved you and would die for you, your cheeks bloomed red, and you sat frozen to the spot, unable to move ever again.

When a nurse brushed past the two men glaring eachother down outside your hospital room, you were forced to focus on something else, as she mentioned you should be able to leave tomorrow, as your injuries turned out to be almost all superficial in nature. You had been covered in blood, scratches, and some severe bruising when you had arrived, but there was no internal bleeding, no deep gashes, no major bloodloss. Your Hunter partner was elsewhere in the hospital receiving treatment, and she advised you to be more careful from here on out, as she wouldn't be there tomorrow to see you released. The scolding smarted, but when the two men came back in after the nurse left, the room's atmosphere dropped to a point below freezing, as the two of them still hadn't reached an understanding.

"Um…Rafayel, this is Zayne…he's my doctor, and childhood friend…uhh…Zayne…this is Rafayel…he's…" you trail off, unsure what he was to you. Were you just friends with a deep bond? You didn't want to overstep his boundaries, making assumptions on his behalf. "Her lover." He stated flatly, still glaring at Zayne with a firey rage. Zayne maintained his aloof nature, glancing away from Rafayel to look at you. Your bright blush returned as you didn't argue the point in any way, and that seemed to answer the question he had.

"…I see." He nodded curtly to you. "Then I will leave you two to talk… Make sure she gets plenty of rest after this, and don't let her move around too much, she's still wounded." He turns to leave, before you have a chance to say anything to the contrary, and you are left in a storm of emotions, overwhelming and causing your heart to bob in your chest like a buoy at sea. Did he mean that? Did he want that…why would he say that to someone so important to you, without asking you first…you swayed between anger and fear, to warmth and joy at the idea that he wanted you to be in a relationship with him like that.

Before you can speak, he puts a finger to your lips. "Shh. I'm not going to force this, but…I was honest, what I said." Your heart flutters at that. Normally you wouldn't be swayed by his words like this, but his eyes were full of honest determination. He held your hands as he looked into your eyes. "I'm going to let you choose. But know that I want this…" He kisses your knuckles as he continues to stare into your eyes, holding you transfixed.

You gave it a lot of thought before you gave Rafayel an answer, and surprisingly, he didn't push the issue. He did spend a lot more time with you lately, making sure you ate and relaxed. He kept an eye on your bandages while you healed, and kept your mind busy with games and chatter all day when he dropped by. He almost lived at your apartment for a few weeks, so much as to even meet Xavier on his way home from the hospital himself. The two also didn't get along, and you found them outside your door having a silent argument, when you came out to see what was taking him so long to come back with the snacks.

"R-rafayel���this is Xavier…he's my partner. We go on missions together." Rafayel's eye twitches with jealousy at the mention of it. Xavier gives a faint smirk of smugness. "Xavier…this is…Rafayel…h-he's my…l-lover."

And in that instant, Rafayel's heart burst, and his smug smirk outshone even the sun. You had made your decision in that moment, without having any thought behind it. It just felt right. Xavier nodded quietly. "Well…I'm back, we'll talk soon at work…" Xavier turned to leave, and you gave him a smile and a quick "uh huh". Before he had taken even a step, Rafayel was pulling you into the apartment and shutting the door behind him.

You let out a scared gasp as he pinned you to the wall beside the door, and looked into your eyes, searching, pleading that it was true. "…are you sure?" You swallow hard, blushing deeply, before you let yourself finally nod silently. He smiles brightly, and takes your face into his hands gently, before placing a soft kiss to your lips. "Good. I was growing impatient."

✧𖤐✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧𖤐 ✩

a/n: I wanted something that pulled on some of the lore that really made you think about how Rafayel approached MC in general. I dunno, writing this made me happy. ♡

[celaenaeiln]

Hi cl! I was wondering if you have or one day would make a recommended reading list for dick?

Yea!! I would love to!

For Robin- the best would be Batman 1940, Batman: Golden Age Omnibus, Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet, and Robin: Year One

Untainted by bored and desperate authors, the comics are genuinely funny and interesting and action packed. I love puns and humor and good fighting so Batman 1940 was top tier for me. Batman: Golden Age Omnibus I really liked Bruce and Dick's casual "you're like a brother-son-friend-partner" thing that flowed so naturally.

Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet and Robin: Year One show Dick's capabilities and and how excellent he is even though Batman 1940 shows that too, these are more recent. Whoever wrote The Gauntlet-I'm kowtowing to you. It's god tier work, thank you.

Batman and Robin, A Boy Wonder

I know this is a controversial one because of what Frank Miller makes Dick do but also I just considered it to be part of this universe's batman's psyche. But Frank Miller aside from this one can go suck it. I love everyone in it.

Robin and Batman by Jeff Lemire

This comic talks about Dick directly after his parents' passing. It shows how instead of angry like people think, he was mostly sad and lonely and how he and Batman both grew from this. Going from grief to the light of Batman's darkness that he's known to be.

The Detective Comics

It's Batman and Robin stuff but you know it's just like a progression of the Batman comics but different stories.

The World's Finest Comics both the 1941 and the new one.

Dick's relationship with the Titans and family- Batman: A lonely place of dying.

It takes place some time after Jason's death and shows how Tim joined the family. I love the way they wrote every character. I'm going to put up a post later about Dick and the Titans and this comic is quintessential to that. MUST. READ.

Want more incentive? It's all about Dick and Alfred's relationship and how they're the best father and son.

Dick's relationship with the Titans and Outsiders

Teen Titans (1966) - the silver age, og titans.

The New Teen Titans (1980)

The New Teen Titans: Judas Contract

The New Teen Titans (1984)

JLA/Titans

Titans Secret Files

Titans (1999)

Outsiders (2003)

Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files

Teen Titans Lost Annual

Titans (2008)

Titans Hunt

Titans (2016)

Titans United

Titans United: Bloodpact

Titans (2023)

World's Finest: Teen Titans

Nightwing Dick- Nightwing 1996 and 2011

Okay. I know people hate Chuck Dixon but honestly, I think he's one of the greatest Nightwing writers. With him, the writing felt continuous and fluent. It takes you from Dick being fired to the majority of his life. Every arc that was written was excellent because even when Dick was at his worst mentally, emotionally, and physically, he was a formidable foe. He's a tactical genius and one of the strongest fighters and Chuck Dixon put him through a lot but one thing he never did was nerf him. This was very good.

ACTUALLY NO- I LOVED THIS SPECTACULAR, MARVELOUS, BEAUTIFUL, EXTRAORDINARY, BRILLIANT WORK. LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS.

Nightwing 2011 will be one of my all time favorites. Undefeatable badass boy. The entirety of Nightwing 2016 has nothing on even a single panel from Nightwing 2011. Glorious work.

Batman Dick- Batman: Streets of Gotham

The things is, Dick was a very good Batman. Actually, he was an excellent Batman. Maybe it's because he's an excellent actor but the internal struggle he had was not outwardly shown when he was Batman thus effectively convincing the public that there was not a different man under the mask (They could only tell because he actually cared about people unlike Bruce). Actually I like him better than Bruce Batman because Dick's actions as Batman at that time were cooler than any Bruce has taken. I know it's hard to believe but this comic was fantastic in showcasing that.

Other top favorites- Nightwing: The New Order, Future State: Nightwing, and Grayson Comics

I'm literally going feral over New Order. Nightwing is the world's favorite (as expected) and has an entire army to himself. He also has a kid named Jake Grayson and JAKE IS THE CUTEST ADORABLEST KID EVER. I LOVE Kori but what I love even more is Dick is a single mom to Jake because Kori left and Jake loves Dick so much! I cried at the end because how badly I was moved.

Future State! Future State Gotham was trash. It was so bad I had to search for a trashcan to dry heave over because it's character assassination. That comic was so bad other DC authors just refused to acknowledge its existence. Future State: Nightwing showcases just how brilliant Dick is. Ever heard the saying, "There's method to my madness?" Dick always has a plan. It's only madness for those that don't understand the full scale of it.

Heh. Everyone hated the Grayson comics but honestly? I loved it. Dick was manipulative, talented, excellent fighter, and a spy. Every task he took he excelled in it. They said that Dick wasn't made for spying but they weren't talking about his skill set. They were talking about his emotions. Even Tiger- Spyral's number 1 asesst and spy- was outplayed by Dick multiple times. If Helena hadn't become Matron, Dick would've burned Spyral to the ground so completely not even ashes of the fire he had set would have been left as evidence for beetles to collect.

Batman/Nightwing: Bloodbourne

Pure fighting prowess. It reiterates the fact that Dick is undefeatable.

Batman and Robin (2009)

Dick!Bats and Damian's run as Batman and Robin. It sheds light onto the hardships of raising an assassin child. People think that Damian would just follow someone along and become good if they knew him earlier but you don't understand. Dick. Put. Work. Into. Damian. Their obsessed with each other relationship exists because Damian is fully aware of the amount of time, effort, and love Dick has given him and reciprocates that. He loves Dick beyond measure and will fight anyone who says even one word against him.

Batman and Robin Eternal

Really talks about Bruce's impact on Dick, Dick's impact on Bruce, family dynamics, batfamily working together, intelligence and fight skills of Dick Grayson. There's a couple plot holes in the middle with about 2-3 panels being wrong but everything else is so correct.

Convergence

Do you want to know how important Dick is in terms of the multiverse's perseverance and continuation? This one!

COMICS I HAVE READ A BILLION TIMES BECAUSE THEY'RE SO GOOD - DARK CRISIS, DARK CRISIS, DARK CRISIS!!!!

DARK CRISIS

DARK CRISIS

DARK CRISIS

I SAVORED every letter of that comic.

[metamatar]

unrebloggable personal rant post

I used to be a bit of a crybaby when I was a kid. I accept it. When anyone was mad at me the waterworks would instinctively start like I couldn't take anyone reaming me out bravely. My parents consistently accused me of crying crocodile tears, till the age of 8. That was around when I was being bullied by kids expressing their parents tamil brahmin supremacist politics on the nearest non tamil they could find bc indian private schools are like that (as a real indian socialist I def had a dravidian phase Mr. Freud explain this.) I don't remember when it started, but it stopped around then because I think my parents figured I was genuinely distressed. I wrote my first suicide note when I was in second grade as a bit of that'll show them fantasizing, but usually I was obedient and well mannered and frankly obsessive about getting good grades. My mother found a diary I wrote after reading Anne Frank in fourth grade and commented on how critically she was depicted once. I burned the diary and have not journalled succesfully since. I think compared to my teenage yrs it was mostly idyllic bc my parents never struggled to provide me meals or their version of love. Their is a very popular story in india from the buddhist panchtantra about a crocodile who eats monkey hearts that I heard basically a lot at storytime, bc like I said, I was loved. My dad loved it since the crocodile was so clever. I'm sure I probably asked for it. I loved Steve Irwin, because I loved watching nature channels as a kid. I would watch crocodile wrangling all day.

I couldn't do it then, but I can cry on demand now, and I still cry when someone's really lighting into me aggressively but nobody except bosses or parents do that in the real world. But nobody thinks I'm sensitive or affected by things bc I simply do not know when or how I simply turned into an ice block to cope with being a person instead. #LowEmpathySwag. I could've been different but I resent the opportunity to have never ever found out. And I smile at people and fake a laugh all the time to be polite, and I get annoyed and mad enough that people can read it on my face but I am always the last person to know and despite that everyone I keeps telling me I'm cold!!! And I'll never forgive them for this. I have to keep retelling this story to myself so I don't forget that I have the right to be angry about it.