#i only realised i wanted to write vampire!billy like 2 days ago so

[hexlikesramennoodles]

If you’re still doing kissing prompts? #4

4. An accidental brush of lips followed by a pause and going back for another, on purpose.

Author’s note: this is rated M for suggestive content and violence. Inspired by this beautiful work of art by @kelpie-earnest. 

“It’s my brother. He can’t know I’m here,” Max said. “He’ll kill me. He’ll kill us.”

Steve gazed through the gap in Joyce Byers’ curtains, out to where the Camaro was tucked in the driveway like some gigantic waiting spider. The noise generated by the engine was tremendous, a powerful, vibrating thrum of tectonic force that could be felt through the walls. Right through to the marrow.

“Lock yourselves in,” he said.

Four pairs of disbelieving eyes swiveled around to stare at him. Steve felt the strange urge to laugh. Before he could, though, they all started arguing at once:

“Steve, no—”

“Didn’t you hear what I just said? He’ll kill you—”

“Hey, hey, hey!” Steve said in a loud voice, clapping his hands. “Did I stutter, you boneheads? Lock yourselves in, I said. Don’t open the door until you hear me say so.” He gestured vaguely to the window. “If it goes south—”

He heard Dustin’s intake of breath, registered Lucas’ eyes growing large and round in their sockets, but couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge them both, lest he start thinking too hard about what it was he meant to do—

“You run like hell, okay?”

It was fine, he told himself. He had survived the Demodogs. He could survive this, too. One carrier was chump change compared to what lurked in Hawkins’ cavernous underbelly. He was going to be completely fine.

It wasn’t until he stepped out onto the porch that he realized he’d forgotten to bring his bat.

“Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?”

As always, the cherry of Billy’s lit cigarette preceded the rest of him. Steve watched its slow orbit in the gloom, his arms crossed loosely over his chest. Something made him uncross them, straighten his spine. A mnemonic echo. Billy’s fangs jutting wetly from the bed of his mouth, his hand held out. Plant your feet.

“I didn’t know carriers could dream,” he said evenly.

Billy lowered his hand. The cherry descended like a miniature comet, trailing embers and smoke. “I’m looking for my step-sister,” he said. The words were casual, almost friendly. They didn’t match his eyes. “Little birdie told me she was here.”

“I haven’t seen her, man. Sorry.”

A sudden explosion of glass made him jump: a beer bottle, flung from Billy’s hand into the gutter. Foam bubbled sluggishly from its broken neck, spreading across the blacktop in jagged white lines.

“You know,” Billy said. The driver’s door slammed shut, but the headlights stayed on; they cut a bright, glaring swath through the trees. “I was meant to be goin’ on a date tonight, amigo. I had it all planned out. Sure, his face wasn’t much to look at, but his neck? A whole meal. He had his own donor card, too. Certified and everything. But then what happens? Maxine goes missing, and I get told—I get told that I have to find her sorry ass, because she’s my responsibility. Which means my night—all that hard work—is down the toilet. Fucked.”

He smiled, then. Or snarled. The cherry of his cigarette rose, a wandering red star, a demon’s eye that kept lazily opening and closing on each inhale. Billy opened his mouth, still smiling, and doused the cigarette on his tongue. There was an angry hss of cooking flesh, like animal fat rendering over an open flame.

“As far as I’m concerned, you took my fuckin’ food, Harrington,” Billy continued, dropping the butt under his boot. “Are you gonna pay for it?”

“Will you leave them alone if I do?”

He could tell by the way Billy paused that whatever he’d been expecting when he stepped out of the Camaro, it hadn’t been that. Steve watched him flick his tongue over his teeth, telling himself that he was used to the sight by now. It was generally considered to be bad etiquette for carriers to flaunt their fangs in public, the same way it was considered indecent for non-carrier women to breastfeed in shopping malls. Billy was either unaware of the unspoken social laws of his kind, or he considered himself to be above them. Steve would bet all the money in his wallet on the latter; whether it was on the court or in class, the locker rooms or at house parties, Billy always had his fangs out.

“If the price is right,” Billy said. He was silent for another moment, his tongue between his teeth, studying Steve with an expression that was difficult to read. Sizing up the merchandise, Steve thought. “Have you been tested?”

He nodded. “When I was with Nancy, I—”

“Oh, that’s right,” Billy exclaimed, his smile turning into a sneer, “you were her blood bag.”

Steve gritted his teeth through the mockery. “I was her donor.”

“Please. We both know what you were, Harrington. What you still are. There’s no use denying it.” Billy moved with frightening agility; one moment he was on the other side of the road, the next he was breathing down Steve’s neck, his teeth—both incisors, each at least an inch long—hot and hard against Steve’s pulse. His pupils were two scorch marks, deepest obsidian ringed in flaming red and orange. “You and everybody else in that house, you’re all just meat. Prey. And I’m the hunter.”

“Not tonight,” Steve said. He turned his head, willing himself to stare into the darkest center of the red. The rage and hunger there. “Not ever. You can have me. But you can’t have them. They’re off limits from now on, you understand?”

Billy’s lips peeled apart. “Like I said. If the price is right.” He jerked his head in the direction of the Camaro. “Let’s have a taste.”

“Don’t you wanna take this elsewhere?”

“Why? I’m already dressed up for it.” In the blink of an eye, Billy was standing on the opposite sidewalk, holding the passenger door open. “Get in the car, blood bag.”

The inside of the Camaro was surprisingly clean, save for the smell: hot ash and hot blood. Visceral and vital. It was the smell of a fever that had yet to burn itself out, cloying and oppressive; the smell of a cancer ward. The word vampire was outdated. Vampire was for old Christopher Lee movies, for actors with powdered faces and plastic fangs smeared with sticky, ketchup-looking fake blood. Carrier was treatable; vampire wasn’t. Carrier made it sound akin to plague; carrier and medical emergency and regressive behavior. Carriers—not vampires—still retained their humanity somewhere inside, despite their monstrous symptoms. Steve knew better. Billy, like Nancy before him, was nothing human.

“Where did Wheeler like to have her fill?” Billy asked. “From your neck?”

“No. From my thumb.”

“Your—seriously?” Billy threw back his head, letting out a quick, yipping laugh. Steve followed the needlepoint gleam of his incisors with nauseated fascination. “How fuckin’ chaste. And you—you were okay with that, pretty boy?”

“You know, they don’t recommend you drink from the neck, typically,” Steve said. “Because it’s so close to the artery—”

“That’s what makes it feel so fuckin’ good, though. Like, really good.” Billy caught his eye in the rearview mirror and smirked, then leaned across to squeeze his knee. “Better than getting your finger sucked by some prissy bitch in her daddy’s pillbox McMansion.”

Steve pushed his knee out of Billy’s grip. “Don’t call her a bitch.”

“I’ll call her whatever the fuck I want, Harrington. She deprived you, and she did it on purpose. I bet she knew that if you had it elsewhere, you’d leave her in the dust.”

Something about Billy’s eyes, this close—how the red surrounding his pupils fluctuated as he spoke, shifting and dancing like real flames—had loosened Steve’s tongue, made him less aware of himself and his surroundings. Hadn’t there been a warning in the pamphlets about looking directly into carriers’ eyes? He couldn’t remember.

“It doesn’t matter,” he heard himself say. “She left me in the dust first.”

(Why not? Steve thought. Underneath the blood and ash and sickroom smell, he could just make out Billy’s cologne, a hint of sweetness to offset the bitter. The world was going to hell in a handbasket, but Billy looked like the closest thing to a model from a Calvin Klein magazine spread. Pretty. Hair spilling down his shoulders in soft, stylized waves, his muscled arms sitting snugly in the sleeves of his maroon shirt; Steve had always envied him for his arms. Why the fuck not?)

“She did, didn’t she?” Billy made a soft, sympathetic noise that was as bogus as it was scathing. “Oh, and she hurt you, too. She really hurt. But it’s okay now, though, because you’ve got me. And I can show you what you’ve been missing out on.”

He leaned across, so abruptly Steve didn’t have time to parse what was happening; panicking, he blurted out: “Is it gonna hurt?”

Billy’s smile paused inches from his neck. “It will, and then it won’t,” he said, “but you gotta relax first.”

Steve thought of Nancy. Billy’s hand was creeping up his arm, over his shoulder. Pulling the collar of his jacket and T-shirt to one side. Moving slow, like he wanted to savor it. Steve fixed his eyes straight ahead, on the outline of the driveway just outside the reach of the Camaro’s headlights. The engine growled and shuddered underneath his feet like an animal that wanted to throw him off. He thought of Nancy, or he tried to. Every time he pictured her smile, he came up short.

Billy let out a shaky breath. “Beautiful,” he said.

“What?” Steve said, distracted.

“Nothing, Harrington. Just relax.”

With Nancy, it had been like getting a flu shot. A quick jab, minimal pain, no mess. If Steve became lightheaded, she would stop. If he told her to stop, she would stop.

He didn’t know if Billy would extend him the same courtesy.

Minimal pain, no mess. Billy’s thumb caressed his neck, soothing the hoofbeat clatter of his heart. He was no longer smiling. Steve closed his eyes.

It was quick, he’d give Billy that—the initial pain. Steve shifted in the passenger seat, tilting his head as far back as the headrest would allow; Billy moved with him, cupping his jaw. He bit down lightly, suckling on Steve’s neck. Pain blossomed like a flare in the dark. Fading as Billy’s teeth probed deeper. He made a noise against Steve’s skin. It might have been a sigh of relief. A moan. Steve couldn’t tell.

“Let me know when you see the colors,” Billy said thickly. He sounded drunk. His hand was back on Steve’s knee, massaging the bone, anchoring them both.

“The—”

Billy bit down again and Steve cried out, shocked, his spine bowing. Not from pain. The pain had subsided entirely, morphed into a distant, warm prickling. It was actually kind of nice. Steve let the tension in his shoulders slacken, giving Billy’s mouth more leeway to rove over his skin. He was sucking hard, lapping at Steve’s neck like a dog with a bowl of water, his Adam’s apple working as he swallowed, paused to breathe.

“Knew you’d taste good.”

Billy’s voice, faint. Prickling like pins and needles. Steve was starting to feel as though he’d fallen asleep with his arm trapped underneath his body; the tingling, pins and needles sensation had spread from his neck down to his wrist. Numb and blissful. The heat from Billy’s mouth was building, tightening into a stranglehold. The car was getting warmer.

“I’d think about it,” Billy’s voice said. Still faint, still distant and removed. Steve fought to open his eyes; he was dimly aware of someone watching him, the hand on his knee parting his legs to run up the inseam of his jeans. He was too warm to do anything about it. “You know, when we were in the showers together and you’d … you’d just stand there, ignoring everybody else, I’d look at you, and think about what it would be like if I just …”

“Tore my throat out?” Steve slurred.

The prickling had turned into an itch, restless, fierce. Billy latched onto his neck, sucking with a junkie’s greed for his next fix, like he would die if he didn’t have it, like there was nothing in the world that mattered more. “No,” he said, laughing. Pulling off his neck with an obscene, theatrical pop that should have made Steve retch. Instead, it sent desire licking down his spine. “Hey, I’ve never killed anybody. Ask Laurie. Ask Tina. They both came to me begging for it. You know, I’ve always thought there was somethin’ in the water here that drove people crazy horny. Maybe you’re all just bored. Too wimpy to turn to meth. I was doing them a favor, man. There are worse things to get hooked on.”

“You were doing them a favor, huh? Wow. What a hero you are.”

“It was a mutually beneficial partnership,” Billy insisted. “You can feel it, right? It’s like … fuck, it’s like we’re fucking, almost. Or doing poppers. Except there’s no come down, no limit to how high you can get … you just keep flying … and flying …”

“Uh,” was all Steve could say. It did sort of feel like he was flying. He could no longer feel his arm, or his leg; the left side of his body seemed to have dissolved, become incorporeal. He didn’t have any sense of where the roof of the Camaro had gone; he was rising, being steadily submerged into the night sky. There came another moan. Billy’s teeth were thumb tacks pressing into the grooves of his palms, pins and needles, prickling and itching and stoking the fire between them.

“Can you feel it, Steve?” he was panting. His hand clutched at Steve’s leg in ecstasy and desperation. “Can you see me?”

“I—I can see you,” Steve mumbled. He was hot all over, floating in an ozone layer of swirling blues and greens and pinks. Each color was its own self-contained galaxy; each color reminded him of Billy’s eyes, ever-changing. Rings hot with lust. “God, the colors, Billy … I didn’t know …”

“It’s called a glamour,” Billy said. “I told you, baby. It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Good? It’s—it’s incredible. God, I’m—”

“Yeah?” Somewhere back on Earth, Billy’s smile had returned, wide and cannibalistic. “Yeah, baby? Are you close?”

“I’m—” Steve said, swallowing. His hands flapped at Billy’s chest like maimed birds. “I’m—I’m—”

It came at him out of nowhere, all at once. When it did, his mouth was still straining to form the words that he could no longer speak, pleasure robbing him of all ability to do so: I’m, I’m, ohmyGod, Billy, Billy, I’m gonna. Something soft brushed his cheek and he automatically turned towards it, his mouth opening, searching for comfort like a newborn’s rooting reflex searched for the nipple. He met the soft something halfway, and tasted himself.

Billy kissed him hard, his mouth tasting of Steve’s blood. The kiss was without fangs, without hunger or violence. His hand caressed Steve’s neck, played with his hair. His grip was lax and boneless.

He was well fed.

“Like we’re fucking,” Steve repeated. His voice sounded husky and raw, his vocal chords crippled. He was still coming, still high; his wrists trembled through the ghostly aftershocks. “Did you dream about that, too?”

He knew Billy was watching him. The prickling in his neck was all but gone; the wound had already sutured itself closed, and it would only reopen the next time Billy came for him. And he would come, Steve thought, with an odd sense of pride. Billy was the one who needed him, now. He wouldn’t be able to find it anywhere else. Not the way Steve tasted.

Billy reached for the steering wheel. He turned the key, and the headlights stuttered. Then, like a candleflame guttering out, they went dark.

[littleoddwriter]

I was tagged by @fuckerao3 (thank you!) to post summaries of my WIPs. Enjoy!

First up would be all the Requests I’ve got sitting in my Inbox, but I haven’t been able to write a single word for any of them, yet, so I’m just re-wording the Asks here, I guess. Anyway:

Oberyn Martell being jealous and possessive with a Male Reader; I have no specific circumstances for that, yet.

Gender Neutral Reader snapping at Billy Lenz, because work is stressing them out, specifically one co-worker, but they apologise and reconcile later on.

Dave York with a Male Reader, who has a Daddy Kink; no specific scenario so far.

Smut Fic about BoP!Roman Sionis, in which the Male Reader either gets caught wearing or is gifted Lace Panties and is a Pillow Princess and Roman is more of a Soft Dom; includes some Fetishes and Daddy Kink.

Brahms taking and hiding a box of soda or energy drinks that the Gender Neutral Reader has bought to drink by themself, and what would happen, then.

Smut Fic about a Gender Neutral Reader being in a Poly Relationship with McKirk; Reader is from our time and has landed in their time through some Time Travel Shenanigans.

Mateo Chavez and an Anxious, Gender Neutral Reader; no specific scenario for this one so far, either.

Headcanons of Slashers + Dan Torrance hugging the Gender Neutral Reader after not having seen them in several months.

Now, my own WIPs:

Fic Ideas that were sent to me by @detectivebarba:

1) Rafael Barba and a Male Reader, in which one of them is held hostage and the other one has to get there in time to save them.

2) Rafael Barba and Male Reader are in a relationship, but Reader is a detective with SVU, and so when Olivia Benson finds out she gives them a week to break it off, or she’ll inform 1PP.

3) Male Reader is accused of a crime and he couldn’t have done it, but his alibi would out Barba, and so he refuses to tell. [I’m very set on writing them all, because they’re great ideas and apparently, people really want me to write more Barba Fics anyway, so-]

Ron Stoppable is actually a(n evil) genius, but he’d been taught early on that his ‘weirdness’ and his genius are bad things and so he hides it; until one day he becomes Dr. Drakken’s apprentice, which leads him down his true path, such as the realisation that Kim isn’t good for him and that he doesn’t need her if she really doesn’t like him for who he is. An Evil!Ron Fic that is very much centred around the Found Family Trope with Dr. Drakken as the Queer Uncle-Figure, basically, who shows Ron that it’s all right to be different and helps him come to terms with his sexuality and other struggles.

An Original Story that used to be a McKirk AU, but since it’s an original concept taken from dreams I’ve had as a child, I decided against making it into a FanFic. It’s about Vampires and a Hunter. The Leader and the Hunter fall in love over time and it’s pretty angst-y, but it has a happy end. That’s how much I can say without telling y’all the whole storyline, right now. [The Vampires’ powers and such is what I’ve taken from my dreams, the rest I just built around McKirk first, years ago, and have hung onto ever since, only now exchanging the characters through original ones that I’m still designing. So far, I’ve only done the Vampire Leader and the Hunter.]

ZsaszMask Prequel Fic, in which Roman has a more thorough back story (which is very much pieced together from some of his comic origins), feels trapped in the life he has and finds his way out via Victor Zsasz, who is happy to help him thrive on his own, once Roman’s parents cut him off. [Chapter 1 has been out for over a month now (on Ao3 only) and I’m yet to continue writing on this Fic, but unfortunately that’s exactly when my body and mind both decided to shut down entirely.]

That’s about all I’ve got that I’ve actually written down in their own documents and such. Everything else is just in my head, kept safe there until I can write those, too.

I’m tagging: @k0diak-k1llz , @doktorgirlfriend and @detectivebarba , if you’d like to share your WIPs, too (no obligation, though, of course, and I hope it's all right I tagged you at all)! :) <3

[elizabethrobertajones]

Why do you think Dean never prayed to Cas when he was in lockup? I mean, I get that he couldn't possibly tell Cas where he was held, but he still could have prayed, I mean Cas was worried sick.

Since it’s late on Thursday night already a week after this aired, I feel like I’ve seen every possible version of this discussion on my dash. My very boring answer which I gave after reblogging some character-based stuff was just that this is where they wanted Cas (worried sick) and so Dean didn’t, and it’s up to us to interpret why but to me the episode was MORE about Cas and Mary and in general what happens in the Winchester’s absence, and so it was definitely working backwards from there. Sam and Dean got a little action sequence at the end and literally in the last 5 minutes any emotional stuff, because with a delayed reveal on the deal they were not really emotional POV characters UNTIL the bridge, therefore the episode was not ABOUT them so much as what else happens in their orbit when they’re not around. Even the guys holding them down there got way more personality and interesting character writing than the Winchesters did in prison…

And this is NOT a criticism, because I am assuming you don’t write an episode where your 2 main characters aren’t “really” characters in it until the last 5 minutes unless you’re doing it deliberately and want to explore something else. Which in this case included Cas being miserable about Dean being gone, which therefore meant Dean could not be in contact with him giving him any hope or something to swing at, because that wouldn’t get Cas to where he needed to be. And would have not removed Dean (or Sam if he prayed) from the story properly either, to maximise on a Winchester-free Supernatural episode. Or as far as you can go to pull that off within the constraints of needing to have their faces in the episode on and off throughout. Same formula as 6x04 or 6x20: keep them around but they only really get involved in one emotional moment at the end aside from general standing around having a face in between :P

I also think that it’s not plotholes or deliberate laziness or stupidity to leave gaps like this all the time if they can be explained, although I feel like fandom as the part of the audience that spends a lot of time thinking about the show and gets really complicated about their questions and expectations, can end up feeling like we’ve been short-changed or the show isn’t thinking hard enough about something we crowd-sourced an answer for weeks ago… We often move immediately to much heavier or deeper territory and come with pre-loaded expectations that make everything seem to fall short… 

(Can you tell I have read a lot of negativity this week about an episode I thought was great fun and actually proclaimed 3/4th of the way through that I was pissed off with Dabb for not giving me any plotholes to bitch about for once? :P People were @ ing me expecting me to have issues with the car continuity but I hadn’t noticed any and when I re-watched I realised that Mary saying “I drive fast” before the driving had explained everything I needed to know to completely keep my immersion in the story so it hadn’t even occurred to me to question it because I thought the story had pandered to my need to know these silly details? No one gave any numbers and who knows what the maths is on driving from the Bunker to Colorado via Mary and stopping to chat to the BMoL that would give us a total drive time for Cas but that one sentence just *magic wand ding* made it all go away :P To me this was Dabb’s most solid episode ever in terms of writing, except perhaps 8x08 which I think lands a perfect score on all fronts when normally sloppiness like that lets him down (loses points for Billie though…))

Anyway, sorry, slightly ranty because it’s late and I’m tired and in pain and this really has not been bothering me at all, which makes my response to the fact people ARE disgruntled unfortunately disproportionate, because basic maths about gruntlement proportions. :P 

The very obvious practicalities that you mentioned give a basic emotional surface text version that I think honestly does adequately cover it about as obviously as “they showed Dean shaving to explain why his hair was the same length when he came out as when he went in” - that is, if you take away any character dynamics and look at it like, Dean could tell Cas where they are if he knew where they were, but when he phones Cas he says he has no idea where they are ergo he’s had no reason to contact him, then you have what passes for a very very boring answer that might not satisfy US but tbh I suspect for anyone NOT overly invested in this relationship would be the sort of answer they get to if they wondered and be satisfied with it.

 I feel like I’ve read a lot (or in my head it has stretched out in fever dream ways to feel like a lot) of rambling over the last week about all the praying and why Dean wouldn’t, and the history of their prayers, their entire relationship since like, season 4, and so on and so on to try and make a coherent story arc to explain why Dean has stopped praying to Cas and I think they’re all great even if I’m now pretty hazy on them (see above: fever dream). I think my favourite slant of the argument (but not the only or main interpretation, just one I like that I’m picking on here :P) is just Dean’s self-worth, that he wouldn’t feel like he deserves to pray any more (and this is tracked back to when he last prayed and pointing at the Mark of Cain arc in the middle). Cas’s trauma in 11x06 was clearly linked to damage going back to Dean beating him up in 10x22, and once the Mark of Cain stuff was all thankfully over, Dean also felt like complete shit about it. Cas is still suffering from an ongoing arc of the same trauma from the start of season 11; why not assume Dean is following after him still feeling like shit about that? It severs their connection they had back in, like, season 8 when things were last somewhat resembling factory settings for them, at least on the surface. The window between Cas getting grace back and Dean getting the Mark is like, 2 episodes if you push it, and we have one “I came as soon as you called” of ambiguous suggestion if Dean phoned or prayed, and after that there are literally no more opportunities.

I am feeling like with at least Cas’s side of stuff clearly back on the table now hopefully to be addressed, that at least by the end of the season Dean and Cas might work some stuff out so perhaps in the long run he’ll start again or the way they relate to each other and how Dean used to treat Cas with Faith as in literal religious faith, and now what it is instead, will get discussed… or not. But something will presumably happen pushing this in one direction or another, and I’m still thinking worse before better >.>

Honestly at the moment I’m starting to feel like if it seems weird that Dean isn’t praying to Cas, maybe it’s something we ought to be noticing and not something the show is just forgetting to do out of neglect. Though we don’t have any proof they’re not idiots, it seems really easy these days for chunks of fandom to immediately decide that they are, and that they’re writing Cas badly by making him weak and unable to deal with vampires instead of exploring why they’d show Cas doing that. Or people asking other questions like it in an accusing way instead of a curious way, because accusing doesn’t get us anywhere and doesn’t really seem to be looking for an answer… I’m working on the assumption that the show can fuck up (… Billie… or like, Lucifer’s baby. Or Buckleming still writing in general :P) but not that they’re in a constant state of fucking up, and that not everything that happens IS a fuck up…

I am still enjoying watching a lot of episodes that other people really hate so idk :P I recognise that a lot of people are too disappointed or hurt or attached to a character to do this, but back at the end of season 10 I took a huge step back and decided that I still loved the most part of this show, and went and rewatched it to find the stuff I did love, and I’ve felt annoyingly well-balanced about it ever since.

It also helps I don’t watch live, and every time something kinda weird happens I pause the show and think for as long as I need about what just happened before I continue watching instead of leaping to conclusions or to get my ducks in a row before dealing with scenes. And I have the luxury of rewinding to check dialogue, and not watching a shitty stream so I get the whole episode first time, so things that get blown out of proportion in the immediate aftermath of the episode are like 99% wanky things I don’t get involved with :P 

… And yeah I know none of this is answering your question but it is explaining why I’m answering your question like this >.> Sorry. I’m wildly over-emotionally invested in everything but for anything that isn’t a fairly objective reason to be wanky (like… Billie :P) I’d rather give the show a big old benefit of the doubt about killing reapers or Dean not praying… or even Dabb’s freakin’ car continuity :P Your tone sounded complain-y about this to me (or at least like it was bothering you) so rather than just answer with one of multiple random interpretations that explain it from a character POV that would only either smooth over 1 plothole or leave you unconvinced and still grumpy if you didn’t really like the character interpretation (and answering on that level unless you hit on a real nugget of a thought generally does not really seem that convincing on a bigger scale to make it OKAY that people were upset about this), I thought I’d get a bit meta and explain why I am not grumpy >.> Possibly still not convince anyone but the simple answer just seems so pointless when people are upset about bigger problems.