#didn’t fucking happen. it did though. VERY publicly
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why i believe alex replacing logan is the worst possible decision williams could make
#1: logan’s confidence
we saw this exact thing happen with checo last year. after his brief stint of trading wins with max, max continued to consistently wipe the floor with him via the gap in their performances. this continued to eat away at checo’s confidence until, by the end of the season, he was t-boning alex albon in singapore for no reason and somehow retiring twice in suzuka. now that there has been an extended break and he has had the chance to grind and truly work on himself nonstop, he has returned with incredible form. but who knows how long this will last? as soon as there’s a race that isn’t a red bull 1-2, he will be completely torn into and i believe the downward trajectory of last year will repeat itself.
this is very similar to what logan went through last year. once he was announced, there was so much hope for an incredible debut season, but that never came his way. i think the first big nail in the coffin was getting his first p20 at his home race and i think the biggest hit was qatar. even though he should never ever be ashamed of putting his safety first, i understand why, from an athlete’s perspective, he would look at that race as a failure.
fortunately for him, he has had a team with incredibly strong leadership backing him up. giving him the opportunities he needed, never giving up on him, celebrating the single point he scored last year like he lassoed the fucking moon, and re-signing him because he has such incredible potential as a formula 1 driver. everything went wrong for logan, except for williams, who did everything right.
except now, williams has publicly stated that they have no faith in him to score points. now the only support logan has is random fans at races, strangers on the internet, and his own friends and family. that must feel fucking awful. logan has been so positive throughout the struggles of this year and last, but he has to be hurting right now. there’s no way he isn’t.
logan sargeant is not a bad driver. you can disagree with me as loud as you want to, but i won’t hear a word of it.
absolutely stunning junior career aside, logan showed incredible improvement towards the end of the season. not only did he score a point in austin, but he came unbearably close in mexico, and if it weren’t for a hydraulics failure, he very easily could have had two points finishes in a row.
this year may seem like it has gotten off to a bad start for him, but i heavily disagree. in bahrain he had great pace and was steadily climbing closer and closer to the points when he had a brake failure. the car switched his balance completely on its own and made it literally impossible for him to turn. even max couldn’t recover from that.
in jeddah his pace was wonderful again. i think his biggest struggle currently is qualifying, but he was overtaking beautifully and making his way up the field. while 15th isn’t a spectacular finish, he was matching alex quite well throughout the whole race. (also jeddah sucks so he gets a pass 👎)
george russell did not score a SINGLE point during his rookie season for williams and he is now a race-winning future championship contender and beating his 7x wdc teammate in the standings at p4. logan has already beaten that AND he has an experienced driver that he seems to get on with quite well as a teammate to mentor him, which george didn’t have; he was william’s number one driver from day one. logan has so much potential that is only being hindered by his lack of confidence, unpreparedness (reminder he was brought to f1 an entire year earlier than he was originally supposed to be; they planned for him to be a 2024 rookie), and a shitty car.
#2: alex albon
now poor alex is in the worst position of his life. brother already probably feels like shit for putting logan through this (even though it is NOT his fault and he has absolutely zero say in this decision) and if he doesn’t score any points this weekend, he will be torn to shreds by the media.
i have already seen multiple posts including alex in their list of fuck yous. this will do incredible damage to him pr-wise and will also make him feel even worse if he doesn’t somehow pull off a miracle performance.
#3: albert park
alex is an incredible driver, constantly pulling a back marker car into the points. however, this is a track that he has historically struggled at (in the exact same turn might i add!!) for multiple years in a row. who’s to say this mistake could not be made tomorrow or sunday as well? that will make everyone involved look and feel horrible.
not to mention that the fw46 is NOT SUITED for albert park. AT ALL. vcarb’s official website describes it as a ‘medium-high’ downforce track, which is exactly what the car is suited to struggle with, making it nearly impossible for albono to score points (which, like stated before, will be terrible for him) as well as making this gp a likely inconsequential race! meaning this is the perfect opportunity to let logan drive on the limit and really showcase his true talent and capabilities as a driver.
but now williams has chosen to do the complete opposite and ruined logan’s trust in his team as well as any other offers from rival teams for him for the 2025 season. if logan’s own team would bench him for his teammate, why should they take him over a talented upcoming rookie? (this is a rhetorical question; i truly believe he has the potential to, with a good enough car and team behind him, become a race-winning driver in the future.)
#4: james vowles and the future of williams
james has justified this decision by mentioning how every race counts and that a single point can make a world’s difference in the midfield. while this is true, james has also been on the record multiple times saying that he doesn’t give two shits about this season (as well as the next few). he has stated that his goal is long-term, to rebuild the team and return it to its former success of the 90s and early 2000s. so why ruin the reputation of your driver who you have been supporting since his junior career over the possibility of a single point or two? that is a short-term solution, not a long-term one. james is usually a wonderfully eloquent speaker, however, he has completely contradicted himself here.
in my opinion, the best decision would be to race logan. while i love alex to death, he’s the one who crashed his car, completely on his own with no fellow drivers or failures on the car’s side to blame. logically, he should be the one to sit out the race, no?
like i briefly touched on before, i also think this is a golden opportunity to put logan in a race where they will most likely come away with nothing anyways and give him the opportunity to pull off something incredible (which he absolutely can under the right circumstances). if he was able to have a good drive on sunday, he would be a star and williams would look like geniuses. with this decision, everyone just looks like an asshole.
final thoughts
to conclude, i am no certified expert, but this decision makes zero sense to me, as it also does to many others from what i’ve seen. i usually wholeheartedly agree with all of james’ decisions, but this one beats me. i cannot for the life of me figure out why williams would choose this.
there is a part of me that hopes williams will reverse this decision before sunday in order to save themselves from all of the pr backlash they are facing, but i understand that that is very much wishful thinking. the only good thing that can come from this is williams finally learning how to be prepared and/or logan being able to channel his frustration into motivation (although i don’t think there’s any way for him to possibly work harder than he already has).
if anyone disagrees with me and thinks this is the right decision for williams to make, i would love to hear why. no one has to agree with me, these are just my personal thoughts on the situation.
-avis 🏎️💨
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Can we talk about how fucking sweet Hobie would be in a relationship?
He’d treat you so well every single moment he’s with you. He’d never treat you bad and would always make sure you feel appreciated and wanted.
You guys probably wouldn’t have an official title to your relationship because Hobie “doesn’t believe in labels” (he’s joking when he says that), but everyone who knows you knows that you two are basically dating. However, if it matters to you about putting a label on your relationship with him, he’d be totally cool with doing that. He wouldn’t mind you calling him your partner publicly, and he’d love to do the same with you.
“I don’t mind puttin’ a label on us, luv. Whateva makes ya happy.”
Hobie would treat you almost daily with handmade gifts, or gifts he bought from a small family-owned shop, or something he just stole from a corporate-owned store if it’s something you really really want. He’d also treat you by taking you out, mainly to cool places that he’s found while swinging around. He’d also take you out to concerts by either stealing tickets or sneaking you in.
“‘Ey doll, got us sum tickets to a band ya like.”
“What? Hobie, these tickets are crazy expensive! How the hell did you buy these?”
“I ain’t ever said I bought ‘em.”
And sometimes, if he thinks you’re tough enough for it and you’re willing to go, he’ll take you to riots with him. He’d hold your hand or your hip or just anywhere he can so that he doesn’t lose you in the crowd. He makes sure that nothing bad happens to you, which his spidey sense makes it easier for him to do so. Though if you were to somehow get hurt he’d feel guilty for letting that happen, and he’d patch you up and make sure you heal properly.
“Hobie, I’m fine. I just scraped my knee—“
“I don’t want ya gettin’ an infection, dove. The road’s dirty. Now quit squirmin’, I’m tryna disinfect it.”
Aside from gift giving and quality time, Hobie’s other love language is physical touch. He loves to hold you, kiss you, touch you, anything that involves being close to you. He’ll hold your hand or your hip while walking, and he’ll either hold your waist or slip his hand into your back pocket while you’re standing together. If you’re sitting, he’ll always have his hand on your thigh. Always. Sometimes he’ll even try to sit you on his lap if he wants to be extra close to you.
“Mm… c’mere babes, I wanna be closer to ya.”
“Hobie, I’m literally sitting on top of you. I can’t get any closer.”
“Yes ya can, you’re just not tryin’ hard enough.”
I think a very important aspect of being in a relationship with Hobie would be effective communication. Yes that’s important in all relationships, but it’s extremely important for him especially. He always wants to be aware of what’s too much for you so that he doesn’t cross any boundaries, and if he did, he wants you to feel comfortable enough to tell him what he did. He hates the thought of miscommunication ruining your relationship.
“Darlin’, I can tell somethin’ is wrong. Ya can tell me anythin’, ya know that yeah?”
Hobie is undoubtedly a very loyal partner. He would never even think of cheating on you. You’re practically his everything at this point. He doesn’t know what he’d do if he lost you; it doesn’t matter how he loses you, any way would be devastating. In turn, he trusts that you are very loyal too. He knows that you’d never cheat on him or flirt with someone else. Why would he date you if he didn’t trust you?
“Ya know I trust ya mo’ than anyone, yeah?”
Hobie doesn’t get jealous or overly possessive. He knows you’re his, there’s no need to consistently flaunt that. Besides, it’s fun watching you tell people that are flirting with you that you’re not single. But if some bastard wants to keep flirting with you after you’ve made it clear that you’re taken and uninterested, then he’ll step in and put that bastard in their place.
“Oi, fuck off mate. They ain’t interested in you.”
Something important about Hobie is that he’ll never lie to you. He keeps secrets, but if you find out about something and confront him about it, he’ll tell you the truth. Even if the secret you found out is that he’s Spider-Man.
“Hobie, this is a serious question, so I need you to tell me the truth. Are you really, genuinely Spider-Man?”
“Yep, I am. You’re a smart one, dove. How much snoopin’ have you been doin’ lately?”
“…I swear to god if you’re messing with me right now I will punt you.”
“Not jokin’. I’m a hundred percent serious, especially ‘bout ya bein’ very smart.”
Basically I think being his partner would be nice :)
#hobie brown#hobie x reader#across the spiderverse#atsv hobie#hobie spiderverse#hobie x you#hobie headcanons#hobie x y/n#hobie my beloved#hobie brainrot#spiderman atsv#atsv#atsv x reader
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Am I The Asshole for comforting my friend’s ex-partner?
People in this story: Me (19M), my friend, Jason (17M), his ex-partner, Leon (16M) [All fake names]
So, my friend Jason recently broke up with Leon, after a year of them being together (like, right after their anniversary). This was honestly a long time coming, as Jason has been venting to me about all these little things that Leon has done (he never visits Jason at work, he rarely buys gifts or pays for dates even though Jason always does, he’s too clingy, etc) so I wasn’t surprised, and I don’t think either Jason or Leon were very surprised either.
Jason is actually very happy he finally ended the relationship, and now that it’s over, he started to open up to me more about things Leon has done. He’s saving the in-depth conversation for when we can talk in person, but he told me there was manipulation and gaslighting going on, I just don’t know how or to what severity. Although, despite this, Jason says he doesn’t really have much ill will against Leon, and while he doesn’t want to remain friends (and now has him blocked on socials), is still fine interacting with him. (Of course, they’re in high school together so they’ll have to interact pretty frequently.)
Leon on the other hand… is pretty torn up. Which is understandable, even if it is his fault Jason broke up with him. He was publicly (but subtly) venting on social media, and Jason told me that during the breakup he was also very visibly upset and talked about thinking he (himself) deserved to die. (Which is… possibly a manipulation tactic, possibly a depressed teenager thing, but most likely a mix of both.)
Now, I’m friends with both of them (it’s hard not to be, since they’re almost always together). I’m closer with Jason and we talk almost every day, but Leon and I are somewhat close as well, so it wasn’t surprising to me when Leon messaged me to talk about the breakup.
Leon send multiple paragraphs venting about the breakup. He basically just told me he feels guilty, and hopeless, and he felt like his efforts in the relationship could only be seen by himself. He also told me he understands and won’t judge if I start to dislike him now that Jason broke up with him, and asked me to take care of Jason now that he won’t be able to.
Some of his message seemed a little manipulative-y? (Like the self-depreciation, he was also somewhat implying he wanted to kill himself…?) Which makes sense with everything Jason told me about him, but I still tried to respond the same way I would respond to any friend who just had a bad breakup, while also throwing a little “I hope you learn and grow from this” in there for good measure.
Because, see, I believe Jason when he says Leon was manipulative and a toxic partner. And I know Leon is probably fishing for sympathy, at least a bit. However… He’s also 16 years old. Which doesn’t make any of Leon’s actions okay, obviously. A 16 year-old should know right from wrong. But I know 16 year olds have a lot of growing up to do, and I don’t think Leon is an irredeemably bad person.
I can’t know for certain if Leon was purposefully acting malicious or if he was just too immature to understand what he did wrong. But either way, I’d feel like a dick telling a 16 year old who sees me as a good friend that I don’t want to hear him vent or I don’t care about his problem because it’s all his fault anyway. So, I just listened, told him I hope he grows from this, and told him to take care of himself and I hope things get better for him.
I’m definitely going to distance myself from him going forward, probably especially when Jason tells me the rest of the details of their relationship, but I figured the breakup is so fresh (happened the day before Leon came to me) I can at least let him vent for now. Break ups do fucking suck, even if it is your fault or you deserved it. So, I don’t know. Jason didn’t seem too bothered with what I said to Leon, but idk. AITA? I hope that all made sense :’)
What are these acronyms?
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So, the atrocities Rhaenyra committed never happened because “unreliable source” but F&B is suddenly very trustworthy when it comes to the Greens, am I right ?
Most of the stuff that Rhaenyra was claimed to have done was stuff she did. Eustace primarily looked to whitewashing Aegon II with his whole “he didn’t care until his children were threatened” BS.
Most of what she did during her half-year tenure (the taxes, the murders, the lavish feasts while her people starve, refusing to offer credible surrender terms to the Greens, etc.) cannot be mistaken as anything but her doing, with the only exception of Haelana, who may have been pushed, may have committed suicide, or may even have been murdered by Larys Strong (I doubt that though). Arguing for people who doubted the Strong bastards’ paternity to have their tongues ripped out definitely happened (and as Tyrion stated, “when you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say”). Rhaenyra knew about Blood & Cheese beforehand, and never punished Daemon. Maelor’s death can’t be biased history, her Knights Inquisitor were publicly charged with finding Maelor. Ordering Lord Mooton to murder Nettles and ordering Addam Velaryon to be executed without trial was also something that definitely happened, writs of execution have paperwork.
The smallfolk of KL turned on her, and that can’t be explained away as propaganda after-the-fact, they were the ones living it. Their reactions can’t be explained away as propaganda; they slaughtered the dragons: the living symbols of Targaryen power, and justified their actions as righteous action. How can that be construed as anything but legitimately held rebellion against the very aspect of her rulership ? The heads that were placed on pikes above Maegor’s Holdfast too, are physical things that can be observed and confirmed (or disproven).
See, I don't think anyone taught you how to analyze unreliable sources. An easy way to do that is if there are other sources corroborating the story or see if the idea makes sense with the person being talked about. It's also important to consider the context of the decisions, which is analysis 101 by the way. So, since apparently holding your hand and walking you through something like I'm your fucking middle school teacher is necessary, let's go through your post.
First off, the taxes. Yes, I agree with you, the taxes are something Rhaenyra actually did, we know this because in a kingdom, tax records are always kept. This is how I know that you, much like all the Nettles stans who interact with me, have never fucking read a thing I've written. I've said that the heavy tax isn't something that's a sign of Rhaenyra being incompetent or a tyrant. It's a necessary cost of war, especially since the Greens stole the treasury, she needs money. The people did hate this and eventually riot, but, by looking at the context of the riot, it was rooted in hatred of the war, not Rhaenyra. They believed that if she took the throne, the war would be over, but it wasn't because of Aegon's cowardice. If Aegon was still on the throne, the people would have still rioted, they hated the war and blamed the monarch, end of story.
As for the beheadings, I hate to break it to you, but F&B takes place in a medieval world, meaning that beheading was the method for punishing treason. Aegon's supporters committed treason then, unlike Rhaenyra's supporters, tried to hide throughout the city. Now, am I saying that beheading your enemies and putting their heads on spikes on the walls is a good thing? No, it's something that's barbaric and cruel, however, it's no less than what Aegon did to her supporters, so condemning her for something Aegon does is extremely hypocritical and sexist. Also, it wasn't a witch hunt, Rhaenyra needed to find the treasury and Aegon in order to stop the war; was it extreme, yes, but, again, context is important. I find it interesting that you condemn the taxes she levied while also condemning her attempts to end the reason for the taxes, could it be you just hate Rhaenyra and are looking for any reason to shit on her?
Now we're getting into something that requires a little critical thinking, which I know is hard for you: the feasting. The only source that says Rhaenyra held feasts while she was in KL is Septon Eustace. Let's look at Eustace really quickly; he's the man who crowned Aegon and is known by the in-universe writers of F&B to be unreliable, he also wasn't in KL when Rhaenyra was ruling. So, if the maesters who wrote the sources F&B drew from deem him to be unreliable and he wasn't present during her reign, does that make Eustace a trustworthy source? And if the many courtiers who were in KL and weren't fans of Rhaenyra didn't corroborate this rumor, is it likely to be true? The answer to both of these is no. Eustace claiming Rhaenyra feasted during her time in KL is 99% a lie, and that other 1% would refer to the fact that nobles always ate better than their people.
Now, I have another question for you anon, I do hope you'll consider it. Would you offer mercy to the man responsible for the deaths of all but two of your children, your husband, your ex mother-in-law who acted as your surrogate mother, began a war based on your gender, and wanted to kill you and your remaining children? Unless you are literally a saint, the answer is, no, you wouldn't be inclined to offer that person "credible surrender terms". I think you're just referring to when Rhaenyra refused to split the kingdom between her and Aegon as well as refused to spare his life if she caught him while she was in KL. How exactly is throwing the kingdom into a shit storm by splitting it in half, despite the fact that a majority of the lords supported Rhaenyra, "credible terms"? It's not, it's fucking entitled and ridiculous, of course Rhaenyra rejected that audacious idea. Also, Aegon refused to surrender in any way, in fact he was more determined than ever to keep the war going (even after Rhaenyra was murdered, he kept fighting), what's the point of offering peace terms if they're going to be rejected again? She already offered very merciful terms at the beginning of the war.
"As for my half-brothers and my sweet sister, Helaena," she announced, "they have been led astray by the counsel of evil men. Let them come to Dragonstone, bend the knee, and ask my forgiveness, and I shall gladly spare their lives and take them back into my heart, for they are of my own blood, and no man or woman is as accursed as the kinslayer." (Fire and Blood: The Dying of the Dragons - the Blacks and the Greens)
Keep in mind, this is an official decree by Rhaenyra, terms delivered to Aegon and his council, meaning they were recorded and had official documentation. So not only are you not using any critical thinking, you're flat out lying and making shit up to try and support your argument.
Now, moving on to Rhaenyra's sons, her wanting people who are committing treason to be punished how the king decreed isn't an outlandish or unreasonable expectation. Jace, Luke, and Joff were declared the legitimate sons of Laenor by Viserys, Corlys, and Laenor himself, making them (at the very least adopted) Velaryons. Are you saying that people who are adopted are undeserving of inheritance just because of their blood? That's not even a medieval idea, since adopted heirs has been a custom since the Ancient Romans. Moving on, Viserys was the one who declared the punishment for the treason of questioning the boys' legitimacy, not Rhaenyra. There's also the fact that no one outside of the Greens cared about whether the boys were Laenor's blood or not, they are recorded by everyone, including Eustace himself, as true Velaryons. I'm not even going to address the Tyrion quote, since you clearly don't actually care about accuracy or literally any of the messages in ASOIAF.
Continuing your trend of blatantly making shit up, there's no evidence that Rhaenyra knew about B&C. All we have is Daemon's letter to her, which only said that Luke would be avenged, something which could be accomplished through taking her throne and executing Aemond. In fact, that's the most likely conclusion to be drawn from such a vague letter.
As for Maelor, Rhaenyra did order her knights to find him, as having Aegon's last child could motivate him to surrender. However, she didn't order him to be executed, that was clearly an example of how war twists people and drives them to atrocities. Rhaenyra offered a reward for his return, meaning she wanted him alive, it's not her fault that a mob tore him to pieces. Her people came to break up the mob, but they were too late, so they executed the people responsible. Rhaenyra gave Maelor's remains a Targaryen funeral, something Aegon and Aemond didn't bother giving to her children.
Rhaenyra ordering Nettles' and Addam's executions are actions that I don't defend and never have. Those are signs of how Rhaenyra is another gray character, a woman driven to intense paranoia and making unjust and harmful decisions. This makes her a gray protagonist, not an unredeemable villain, as you and her other antis seem to believe. If you guys want all good protagonists, maybe read a differen book series.
As I said earlier, the revolt of the KL smallfolk weren't against Rhaenyra herself, it was against the war. They killed the dragons because they were being led by a man who took their discontent and used it to support his religious fanaticism. The Shepherd wasn't preaching against Rhaenyra, he was preaching against the Targaryens, including Aegon. That's why they killed all the dragons they could, not just Rhaenyra's, they killed Jaehaera and Helaena's dragons, how is that an act just against Rhaenyra?
TG stans and Rhaenyra antis' arguments are driven solely by a lack of critical thinking, willful ignorance, and twisting of passages. You either have issues that aren't actually supported by the narrative or simply apply double standards to Rhaenyra while supporting other characters who do the same or worse. You seem to think that this ask was a "gotcha" moment, however, you have simply shown how even the Rhaenyra antis who have read the book lack critical thinking and don't understand how unreliable sources work. Have a good day/night anon, I do hope you'll eventually learn how to use logic and your critical thinking, I'm sure you can do it.
#anti rhaenyra antis#anti team green#anti team green stans#rhaenyra targaryen#team black#house of the dragon#asoiaf#fire and blood#hotd spoilers#kinda
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The Secret Passion of Ed Asner
Chapter Thirteen: Popping Lou Grant's Cherry
Featuring Ed Asner
Back in 1986, I was the secret lover of my best friend Matt's father who just happens to be Ed Asner, the guy who plays Lou Grant on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series Lou Grant. For a few weeks during his separation, we fucked every chance we got. He'd drive out to Van Nuys and picked me up, check into a cheap hotel or I'd meet him at his house when Matt wasn't around. Once I even fucked Ed during dinner, in the bathroom, while Matt and his sister were at the table in the next room. Ed was was my first older man and he'd fuck me almost every day for weeks. But eventually our relationship cooled down.
It was no surprise to me he was publicly dating women after getting divorced. He was clearly trying to live it up as a single man.
After that I didn’t see Ed again until I bumped into him at a charity event. When he saw me, he smiled broadly, pulling me into his arms and said, “Get over here, asshole and give me a kiss.”
It was good seeing him again after all that time. We talked a bit with him asking me what I was up to and if I was dating. Well, one thing led to another and our conversation turned into how good of a fuck I was. It didn’t take long before we both back at his place, on the couch with Ed's mouth on my cock. He was even randier than usual this afternoon and licked the head with more interest than before.
Putting his mouth over my throbbing cock, Ed pushed his head down on it as far as he could without gagging. I felt the head rubbing the back of his throat. I looked down and saw his bald head bobbing up and down on my dick. He was eagerly gobbling my cock and it was as if he was a starved man trying to satisfy his hunger. I couldn't believe how much of me he had taken in his mouth. It was as if he wanted my cock buried in his throat. It was his way of thanking me for a great lesson he was learning.
We didn't hear the front door open, but I heard the footsteps coming down. It was Matt. Ed's son and my best friend. We pulled apart, Ed standing up as though to put distance between us, all absurd panic. I pulled my jeans over my dick, but I didn't have time to zip or button up just as Matt entered the room. He stared at the both of us and I thought he had noticed his dad's dart across the room. I wondered if he put two and two together.
What would he think if he knew his dad had been sucking my dick? Something perverse in me wanted him to suspect, wanted him to know that I had just been getting a blow job from his dad.
Just when I thought he really did see us, he greeted us, said he wasn't feeling well and wanted to crash in his room. Ed followed him up till the bar where lean as watched Matt leave for his room.
As I glanced at Ed leaning on the bar, his ass popped out at me through his jeans. God how I wanted him. He was not just handsome, the man was hot. Big solid, mountain of a man with a big round bald head and a beer can dick. His shirt was tight around a thick, hairy chest and tucked cleanly into slacks that hugged his thighs and ass. Damn. What a fucking man. I had to fuck him.
Just then, Ed looked me over. In that minute I knew it, I could tell, he still wanted me although hesitant. But I wanted more. I wanted to fuck him.
"Maybe we should…" Ed said as I got up and slid the zipper of my pants back down.
Ed stared, his mouth falling open. I could see it working on him. The knowledge that his son was in his room. Probably thinking he could walk in at any minute. I watched this in his lovely brown eyes, below those thick eyebrows. I watched this dad, this older, verile man, stare at my crotch and I got hard again. My cock filled, swelling bigger and harder than I had ever felt before. And Mr. Asner stared at it.
"Uhh… I, ah… Rob." He said as I was very close now, staring at that five o'clock shadow on his lips. I kissed him. He kissed me back immediately, and I knew I had him. But pulled back.
I needed to fuck and I needed this bear of a man's ass. So I spun him around, push him against the bar as I pulled down his pants with one hand. His ass appeared before me like a gift from god. It was huge, taught, hairy and delicious-looking. I whispered in Ed's ear what I was going to do. I leaned over and licked his hole good and wet. Then pulled my pants down a bit and spit in my hand to wet my cock head and shaft. I moved my wet hand to his ass. I felt my fingers slip into his hole, wet it, loosen it. He was tight. So very tight. A grown man, father and husband, had never been fucked before.
Well, there was a first time for everything and I was about to pop a grown man's cherry. Then I forced my cock inside him. Nobody could have stayed silent for that and Ed gasped and cried, “Ah fuck. Goddammit!”
My cock head was barely inside, but it wasn't enough. Ed had a wet hole, but it was resisting and I had to push the next inches in.
What a sight! My 22-year old cock was stuffing itself into the tight hole of Lou Grant himself. My best friend's father! It felt incredible and I nearly lost myself. I plowed into him, feeling my young body rage. I forced his beautiful hairy back into an angle as I pushed the full length of my cock, all 8 inches into his protesting hole. I began fucking him fast and steady in seconds. Damn this was good!
He gasped for air, knowing he couldn't make any noise, I could tell by him looking back at me that he wanted it even harder. Ed was curling up in ecstasy now as I felt his ass buck up to meet my cock. Ed was moaning loudly, brusquely, sometimes grumbling, sometimes growling or was he clearing his throat crudely and with great force? It was hard sometimes to discern the difference. But as I slowed my pace, somewhere between his cries and gasps I heard him sputter something.
"Don't. Don't stop. Fuck me." He begged.
Hearing that, I was hitting all cylinders, but I didn't last long. With Ed bucking, fucking himself on my cock, I was ready to burst. I was yelling something profane, nearly screaming and I came, punching an enormous load deep into his daddy bowels. I shot spurt after spurt into him while he cried, "Yes! Yes!"
His ass made a sucking sound as my cum filled it to the rim. I reached up underneath his shirt to feel his hairy chest as I still pumped his daddy hole. His nipples were hard as a rock as I pinched them. What a fucking I had given the old sweet fella and he really loved it to. He had a wide grin on his face as he turned around pulling his pants up. He leaned toward me and planted a big wet kiss on my lips. I opened my mouth wide to take his tongue in my mouth.
We continued to met up for a few mouth, but eventually we stopped seeing each other. Funny thing while was fucking me, he was also fucking other women, one of whom he got pregnant. Never got another chance with him as a few years later, he married another woman. But Ed and I had some fine times.
#The Secret Passion of Ed Asner#edward asner#ed asner#Popping Lou Grant's Cherry#cilf#fan fiction#asner fan fiction#american actor#actor#celebrities
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Wait. wait.
Okay I just noticed this bit of the ‘hello, lover’ scene when reading pourcap’s fantastic chapter review posts, I think because I find the scene painful and generally rush through it or skip it when I reread King’s Rising. But that line? “You’d take me to your bed for the public consummation?”? There’s got to be a pretty major disparity between what Laurent means and what Damen is hearing here.
Because what this sounds like, if you don’t have the context, as a first time reader doesn’t have it, as Damen doesn’t have it, is Laurent trivializing the seriousness of Damen’s feelings for him. From Damen’s perspective, he’s offered Laurent a meaningful, caring relationship, and Laurent is accusing him of just wanting sex. And not just sex, but public sex, which to Damen is taboo. And since Damen himself just got through telling Laurent how having sex with him damaged Laurent’s reputation, and Laurent had agreed--“As though getting fucked into the mattress by the King of Akielos could be anything but degrading”, he says--it sounds like Laurent is not just accusing Damen of only wanting him for sex but also of wanting to publicly fuck him in order to humiliate Laurent further.
If you do have the context, which Damen will not learn for several weeks more, well. If you do have the context, Laurent is saying “How did you think it would be? You would marry me?”
In Vere, public consummation is the hallmark of royal weddings. And sure, public sex occurs at other times too. But “consummation” is a very wedding-night word, and the use of “the” rather than “a”, as in “the consummation” suggests that he’s referring to a specific event, a formal necessity. I’m pretty sure Laurent didn’t mean the line as accusing Damen of wanting only to fuck and humiliate him, I think he meant “What did you think would happen? We’d stay together, get married, ride off into the sunset and live happily ever after?” He knows, or suspects, just how strong Damen’s feelings are (of course he does, repeating back at Damen the things he said while they were having sex) and he’s using that to hurt him as much as anything else.
Damen doesn’t know that Veretian royal weddings have public consummations yet, of course. Laurent tells him at Karthas. And that same conversation is when Laurent finds out that Akielon royal weddings don’t, that Akielons never have sex publicly. When he made that taunt about Damen taking him to his bed for the public consummation, he would have expected the reference to land.
It doesn’t. And that’s probably for the best. “It hurt,” Damen says. I think if he knew what Laurent meant, it would have hurt worse.
One final thought. The first part of Laurent’s statement here, “How did you think it would be?” is reminiscent of a line he has later on, in the inn in Melos when he asks Damen to show him how it could be. How it could be, if we could have a loving courtship is definitely the subtext there--I think How it could be, if we could marry is subtext there as well. And I think he might be remembering saying this, asking Damen to share with him the dream that he once mocked.
#the layers of allusions and parallels in these books#the way this allusion lends weight to the worldbuilding:#laurent making a culturally-specific reference that neither damen nor the reader has the context to understand#here's an in-canon lamen misunderstanding about courtship#captive prince#image captioned in alt text
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On that note, can you imagine how INSANE the media circus would be if it did come out publicly that Chuck and Blair illegally backdated their marriage certificate and the case against them was actually re-opened? Especially in 2023, at a time when anti-billionaire “eat the rich” sentiment has become very mainstream, and true crime is one of the most popular and profitable genres of entertainment?
Like, the events of season six happen so fast that we don’t really get to appreciate just how wild they are from the outside looking in. Imagine if Michael Bloomberg or pre-presidency Donald Trump died in a car crash, and their then-teenage progeny took over their real estate empires. Everyone just gets used to the idea of a little boy real estate mogul, I guess, and a few years pass, and then - surprise! They were faking their death all along!! Yes there was a funeral, yes they were legally declared dead, but who cares! They’re back baby, and ready to go back to being the same shitbags they were before!
Except, a mere handful of months later, they’re dead again - this time having gone careening off the side of one of their company’s most famous buildings (imagine if Donald Trump died falling off of Trump Tower lmaoooo). Did they fake it again? Was it foul play? By the time rumors start to swirl of the alleged involvement of their recently deposed nepotism baby, the cops close the case and rule it an accident. Their heir, still barely an adult, retakes the reigns of leadership - newly married, a detail no one realizes is suspicious because they likely have no idea that the spouse was at the scene of the crime.
Years pass. YouTubers and online conspiracy theorists periodically bring up the case, but the public at large once again more or less accepts the public narrative. Another piece of shit real-estate mogul gets elected president, and the attitude of the general public towards the uber wealthy turns increasingly hostile. Then there’s 2020, and 2021, and 2022, and- And then. “Billionaire boy and family linked to father’s mysterious death after discovery of faked marriage license”.
Even though we, the audience, knows Chuck didn’t actually kill his father, do you think in a world where this was an actual case involving actual public figures anyone would believe that? The coverup is so ridiculously suspicious that the general public almost definitely assumes they really did do the crime.
And consider the players in this case - a terrible billionaire who died a deliciously ironic death, his somehow worse son who in a post-#MeToo world is already a PR nightmare waiting to happen, and the ex-princess of Monaco (?!) who just so happens to already be tabloid fodder. If they get especially unlucky, Dan (a pretty famous novelist, at least according to the reboot), Serena (a 2000s era “it girl” and semi-celebrity), and Nate (an ex-NYC mayoral candidate, media mogul, and in universe Kennedy equivalent) might just find themselves implicated too - or at least forced to testify - given they were at the very much in public wedding where any rando could have snapped a picture.
There is just soooo much fucked up entertainment value in a case like this I can’t imagine it being anything less than a public fucking spectacle, and not the kind Chuck or Blair could just shake off. I genuinely do not know how they could absolve themselves in the court of public opinion if it actually went to trial, even if they managed to prevail legally.
Oh my god. Okay well, first of all, I really want the fake Serial podcast that unpacks all of this lol. Someone should make that lmao.
"little boy real estate mogul" took me out lololololol
also like...faking your death is a crime right??? how was Bart just able to re-enter society so easily??? did they ever say???
i'd also like to point out that it's actually much vaguer whether or not Chuck killed his father. They cut away during their fight and then next thing you see is Bart hanging onto the edge. Chuck himself says that he isn't sure whether or not he pushed him or Bart fell over. but also Chuck and Blair both just stood there and did nothing to help Bart before he fell, which is involuntary manslaughter I believe
But seriously though, you're so right anon that all of this was made for true crime. In 2030, someone makes a "Jinx" style doc about Chuck I bet
#anti chair#gossip girl#anti chuck bass#anti blair waldorf#anti bart bass#gg meta#anonymous#strideofprideanswers
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I heard about this Shubble person recently, I stayed out of drama as much as I could but, what happened now??? You even wrote this in one of your tags "#I really did love him a lot (parasocially)".
I was busy this week so I don't know what is happening now.
I highly recommend people watch Shubble’s vod on her twitch channel (I don’t have a link but I can’t imagine it’s that difficult to find). Be mindful though as the vod does talk about abuse which is a very triggering topic, so make sure to be taking care of yourself. I’m gonna put the rest of the post under the cut, so people can easily scroll past this if they want to.
As a little summary, Shubble streamed yesterday and talked about her abusive ex. She didn’t name anyone, but she also wasn’t hiding who it was, and contrary to what some people may say, a lot of the dots being connected are stuff we know from past streams and comments from friends and not leaked info.
So, the incredibly most likely case is that it was Wilbur. I’m not gonna get into everything Shelby said because she said it on her stream, but the signs do point to Wilbur, and you’d have to reach significantly further to claim she was talking about someone else. There’s not a lot of British male ccs who have a bigger audience than her who have a history of biting people and have reason to be going on long travels (tour) where they wouldn’t see each other often.
Listen. I was a certified dreambur blog, okay? Everyone who glanced in my direction knew that I was a Wilbur fan. Everyone knows that I loved him so fucking much. But that’s not an excuse to bury my head in the sand and ignore everything, y’know?
Anyway, this is gonna be the last time I talk abt this publicly (I’m sure my friends will hear more in DMs though sorry <3), so I’m gonna throw a bit more stuff here abt my blog going forward.
I will eventually talk abt c!wilbur again. I’m still gonna write my silly little c!dreambur aus, I’ve just put them on the back burner. regardless of cc actions, I genuinely do love so many of the characters on the dsmp. I’ll probably be focused on some other fics for a while, but c!wilbur’s my cat and I don’t think he’s leaving my brain soon. I just need a little time.
I think cc!wilbur is someone who needs help. and I genuinely do hope he gets that help. but having mental health struggles isn’t an excuse. and I just can’t see myself engaging in his content in the foreseeable future. you’re not gonna see me post neg about him. you’re just likely not gonna see me post anything about him at all.
I’m happy to know Shubble has an amazing support system. I’m so sorry she had to go through something so horrible. I’m wishing her nothing but the best, and everyone should check out her YouTube channel!! I haven’t watched her newest video yet, but I did watch Lizzie’s pov of the collab, so I know it’s a fun concept
If people have questions that this post doesn’t answer, then I’m happy to answer them in DMs, but I don’t wanna talk abt this publicly anymore. (I reserve a right to change my mind though if I for some reason feel the need to post abt it again)
Anyway, take care of yourselves. Love is never ever wasted, okay? And all that love belongs to you. And it’s always a good thing to put more love out into the world. Never feel guilty for loving, okay? 🫂
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Hello!!! First of all, this may be a lot to ask for so feel comfortable to ignore this request. DO NOT FEEL PRESSURED TO DO IT!
Can I request a Blade x gn! reader, comfort? In which Blade just gives them the reassurance and love that they need. (Probably modern au because of social media) Context (which is unfortunately inspired by one irl thing that happened to me):
A few weeks ago I had an argument wuth someone in which at one point I made a mistake, but I was like, ok dude, I realise my mistake, got lost in translation. But the person did a bigger mistake (details that will matter). Today... Well recently, I saw that that person posted a tik tok video about that thing and skipped that they made a HUGE mistake and didn't put it in the video, in which were shitting on me, calling me a fake fan or something among those lines. I was there like: if I'm making fun of you I'm making fun of you in my closed friends on Instagram like... Girl... The fuck. I already admitted that I made a mistake, why didn't you admit your to the public if you're going to shit on me publicly as well (lucky there were no names posted)?
And I'm just here asking in my head Blade how I can become like him, to not give a big fuck about anyone, to not care anymore to just ''delete" that person from giving me emotional damage (even if I blocked them).
Again, ignore this if you don't feel comfortable or good about writing something about this.
(Now, if you did, thank you! I don't know how to express my gratitude for you though text so, thank you!)
Hi there!
Oh my gosh I’m so so sorry you went through that, I’m going to be honest I’m not the best at fics but I’ll do my best for you.
Once again, I’m really sorry to hear about that, I hope my fic can bring you at least some level of comfort.
Thank you for sending in an ask, I really appreciate it.
Umm I’m realizing I didn’t make it a modern au, and I made it kind of vague, I hope you don’t mind!
Blade is very touch-starved, and not used to physical affection or comforting people in general.
-Distraction-
Your boyfriend, Blade, had always amazed you. It was like nothing could ever faze him, he was always cool and collected, and even now, as he sat next to you on the couch watching you cry, he didn’t seem knocked off his balance.
He was looking at you calmly, quietly, his brow slightly knit with concern, like he was waiting for you to speak. Or waiting for your permission to do something.
“How do you do it?” you ask through tears, looking away from your phone and into your boyfriend’s beautiful orange eyes. “How are you so…calm all the time?” you explain when he doesn’t immediately answer. “How come nothing phases you?!”
He doesn’t seem to know how to respond.
Blade’s rule was simple.
He didn’t like being touched, and he wouldn’t touch you. But today was different. You were suffering and he has to do something.
To your surprise, he takes your hand, and squeezes it gently.
“You don’t want to know why I am the way I am,” he admits, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry that this happened to you, and I know you’re feeling pain right now…just…”
He’s struggling to find his words.
He wasn’t good at this sort of stuff. But he was trying his best for you.
“Just who cares what they think, y/n? Why does this matter at the end of the day? Just try to let it go and forget about it, it’s for the best…”
He was right, you knew. But it was hard. You sniffle, wipe at your eyes.
“Unless…” he adds with a mischievous smile. “You want some revenge?”
You know he’s joking (hopefully).
THE Blade of the Stellaron Hunters, is making a joke in an attempt to get you to smile.
“No,” you say, shaking your head, and smiling. “No it’s okay, you’re right about letting it go…”
He leans against you, so that your shoulders are touching.
“Do you want to keep talking about it, or would you like a distraction from it?” he asks. And it’s amazing to you that he hasn’t done this comforting thing before. He’s actually not bad at it.
But the truth is, sweet, comforting Blade is only saved for you and you alone.
“How about…” you bite your lip, pretending to think about it. “A distraction. What did you have in mind?”
He looks hesitant, as if surprised you chose the distraction. Or…a little bit afraid.
He leans forward, making it evident he wants to kiss you.
You’ve never actually kissed Blade before. Even in your months of dating.
He didn’t like to be touched. And that went double for kisses. One time you had tried to kiss his cheek and he outright dodged you.
But now here he was, pushing himself outside his comfort zone, for you.
You smile a bit. “Are you…sure?” you ask, not wanting to discourage him, but knowing this kind of stuff wasn’t his thing. Not that you minded it. You were so used to your boyfriend.
“I’m certain,” he concludes, and his lips meet yours, and he is cold but comforting.
He pulls away, looking a little shaken. His hands are on your waist, and he puts his forehead on your shoulder.
“You don’t need to worry about what anyone else thinks of you, okay?” he says, still dwelling on events that made you upset.
“Okay…” you murmur. “Thank you…Blade…”
You just shared your first kiss with him…Blade…he did it to make you feel better, he did it because he loved you…he went out of his comfort zone, to make you feel happier.
“Seriously, y/n, promise me you won’t let it bother you…”
“I promise,” and you intend to uphold it. For his sake, for your sake. He was right. It didn’t matter at the end of the day. “But in return you have to teach me to be as calm as you are.”
“I am unsure how to do that,” he confesses, pulling away from you and giving you a cute, concerned look.
“That’s alright,” you smile, laugh a bit even. He was just so cute with that look on his face.
Oh, you loved Blade. Loved everything about him. And you wished you could express how thankful you were to him, but truthfully he was just happy you were starting to feel better.
“What else can I do for you?” he asks, taking your hand again and giving it a gentle squeeze. “I would do anything for you…”
“Just…stay with me a little longer.”
#Honkai star rail#honkai star rail x reader#Blade#Blade x reader#hsr Blade x reader#honkai star rail Blade x reader#my writing
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On resenting children and choosing family…
OMG, the term starts again on Monday. My time for having brain space to publicly obsess over HIUH is coming to an end. (I will continue to privately obsess in my own head, of course – HIUH lives there rent free.) But there was so much more to say!
Anyway, let’s do Kastor and Nikandros…
By contrast to all the amazing canon parallels, I am fascinated by the roles that @thickenmyblood has Kastor and Nikandros are playing in HIUH.
I mean, in canon, the two characters are very straightforward. Damen loves Kastor and Kastor is completely disloyal and prepared to kill Damen to get what he thinks he deserves. Damen loves Nikandros and Nikandros is completely loyal and would lay down his life for his true king.
But again, these are roles best suited to a pseudo-historical world of kingdoms. In each canon relationship, Damen, as the Crown Prince, holds a particular power (for Nikandros to cede to and for Kastor to resent and seek to destroy).
The absence of these royal dynamics in HIUH allows Damen’s relationships to Kastor and Nikandros to be delightfully more complex. And the two relationships/characters parallel and contrast with each other in interesting ways.
In terms of their relationships with Damen:
They each have the closest perspectives on Damen’s depression since all Damen does in the months after the breakup is go to work and sit around Nikandros’ place.
They have known Damen the longest of anyone left in his life.
They each present relationships that Damen must work through in his process of introspection (though Damen does not know this about Nikandros initially).
They can each, for their own reasons, be incredibly dismissive of Damen’s feelings.
Interestingly, in terms of their characters, the other thing they have in common is that the source of some of their most problematic behavior is their resentment of a child.
Kastor resents Damen for having been favored by their father and not only chooses to blame Damen along with their father, but also assumes that, as a much younger child, Damen would have been able to perceive and understand their father’s favoritism.
Damen ignores him. “Dad didn’t force anyone to stay at the house. They worked for him, and he paid them for their work. Not everyone takes the holidays off. It doesn’t mean dad was exploiting them.”
“I never said he was. I said he was paying them to play house with you.”
“What?”
“He was too busy with work,” Kastor says, “and you were a half orphan. Do you actually think Hera, Chryses, and Brios wanted to be there? They had families too. They stayed because dad paid them, because he didn’t want you to grow up unbalanced.” A snort. “Not that it worked out too well, in the end.”
Damen’s legs have gone numb. He thinks of standing, of walking out, but can’t muster up the strength to do it.
Kastor goes on talking as if nothing’s happened. To him, it hasn’t. “You know, after we had lunch the other day I kept thinking about Hera and all your nannies. Every time I went over to dad’s house, you had something new. A toy, a bed, a fucking babysitter. It used to make me furious. But now?” He pours what’s left of the wine. “Now I just feel sad for you.”
Kastor is drunk. Has been for a while now. He looks less like their dad like this, which Damen is glad for. It’s always made him feel strange, the way Kastor can transform into someone older, with more authority, with just a gesture.
The polite thing to do would be to leave, quietly, and pretend this has never happened. Never bring it up again. Deny it, even, if necessary. Damen knows this. Damen has done this once before, for Laurent. He never brought up what happened at the company function all those years back. He should do the same now, for Kastor.
“Why did it make you furious?” Damen says. “You were too old for toys, and you had a—you didn’t need a babysitter. Your bed was bigger than mine.”
“It’s not about the fucking bed, Damianos.”
“What is it about then?”
Kastor’s hand goes pale around his glass, then back to normal. If he squeezes that hard again, the glass will break. “I can’t do this,” he says, as he pushes himself away from the table. “It’s—I’m not fucking doing this.”
Damen stands as well. He feels like someone stuck on the wrong side of a mirror, his choice narrowed down entirely to another person’s. “Do what? We’re just talking.”
“It’s never just talking when it’s you.”
The table between them seems to wobble, unsure of whether to shrink or stretch. Damen thinks this might be the closest he’s ever been to Kastor.
“There’s nothing sad about having people work for you,” Damen says. He thinks that might be what Kastor was getting at earlier. Some internalized class shame. “They spent the holidays with us because they were paid to, yes, but that’s the way the world works. Would you go to work if you didn’t get paid to do it? Dad firing nannies because he was indecisive or something isn’t inherently—”
“Indecisive. Dad, indecisive ? You’ve officially lost your mind.”
They’re almost shouting again. This time, Damen doesn’t care. “If you would just explain what you mean instead of having me guess your fucking riddles like we’re ten years old, then maybe I wouldn’t sound like I’ve lost it.”
“You’re insane,” Kastor says, even louder than before. “You’re just rewriting things to make them suit your craziness. Dad wasn’t indecisive about your stupid nannies, Damianos. He kept firing them because you called them all mom and wanted them to practically live with you. It freaked him the fuck out. And honestly? I don’t blame him. You freak me —”
“Daddy?”
Kastor steps away from the table. All of the sudden, he is like a man changed, reformed. Even his voice comes out different. “Did we wake you up, sweetheart? Uncle Damen was just leaving.”
(Also, intriguing little snippet re: Laurent just snuck into that passage.)
But anyway, it is wholly unreasonable for Kastor to expect Damen at the age of having nannies to have recognized how his behavior based in the absence of an involved parent had been interpreted by adults and influenced their actions. And it’s very dismissive of Damen’s experiences growing up (which, to be fair, Damen dismissed in himself for a long time before Neo).
Kastor definitely stopped therapy too soon!
Nikandros, meanwhile, has lumped Nicaise (who came into Damen’s life at the age of eleven!!) in with Laurent as a toxic and manipulative force in Damen’s life.
It’s obvious now to Damen that Laurent had been wrong at the coffee shop, wrong to assume Nicaise was on a crusade to spend more time with Damen. Nicaise has been inviting Damen places—Berenger’s houses, Laurent’s own apartment—because he knows Laurent will be there. Because he wants Damen and Laurent to be together again.
Damen ignores the prickling sensation in his chest. It doesn’t exist, he tells himself, because why would he be upset to find out that a teenager doesn’t actually want to spend time with him? Nothing about what they’ve been doing has been normal. Nicaise isn’t normal.
Nikandros’ words, years old, come back to him now. That kid doesn’t care. He’s not going to call you in five years on Father’s Day. Like a parent’s scolding, the memory has come far too late to be useful.
Nikandros is doing the mouth thing, that soured-up expression he can’t hide when he wants to say something but knows he shouldn’t. Aktis calls it his bitch face.
Damen breathes in. “Just say it.”
“Do you talk about Laurent?”
He does, sometimes. But it’s not a thing, it’s not often. It’s always in passing. Still, saying no outright feels like cheating. “I mostly talk about Nicaise.”
The mouth thing worsens. Nikandros gets up. “I’m gonna get you more water.”
“Don’t bother. I’m not thirsty.”
“I am,” Nikandros says, and disappears into the kitchen.
The sound of rushing water travels from the kitchen to Damen’s ears, but it’s not loud enough to drown out Nikandros’ voice. Damen doesn’t know what he’s muttering about, the words low and cut off, and he doesn’t care enough to ask. It’s not hard to picture Nikandros, standing in front of the sink, glass of water in hand, saying—well, what he’s always said. That kid doesn’t care. That kid’s fucking trouble.
“You just—you fucking love it.” Nikandros is walking again, half a circle, then back, then half a circle again. “You fucking love being his dog. He calls, you answer. He asks, and you drop every single fucking thing for him.”
The thread stretches, wobbles. “I do.”
“And for what? Are you that desperate to play daddy?”
Damen doesn’t reply.
Nikandros scrubs his face with both hands. “Damen. Damen . I’m—do you think he’s changed? Is that it? He hasn’t. People like him don’t change.”
People like him. “Why don’t you like Nicaise?”
“What?”
“Nicaise,” Damen says, calmly, slowly, numbly. “You’ve never liked him. Why?”
“Are you being serious right now?”
Damen tips his head to the side, waits. His hands are not tingling anymore.
“What is there to like? That kid’s a fucking brat,” Nikandros says. “You can’t even take him to a family dinner without him making a scene, and he’s, what? Eighteen? Come on.”
“Did you tell him that? Did you call him a brat?”
Nikandros’s mouth thins. He looks like Kastor. “Damen.”
“Did you?”
“Answer me this. Have they been asking you for money again?”
“What?” Damen says. And then, as the thoughts trickle down: “ Again ? What the fuck does that mean?”
An exhale, defeated. “I don’t want to fight with you. That’s not why I called.”
“Maybe I do,” Damen says. “You told me you’d stop. Time and time again. You said you’d stop bringing him up, bringing Nicaise up. But you won’t. You can’t.”
“You bring them up,” Nikandros says, “all the fucking time. What am I supposed to do? Smile and nod along, like it doesn’t make me fucking sick? Like the way they take advantage of you isn’t wrong?”
“We’re not even together. We’re not together. Do you hear the shit you’re saying? How is he taking advantage—”
“Is the kid there?”
Damen holds onto the counter. “It’s none of your business if he is.”
“So, yeah, he fucking is. It’s Friday night, and you’re stuck home babysitting that deranged little shit when he’s not your responsibility anymore. What? Is money tight? Can’t he pay for a fucking nanny? It’s Friday night, and he dumps his kid on you, and then he gets to go out and have fun, which is what you should be doing. What’s next, huh? Is he going to make you pay for his college tuition? Make you buy him an apartment when he drops out? Damen, if you let him, he’s going to fucking milk you—”
Nikandros’ reaction to Nicaise makes me very angry! That’s why there are so many excerpts!
Okay, so we know now why Nikandros hates Laurent—and he wasn’t entirely wrong (though he wasn’t that right either)—but Laurent and Nicaise are not one undifferentiated person. And the difference between the responsibility Laurent and Nicaise bear for their behavior based on their ages is HUGE.
Nikandros has chosen a completely unreasonable interpretation of Nicaise’s trauma-induced behaviors. If a kid is struggling that much at that age, it’s not because they’re inherently unkind, uncaring or manipulative – it’s because of something they’ve experienced that they have not been able to process!
Nikandros has also (perhaps to be protective) minimized and belittled Damen’s desire to parent Nicaise. I think we can see Nikandros’ influence at the beginning of the story and in the time just before the beginning of the story after the breakup. At that time, Damen does not believe he is allowed to still parent Nicaise and has preemptively protected himself by not pursuing contact with Niciase post break-up. What Laurent and Nicaise have sometimes interpreted as Damen’s lack of care is actually, I believe, Damen in denial because he thinks he cares too much and that he is no longer able to give or express that care.
I think all this also gives us reason to reinterpret something else. In Chapter 19, I believe not for the first time, Laurent points out that Damen kept Nicaise compartmentalized from other parts of his life. Laurent takes this to mean Damen is embarrassed by Nicaise and doesn’t want Nicaise for the long haul. But if we think back to Damen’s initial description of why he didn’t want Nicaise to wear feminine-coded things, we see that it is a well-meaning but highly problematic effort to protect Nicaise from harm.
“Okay, then what was the problem? What made the things Nicaise wore girly?”
“They were covered in glitter and sequins. He had this pair of shorts he loved, and they had this… pink patch sewn into one of the pockets.” Damen rubs his hands on his thighs again, not liking how damp they are, how tight his skin feels. “To school, he wore normal clothes, but only because I insisted. On the weekends, he’d just play dress-up. At fourteen.”
“Let’s go back for a second,” Neo says. “You keep mentioning school, Damen. Was that your main concern? The fact that Nicaise would be teased by his classmates for wearing certain things?”
“Yes.”
Neo nods. “So you thought you were helping Nicaise prevent bullying of some sort.”
Bullying. Damen tries not to roll his eyes. “Yes,” he says again, because it’s true.
“Then what was the issue with Nicaise wearing those types of clothes at home during the weekend? No one was going to bully him there.”
“Are you honestly going to tell me that’s normal?”
An awkward silence settles over them. Damen thinks he shouldn’t have used that word. Laurent had practically banned him from saying it at home, wouldn’t even hear Damen out if ‘normal’ was part of the argument, but this isn’t home. This is Neo’s office, and so Damen should get to say whatever he wants.
“What do you think would have been the normal thing to do?” Neo says. The confusion Damen is feeling must show on his face, because Neo adds, “What I mean is… What sorts of clothes should Nicaise have been wearing at fourteen?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t think of anything?”
“Er,” Damen says. “Jeans?”
“Good, jeans. What else?”
“I don’t know what kids wear these days. A t-shirt? Sneakers?”
“Okay. Now, what did you wear as a kid?”
That was over a decade ago, Damen wants to say. What does that matter? Why can’t they talk about what’s actually important here, which is Laurent dating a fucking stranger?
“I guess the same things. Jeans, t-shirts. Gym shorts.”
“Could it be that maybe what you think is normal for a fourteen-year-old to wear is just what you used to wear at fourteen?”
Damen blinks at him.
“I have nieces,” Neo says, “and they dress horribly, in my opinion. Fashion is very fast-paced. Most of the time it doesn’t survive the passage from one generation to the next.”
“This isn’t about fashion.”
“What is it about then?”
“Nicaise is confused,” Damen says. “He needs stability. Rules. A schedule. Playing dress-up is fine when you’re six and a girl, but not when you’re… At fourteen, shouldn’t his main concern be finding a girl he can ask out on a date?”
Neo picks his coffee up again. Three short sips this time. “You used the word ‘confused’. What do you think Nicaise is confused about?”
“What he wants.”
They’re running out of time to reach a conclusion. Damen feels wrung out, like something that’s been squeezed far too tightly and then left alone to decompress.
“What should he want then?” Neo says.
The question hangs heavy between them, not accusatory but prodding. It feels like there are fingers scratching at Damen for answers, trying to slip under his skin and examine there too. All Damen has ever wanted is for Nicaise—
“To be happy,” Damen says. “It’s like he keeps picking misery over being okay. He should just… make the easy choice, you know. Being a teenager is hard enough, why make things even more complicated by trying to stand out like that?”
“Maybe that’s what makes him happy.”
Damen snorts. “Right. Because being picked on at school is awesome.”
So now we think about Damen’s friends and what he implicitly (if not consciously) knows about them. He knows they will judge Nicaise, so he keeps Nicaise away from that judgment – less to protect himself than to protect Nicaise. But now, through therapy, he has learned both that his actions were hurting Niciase and that he genuinely desires (and maybe deserves) to parent Nicaise and to parent him well.
Which circles us back to Nikandros. Previously, Damen ignored Nikandros’ comments about Nicaise to keep the peace, and mostly kept the two apart. He also allowed his own desire to parent Nicaise to be belittled. Now that is no longer good enough. He needs to actively defend Nicaise and his feelings for Nicaise, and he does this by ending his friendship with Nikandros.
(Granted, he could have tried to articulate this more clearly and directly to Nikandros to at leave give Nikandros a chance to rethink his stance…) But breaking with Nikandros is Damen breaking with his old behavior and affirming his commitment to Nicaise.
Nikandros also serves as an unhappy mirror on Damen’s old dismissiveness around Laurent’s mental health. When Nikandros speaks, Damen is sometimes hearing Nikandros’ judgment, but he is also hearing his old self.
“Let’s drop it then. Never talk about him again.”
“Fine.”
“Good.”
“Perfect,” Damen says. And then, “He’s not mentally unstable. Just because he has to see a therapist, it doesn’t mean—”
“We said we were going to drop it,” Nikandros says.
“You can’t just make things up and expect me not to correct you.”
“Damen, you were the one that kept going on and on about his medication and fucking shrink appointments last year. Not me, you . So can you just be honest with yourself for once?”
Damen thinks about leaving. He sees himself standing up and making his way downstairs, exiting the pub and getting into his car, then driving away. He sees himself ignoring Nikandros’ texts tomorrow. He sees them not speaking for another month or so.
But then Damen also thinks about what Nikandros has said, about how it’s true. He should come to the gym with me, Damen had said last year, instead of just chugging down three pills a day. It can’t be healthy . And, Yoga could help. You know, the stuff Jokaste and her friends do. And, I wish he’d stop shit-talking me to his shrink. He’s so fucking crazy sometimes I —
“You’re right,” Damen says. “We should just drop it.”
I think this offers us one possible answer to a question that Neo poses about the difference between the two relationships which interests me:
“How did you decide to set those boundaries with Nikandros? What made you do it?”
Damen rolls his left ankle. It sends a rush of blood to his heel, his toes. “I don’t know. It just… happened. We started disagreeing on things.”
“Would it be fair to say you identified some things that bothered you and that was what prompted you to take the measures that you took?”
“Yes?”
Neo nods and nods. Not a good sign. “Have you not felt that way about other people? Like they were crossing a line, like they were aggravating you…”
“Er,” Damen says. “Kastor? We’ve been doing pretty well recently. He doesn’t boss me around; I do more stuff for the firm.”
“So, what exactly is the difference between Kastor and, let’s say, your uncle?”
“My uncle called me a faggot.”
“Kastor has shown a tendency to call you things, too.”
“I’m,” Damen says. “Why are you comparing them?”
Neo’s pen lifts from the paper. “I’m trying to understand your thought process. What makes someone worthy of a second chance or, sometimes, several chances. What doesn’t.”
Why does Damen seemingly give up completely on Nikandros, while he and Kastor start to make forward progress? I have a few theories:
First, as I just said, I think Nikandros reminds Damen of his own failings, which makes him harsher on Nikandros because he is very angry at himself for hurting Nicaise. Kastor may feel Damen has many failings, but they’re not very fair assessments and Damen hasn’t taken on responsibility for being a clueless kid (nor should he).
Kastor doesn’t hate Laurent or Nicaise (he actually communicates with them when Damen isn’t) and actually seems to recognize Damen’s parenting role before Damen fully does.
“Do you still talk to Laurent?”
Kastor does not look surprised. If anything, he seems relieved. “Ah,” he says, because Kastor’s always been one to gloat. “Yes. Sometimes.”
Sometimes. Damen hasn’t talked to Laurent in weeks, not since Nicaise staged their little reunion, and before that months had gone by without a single text or call or voicemail. But Kastor and Laurent talk sometimes. That’s good to know.
“Why?”
“We’re not friends,” Kastor says, which only makes Damen feel more out of place. Does he think Damen doesn’t want them to be friends? Does Damen not want them to be friends? “Or anything, really. We text once in a while, mostly about Galen.”
Damen frowns. “Galen?”
“Nicaise asks for pictures of him. He refuses to accept my mom’s friendship request on Facebook, so I send Laurent photos of Galen that he can show Nicaise. On occasion. It’s not a thing.”
“Why not text Nicaise directly?”
Kastor snorts. When he runs a hand through his hair, messing it up, he looks too much like their father. Damen ends up looking away. “I’ve blocked his number. The little shit kept spamming me with that photoshopped picture of—”
“The rabid beaver,” Damen says, smiling despite it all. A bitter hurt starts to spread in his chest, suddenly unleashed. “That’s nice of you.”
“You sound surprised.”
I am, Damen thinks. Instead, he says, “I need to ask you something.”
Kastor pushes himself away from the door. “We’re going then. Next weekend, or the one after that.”
“Just us two?”
“No. Galen’s coming too.”
Damen frowns. “Isn’t he a little young to go fishing?”
Kastor frowns back. “What? Why?”
“How’s he supposed to hold the rod?”
“I’ll buy him one for kids,” Kastor says. Then, already halfway out of Damen’s office, “Do you.”
“Do I…?”
“Do you want to bring someone.”
Iris? Kyra? What is Kastor talking about? “Like who?” Damen says. “Is Jo going too?”
Kastor’s eyes roll and roll and roll. “It’s a boys' trip.”
“I’m not,” Damen gets out, awkward and confused, “seeing anyone right now.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’m talking about Nicaise. ”
3. Also, Damen and Kastor have ways of improving their relationship that don’t require head-on confrontation of their issues. Once Kastor actually tells Damen how much he’s working, for example, Damen is able to agree to take on a larger share of the work. This isn’t the deep source of Kastor’s resentment, but establishing greater equality in their working relationship serves as a proxy solution.
By contrast, there is no temporary way forward for Damen and Nikandros without Damen both admitting the ways in which Nikandros had a point about how Laurent treated him AND confronting Nikandros about his judgment of Nicaise.
4. I think that throughout this fic Damen has been struggling with the idea of family. He starts the fic with a strong sense that being biological family is a bond that has to be respected in some way. They shouldn’t speak ill of their father. They should honor their father’s relationship to Makedon. Kastor is his brother and so he can treat Damen however and Damen will just take it.
This extends to a sense that family cannot be chosen. Damen doesn’t get to parent Nicaise if he’s not with Nicaise’s guardian. Damen cannot try to fill the whole left in his life by his biological mother (and his father’s distance) by cultivating a relationship with someone else’s (Nikandros’s) mother.
And I feel like that may be related to Damen not trusting that people not biologically related to him won’t just leave because they have no formal obligation to him. So I think for Damen, Kastor will always be in his life. But if it comes down to Nikandros or Nicaise, he’s decided to choose Nicaise. (Though again, I hope he will rethink that and approach Nikandros with more honesty. And that he can flourish with a better understanding of chosen family and of what he deserves from the people he cares about.)
Bright side of his rigid family ideas: He gets to cut off Makedon once Kastor points out (if rudely) that he isn’t actually biological family.
Kastor puts his chopsticks down. “I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Makedon has always hated Vere. He was the one that threw the biggest fucking fit when he found out dad wanted to move to Delfeur, and back then it was still Delpha. There’s no way you didn’t know that.”
“I knew, but he—”
“And anyway, why do you care what some old fart thinks of you?”
Damen closes his mouth, opens it. “He’s our uncle.”
“He was our father’s best friend,” Kastor says, managing to make even the simplest statement sound like a lecture. At least he’s used the right pronoun this time. “We’re not related by blood, and even if we were I’d still think he’s an idiot. Maybe even more, actually.”
They only have fifteen minutes left of their lunch break. Any moment now, Marianne will knock on the door and ask him or Kastor or both to sign some papers, to send an email, to make a call. Damen wishes she’d come in right now, before he says something he’ll regret.
“You sound so,” Damen starts, and stops. He’s so tired of feeling stupid; he’s so tired of not knowing what to say. “I didn’t know that’s how you saw things.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Dad’s words sneak out of him: “Family is family.”
“According to whom?” Kastor says. He doesn’t sound playful anymore, or sarcastic. He hasn’t moved, and yet Damen feels as though Kastor has gone away, replaced by a stranger that looks like him. “Daddy dearest? Was being nice to Uncle Mak on the will? I must have missed it.”
Damen clenches his jaw so hard his molars ache. “Don’t.”
Anyway, I don’t have a great wrap up to this post, but I really appreciate the complexity of HIUH Kastor and Nikandros and the depth it adds to the characterization of Damen as he navigates his complicated relationships with each of them and the meaning of family.
But don’t resent children! Seriously. Stop it.
#captive prince#captive prince fanfic#damen x laurent#hand in unlovable hand#hiuh#thickenmyblood#neither my wife nor child reads this fic and i suck at fandom these days but i need to talk about this masterwork#hoping i can squeeze in one last hiuh post about writing style before i return to full time adulting monday
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aita for publicly pouring orange juice on someone
I (20nb) have a close guy friend (22m). We hang out a lot, text a lot, and I have viewed him as one of my best friends.
I imagine you can guess where this is going.
A couple of months ago, when we were friends but not as close, he attempted to get with me. We were in his bed after a night out, but I am a lesbian and have been very clear about this fact. We were both drunk and giggly and then he said hey what if we made out right now. I was a bit upset as I saw him as a friend and it felt as though he didn’t see me as a friend, but rather as an opportunity. However he was really cool when I said no thanks, and I figured he was probably just drunk and that our friendship was more important.
This week I discovered that after failing to sleep with me, he went and told a bunch of his friends an ‘embellished’ story about how I gave him ‘blue balls.’ He reveals a different number of people he said this to each time he apologises, but frankly that is low on my list of concerns. I am furious with him about the level of entitlement he felt to have sex with me, I feel objectified and dehumanised and as though he does not respect me or my right to not have sex with him. He was also one of my closest friends, so on top of that I feel pretty betrayed. I yelled at him and he apologised a bunch, but didn’t seem to understand why I’m upset with him.
He knows that I don’t like it when men objectify me, and he’s watched it happen before. He tried to hide the fact that he had spoken about me like that, and when I asked him if he always talked that way after getting rejected he said ‘fucking hell no’ so clearly he knows this is bad.
The day after I confronted him we were both supposed to go to a uni party. The dress code was black tie, and he was wearing a suit. Even though I was still furious with him, he did not attempt to apologise again or even try and make it up to me, and instead flounced about talking to other people. At one point I saw him laughing so I bought a glass of orange juice and poured it on his head.
He was not wearing the suit jacket at the time, just a shirt, but it got him absolutely soaking and made him look very stupid.
He is now angry with me for pouring orange juice on him, but I am more angry with him for treating me as though I owed him sex and getting upset when this wasn’t given to him. However he is not texting me to apologise anymore and honestly I’m kind of upset about losing my friend. But then after how he treated me I sort of don’t want to be friends with him, I want to be friends with a person who didn’t do that.
#life updates w november#it’s also like. everyone there was fuvking baffled when i poured juice on him#which shows how much i’ve mellowed put recently bcos in sixth form everyone kinda expected that from me#i promise i dont shit like that unless i feel like ppl deserve ot tho#honestly i try not to yell at ppl i’m really working on. Responding not Reacting#borderline is gonna borderline
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April 2024 was a big month for Scottish comedians on television networks. Here are some things I watched.
Baby Reindeer
I watched this a couple of days ago, and in those couple of days I must admit I have done some Googling and have come to the conclusion that the last thing the world needs is one more person publicly expressing anything about that show. It’s a very good show. It’s very well made, well written and well acted and a compelling and terrifying story well told. I highly recommend it if you like that sort of thing, though I do recommend first looking up what sort of thing it is, because trigger warning for just about everything. Mainly stalking and sexual assault.
I do not recommend further Googling, as I found out after watching it that that it was apparently much closer to “true crime” than I’d thought initially. I mean, I knew it was based on a true story. I knew it covered the same part of his real life as the autobiographical story in his stand-up show Monkey See Monkey Do, which was broadcast on Comedy Central and which I also watched last week and it’s also very good.
But it’s looking like Baby Reindeer may be less fictionalized than I’d assumed, and maybe covers ground that’s less resolved/consigned to the past than I’d assumed, that makes it seem like a weird thing to put on Netflix, and definitely makes me think it doesn’t need more people pontificating about it publicly on the internet. So I won’t do much more of that. Something seems a bit off in general and makes me want to stay away from much comment. This part of the post would have been a lot longer if I’d written it a couple of days ago. Seriously though, it’s a very good show. If you assume it exists in a vacuum.
Dinosaur
I watched this because I liked Ashely Storrie from things like The News Quiz, and she has a special I liked on Radio 4, and, you know, autism stories. I think I made a mistake by watching it immediately after I watched Baby Reindeer. I’d thought I could use it as a bit of a palette cleanser for that heavier show, the way if I see a horror movie I always have to immediately watch an episode of 30 Rock after or I can’t sleep. But Baby Reindeer’s heaviness got so deep in my head that it made it hard to get too into anything else, so my enjoyment of Dinosaur suffered for that, which is not Ashley Storrie’s fault.
I’m pretty sure this show is pretty good for what it is, which is a fairly formulaic sitcom but with the twist of an openly autistic main character who can point out how bullshit more sitcom tropes are. Watching two people get married when they’ve known each other for two months is more fun to watch from the perspective of an outsider who thinks it’s stupid, than it would be to see it just from their perspective.
This show definitely picked up steam as it went along, and as the characters developed slightly beyond stock sitcom people. I think my favourite parts of the show were Ashley Storrie at her paleontology job, so I was sorry that we didn’t see much of that after the first episode. I’m just not that into shows based around a wedding, even if it’s only to point out how bad the idea is.
Overall I came away thinking it was all right, but also that I’d definitely watch a second season if there is one, because by the very end I’d found myself starting to get invested in the characters and thinking this has potential. And the wedding’s happened now so season 2 might be built around something else. And I did think the main character was good. Six episodes was just not quite enough time for me to fully get into it.
Fern Brady – Autistic Bikini Queen
Fucking brilliant, as good as I expected it to be and that was a pretty high bar. I’d heard probably 40% of the material before in some form or another, because small parts of it were in her previous show and her next show, bits of it were in her book, and I’ve sought out so much Fern Brady stuff that I’ve seen her tell a few of these stories in other contexts. But that made it seem like a consolidation of the best jokes I’ve heard her tell before, plus a bunch of stuff I haven’t heard, and it was so good.
It is, as she says at the beginning, only a bit about autism. Well only a bit of it is explicitly about autism – the rest is about her views on life and death and love and marriage, and those are of course partly influenced by autism, and they feel refreshing and interesting and funny to me. The hour went by so fast, I thought it was only about halfway done when she started wrapping up.
I love her delivery so much, I think it's improved over the years and really peaked here. The confidence really adds to it.
There isn’t one obvious theme, aside from the idea that romanticized notions are bullshit, but it still feels like everything she says makes sense together. There’s no classic “sad bit at the end” (though it does build to a fun little ending, no spoilers), but it still felt meaningful as well as funny. A lot of it was delightfully rude but it wasn’t funny (just) because it was rude, and it was edgy without being, you know, a dick about it. All the other words that get thrown around about Fern Brady, brutal and honest and whatever else, were earned. And it was funny.
I hear she’s cracking America now, so everyone should watch this (plus the two other specials she has on YouTube) so you can say you were into her stand-up before she was a huge American star (she's already a fairly huge British star, but still).
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Review #365: Madvillainy, Madvillain
This is such an interesting, unique record. Madvillain is (was) comprised of Madlib and MF DOOM, and it’s their only studio album. 22 songs, most of them under three minutes and none feature any kind of traditional structure like choruses or hooks. Despite this it’s cemented itself as not only one of the greatest hip hop records of all time, but also albums of all time in general. I feel like maybe it was lightning in a bottle for this one – although both artists have an incredible and respectable discography on their own.
The story of this record is just as interesting and unique. Madlib and MF DOOM had been collaborating on it for a few years, with DOOM responsible for the lyrics and flows, and Madlib responsible for the beats and production. Seems like it was a match made in heaven, really. MF DOOM is sort of unmatched in his word skills. Seriously though, there’s really plenty of write ups and deconstruction of his style and remarkable abilities, and the guy was absolutely out of this world good at what he did. I’m not particularly well versed in the ins and outs of creating good hip-hop or rap, but I do know that anyone making use of so many different literary devices in their music is some kind of genius. It kind of blows your mind to untangle it all, because it’s hard to comprehend someone being just that talented, but also that clever. If you’re a lover of words and language in general, then you will enjoy a lifelong love with MF DOOM. Or rather, you can, if you look in alternative spaces for exceptional wordsmithing.
Madlib has a really unique and specific sound incorporating really obscure samples from really jazz and soul, which at the time was sort of different, but I imagine is less unexpected now, since Madvillainy set the tone for future music. He also pulled from Indian and Brazilian music. Honestly, just as above, you could spend your entire life poring over all of the details, sounds, and samples and you’d never get bored and never cease to learn. Isn’t that fucking spectacular? That these two particularly unique and gifted artists created a single record together that can provide a lifetime of learning and admiration? And that it almost didn’t happen: just over a year before its release, a demo version of the record was leaked publicly and the duo were so disillusioned from the experience that they stopped working on it for some time. Thankfully, they eventually resumed and released it and now there’s life before Madvillainy, and life after it. I wonder if they knew what they had created before they released it. That public leaking of unfinished work is always such a devastating situation for any artist.
I had been introduced to this album in 2013 when several tracks showed up on various playlists made for me by others. One of them also featured Jai Paul’s BTSTU. His debut album suffered the same fate as Madvillainy, and his promising career was seriously derailed. He remains a bit of an enigma to this day, although he is actually playing live shows in 2024, and I’m excited to be going to one of them. I don’t know, it’s always a really strange thing to happen to a record and sometimes it cements its legendary status and sometimes it destroys the creator.
They created it quite separately and with very little communication. Madlib recorded the majority of the beats and music in Brazil on a cassette tape, sent it to MF DOOM who then added his lyrics. They collaborated without really collaborating and it stands out a lot throughout: MF DOOM was in tune to the sound and incorporated it into his words – take Accordian. The accordian sound on loop throughout comes from Experience by Daedelus. But the final line in the song DOOM makes mention of it:
“Your first and last step playing you like an accordian”
It's simple when you consider it, but that they put this together without actually discussing it and just providing their own individual contributions and vibing off of one another makes it that much more unbelievable that this record was the result. They themselves described the process of creating these songs as “telepathic”, without “a lot of talking”. Two artists with a one-time joint creative mind. I don’t know, I find it hard to put into words just how bananas this all is when you listen to it.
Something that I find fascinating about Madvillainy is the way in which both Madlib and MF Doom incorporated their alias persona’s into it. There are song credits that feature MF DOOM and Viktor Vaughn – the same person delivering the words – but towards each other and from differing perspectives. It’s sort of mind-boggling how this was done: Madlib gets into it with his own alter-ego, Quasimoto on America’s Most Blunted, and DOOM creates a weird love triangle between himself, his girlfriend, and Viktor Vaughn in Fancy Clown. Why? What was the point? Well, why not? And didn’t it produce one of the greatest records of all time? Maybe more artists should get this creative and ridiculous with their work. Pitchfork called Fancy Clown “a brilliant concept” and hailed it as “hip-hop’s first schizophrenic self-diss track”. Think about what they’re really saying there. It’s really, really, very cool.
To be able to give my normal descriptions of what it sounds or feels like, I’d have to listen to it another 100,000 times at least. I find it so dense and overwhelming – in the best way – but there’s nothing to do here but to listen to it. No amount of description from me or any other person reviewing it will adequately convey the magic of it. It’s just really that fucking good. Overlook it at your own expense. Enjoy.
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I love Austin and consider him to be an incredible human being and one of the best actors I have ever seen.
With that being said, I don't think the word of V's sister's jilted ex counts for anything really. It just so happens that it coincides with all the other great things that have been said by others about Austin, but that actual post doesn't have any cred.
V and her sister want nothing to do with this guy. Last time this guy has anything to do with Austin was when he ended up in some pics with him at a few of V's parties. Austin is very hot right now and this guy is trying to make himself seem cool and at the same time attempt to stick it to V and her sister.
That's all I see with that post. Did this guy even post praise about Austin while Austin was still with V, and therefore at least peripherally in his life?
I don't find him to be a credible source in any way, shape, or form, even though I agree with everything he said. Austin Butler is fucking incredible in every way! But this guy, not so much.
ehhhh all respect but i very much disagree. he *knew* austin so i don’t see any reason to not trust his judgment of the man. objectively he is credible because he spent personal time around him and knew him as austin the human not just austin the celebrity. it doesn’t matter what you think of the motives- i think saying he isn’t credible at all is a little off base of a criticism. and they clearly did spend more time together than just parties, some of the photos he included are casual shots *not* from parties.
yeah sure a part of it may have been (probably was) meant to shady towards the H girls but, he’s not exactly famous. the only people that even noticed are us and v fans, it didn’t leave ‘the bubble’- and unless the guy has some insane delusions of grandeur i think he knew it wouldn’t exactly make a ton of noise.
especially as a story, if he really wanted attention he would’ve made it a feed post that showed up in austin’s tagged. but that’s not what he did.
i didn’t follow him on instagram during their relationship because i wasn’t a fan of austin at the time so i can’t speak to that. but idk. i don’t see any reason to throw extremely kind words about austin out just because the person saying them might have slightly messy reasons for saying them publicly.
i was genuinely really touched by what he said. he’s 25 now- so he was really young when he knew austin which makes it make perfect sense to me that he perhaps looked up to him in some sense/wanted to be like him/emulate how he carries himself. even assuming they aren’t in contact anymore i can imagine how crazy is must feel to watch someone you knew for a time blow up. i feel similarly about austin’s step brother, wherever he is in the world.
to each their own i guess 🤷🏼♀️
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Wrapped Up - a Malevolent fic
It wasn’t a prison pit; it was a palace. No one was being starved of food, water, or sunlight. The heat was still on them, however, and Hastur needed this kettle to boil.
They had to figure it out. He could try to fix this, force good behavior, but that would not help; it would lead to resentment, maybe hate. He knew his Composer and his Piece well enough to be sure of that. They had to figure it out—and he was sure they would.
Part of the Surrogate series. Written with @sepiabandensis.
AO3
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It wasn’t a prison pit; it was a palace. No one was being starved of food, water, or sunlight. The heat was still on them, however, and Hastur needed this kettle to boil.
They had to figure it out. He could try to fix this, force good behavior, but that would not help; it would lead to resentment, maybe hate. He knew his Composer and his Piece well enough to be sure of that. They had to figure it out—and he was sure they would.
Yes, John had lost his memory; he was still John, and Arthur was still Arthur, and they would come together as inevitably as meteors to the moons, one way or another.
The plan was on track. John would handle Carcosa while Faroe matured. John’s childishness (which reminded him so much of young Gokar’luh that it hurt) only lent itself to the idea he was offspring… even though someone out there clearly knew he was not.
(That was out of Hastur’s control, and he put it in the can’t do anything about it branch for now.)
Oh, but this meant Hastur remained in the palace while Arthur wept like screaming, while Arthur tore inside, while Arthur grieved and cried and shouted. That meant Hastur resisted the damn-near maddening urge to go to and comfort his own, to take him up, to ease him.
Hastur stayed in his own room like one big ebony knot, and he groaned.
He had to make them do it. He wouldn’t be here. They had to rely on each other again. He had to let them work it out.
Oh, it was terrible to let Arthur suffer when he could fix it. But if he did… John would not.
That fact was enough, a terrible anchor, flukes bedded deep. Hastur stayed in his room, and listened to them sob, and was unaware he rocked himself slightly as if to give comfort to the only being he could.
#
When it was finally over, several things were clear.
One: he’d (naturally) been right. John and Arthur were going to work it out. Arthur would rebuild John the way John had rebuilt him, and they’d be entangled even tighter than they already were. Mentally, Hastur checked that box.
Two: holy fuck, the gardens had been busy tonight. If he’d known the whole damn world would want a stroll after dinner, he’d have blocked off the entrances and emptied the place before John and Arthur even got in there.
He should’ve checked first. He should’ve known. He was getting too easily distracted, too tired, too… all of it.
This year really was a first for many things, wasn’t it? Changing his mind on a human and admitting he’d been wrong publicly. Grieving the loss of his son (that were supposed to live forever, this wasn’t… this was…) Speaking of forever, there was also preparing for the end of his life in a pinch over five years.
It was so wrong. He was supposed to be here until the Dreamer woke. Until the end of everything, until he could watch with his many eyes reality fade out of existence, the ultimate and most glorious end.
Nope. Five plus years, then snuffed like a damn candle, because someone didn’t like him.
He was breathing too fast. Calm, Hastur told himself. Getting worked up now would get him off track, and he was still dealing with all the things that were new this year. Such as being tired.
Gods don’t get tired. He would have sworn to that, laughed his many limbs off at the very idea. But he was… catching himself staring at nothing, as if in a daze. Moving less quickly—and likely, no one would notice that but him, but he knew, and feared what might happen if a peer decided to take a swing at him.
And missing crucial details like other people already in the garden could have been catastrophic.
His tentacles bunched up like clenched fists, balls of frustration hidden by his pristine robe. He’d already racked up a debt to the Keeper (never mind what she claimed). But surely, he couldn’t be the first god to be tired. Surely, there was a fix for this. And it would be simple. Yes.
Surely.
Her open invitation seemed to be real. Still, he visited the Librarian first for bribery material. The Librarian, who might also know about tired gods, but… he couldn’t show himself weak to it. It loved him; admired him. Worshiped him. Hastur could not disappoint one of his oldest and most faithful people (or see the disappointment there, were he honest). So, he smiled, and accepted more special books, and prepared his speech, and opened a portal to the Scriptorium.
#
It was quiet in here today. Strangely quiet. Where was everyone?
Well, there’d hardly been a ward saying stay out. She must be with a client. He could wait. He could wait in here, knowing no time passed outside.
He floated casually through the stacks, hovering higher to find tomes of interest, absolutely fascinated by her collection. Things even he’d thought lost thousands of years ago had somehow found their way here, and that was amazing.
He wondered how she did it. Outer Gods, he thought, could traverse time like stepping between rooms, though they had to be careful or they'd wake Azazoth doing it. She was stuck here, though. Did her acolytes have that power? Surely they—
Was that the Fenorian Tragedy? In modern book form? No! Couldn’t be. Yes! It was!
How in hell had she gotten hold of this? The whole thing was lost eons ago, every human who knew it drowned, every monster who’d heard it never recalling the whole thing. Oh, the memories that beckoned as he read this; the tunes familiar as if in a dream, unheard for so very long. He hovered and hummed, thoughts dancing to a time before he even had his kingdom, when Carcosa had been little more than a fishing village with good taste and a shepherd god to guide them.
Why, there was his reference now.
Filler of the Vessels
Singer on the Shore
Crafter of Calamities
Hungry Shepherd, come once more
Hastur laughed darkly. Maybe he should revive a few of these names. It had literally been an age since anyone knew them—anyone, that is, except for the Keeper’s staff and self. Almost regretfully, he put volume one back, and then startled to realize he wasn’t alone.
It was the Keeper’s weird little human, Tabby. “Dude, this is not the time.”
He hadn’t felt her approach. Gods, he was worse off than he’d thought. “I don’t mean to impose. I bring a gift for your master.”
“Not my master, and not the time,” she said, as utterly insouciant as she usually was, but… no. Her hands were clenched. Tabby’s hands were never clenched.
Shit. “Is—” he hoped not—“it something with which I can offer aid?”
“Nope,” she said.
Whew. He floated down. “Thank you for your time. I—”
Tabby’s eyes widened.
That should have been enough warning. He should have blipped away, done something, dodged. Instead, he was too slow, and a giant hand caught him like a fucking butterfly.
Hastur bellowed. He attacked the inside of this hand with the frantic, wild magic of a Great Old One, and it did about as much harm as a few stray sparks from a distant firework.
Ow! I think he bit me, said the owner of the giant (dark, hairy, clawed) hand. Not too hard, though.
Such a good idea, said a second voice, and hiccoughed. She’ll love it! Shiny.
Shiny, agreed the first.
“Sorry, dude,” said Tabby from somewhere out in space, who was clearly no more than a little irked.
Careful! You’ll break him.
I woooon’t. She’ll like it, I think, if the rumors are true.
“Shit,” he heard Tabby call. “She’ll handle it, okay? Chill.”
This was not okay! He was not chill! What was happening? Nothing was okay!
He strained, all his limbs pushing, and could not budge that hand. They’d thought he’d bitten before? Oh, he had news for them: he went all teeth, mouths in every direction, and chomped down hard.
Or tried.
It was like humans trying to chew on a rubber gag. It did nothing. The owner of the voice didn’t even seem to notice.
But Hastur noticed something. Oh, he did: the flavor. This was not just an Outer God. This was an Outer God who was very, very drunk.
What in the name of all that was holy was happening? He bellowed again, writhing.
I almost wanna keep him myself, hiccoughed the second voice.
Nope. We said! Ooh. Shiny.
Shiny, agreed the second again.
Why must I be so beautiful? he despaired, and then he was stuffed in a box.
#
The box wasn’t obviously a box. At first, he thought it was some kind of horrifying prison: lightless, damn near airless, perfectly square, and he could neither find purchase nor break free.
(His family. His city. They weren’t ready for his loss. Would Dagon step up? Would the boomerang spells be enough to protect upon his death?)
He shrieked a little, then went silent as voices filtered in from outside, big ones, crackling casually through languages he knew but would never dare use, teasing with words of damnation like this was a game at the end of the world. He did not dare catch more attention shouting. Instead, he tried, frantically, to dig out the bottom.
Does, said the first voice, sotto voce. Does he need air holes?
Uh, said the second. Dunno. He won’t be in there long any- HEEEY! Happy birthday!
Birthday?
He was too panicked to think. Had to get through. Had to break free. Had to—
The top of the box suddenly opened—a lid, like an ordinary present—and the Keeper, who was absolutely huge, peered down at him, and froze.
”Oh! Oh. Oh, my,” she said, her enormous voice reverberating.
So, he felt like an idiot. Of course it was her they were talking about. She was the newest Outer God in thousands of years—she’d have a birthday they could track. And this was in the Scriptorium.
A purple flush of embarrassment washed over his hide as he cowered in the box’s corner.
Hey, it’s that guy! cried someone, and suddenly it seemed they were toasting him—beings he couldn’t see, who hadn’t bothered with guises his mind could comprehend (and oh, how terrible they must truly be), which meant they were like swirling storm clouds, wishing him good luck.
And then Kayne started cackling. The sound of it moved, went down, as though he’d fallen to the floor in hysterics.
The Keeper lifted him out of the box carefully, at least six hands smoothing down his robe, sliding along his tentacles to soothe his hackles, ensuring his crown was still in place.
Shiny, said someone.
Shinier than I thought he’d be, said someone else, but both those voices were blanketed by Kayne’s persistent laughter.
“There, there. There we go,” said the Keeper, and put him down beside her. Dear fuck, she was huge right now; he didn’t even come to her hip, and everywhere he looked was a roiling, boiling, drunken storm.
He made one low, panicky groan.
“I’ve got you,” she said softly, then spoke aloud: “Thank you so much. What a thoughtful, ah, gift.”
Caught him myself! said someone.
You did not. I did.
Bah, said the first, and they tussled.
It was playful. It was terrible. It rumbled through the floor and somehow did not cause damage to this place, which he realized she’d sealed so perfectly that not a single volume was endangered.
Feeling ridiculous, he hid by her skirts, clinging just an little, and was deeply confused when Kayne bellowed, “An avocado! Thaaaanks!” before diving into hysterics all over again.
#
It lasted… a long time?
Long enough that his whole system finally realized she wasn’t going to let anything get him, and he began to relax behind the Keeper’s black lace. It was strange, really, not to be the focus of things; apart from occasional comments about him being shiny, or prettier in person (what the fuck had Kayne been showing them?), they left him alone.
Fuck pride. Hastur clung to her skirts, weirdly grateful she was so much larger, and tried to stay unseen.
Kayne was weird. So weird. He wandered over at one point (and Hastur trembled) only to say, “Hastur? More like Hasteenie, am I right?” then wandered off again, cackling.
What in hell…
The Keeper put one of her gloved hands over her veil, but at least did not audibly laugh.
Whyyyy? Hastur moaned to himself.
It was a bizarre party, though. Beings were here that didn’t even make sense. Cäeygha was here, and he was not remotely in the same league as the rest of these beings. He wasn’t even strong enough to fight Hastur.
Not that Cäeygha seemed to recall that at the moment, and so, he was being a dick. “It completely blows my mind that almost four hundred years in, and this is the first party thrown in your honor,” he was saying, voice slurred with sheer intoxication from all of the power congealing around them. “Lovely thing like you? Of course, that’s not your true form, is it?”
Hastur scoffed (hiding behind her, so it was muffled). Idiot giant eyeball.
“Female praying mantises engage in sexual cannibalism in up to twenty-eight percent of cases,” the Keeper said, voice flat.
“It’s very charming. Human shapes aren’t really my thing—we can’t all be Dagon, ha! Ha ha!— but I can see why you picked it. They must adore you. And it’s so elaborate. Did you dress up special for me?” He attempted to brush a tentacle against the edge of her skirts.
Hastur gawked. Was this fool actually…
She moved back smoothly. “In one species of mantis, Tinodera sinesis, it’s estimated that about sixty-three percent of of the female mantis’s diet is composed of males of her species.”
Oh, boy.
So for Hastur, that would have been a really clear no. She’s not into you. Back the fuck away from the super powerful lady.
Cäeygha was… not good at reading. “Pretty thing,” he said, clearly fascinated with the whorling, recursive pattern of pleats and drapes in her skirts. “Goldie over there’s all talk.”
What.
Cäeygha kept going. “I’d be happy to give you a proper welcome to the pantheon, you know?” He attempted to touch her again.”
The Keeper, once again, moved away, sweeping Hastur was alongside her. “The female mantis is significantly larger than the male, and the mantis is unique among insects for being able to rotate its head without moving the rest of its body. This enables the female to swing back and engage the male’s head with her mandibl—”
Hey! Hey, Keeper! Is this [utterly unintelligible word] bothering you? crooned one stormcloud.
Hastur had no fucking idea who the voice belonged to, but the Keeper evidently did. “Yes,” she said, very sweetly.
On your birthday? Nooooo, the voice said.
Fuck that! Said another. You want me to kill that guy for you?
That seemed to get through to Cäeygha. “What?”
Oh, boy, Oh, boy. Hastur shifted silently to stand further behind her skirts.
“That won’t be necessary,” the Keeper said. “I think he’s just had a bit too much, don’t you, Cäeygha?”
Cäeygha gave Hastur a look that screamed ‘betrayal.’ “Whatever you say, Great One,” he huffed.
Great. When that ass showed up for his millennial I’m mad and have to fight you about it thing, this would probably be on the docket.
“Perhaps you should take a moment and get some fresh air?” The Keeper’s voice was patient, leading.
Take it, you fucking idiot.
“I think I’m alright, actually,” Cäeygha said, like the fucking idiot he was.
I’ll just eat him, that’ll solve it, said a slurred, drunken voice from another direction.
“I think some fresh air would be lovely,” Cäeygha abruptly squeaked, and vanished with the smell of ozone and smoke.
Maybe Hastur was feeling too safe. He laughed.
A chorus of raucous, booming laughs followed, hiding his, and he was grateful.
“Weeeell,” said Kayne all of a sudden. “It’s been eighty-four years, and I think our li’l sis needs her growing sleep.” He clapped his hands.
Hastur peeked.
Kayne stood there, the only one in a guise, tieless, shirt undone to the third button and rumpled. There was blood on his chin, like he’d been eating an apple made of blood, and he smiled right at Hastur.
Hastur hid again.
“Come on,” said Kayne. “You’ve all made your mark. Out you go!”
A chorus of required Awwww met him, and Hastur hunched. Had it really been eighty-four years in here? What an oddly specific number.
The storms wafted out, one by one, cackling like earthquakes, smelling like liquor. They left, one by one, and all their carousing hadn’t so much as harmed a single book.
Hastur felt a chill. She was the youngest. Wasn’t she therefore supposed to also be… the weakest? She was strong enough to protect her library even with older, drunken siblings determined to carouse. That was actually a little disturbing.
“Thank you, brother,” she said, subdued. “I never would have thought to throw such an… event for myself.”
“Well, they all needed to meet you,” said Kayne casually, buffing his nails, then licking off the sticky red substance that remained there. “And needed to know you’re not shit. Some of them tried to fuck around in here, you know.”
“I am aware,” she said mildly. “A little warning would have been appreciated.”
“Well, I didn’t know who would try it,” he said. “And now, you’re safer. They know. You’re not bruisable, baby. Important they know that.”
A pause. “Because of what might be… coming?” she said, clearly trying to continue some conversation in spite of Hastur’s presence.
“Yep.” Kayne rocked back on his heels. “Sides’ll be drawn, and all that shit. You keeping him, by the way? I mean, it wasn’t the plan, but it is your birthday. I could make do. He’s not the star.”
She sighed, and with a surprising lack of grace, plopped down on the floor. Her skirts swirled and bunched up around her, crinkling and folding in strange places, and there were certainly a fucking lot of them. (Hastur refused to think about the way he automatically ducked behind them, remaining protected.) “A prisoner, to help keep me company here in my lovely Scriptorium. What a delightful idea.” Silence hung for a half a beat. “Tabby is teaching me about sarcasm. It’s when you tell lies, but in a humorous way that indicates you’re lying.”
“JHey, that’s not too bad!” said Kayne. “Fact is, kiddo, it’ll get better. You’ll get out eventually. And look at it this way: you’re gonna master that sarcasm shit with her around. Good tool to have when you finally step out in the great, wide world, right?"
The Keeper said nothing, but—there, and perhaps Hastur would have missed it if not for effectively hiding behind her, but he could have sworn he saw her shoulders sag. “Sure.”
Kayne crouched in front of her. Even from here, the malevolent power wafting off him made Hastur shudder, and deep, fearful orange flickered through him as he crouched behind the Keeper. “This was good tonight,” said Kayne. “They know now you can’t be fucked with. Okay? One thing at a time, sis.”
Hastur had absolutely no capacity to understand what he heard in that monster’s voice.
“You’re right,” she said, and her voice was so small, so quiet. “One… one thing at a time.” And she paused. “I was hoping it might be this year,” she said, very quietly. “It’s not.”
Kayne tilted his head—and for once, it wasn’t insect-like, or reptilian, or any weird shit. “You’re really young, Keeps. You know that, right?”
“I do.” And now Hastur could absolutely see her shoulders sag, and her veil (always moving, always flowing) seemed to droop and settle and hang lifelessly around her shoulders. “It must be so… look at me, a child throwing a tantrum because she didn’t get what she wanted for her birthday.” She let out a small noise. “I did like the party, at least before everyone got too drunk. It was just… a lot.”
“Enjoy it.” Flat. Serious. Actually serious. “There will come a day when you can’t fucking find anything to light your wick, babe.” He stood. “Good job with the rabble. Need me to beat anybody up, or you good?”
“I’m good. I’ll ask Tabby for advice on how to better handle unwelcome advances in the future. Thank you.” And she perked up, just a tad. “You really are the bestest big brother.”
He shrugged. “I absolutely admit to stacking the deck in my favor. Someday you’ll realize just how few fucking siblings I actually want on my side.” He waved. Winked at Hastur (who hid). “Ciao!” And he disappeared with a crackling sound, leaving a smell of burnt sulfur behind him.
Hastur finally exhaled, feeling like a deflating balloon.
The Keeper sat in the silence for a long moment. “Are you alright?” she asked.
Oh. She was talking to him. Well, she’d been good to him tonight; he had to be debonair, and smooth, and eloquent, and, uh. Um.
Uh.
Fuck. All the magic in this room had gotten to him. He was drunk. Fuck. Fuck! “I think I had too much,” he said. “But I am safe thanks to your intervention and wise… wisdom.” That wasn’t right. Was it? Well, it was close enough. He was pretty sure.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, and she sounded positively mortified. “Oh, you poor thing. I can’t believe you got wrapped up in all of this. I’m so terribly sorry.”
“Pfft,” he said unsteadily, and produced the two books he’d brought: one on the history of the Demurian Enclave, which had existed for precisely one hundred and fifty years, then completely vanished, but not before creating some irreplaceable textiles; and the other a book of rare poetry, some of which (shh) he’d written himself. “I would have wrapped them,” he slurred. “I didn’t know. Happy birthday? Though they were…” He didn’t dare lie. “Not originally birthday presents. They are now,” he finished firmly, and held them out with a flourish, displayed flat on many tentacles, which he curled beneath the books like elegant table legs.
“Hastur,” she sighed. “You really don’t need to—”
“It is your birthday,” he said primly. “And this is your present. Now. From me. Take them.”
She did.
“And don’t trick me and give them back, like you did last time,” he said, and was immediately startled by his own boldness. He curled his tentacles, as if unsure what she would do. “What would I do with them, anyway?” he added, sounding more woebegone than planned.
She let out a teeny, tiny laugh. “Oh,” she said, almost immediately after. “It isn’t funny. But… Thank you, Hastur.” She clutched the books tight to her chest. “I… thank you for my present.”
It took a moment to recall why he’d come here. There was a reason, or he’d… just go do something else, but there was a rea… right! “Tired gods,” he said, in a tone that absolutely indicated it had nothing to do with him. “Are they a… thing?”
He was very proud of himself for remembering.
She let out another tiny laugh. “Asking for a friend, are we?”
He considered that for a moment too long. “Yeeeeeees,” he finally decided, and that got an actual laugh out of her.
“Oh, Hastur,” she said, as if he were being somehow endearing (which he was not; he had too much dignity for that). “Yes; tired gods are… an issue. Rare, of course; any god of even moderate power need only lay aside a small time for contemplation and rest, as opposed to true unconsciousness or sleep in the way that most mortals do. With such a small sacrifice, most gods would never put themselves in a place of tiredness, and nor should they.” That was oddly gentle.
Hastur drew himself up. His robe undulated in an unfelt wind; he ensured the gleam was perfect (shiny, he thought). “And if my friend has no such choice? What can be done for him?”
“Well,” she said slowly, two of her hands folding neatly in front of her. “If he finds himself completely short of time in his home to rest, perhaps what he ought to do is find a place outside of time and, ah… sleep it off?”
He paused. “Gods don’t sleep.”
“Rest, Hastur,” she said, even more gently, but somehow firm, like an order coated in feather down. “Rest. You will better fulfill your plan if you do, will you not?”
Oh.
Oh.
She knew it wasn’t a friend. “I… don’t feel I… should I?” he said, plaintive, far more helpless sounding than he wished. He was not handling this conversation as nobly as he wanted.
“One thing I have learned from caring for my acolytes is that your body will gain its rest, one way or another,” she said, propping her chin up on one long arm with far too many joints to be called ‘humanoid.’ “So many of my acolytes will put aside their need for rest in the pursuit of knowledge, only to crash when the pressure is taken off them for even a second, and finding themselves asleep and drooling at the most inconvenient locations, losing time they may not have. There’s only so much I can do, in many of these cases, but I found when I encouraged them to schedule time for it… many of them found themselves able to rest, and stopped drooling on their notes.”
Hastur was too drunk to really parse this. He still thought he caught the gist. He wasn’t a fool. “I… there is no time outside of… I must be outside of it, then, but… I don’t think I have enough to pay you for the next nineteen hundred-odd days.” And so quietly, like a secret, he said, “I’m not as immutable as I once assumed.”
“I think you should ask for what you need, and let me worry about things like ‘payment,’” she said, as if that was something obvious. “I am the one charging, after all. I get to decide what an adequate payment is. As for today, I don’t think this is ‘payment’ so much as not allowing you to portal drunkenly home, since I would rather you didn’t portal directly into Lake Hali and flood my Scriptorium. So I suppose you should stay until you sober up.” She reached out with one finger, large and long as his forearm, and gingerly stroked the side of his cowled head. “What do you think?”
Hey. That was pretty nice.
He felt like he was deflating even more, and it was a good thing to do. “What would you charge me to… rest?” He’d come this far, and it absolutely was up to her to set payment. What harm could bartering do? “I need to manage this. Until my time is done. And she is safe. And they are safe. What do you need from me?”
Vaguely, it occurred to him that he was bargaining for a time that might seem almost long to her. She was so young! Well, that was all right. It would all be worth it if they were safe.
“We’ll start with… someone to watch ballet with.” She let out a low hum. “Nothing strenuous, of course; merely a bit of conversation. And if that no longer suffices, we can switch to movies, or plays, or any number of things. I’ve seen my collection, yes; I’ve watched quite a lot of it with Tabby. But hoarding it brings me no joy. I want to share it.”
That sounded like something other than what he thought. Some kind of personal exchange, time rested for time given. Well, he could do that. He’d always been good at that. “You would be satisfied with this?”
She was quiet for a long, long moment. “It’s very lonely here,” she said, very softly. “Tabby does her best, but she’s only human.”
Damn. He was so fuzzy. That almost sounded like she was lonely. As if anyone like her could be lonely! “Is that a yes?” he said, because clarity was needed right now.
“Yes, Hastur. I would be satisfied with this.” Her fingers (two of them) rubbed at the join of his neck and his shoulder.
Definitely pretty nice. “Then I accept,” he said, unable to make it sound like it wasn’t him doing the favor here. But surely she knew. Surely she understood. He… he needed the rest. He couldn’t risk them. “So we will watch an… ballet now?”
“I certainly think so,” she said, and without any effort at all suddenly they were in the theater. “Now what should we… Ah. Perhaps A Midsummer Night’s Dream?”
Hastur was already slipping. Perhaps deflating more, though this felt more like melting pleasantly. Like the warm relaxation after sex. Like the satisfaction after a battle, resting in the sun, perhaps on the beach of Lake Hali.
He was allowed.
“Told you he’d have shit timing,” Tabby suggested, taking her seat on the couch beside the Keeper. “Some fuckers are unlucky like that.”
“Tabby!” The Keeper sounded positively delighted. “Did anyone bother you?”
“Nah,” the girl said, clambering directly onto the Keeper’s skirts to rest her head on the god’s lap. “I think your brother warned them, and you telling off that one guy helped. After Hastur got nabbed, I just hid.” She lifted her head to give him a look. “He… cool?”
“He’ll be just fine.” One of her hands shrank, became human sized, and gently started working through Tabby’s hair.
For just one moment, Hastur desperately wished Arthur would do that with him.
For just a moment. Only a moment. It was all he’d allow himself. No: Arthur would do that with John, or at least the essence of it, and that was right, and good, and it would last. He would spend no time on it. On that yearning. On that… strange and sinking feeling of opportunities (six years) lost.
“I thank you for your hospitality,” he mumbled, and settled into his seat. Rest. He could rest. He had to trust she’d let him do it long enough to mean anything. And then he wouldn’t be slow, and wouldn’t risk them, and it would be worth all the books he’d ever collected.
Which was his last truly coherent thought. The ballet began—silly humans in pretty white tutus and tights, doing things (and he considered strongly putting Arthur in that just because it would be delightful) and then…
He saw the ballet. He didn’t go to sleep. Gods don’t sleep. But his mind went quiet; his body went still. As insane as this day had been, birthday abductions and Cäeygha and all the rest, this right here was worth it.
Hastur went quiet inside, and no longer gave a damn what anybody said as humans danced silently on screen to music written by other humans who’d died centuries before.
And it was pretty nice.
#
“So… is ballet like… Cocomelon for elder gods, or what?” Tabby whispered an hour later.
The Keeper sounded delighted. “Sometimes I want to put you under a microscope,” she said, and that was the end of that.
---------------
Notes:
I am deeply appreciative to Brown and Barry 2016 for this excellent paper on sexual cannibalism in praying mantises, which also gave me the funniest research history for a fic I have ever had
Also, for your educational purposes:
An avocado! Thanks
It’s been 84 years.
Do you want me to kill that guy for you?
#maleovlent#malevolent fic#malevolent podcast#surrogate series#king in yellow#the king in yellow#kiy malevolent#hastur malevolent#the keeper (surrogate)
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chapters 21, 22, 23, 30, 31, 32 partly:
Only three nights before, she had married Bael, in a ceremony that made her his wife and first-sister to his other wife, Dorindha. That part had been just as important as the marriage, apparently;
yeah, sentences like this make me think RJ really wanted to write poly relationships but was too enamoured with his kinks and obsessed with heterosexual relationships to do so. I’m fascinated, though, by his choice to make women choose other women as the most important people in their lives over even their love interests - min is the rare exception to this rule.
“Well, just you remember it. It was not your fault.” She heeled Mist on, and began talking to Aviendha before she was out of earshot. “I am glad he is taking it so well. He has the habit of feeling guilty over things he cannot control.”
once again, egwene Gets rand! and she cares so much! people who dislike egwene are fully delusional and probably base their dislike for her off of her characterisation in sanderson’s books. again, I feel the need to mention that egwene only ever admonishes rand in private in RJ’s books - and not even in front of moiraine! - but publicly insults him in front of world leaders in the sanderson books. plus rand undermines egwene’s authority and makes her look powerless in book 13 by walking into the white tower and demanding promises without offering any explanations. lol, sanderson has a tendency to write from a place of “Does this sound cool?” rather than “Is this a politically or logically sound action?”
ohhh and while we’re still on the topic of sanderson and bad characterisations and egwene telling rand that rand that it wasn’t his fault that the shaido ravaged Taien - rand makes a fucking point about trying to save as many people as he can! and blames himself for not achieving everything he sets his mind to in order to save people! part of the reason his mental health worsens as the books progress is because he can’t protect everybody around him despite trying his best to do so - this holds true at least up to book 11, if not book 12, and nothing really happens in book 12 to warrant a change on that note. so the fact that sanderson makes rand monologue something stupid about how he’d stopped caring for the people around him during his dragonmount epiphany infuriates me to no end. I just generally hate any of the new character flaws he introduces for all the characters. who asked him to do that 😵💫
[Rand to Aviendha] “Did you ever for one minute think that it could have bitten you?” he said. “Did you ever think of using the Power instead of a bloody belt knife? Why didn’t you kiss it first? You had to be close enough.”
they’re both so funny. yeah, avi and rand are also a similar kind of stupid, lol.
avi feeding rand the meat of a poisonous snake she killed is unironically the height of romance actually. and rand doesn’t complain, so I’m proud of him. anyway, I love her. have I mentioned that I love avi?
Aviendha sniffed at him in perfect imitation of Egwene. Those two women were definitely spending too much time together.
aw, avi is copying egwene’s mannerisms! back in chapter 5 she was also appreciating egwene and telling her that she was very good at everything she did <3 in chapter 22, we also have egwene stepping in to calm her down after rand yells at avi for nearly hurting him in the process of trying to kill a draghkar.
Aviendha appeared disappointed that he did not spit the stew out in disgust, though sometimes it was difficult to tell what she was feeling. At times she seemed to take great pleasure in discomfiting him.
sort of mat vibes from this, again! I think avi and mat could have been best friends if they’d tried. I’m honestly kind of shocked that we don’t see more of mat and the maidens being buddies except when he’s trying to catch their interest - because men and women can’t be friends, of course.
“You are thinking of Mat Cauthon?” She actually giggled. “Sometimes, a man gives up the spear for a Maiden.”
once again, weird mat gender moments! only maidens giving up the spear is really a thing in the books.
… he dreamed a dream of Min and Elayne helping him throw Aviendha, wearing nothing but that necklace, over his shoulder, while she beat him over the head with a wreath of segade blossoms.
wearing nothing but the necklace EGWENE gave avi? rand doesn’t know that egwene gave it but. anyway. more rand/egwene soulmatism, I guess.
Nothing after Artur Paendrag Tanreall, and nothing before Maecine of Eharon.
hello! mat’s memories have a specific limit apparently. but don’t the finn grant him memories of everybody who’s ever entered the redstone doorway? a bunch of rulers from mayene were using it pretty recently, I think? I need to look up the wiki later.
[Mat] He supposed that he would marry someday, settle down. That was what you did. A woman, a house, a family. Shackled to one spot for the rest of his life.
this is definitely another one of those mat things that are usually discussed in reference to female characters more often. and again, I vibe with the idea of him being allowed to be single - I think he has a lot of romantic tension with practically every character he interacts with, but I personally really relate to him saying he’s not interested in marriage. plus he just sounds so despondent about the prospect? I’m sad! very mat is repressed vibes too, because he specifically makes a note to mention disliking the thought of the two rivers having a lot of expectations about marriage, family etc.
“You are not made for spits, but for great honor, I think,” Melindhra said softly.
lol, melindhra and lanfear both try to get mat to step out of rand’s shadow and reach for honour/glory! and they both fail! I love mat. your faves want what mat has with rand - the narrative keeps goading him to become demandred 2.0 but mat consistently refuses to do so and manages to defy the narrative and some sort of potentially darker fate at least in that little way even if the prophecies mostly knock him down a bunch in the books.
It was being near Rand that got Mat into these things. All he wanted from life was some good wine, a game of dice, and a pretty girl or three.
hello??? three girls?? put him in rand’s polycule! again, mat is very repressed and in denial about his feelings.
once again poly vibes from melaine, dorindha and bael! the wise ones are betting on whether melaine will check on dorindha or bael first after the shadowspawn attack on the camp.
rand is wondering why moiraine didn’t come to find him immediately after the alarms went off - I’m guessing it’s because she saw a future in the rhuidean ter’angreal that said it wouldn’t be a good thing to do so.
rand is also showing a lot of restraint and being courteous! he’s not abusing the power he has over moiraine now - he briefly considers forcing her to tell him why she didn’t appear immediately but decides he won’t do something like that to somebody trying to help him. I think this is the section where rand is learning to find a balance - he’s come into a lot of power and is consciously preventing himself from abusing it.
This time he dreamed of Aviendha hurling fire, only she was not hurling it at a Draghkar, and Sammael was sitting at her side, laughing.
rand has the weirdest dreams about aviendha. what am I supposed to make of this.
I can’t shake off the feeling that avi would enjoy femininity if not for the way the wise ones sort of force her to adopt it? she genuinely enjoys exploring wearing wetlander clothes when she and elayne try to teach one another other about their respective customs. I just really dislike the line where sorilea tells avi that she has hips made for making babies - leave her alone. as a concept, I love the wise ones but I’m also irritated by their matchmaking and babymaking agenda.
avi and rand also do have a bunch in common - they’re forcibly expected to channel and are pushed into radically different lives from the ones they’ve been leading prior to rhuidean/rand finding out that he’s the dragon reborn.
[Egwene about Rand announcing he’ll hang chiefs who violate his rules about not hurting Cairhienin] Justice would do him no good if he found the others [the chiefs] turning against him as well as the Shaido.
see! she gets him!
He could waste an hour being soothed by the flow of a river.
Rand is so right.
When he doesn’t see familiar faces amongst the maidens who usually guard him, rand is constantly asking other maidens if they’re sick - it happened with joinde in rhuidean, and he’s now once again asking after adelin and enaila! I love this relationship sooo much.
Sitting on the stone rail of the wide flat bridge in the heart of the town,
area man sits weird again!
Elayne would have known what taxes were used for; it had certainly been more fun taking advice from her than from Moiraine.
I’m. I guess I agree about the principle of the thing I suppose, lol 😭
edit: help, this is also the book where we learn that two rivers folk are tax evaders! RJ is fully clowning on rand here, lol.
[Rand to Aviendha] “Do you have any idea how I will miss hearing you breathe at night?”
romance <3
He watched Asmodean from the corner of his eye, but the man only sat there, looking slightly ill. He could not know whether Rand meant to stuff that spear down his throat.
do I even need to say it?
ah, yeah, I did remember a weirdly specific fact correctly! avi accidentally taught rand the lesson of ~being hard~ when she told him he should have been harsher with the seanchan they dealt with. his demeanour completely shifts after that one exchange and he becomes noticeably colder - he’s a lot harsher with asmodean after this. insert tumblr post *having plot relevant sex with my thematically appropriate wife* (quite literally!)
And I’m only skimming chapter 41 but… there is so much going on in this quote. so much:
[Rand] He thought he could have been friends with any of the four, but especially Mangin, who had a sense of humor much like Mat’s. If he had no time to study women, he certainly had no time for making new friends. Little time for old friends, for that matter. Mat worried him.
I mentioned that a lot of mat’s personality was moulded as a direct consequence of being rand’s friend, but this is a lot! 1. rand loves mat’s sense of humour 2. rand makes friends based on that blueprint! hello, I’m crying. what does it MEAN that rand hangs mangin in LOC? is there some hidden symbolism there about how he’s left his boyhood behind? the hanging parallels are making me insane. does it imply that rand accidentally forces mat through a traumatic arc from books 7-9 the same way he can’t help but kill mangin for violating one of his laws? I will not be normal about this. local girl has been found dead on the streets!!!!!!!!
(I honestly skimmed everything from chapter 30 onward, I think, so there really was not much to say in this post - I never intended to really read much past rand arriving at eianrod, at most)
But I’ve officially finished rereading the parts I wanted to! I’d fully forgotten how the characters sounded in my head and I mostly wanted to go back and immerse myself in RJ’s writing style because I was not in a happy place after reading sanderson’s style in AMOL (literally to the point where I was wondering if I actually liked reading the series, lol). I think I managed to like TGS way better than I did the other sequels - but it kind of feels like TGS might have still been a mostly enjoyable read because he was piggybacking off of iconic plotlines that RJ had already set up and left notes for - but I’m consciously going to shut up about AMOL now. I only accept book 12 as canon at most anyway, lol, idk why I waste my energy yelling about the last two books at this point.
#mat repressionposting#this is a rand and egwene appreciation post#aelia reads wheel of time#aelia reads the fires of heaven#wheel of time#wot book spoilers#rand repressionposting#the rand/mat agenda only
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