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eretzyisrael · 7 months

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by Dion J. Pierre

Supporters of the Palestine Solidarity Committee at Harvard University. Photo: Harvard PSC

The Wexner Foundation, a prominent philanthropic organization, announced on Monday that it is terminating a longstanding partnership with Harvard University because of the school’s belated condemnation of Hamas’ terrorist onslaught against Israel and refusal to censure students who expressed support for it.

“The Wexner Foundation is formally ending its financial and programmatic relationships with Harvard and the Harvard Kennedy School,” the group said in a letter to the university’s board of overseers. “We make this decision with an unwavering commitment to our Israel alumni, to Israel’s civil service, and to the State of Israel.”

Founded in 1983, the Wexner Foundation fosters Jewish leadership and community in both North America and Israel. Since 1989, its highly competitive Wexner Israel Fellowship Program has sent 10 Israeli public sector workers each year to the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government for a fellowship in which they earn credits toward a master’s degree in public administration. Hundreds of fellows have gone on to enjoy distinguished careers in Israel as lawmakers, military leaders, and government officials. This year’s class will seemingly be the last, according to the Wexner Foundation.

In Monday’s letter, the foundation noted that its fellows have felt increasingly alienated and vilified at the school in recent years — a period of time during which, as The Algemeiner has previously reported, anti-Zionist attitudes and antisemitic activity on campus has increased significantly.

“We believed that at its core, [Harvard] was a school with moral purpose, matching the core values we embrace in our own work,” the missive said. “We have observed that this cherished tolerance for diverse perspectives has slowly but perceptibly narrowed.”

Last week, while scenes of Hamas terrorists abducting Israeli children and desecrating dead bodies circulated worldwide, 31 Harvard student groups, led by the school’s Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC), issued a statement blaming Israel for the attack and accusing the Jewish state of operating an “open air prison” in Gaza, despite the Israeli military having withdrawn from the territory in 2005.

Harvard University President Claudine Gay said on Thursday that the members of the student groups should not be punished, citing the school’s commitment to “free expression.” However, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), Harvard has an “abysmal” track record of protecting free speech, having fired three professors for uttering statements or publishing work containing controversial stances.

“We are stunned and sickened by the dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians,” the Wexner Foundation said.

Over 1,400 Israelis were killed in Hamas’ surprise invasion last weekend.

The Wexner Foundation’s announcement comes amid reports, first disclosed by eJewishPhilanthropy, that Harvard alumni and other major donors, shocked by the university’s response to Hamas atrocities, are considering ceasing their financial support for the university.

Anti-Zionism is not new to Harvard. At the start of this academic year, a student and anti-Israel activist interrupted a convocation ceremony held by the school, shouting at Harvard College Dean Rakesh Khurana, “Here’s the real truth — Harvard supports, upholds, and invests in Israeli apartheid, and the oppression of Palestinians!”

#harvard university #claudine gay #wexner foundation

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selflessanatta · 4 months

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Pride and Arrogance, the Price for Being Gifted, https://selflessanatta.com/pride-and-arrogance-the-price-for-being-gifted/

New Post has been published on https://selflessanatta.com/pride-and-arrogance-the-price-for-being-gifted/

Pride and Arrogance, the Price for Being Gifted

Being smart isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. It provides many advantages, but it also provides many roadblocks to success.

I always excelled at standardized tests, generally scoring in the highest 99th percentile for each category.

When I arrived at college, I set the benchmark curb in subjects including chemistry, political science, mathematics, and history, none of which were subjects that interested me that much.

I was on the dean’s list with a perfect 4.0 for 5 semesters.

I scored two 800s and a 780 on the GRE for admission to graduate school.

Do you know what that gave me?

A colossal ego and a sense of superiority that elevated me above every mere mortal I came into contact with.

I embodied asshole, like Ted Cruz.

Hell, I thought I was smarter than a guy like that.

I was simply the Best, better than all the rest. G.O.A.T. Greatest of All Time!!!

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Pride over Pride can elevate you above anyone.

Never compete with another person’s ego. It’s a game of dick-measuring you can never win.

Would it surprise you that my relationships suffered, and nobody liked me very much?

It shouldn’t.

I wouldn’t have liked me either, not that I realized that. I thought I was great!

I scored in the 99th percentile on Pride

I studied with a gentlemen who obtained a perfect score on the GRE. I failed to achieve that.

He was smart; I am not, and I could immediately tell the difference.

Standardized tests only measure to a certain level. When you meet someone who goes beyond, you see just how smart people can be.

But by then, I was supremely arrogant, and set in my ways, so even that humbling setback didn’t change my lofty self evaluation.

I told myself I was probably still in the top 10. Right?

I could blow smoke up my ass with the best of them.

That was a competition I wanted to win!

It felt lovely!!!

I struggled with excessive self-esteem.

My body too

I got into powerlifting in my 20s, and in my early 30s, I got into bodybuilding.

I was never really close to being buff for a competition, but I still managed to propel my vanity into the clouds.

I was too sexy.

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Career Failure

Most of my professional career has been one setback after another.

I blamed everyone else of course, but I had no ability to put together teams or work toward common goals because I felt I was the only one capable of anything.

The only successes I had were things I accomplished completely on my own, which wasn’t very much.

This was entirely due to my pride and arrogance.

My amazing gifts went largely to waste due to my foibles.

I have no Desire, Right?

Not just was I supremely arrogant about my intelligence, I also believed I was more spiritually evolved that everyone else.

I cultivated a self image of an angel with no selfish thoughts, a truly “enlightened” being.

I was deluding myself.

Holy Beings worshiped me. Mere mortals were lucky to be in my presence, and I expected them to be dutifully thankful for my missives from God.

Reverence to Holy Being

It was apparent to everyone except me.

Their opinions didn’t matter much, thanks to my arrogance.

And worse, I was ignoring the signals from a force, my Selfish Desire, that pushed me to do bad things.

When I bothered to examine how I set conditions in motion to create my problems — a rare occurrence at best — I couldn’t figure out why I was doing bad things, lying to myself and others about it, and becoming upset that nobody would aid my victim story by agreeing with it.

I lived in a perpetual state of woe-is-me.

It was unpleasant.

Willful Ignorance is no solution to managing your Desires.

When I denied my selfish feelings, I put on the appearance of a Buddhist, learned some of the lingo, and practiced breath meditation a few times.

I extrapolated my few experiences to expert status and climbed to the peak of Mount Stupid, with a healthy dose of arrogance to tingle my root chakra to propel my liftoff.

Have you ever met someone like that?

Look up Jim and Tammy Bakker.

My desire and I do not exist, right?

I didn’t give up on Buddhism. I felt something was there for me, but I needed to dig a bit deeper — actually a lot deeper.

I had a book. I needed to open the cover and read it.

And start practicing.

I figured I would take a big whack at negating the “I” entirely. I read somewhere that the self is an illusion and does not exist.

Okay. If the self doesn’t exist, then that voice of Desire must be an illusion. I can merely ignore it, and it will go away.

Bumper Sticker Wisdom.

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Let me try that and see what happens.

Unsurprisingly, It didn’t work out well.

It’s really not that much different to cast a spell on yourself to remain oblivious to Selfish Desire as it is to be aware of Selfish Desire and try to ignore it.

And realistically, Desire’s voice is hard to ignore. Like being haunted.

Hearing the signals of Selfish Desire is not enough.

I needed to manage it.

Surprisingly, I actually found a way that worked.

I promoted him to Court Jester.

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Cutting a Deal

My ego, the manifestation of Selfish Desire, delights in self-serving bullshit.

I reasoned with my selfish desire. I’ll trade something I want for something he wants.

I will agree to listen to him if he agrees not to take control of the ship.

Let me make the decisions.

Consciousness.

The ringleader, cat herder, prime minister of the Parliament in my mind.

My Court Jester

I promoted him to court jester after years of failure trying to kill him, ignore him, or pretend he didn’t exist.

The voice of my ego or selfish desire, my court jester, seems content in his role.

At least he isn’t bothered, and I listen.

We established Détente.

We were no longer at war. My mind became more peaceful.

Quite honestly, I’m surprised at how well that little mental game works.

Inside out is very close to the mark. Great Movie!

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That’s Funny!

He has a voice in the chorus, so I react to him as my court jester.

Even when he’s serious, I take his advice as humor.

Strangely enough, he doesn’t mind.

He has little or no power to motivate me, which is the purpose of the mental gymnastics to manage him.

He’s actually quite entertaining. For better or worse, he’s taken control of my sense of humor.

He’s basic.

He’s crass, rude to pretense, brutal in his honesty.

He uses candor like a knife to cut through bullshit.

I’ve learned to appreciate him.

He’s changed my laugh. It’s got a slight hint of maniacal devilishness to it.

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Contemplate this: How do you keep a fool in suspense?

Have you figured it out yet?

~~Giggles~~

Pride is the Jester’s Playground

I discovered “Court Jester” technique accidentally when I was working with Pride.

Pride is the playground of the ego.

My Court Jester’s fiefdom.

As worked with Pride, when I heard my own self-aggrandizing self-talk as humor rather than who I was, It was explosively funny, at least to me.

I’ve battled pride enough to identify that smoke-up-my-ass, uplifting feeling announcing his arrival.

Your Great!

Flattery will get you everywhere with Pride.

I played video games to study Pride.

I found that whenever I played skillfully I could hear the peanut gallery congratulating me particularly loudly.

As I learned to listen more closely, I heard these little scripts run with quips like.

You’re Great!

You’re Awesome!

Unbelievable. Best Ever!

You’re the MAN!!!

And I felt these feelings with great enthusiasm.

When I first noticed it, I agreed with the sentiment. Hell, yeah, I am the man!

I felt a big rush of energy near my root chakra so close to my ass that….

I’ll stop there.

That feeling. Blowing smoke up my ass. That is my signal of pride.

Ying and Yang

I don’t know why it feels that way, but I have a theory.

My root chakra is nearby between my ying and my yang — if you know what I mean.

The root chakra points straight down, connects to the earth, and to reality itself.

When I elevate myself with aggrandizing self-talk, my body loses connection to my earthen reality, lifting me up off the ground.

That tingly feeling is my body informing my mind that something is amiss.

I am emotionally blowing smoke up my ass, and the tingles feel that flow.

Wedge Salads

Despite my lofty self-evaluation, my wife found a way to penetrate my delusions and get helpful information to me.

Both sides of this little interaction are aptly captured in Season 2, episode 16 of Modern Family.

This upset my wife for years.

Because I believed I was so much smarter than everyone else, you couldn’t just tell me something.

That wouldn’t penetrate my shield of superiority.

My pride rejects all information, not directly sustaining my lofty self-opinion.

My wife’s information came from a faulty, lowly mortal who doesn’t check her facts, so I didn’t hear her words.

But the words got in, subconsciously, through the back door.

Even if I had known she was the source of information originally, I most certainly would have cast a spell upon myself to forget it.

Then, later, when this new, utterly original idea emerged from my mind, it was washed clean of its association with my wife.

Then I was a genius!

More smoke!

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Check and Mate

When Wedge Salad incidents occurred, my wife used to go bananas.

Who could blame her?

After a while, my wife stopped becoming upset.

She used to mumble “wedge salad” under her breath and giggle — which was cool with me because I could remain prideful and enjoy the smoke.

She found the wisdom to see what was happening and use it to her advantage.

She planted Wedge Salads on purpose and waited for them to ripen.

When they did, she obtained the delightful satisfaction of outwitting the master.

She beat me at my own game!

Kudos to her!!!

I admit defeat.

I bow in honor to the superior mind.

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Screw you and your “holier than thou” bullshit.

I can be preachy and self-aggrandizing, particularly when my pride and arrogance grab attention.

I actually used the “smoke up my ass” test to edit this writing.

If I felt any amount of self-aggrandizement in any statement, it was removed.

My apologies if the Court Jester made it past my filter.

He’s sneaky.

There is a Season

When answers to my questions include that wonderfully uplifting feeling of smoke blown up my ass, I quickly deduce that I need to ask better questions.

I recently had an intense emotional awakening.

When the empowerment came, I asked myself: “Why did this happen now and not some other time?”

I got decent answers.

Funny ones, anyway.

Trigger Warning

What follows will appeal to men more than women, except for those rare few who can laugh at extreme male stupidity on full display.

It’s crass.

It’s totally male.

It’s totally heterosexually male in raw detail.

You’ve been warned.

Photo by Julia Taubitz on Unsplash

Poolside Harem

The Court Jester really wanted to show that picture again, so here it is.

The Court Jester secretly hopes everyone on earth discovers through this viral post and admires Him with flattering, racy comments.

He is self-important, proud, and vain.

He also complains that Humility is overrated.

I let him show his ignorant ass, just for the giggles.

He is my court jester.

You can get away with crap like that when you write anonymously!

Realistically, if I had become empowered as a younger man, I wouldn’t have survived the hedonistic binge that would have followed.

Pardon my digression, but my court jester did entertain me with some fantastic ideas that I would have implemented as an over-empowered, testosterone-pumped young man.

I’m confident that I would have employed a harem of stunning nude call girls to inhabit my pool.

Yeah, realistically, if I really didn’t have any reason to stop myself.

I would have.

Perhaps I have them catcall to me, call me “Big Boy,” and say, “You’re the man.”

That would be fun.

The La Quinta Cove Cock demonstrates that the desire for a big cock manifests in unusual ways.

G.O.A.T.

I might even take it one step further.

Why not?

I have the money. I only live once.

I would GO for it, in a big way.

Think of the Qi flow.

Wow!

My private harem of stunning nudes (their objects, not people) would have been extremely well paid to convince me — using all feminine charms at her disposal — the following Immutable Truths:

My monstrous member goes waaaay deep and feels ecstatically overwhelming, stimulating orgasms on contact. My Wand is magic!

As a lover, I am GOAT, the greatest of all time; not just her time, not just her best, I am the best lover that any woman ever had the privilege to pleasure. (That last part mandates deep digging for a strong performance. Method actors preferred.)

She eagerly enjoys my pleasures, no matter how bizarre; if she really doesn’t like it, she must fake it perfectly every time, forever, or until I tire of her and desire a replacement. A melon softens with too many squeezes.

She gushes excitedly for her good fortune and the honor of pleasing me. She is entirely selflessly devoted to my selfish pleasure — a true religious devotee willing to worship my manhood.

I would have expected Academy Award performances, and internally, I would have fostered the illusion and lived in that warped reality.

That really shouldn’t be surprising to anyone.

If any heterosexual male denies the above, I call bullshit.

Women, men, swap parts. Imagine the characters as you please. If the image appeals, the lover is believable, and they react to you by those four principles, you would like that.

It would be something you want.

There is a reason Leonardo DiCaprio has a cult of devotees who habitually spit-polish his knob.

He likes it.

Leo, My Court Jester thinks you RULE! He wants to throw a party and invite my favorite rock bands from the 80s. It will be GLORIOUS!!!

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Leo, Seriously, my apologies for any offense. The performances you and Johnny Depp delivered in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. That’s G.O.A.T. I didn’t see you. I only saw Arnie. Remarkable. That movie deeply touched my heart.

Johnny, My wife was tempted to stuff you into the trunk of her car when you consulted a map for directions in a parking lot in Las Vegas 30 years ago. She still tells the story. She’s says your hot.

Living an illusion is very tempting. With enough money, you can afford an entourage of hangers-on, like Elvis did.

You can create the illusion of who you want to be, arrange your environment to reinforce your delusions, surround yourself with “yes” men (and women, of course), and live the dream.

Sort of.

Photo of the author living a fantasy with a work party photo model. I usually didn’t go clubbing with a name tag.

Paying the Piper

Unfortunately, reality bats last.

Karma is inescapable.

Faking a life is a pathway to extreme suffering when the illusion can’t be sustained.

The emotional fall can be nasty, the impact hard.

Work in my house while writing. Did the Buddha in the background move this guy’s ladder?

Consequences Smonsequences

When I was young, I partied hard, drove fast, climbed dangerous mountains, and explored uncharted caves.

If financially enabled, I would have endangered myself more often, bought a motorcycle, gone skydiving, base jumping, or other adrenaline-inducing activities without regard to the risks and potential consequences.

My life was saved by financial limits on my hedonistic urges and sense of adventure at a time when I lacked the wisdom to know better.

Even past the age of recklessness, I was still a self-important, self-serving, typical young adult with no spiritual practice.

I would have squandered my power doing bad things to people — not the tiny slights of ordinary mortals — but supercharged major pain inflictors made possible by money and driven by an entitled, I-don’t-give-a-shit attitude and a sense of impunity.

I might have become president.

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I would not have been ready if I had obtained power even as recently as a couple of years ago.

I can’t say I was ready when it happened, but ready or not, the fundamental practice of a Buddhist is to accept reality as it is.

I have lots of money now.

I accepted it.

It’s sweet.

It went down easy.

Still an Ass?

I won’t waste wind trying to convince you I’ve overcome my pride and arrogance.

If I have not, that would be part of the show.

If I have, then no further explanation is required.

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whileiamdying · 5 years

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Emily Brontë’s WUTHERING HEIGHTS; Chapter XXXI

Yesterday was bright, calm, and frosty. I went to the Heights as I proposed: my housekeeper entreated me to bear a little note from her to her young lady, and I did not refuse, for the worthy woman was not conscious of anything odd in her request. The front door stood open, but the jealous gate was fastened, as at my last visit; I knocked and invoked Earnshaw from among the garden-beds; he unchained it, and I entered. The fellow is as handsome a rustic as need be seen. I took particular notice of him this time; but then he does his best apparently to make the least of his advantages.

I asked if Mr. Heathcliff were at home? He answered, No; but he would be in at dinner-time. It was eleven o’clock, and I announced my intention of going in and waiting for him; at which he immediately flung down his tools and accompanied me, in the office of watchdog, not as a substitute for the host.

We entered together; Catherine was there, making herself useful in preparing some vegetables for the approaching meal; she looked more sulky and less spirited than when I had seen her first. She hardly raised her eyes to notice me, and continued her employment with the same disregard to common forms of politeness as before; never returning my bow and good-morning by the slightest acknowledgment.

“She does not seem so amiable,” I thought, “as Mrs. Dean would persuade me to believe. She’s a beauty, it is true; but not an angel.”

Earnshaw surlily bid her remove her things to the kitchen. “Remove them yourself,” she said, pushing them from her as soon as she had done; and retiring to a stool by the window, where she began to carve figures of birds and beasts out of the turnip-parings in her lap. I approached her, pretending to desire a view of the garden; and, as I fancied, adroitly dropped Mrs. Dean’s note on to her knee, unnoticed by Hareton—but she asked aloud, “What is that?” And chucked it off.

“A letter from your old acquaintance, the housekeeper at the Grange,” I answered; annoyed at her exposing my kind deed, and fearful lest it should be imagined a missive of my own. She would gladly have gathered it up at this information, but Hareton beat her; he seized and put it in his waistcoat, saying Mr. Heathcliff should look at it first. Thereat, Catherine silently turned her face from us, and, very stealthily, drew out her pocket-handkerchief and applied it to her eyes; and her cousin, after struggling awhile to keep down his softer feelings, pulled out the letter and flung it on the floor beside her, as ungraciously as he could. Catherine caught and perused it eagerly; then she put a few questions to me concerning the inmates, rational and irrational, of her former home; and gazing towards the hills, murmured in soliloquy:

“I should like to be riding Minny down there! I should like to be climbing up there! Oh! I’m tired—I’m stalled, Hareton!” And she leant her pretty head back against the sill, with half a yawn and half a sigh, and lapsed into an aspect of abstracted sadness: neither caring nor knowing whether we remarked her.

“Mrs. Heathcliff,” I said, after sitting some time mute, “you are not aware that I am an acquaintance of yours? so intimate that I think it strange you won’t come and speak to me. My housekeeper never wearies of talking about and praising you; and she’ll be greatly disappointed if I return with no news of or from you, except that you received her letter and said nothing!”

She appeared to wonder at this speech, and asked,—

“Does Ellen like you?”

“Yes, very well,” I replied, hesitatingly.

“You must tell her,” she continued, “that I would answer her letter, but I have no materials for writing: not even a book from which I might tear a leaf.”

“No books!” I exclaimed. “How do you contrive to live here without them? if I may take the liberty to inquire. Though provided with a large library, I’m frequently very dull at the Grange; take my books away, and I should be desperate!”

“I was always reading, when I had them,” said Catherine; “and Mr. Heathcliff never reads; so he took it into his head to destroy my books. I have not had a glimpse of one for weeks. Only once, I searched through Joseph’s store of theology, to his great irritation; and once, Hareton, I came upon a secret stock in your room—some Latin and Greek, and some tales and poetry: all old friends. I brought the last here—and you gathered them, as a magpie gathers silver spoons, for the mere love of stealing! They are of no use to you; or else you concealed them in the bad spirit that, as you cannot enjoy them, nobody else shall. Perhaps your envy counselled Mr. Heathcliff to rob me of my treasures? But I’ve most of them written on my brain and printed in my heart, and you cannot deprive me of those!”

Earnshaw blushed crimson when his cousin made this revelation of his private literary accumulations, and stammered an indignant denial of her accusations.

“Mr. Hareton is desirous of increasing his amount of knowledge,” I said, coming to his rescue. “He is not envious, but emulous of your attainments. He’ll be a clever scholar in a few years.”

“And he wants me to sink into a dunce, meantime,” answered Catherine. “Yes, I hear him trying to spell and read to himself, and pretty blunders he makes! I wish you would repeat Chevy Chase as you did yesterday: it was extremely funny. I heard you; and I heard you turning over the dictionary to seek out the hard words, and then cursing because you couldn’t read their explanations!”

The young man evidently thought it too bad that he should be laughed at for his ignorance, and then laughed at for trying to remove it. I had a similar notion; and, remembering Mrs. Dean’s anecdote of his first attempt at enlightening the darkness in which he had been reared, I observed,—“But, Mrs. Heathcliff, we have each had a commencement, and each stumbled and tottered on the threshold; had our teachers scorned instead of aiding us, we should stumble and totter yet.”

“Oh!” she replied, “I don’t wish to limit his acquirements: still, he has no right to appropriate what is mine, and make it ridiculous to me with his vile mistakes and mispronunciations! Those books, both prose and verse, are consecrated to me by other associations; and I hate to have them debased and profaned in his mouth! Besides, of all, he has selected my favourite pieces that I love the most to repeat, as if out of deliberate malice.”

Hareton’s chest heaved in silence a minute: he laboured under a severe sense of mortification and wrath, which it was no easy task to suppress. I rose, and, from a gentlemanly idea of relieving his embarrassment, took up my station in the doorway, surveying the external prospect as I stood. He followed my example, and left the room; but presently reappeared, bearing half a dozen volumes in his hands, which he threw into Catherine’s lap, exclaiming,—“Take them! I never want to hear, or read, or think of them again!”

“I won’t have them now,” she answered. “I shall connect them with you, and hate them.”

She opened one that had obviously been often turned over, and read a portion in the drawling tone of a beginner; then laughed, and threw it from her. “And listen,” she continued, provokingly, commencing a verse of an old ballad in the same fashion.

But his self-love would endure no further torment: I heard, and not altogether disapprovingly, a manual check given to her saucy tongue. The little wretch had done her utmost to hurt her cousin’s sensitive though uncultivated feelings, and a physical argument was the only mode he had of balancing the account, and repaying its effects on the inflictor. He afterwards gathered the books and hurled them on the fire. I read in his countenance what anguish it was to offer that sacrifice to spleen. I fancied that as they consumed, he recalled the pleasure they had already imparted, and the triumph and ever-increasing pleasure he had anticipated from them; and I fancied I guessed the incitement to his secret studies also. He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result.

“Yes, that’s all the good that such a brute as you can get from them!” cried Catherine, sucking her damaged lip, and watching the conflagration with indignant eyes.

“You’d better hold your tongue, now,” he answered fiercely.

And his agitation precluded further speech; he advanced hastily to the entrance, where I made way for him to pass. But ere he had crossed the door-stones, Mr. Heathcliff, coming up the causeway, encountered him, and laying hold of his shoulder asked,—“What’s to do now, my lad?”

“Naught, naught,” he said, and broke away to enjoy his grief and anger in solitude.

Heathcliff gazed after him, and sighed.

“It will be odd if I thwart myself,” he muttered, unconscious that I was behind him. “But when I look for his father in his face, I find her every day more! How the devil is he so like? I can hardly bear to see him.”

He bent his eyes to the ground, and walked moodily in. There was a restless, anxious expression in his countenance, I had never remarked there before; and he looked sparer in person. His daughter-in-law, on perceiving him through the window, immediately escaped to the kitchen, so that I remained alone.

“I’m glad to see you out of doors again, Mr. Lockwood,” he said, in reply to my greeting; “from selfish motives partly: I don’t think I could readily supply your loss in this desolation. I’ve wondered more than once what brought you here.”

“An idle whim, I fear, sir,” was my answer; “or else an idle whim is going to spirit me away. I shall set out for London next week; and I must give you warning that I feel no disposition to retain Thrushcross Grange beyond the twelve months I agreed to rent it. I believe I shall not live there any more.”

“Oh, indeed; you’re tired of being banished from the world, are you?” he said. “But if you be coming to plead off paying for a place you won’t occupy, your journey is useless: I never relent in exacting my due from any one.”

“I’m coming to plead off nothing about it,” I exclaimed, considerably irritated. “Should you wish it, I’ll settle with you now,” and I drew my note-book from my pocket.

“No, no,” he replied, coolly; “you’ll leave sufficient behind to cover your debts, if you fail to return: I’m not in such a hurry. Sit down and take your dinner with us; a guest that is safe from repeating his visit can generally be made welcome. Catherine! bring the things in: where are you?”

Catherine reappeared, bearing a tray of knives and forks.

“You may get your dinner with Joseph,” muttered Heathcliff, aside, “and remain in the kitchen till he is gone.”

She obeyed his directions very punctually: perhaps she had no temptation to transgress. Living among clowns and misanthropists, she probably cannot appreciate a better class of people when she meets them.

With Mr. Heathcliff, grim and saturnine, on the one hand, and Hareton, absolutely dumb, on the other, I made a somewhat cheerless meal, and bade adieu early. I would have departed by the back way, to get a last glimpse of Catherine and annoy old Joseph; but Hareton received orders to lead up my horse, and my host himself escorted me to the door, so I could not fulfil my wish.

“How dreary life gets over in that house!” I reflected, while riding down the road. “What a realisation of something more romantic than a fairy tale it would have been for Mrs. Linton Heathcliff, had she and I struck up an attachment, as her good nurse desired, and migrated together into the stirring atmosphere of the town!”

#Wuthering Heights #Emily Brontë #PRoject Gutenberg

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deanofwhumpuniversity · 4 years

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Aurora Australis: Part 1

The beginning of Argos’ captivity

Content Warning: Mental/emotional whump, body horror/dismantling of a robot, mental confusion, diss@sociation, dehumanizing language (toward a non-human person, but still. Slightly creepy/intimate whumper, non-consensual touch, careless whumper, android whumpee. Tell me if I missed anything that I should warn for.

@whumpthisway and @redstainedsocks had a prompt that sorta falls into this, not exactly, maybe it’ll be up your alley anyway?

...

Rustle. Shuffle. Click-scrape. Peel-pop. Rustlerustlerustle

Awareness began to filter back in through the dark, sluggish in a way that was new and worrying. Argos knew he knew the sounds around him, but his mind refused to form them into a useful narrative, instead following each audible oddity like a cat after a laser. So he tried to focus on something other than sound, and realized he was being jostled; almost passively, as if the pressure on his arm was incidental and the goal had naught to do with him at all.

How had he gotten here? Where was here anyway? Why had he been powered down in the first place? He tried to access his info banks from just before the shutdown, but the most immediate data seemed corrupted. Argos began to rewind his sense memory; jolts of static pushed back against his consciousness, forcing him out of the playback again and again. Every burst of fuzziness muddied his thoughts and threatened to make him forget what he was attempting. He rerouted his processes, drawing his senses away from the manhandling of his frame and the white noise surrounding him, to focus on pushing through his damaged memory. Static with no ears to grate on or eyes to confuse, static that still rubbed his senses raw like nails on the chalkboard of his mind, and finally, finally, heavily distorted sensory input began to play back. He tried to place what he was seeing. Did he recall...trees? Was that a person?

“There we are!”

A peeling-tearing noise and an exclamation shook Argos from his search, expanding his senses back into his body, and the first thing he fully processed was that he did not know that voice. He began to boot up his eyes, wondering how addled his brain must be that he hadn’t thought to do so before. But in the same moment he knew that once he did, this unknown human would be able to tell he was awake. My visual display wasn’t designed for stealth. What a strange thought to have...

But as his faceplate lit up with scrolling green glyphs, the woman who came into focus wasn’t paying any attention to his expression, instead peering intently through a mounted magnifying glass, tinkering around in a bit of armor he recognized had once been plating his lower arm. It was familiar to him, a piece of him but no longer part of him. He searched his sensory map and found his arm. It was still his, still there. Seemed...in working order, but he didn’t try to move it. Not yet. The plate the human handled reverently was discolored on the outside, warped even. He was sure he knew what burn damage looked like, though he’d never seen it on himself before. This human must be here to fix him.

“Lim, come look at this!”

Someone approached from Argos’ other side. Left, his mind unhelpfully supplied. North? Upon realizing that he wasn’t sure, he began to cast about in his software again. Compass, magnetic direction, this should be ingrained, shouldn’t it? He’d always known where he was. Hadn’t he? He was even more concerned to realize that he simply didn’t remember whether or not he’d ever felt this lost before. He hoped not. He didn’t like it.

That train of thought came to a halt as the new figure came into focus. That one, he knew that one. How did he know that one? His visual field widened ever so slightly, and he saw he was in an open tent, flaps pinned back and sunlight streaming in. There were more tents, distant figures, and trees beyond. He felt an odd sense of familiarity, a technological deja-vu that meant somewhere in his visual databanks lay an image that would match up with this clearing. All he had to do was go through every moment, frame by frame, until he found it, and he would know where he was and hopefully, how he had gotten here.

But the new figure, the Lim human he presumed, was speaking, and for some reason Argos was so distracted with watching his movements that he barely caught the exchange. “-- be awake like this?” He was standing over Argos now, looking directly at his face, blue-grey eyes flicking back and forth slightly like he was trying to read the streams of vertical light that played across it. Argos found that thought strangely...endearing? That was new. He willed himself to display a disarming smile in the flickering lights for a moment, but the man simply furrowed his brow further.

The other human, the mechanic, started at this question and pushed the magnifying glass aside. She blinked up at Argos’ display as her eyes refocused, as though she was just now remembering the bit of armor she’d been examining had come from a whole body. Her momentary confusion was instantly replaced with a beaming smile, and instead of answering, she leaned in close to Argos’ faceplate. “Well look at you, all shiny and green! How long have you been up and running?” She was so close her eyes nearly crossed to watch the symbols of his display, and he had to consciously keep the data stream from speeding up along with his racing thoughts.

Personal space. Humans expect a meter of personal space from unknown persons, +.1 meter for every centimeter in height you have over them. Argos heard this admonishment in a lightly accented voice that he knew intrinsically, knew better than his own titanium bones, emanating from nowhere but simply existing in his mind, deeper than his hazy recent memory, too deep to be lost from data corruption or structural damage or whatever had happened to bring him to this circumstance.

He tried to shift back against the table, but he was already as flat as was possible, in a slumped and inhuman posture, apparently having been dead weight when he’d been laid down. He cringed internally, and realized he’d allowed the feeling to play across his face for just a moment before he schooled himself. The mechanic either didn’t notice the change, or didn’t understand it, and continued eyeing him with somewhat manic glee. He hoped if he answered her question perhaps she would move back to her stool.

“I…” He began to speak and both humans leaned back. The woman’s face was even more excited than before, somehow. But the man’s expression was one of...distaste? This worried Argos, though he wasn’t sure entirely why. He started again, “I don’t know. I don’t know what time it is...what day it is. My internal clock seems to have desynced.”

He was becoming more lucid by the moment, he knew that he was deeply damaged, both in hardware and in soft, but he had all the means at his disposal to get his bearings and make repairs. He cast about for a wireless signal, something he could use to sync with, to triangulate the time and place, and found a likely beacon on the periphery of his senses. He sent a signal to it, attempting to pair, but a sharp white jolt poured back into him. Not information, not data, but the absolute absence of it, a molten wipe that erased his request and cauterized his ability to send again. The readout on his faceplate devolved into static as his thoughts were overloaded and wiped clear of anything but pain, and his body arched in fits off the table as nonsense commands were sent to his synthetic muscles. He couldn’t remember words, or language, and he didn’t mean to try to speak, but a series of distressed metallic trills came from the speakers at the base of his throat.

It may have been a moment, or an hour, and he felt feverish as coolant rushed to prevent his processors from overheating. Even if he’d been able to trust his own internal clock, he couldn’t focus on anything but a litany of stop stop make it stop. He’d disconnected from the wireless beacon almost immediately but the feedback ran its course through his frame, down his arms and legs then doubling back to smolder in his core. Finally, gradually Argos felt his thoughts falling back into order, almost like waking from a reboot but not quite so drowsy, and not nearly so refreshing. Aftershocks of blank, dataless pain danced about his systems, and he felt his fingers twitching without his control. When he was able to focus his optics again, he saw the mechanic’s smile had become less childlike, more wolfish.

“That’ll be the wireless jammer, sorry I didn’t warn you, but we haven’t exactly had a chance to speak, have we?” She reached up, resting her hand just above the reflective plate that served Argos as a face, as though cupping his cheek from an inch away. He imagined he could still feel her touch, fingerprints on the glass, sinking through to tangle in the circuits underneath. He couldn’t help the jerking shudder at the thought, but felt some morbid relief that she would see it as another spasm of lingering pain. “I have it under control, thanks.” Her eyes didn’t move, though it was clear she wasn’t speaking to him.

“We should still restrain it. Physically.” Lim was still there, husky voice so neutral as to sound almost bored. This troubled Argos before he even had time to process the human’s words. “At least until you have it disassembled.”

#android whump #robot whump #mental whump #emotional whump #whump #missives from the dean #immortal whumpee #aurora australis #Reynan Lim #Zinnia Brown #argos

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youvebeenlivingfictional · 3 years

Text

Unbent

Part Eighteen of Take Your Time

Unbowed | Masterlist | Unbroken

Pairing: Oberyn Martell x Reader x Ellaria Sand Rating: M Notes: I hope y’all had a good week! 🧡

Warnings: Cursing...Angst™

Summary: Arguing with the rep on the side of the Ecological Society gets you absolutely nowhere.

The news comes too late for you to do a damn thing to stop it. The Dornish Ecological Society has received clearance to attempt to open the right fork at the cove. You had been teaching a class when the email had come through—an overly-chipper missive directed to you, the Dean, and the President of the University, with the entire school’s board CC’d. It had been laden with exclamation points, notice that some of your dig crew was already being commandeered for the effort, and that they’d begin working away at the rock that morning.

You didn’t know whether to scream, warn Oberyn and Ellaria, or to reach out to the Society to stop them. You manage to dial your phone with a shaking hand, raising it to your ear. Arguing with the rep on the side of the Ecological Society gets you absolutely nowhere—insisting that the possibility of the cave falling in is a hazard to Society members, and to your crew; telling them that they have no right to take your crew members from the dive site. The Ecological Society insists that the Dean had reassured them that you would be pleased to clear the fork out, the explore it, to volunteer your crew. As you slam the phone back into the cradle, you seethe with tears. You hear the door opening, glance up to see Ellaria smiling in your doorway. Her face falls at the sight of you, and she hurries inside, shutting the door behind herself. “What’s wrong?” She asks, striding deeper inside. She holds her arms out to take you in, but you catch hold of her arms, catching hold of her. You know that if she draws you close, you'll never manage to tell her what you need to. “I can’t stop them,” You shake your head, the full force of your panic crushing in on you, “They—they—” You step back, pointing her to your computer, “I can’t stop them.” You lean back against your windowsill, frustratedly pushing away tears as she reads. You see her shoulders go rigid, and you bury your face in your hands, sinking into yourself and hiding your sniffles. You expect her to yell. You expect retreating footsteps, the sound of the door slamming. When she runs her hands over your shoulders and shushes you, and draws you in regardless, you’re stunned—but you go, and lean into the comfort desperately. “We’ll figure something out, my love,” She murmurs, “We always do.” But you can hear the hint of uncertainty in her voice. -- “Well?” Oberyn asks. You understand the expectant looks that he and Ellaria give you as you come back into their living room, but you feel yourself wilting under them. “They’re...Through for the day, they’ve left. They’ve made it through the first layer of rock that I put up, can see the other side,” You tell them. Your voice is quiet; raw from the crying you’ve been doing on your own. Ellaria had left to find Oberyn, and the two of them had canceled their classes for the rest of the day. You’d taken a touch more time to meet them at their apartment. You’ve needed to process this a bit; marinate in the fact that you may have just destroyed their secrecy.

“Is there security at the cove?” Oberyn asks, “The way there was at the Old Palace?” “No,” You shake your head, “It’s so remote, and the left side of the fork has had all of the artifacts cleared out, so...They’re not worried.” You glance up to see Oberyn and Ellaria sharing one of their little looks. As they turn back to you, you lower your eyes to the ground again like a chastened child. “Come here,” Oberyn urges gently. You hesitate before you do as you’re told, shuffling around the coffee table and plopping between them when you’re urged. They cuddle you in, wrapping you up in them, and you close your eyes, reveling in their warmth. “What’s going to happen?” You mumble. You hear Oberyn sigh softly. “We...Have a few options. But no matter what, we...We will leave. Soon.” It's said with such finality that you know there's no dissuading them. A new wave of panic crests over you—worse than the email caused. You feel yourself fold over their arms where they’re wrapped around you, your eyes squeezed shut, your hands lifting hide your face from them. “I didn’t want this to happen—” You mumble. “We know—” “I don’t want you to go—” “We have to,” Ellaria warns, “Even if we’re able to destroy our likenesses. It’s not the first time we’ve gone underground.” They’re quiet, careful as you regather yourself. “...Where will you go?” You mumble. “We haven’t decided,” Oberyn admits, “We’re hoping to have decided by tomorrow morning.” You lean back against the couch. “But—Your lives, your—Your things…” You flounder for reasons they can’t leave Sunspear—why they can’t leave you here. “It won’t matter,” Ellaria offers breezily, “We’ll come back in a hundred years, it’ll be forgotten.” She means to reassure you, she does, but all it does is make desperate tears well in your eyes. You blink them out, but they don’t make it to the apples of your cheeks before your hands raise to furiously scrub at them. “I didn’t want this for you,” You mumble, “I just…” You trail off, twisting your hands. “Go on,” Oberyn urges quietly, stroking your cheek, snagging a tear that you've missed. “Just wish we had more time.” --

Ellaria finds herself shivering as she holds the flashlight steady, pointing it toward the opening in the rocks. “She did a damn good job sealing it,” Oberyn grunts, glancing up at the wall of rock that the archaeologist built up to ward off advances. He reaches out, taking his flashlight from Ellaria before he ducks through carefully, shining the light around. “Quickly,” He urges. Ellaria joins him in a moment, peering around. “We’ll pay our respects, destroy the likenesses, go home,” Oberyn murmurs, shifting his bag on his arm. He glances at Ellaria. “What’d she get up to, do you know?” “No,” Ellaria sighs, “But I told her to make sure she had an alibi.” “Good.” It doesn’t take them long—they know the passage as well as they knew the Old Palace—as well as they know their apartment now. It takes them both to lift the glass cases, to chisel off the features on the likenesses, to erase the words on the temple walls and sweep them away to avoid their reconstruction. It's aching, damnably tiring work, and it feels like they're truly destroying bits of themselves—the resting places that Doran had carefully constructed and left behind for them. Now and again, each of them leans away to mark their progress, and they stop, eyeing the chamber meant to hold them for eternity. When the work is completed, Oberyn is careful as he reseals the backpack with the wall and paint chips. He lets Ellaria duck out through the hole in the rocks first. He takes one last look around before he follows through.

It’s a moonless night over the bay. Ellaria gratefully takes Oberyn’s hand, letting him help her onto the catamaran. She sighs softly, plopping onto the netting and peering out over the dark water. “I wonder what she’s gotten up to,” Ellaria says after a moment, looking down at her hands. “I’m sure that whatever it is will be sufficient. She’s a clever one,” Oberyn reassures. He pauses, considering his next words carefully for a moment before he turns to look at Ellaria. “We...We couldn’t...” He starts carefully as she turns to look at him. Ellaria knows what he’s asking. It’s a dangerous possibility; she’d be lying if she said that she hadn’t thought about it herself. “It would be a temporary fix and you know it,” She tells him. Oberyn sighs, looking out over the water. “We can’t just leave her here." “And who’s to say that she would come with us? She has something here, Oberyn—in a way that we don't, and haven’t for a long time. We can disappear and rebuild as we like. We have the means. She has a career, and a life—she’s built so much. Could you ask her to leave that? For what? Ducking from doorway to doorway in Braavos, or Volantis, or Lorath? We can’t stay in Westeros, and we won’t be back until this has passed over.” “...You know that there are still priestesses of the Lord of Light that practice.” He doesn’t need to look to know that Ellaria is staring at him; he’s certain that her face is a blend of shock and concern. “You cannot be considering—” “It would be possible—” “What I did, I did because I saw no other way!” Ellaria snaps, “You were gone, and I could not lose you!” “And could you lose her, now? Could you see our lives without her now?” Oberyn turns to Ellaria. She recoils; he can see her lower lip wobbling. She forces herself to press her lips together. “We would adjust,” She insists quietly. “...But how bleak it would be." “Oberyn,” Ellaria turns her body fully to look at him, “You must consider—We are used to this. Think about what you are asking her to leave—” “She can rebuild her career in the future—” “Not just that,” Ellaria shakes her head, “Think of the lives we led. The family, the children. What if that’s something that she wants? She’d never be able to experience that with us. If she doesn’t want it now, she could later. Would you take that from her?” Oberyn considers for a moment. His daughters had brought so much joy into his life. He wasn’t sure if that was something that you would want, but Ellaria was right—he couldn’t bring himself to take that from you. “We’ll raise it to her,” He decides, “And she’ll choose.” He turns to Ellaria, waits for her bickering, but he sees her nod a little. “Tomorrow we’ll pack, decide where we’re going,” Ellaria tells him. “Essos.” “...But where in Essos, lover,” Ellaria rolls her eyes pointedly. She sighs heavily, raking her hand through her hair. “Do you remember when the world seemed vast?” “It still is,” Oberyn reassures softly, “Depending on how you look at it.” Ellaria shakes her head, sighing. “We’ll have to sell the boat,” She groans, flopping back onto the netting. “We’ll get another.” “And the car.” “Mm.” Oberyn dips his head, pressing a tender kiss to Ellaria’s lips before standing. “I’ll take us back to shore.” Ellaria reaches up, patting Oberyn’s cheek. As he moves away, she finds herself staring up at a scattering of stars. She can imagine it—an eternity drifting this way with their archaeologist. She wants it. Oberyn wants it. But… Ellaria closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath. She doesn’t know what’ll terrify her more—a yes or a no. Tag list: @massivecolorspygiant ; @mylittlelonelyappreciationtoo ; @recklessworry ; @paintballkid711 ; @peoniarose ; @fantasticcopeaglepasta ; @missredherring ; @writeforfandoms ; @grogusmum ; @phoenixhalliwell ; @donnaa ; @natandtasha ; @quietpainter ; @acrossthestars ; @elen-aranel ; @letsfly-andbe-free ; @wonderlandgabby ; @amneris21 ; @you-didnt-see-that-cuming ; @blueeyesatnight ; @ayamenimthiriel ; @librariantothejedi ; @revolution-starter ; @softdindjxrin ; @whovianayesha ; @youngkenobilove ; @emotionalsupportdaydreams ; @chronic-nosebleed ; @evyiione ; @smoochesfroggos ; @honestlystop ; @cannedsoupsucks ; @mcueveryday

#oberyn martell x reader x ellaria sand #Oberyn Martell x You x Ellaria Sand #oberyn martell/reader/ellaria sand #Oberyn Martell/You/Ellaria Sand #Oberyn Martell x Reader #Oberyn Martell x You #Oberyn Martell/Reader #Oberyn Martell/You #Ellaria Sand x Reader #Ellaria Sand x You #Ellaria Sand/Reader #Ellaria Sand/You #Take Your Time #Unbent

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hoaxhq · 2 years

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it's almost the start of term —

september 1st — the same day the students of hogwarts college have started the new school year since their very first year at hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry. sunday, august 31st is the last day to arrive on campus before the start of classes on the first. it seems the more things change in the wizarding world, the more stay the same.

there is no special train for students of hogwarts college; which means there is no need for them to wait on platform 9 ¾. there are no horseless drawn carriages, and no boat rides for those embarking on their first or final years. instead, there’s over-packed approved floo locations and crowded apparition check points for all the students who weren’t smart enough to get the fireplace in their dorms set up to the floo before the start of term. rumor has it the floo network authority takes weeks to get those set up once term starts and they’re flooded with student requests, so tough shit for those unlucky enough to have to wait.

the hustle & bustle of the campus on the day before classes return is routine, now — only two years since its creation. this year is no exception. dean pyrites' office is a ways away from the quad, the lush space at the center of the school’s four dorm buildings, but he has enough faculty keeping tabs there to have his suspicions confirmed: all any of the students can talk about is the recent, mysterious death of professor william cornfoot.

of course, he expected this. waiting for each student in their dorms is a glittering missive inviting them to the start of term mixer. the event is to be held in travers hall, the largest and most grand of the campus’ dining halls, filled with tasteful music and dancing, fine food and drink, and even finer conversation; after all, the guest list extends beyond hogwarts college's regulars. dean pyrites considered holding it in the ballroom, then thought such an ostentatious distraction was not yet called for.

perhaps he’s right, but perhaps not. at the same time as arriving students open the dean’s neat invitations, whispers spread through the student body like wildfire — since it seems the school isn’t going to do anything for him, one of professor cornfoot’s teaching assistants is holding an unofficial memorial for him. they pulled some strings and got the three broomsticks to agree to hold the event, open to anyone who knew william and wants to honor his memory. the whole of the muggle-tolerant community seems primed to attend.

the two events may not be happening quite concurrently — though the memorial starts at seven pm, it is promised to last all night. but there is an undercurrent of high tension running through the campus, and before classes even start. lines are surely to be drawn in the sand after the evening, so think wisely before deciding which event to attend, or in which order to attend them. and of course, students, do try to moderate your drinking and get some rest tonight. tomorrow is the first day of classes, after all.

and we’re a go for interactions! all threads should take place on august 31, 1980 before the clock strikes midnight. and try not to turn in too early — a certain seer told me something exciting is gonna happen in the wee hours of september 1st. this first event is going to last one week, though if you wish to continue threads from it beyond that you’re more than welcome.

#hoaxplot

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elizabethrobertajones · 3 years

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Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still...

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel.

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up.

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go.

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P

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gameofdrarry · 3 years

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Wizards Hearts Recs: Hogwarts Eighth Year

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 The Standard You Walk Past by bafflinghaze Rated: Mature Words: 46202 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Some Homophobia in the Wizarding World, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, flangst, Angst, SO MUCH FLUFF, And a bit of sap, Legilimency, Dreams and Nightmares, Slow Build, Prejudice Against Slytherins, Roommates, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Malfoy - Freeform Summary: On returning to Hogwarts for their Eighth Year, Headmistress McGonagall decided to room Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter together. She may have hoped for a leading example of house unity; the other students fully expected insults and fights. But nothing happened. That was, until Harry sleepwalked into Draco’s bed. Translation links available inside for Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Spanish, and Portuguese ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Montaigne Aspirations by countingcr0ws Rated: Mature Words: 16681 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Post-War, Head Boy Draco Malfoy, Head Girl Hermione Granger, Good Draco Malfoy, Hufflepuff Common Room, Hufflepuff Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Discussion of Abortion, discussion about consent, Mutual Pining, Hufflepuff Harry Potter, Hufflepuff Hermione Granger Summary: Draco’s been trying to be nothing but upstanding since you know what. Between crawling into places every day (oh, the woe) in his new yellow tie, avoiding heterosexual threats to the proper development of his young homosexual self, and being exhausted by how high maintenance Gryffindors are, Draco’s eighth year is still a lot better than he had initially expected. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Only Fools Fall (For You) by welpslytherin Rated: Explicit Words: 6212 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, The Great Lake | The Black Lake (Harry Potter), Skinny Dipping, Pining, Fluff and Angst, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, First Time, Mutual Pining Summary: It’s the summer of '98 and a certain blond Slytherin has amends to make and feelings to get over. Featuring skinny dipping, a bold Harry Potter, and a blushing Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Pinned! by whileatwiltshire Rated: General Words: 4193 Tags: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Pining Harry Potter, Pining Draco Malfoy, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Draco Malfoy, Draco curses a lot in this! Summary: What's your game, Potter?" he asked calmly as Potter's face floated an inch away from him. After their second proximity incident, Draco had taken special care to note the specky git's whereabouts and behaviour; watching him with the corner of his eye whenever he could. And in his observation, he had noticed that while Potter did fumble around like a blind fool without his glasses, not once, once, did he pull anyone as close to his eye level to confirm their identity. It was only Draco. Only him. And Draco needed to find out why. Or, Five times Draco got pinned to the wall by Potter, who was surely, up to something. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Take All That You See by GallifreyisBurning Rated: Teen and Up Words: 19666 Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Bullying, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, Coming Out, Leaked Sex Photographs, Off-Screen Reference to Gore, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy Has Panic Attacks, Lucius Malfoy Being an Asshole, Disowned Draco Malfoy, Supportive Harry Potter, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Hogwarts Eighth Year, H/D Sex Fair 2020 Summary: Draco Malfoy has only two goals for his eighth year are Hogwarts: 1) stay as invisible as possible, and 2) get enough NEWTs to be accepted at a university abroad and get the hell out of the UK. Everything is going according to plan until he is unceremoniously outed by the Daily Prophet and subsequently disowned. Finding himself the unexpected focus of unwanted attention and harassment, he is suddenly dependent on the good will and protection of the last people he would have expected — Harry Potter and his gang of do-gooder Gryffindors (plus Luna Lovegood). With his world turned upside down, how will Draco make it through the rest of the year? And worse still, as he grows closer and closer to Harry, how will he get out with his heart intact? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 For every question why, you were my Because by HugsandButterflyKisses Rated: Explicit Words: 59924 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Coming Out, First Time, Mutual Pining, i'll update as we go on dw, harry is a lil clueless but hes got the spirit, Sharing Clothes, Masturbation, Slow Burn, Shower Sex, Halloween, just a lot of shenanigans by the slytherins Summary: Harry expects his final year at Hogwarts to be simple. Go to class, hang out with Ron and Hermione, and most importantly, no threats of dying. It seems fate, and the Slytherins, have other plans. or The Eighth Year fic where Harry and Draco can't seem to get rid of one another. But...maybe neither of them mind all that much. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 White Lies by cassisluna Rated: Teen and Up Words: 171013 Tags: Slash, Homosexuality, EWE, AU, Mutual Pining, Pining Harry, Pining Draco Malfoy, Hurt/Comfort, Potions Accident, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Era Summary: Draco drinks a potion that makes him know if a person is lying, and Harry, apparently at fault that Draco is this way, is forced to 'help' him with the effects of the potion. For the first time, they deal with each other with no lies to hide behind. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 knickers in a twist by technicolourbeat Rated: Explicit Words: 86461 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Reconciliation, Smut, Crossdressing, Boys in Skirts, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Semi-Public Sex, Riding, Topping from the Bottom, Draco Malfoy in a Skirt, Rimming, Lace Panties, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Secret Relationship, Fuckbuddies, Shameless Smut, Sexual Roleplay, Fluff and Humor, Porn With Plot Summary: Draco loses a bet to Pansy and Blaise which leaves him wearing a skirt for a whole week. Harry discovers something about himself. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Blue Roses and Other Impossible Things by Cassiara Rated: Explicit Words: 40283 Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Homophobic Language, Angst, Fluff, First Time, Bottom Harry, Top Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts Eighth Year, POV Harry Potter, Virgin Harry, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Bad Flirting, Loss of Virginity, Podfic Welcome, Pining, Getting Together Summary: After Harry saved Draco from the Room of Requirement there was a moment when Draco gave Harry a look. Harry didn’t know what to make of it, and he had a war to fight so he ignored it. Now though, they’re back at Hogwarts sharing a dorm and Harry is obsessed with seeing that look again. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 In the Midnight Blue by xanthippe74 Rated: Teen and Up Words: 5508 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Christmas, Light Angst, Developing Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Anxiety, Dreams and Nightmares, Flying, Hopeful Ending, Winter, HP Wireless Festive Minifest 2020, Songfic Summary: On a Christmas Eve broom ride over Hogwarts, Harry shows Draco that he’s braver than he thinks. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Owl Was Well by fencer_x Rated: Teen and Up Words: 66823 Tags: Post-Second War with Voldemort, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts, Animagus, Animagus Draco Malfoy, Owls, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Snarky Harry Potter, Snark, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Sexually Adventurous Blaise Zabini, Humor, Toilet humor, POV Draco Malfoy, Invasion of Privacy, Brief Mention of Animal Death(s), Fighting, Minor Injuries, H/D Erised 2020, Slow Burn Summary: Draco Malfoy is not an owl, really he isn’t. He simply assumes the shape of one on occasion when he wants to find a bit of privacy—a goal entirely thwarted because Harry Potter doesn’t understand you can’t just grab any old bird from the Owlery and force it to send your missives and deliver your packages. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 The Nightmare Club by Elle Gray (Elle_Gray) Rated: Explicit Words: 85072 Tags: Post-Second War with Voldemort, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Tropes, Banter, Slow Burn, Humor, Trials, Light Angst, Sentient Doors, Male Friendship, Friendship, Misunderstandings, Pining, Jealousy, Jealous Harry Potter, Jealous Draco Malfoy, Accidental Voyeurism, Voyeurism, Forced Proximity, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Sarcastic Harry Potter, Smut, Sexual Fantasy, Masturbation, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Coming Out, Oblivious, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, Feelings Realization, Secret Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Herbology, Herbology Class (Harry Potter), Plants, working together, Veritaserum, Cuddling & Snuggling, Spooning, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Tea, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Awkwardness, Minor Harry Potter/Lisa Turpin, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Mental Health Issues, supportive friends, wanking, Harry in a towel, Minor slut-shaming?, Feel free to podfic this, Fanart also welcome, remix to your heart's content, tell me about typos you find as well, Gay Mentor Charlie Weasley Summary: Hermione and Ron are going back to Hogwarts to do N.E.W.T.s, Ginny isn't. Harry hasn't decided, until he has, in front of the Wizengamot and now he's responsible for Malfoy as well. A tale of enemies who learn to get along, get it wrong and get it on. Everything is purple, some things are on fire and no-one is sleeping properly. But don't worry, there's tea! ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Read All About It by Samunderthelights Rated: Teen and Up Words: 3247 Tags: Drarropoly: Founders Edition - A Drarry Game/Fest, Epistolary, The Owlery (Harry Potter), Secret Relationship, Drarry, Letters, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Boys In Love, Self-Acceptance Summary: The story of a budding romance between two young men, told through letters found in the Hogwarts Owlery. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Adventures of a Suicidal Gentleman by GallaPlacidia Rated: Not Rated Words: 47794 Tags: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, suicidal Draco but he's fun about it, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Draco and his new best friend Misty the house elf, Draco is trying to keep his shit together, Pining Harry, Down and Out Draco Malfoy, It's less harrowing than it initially appears, Veritaserum Summary: Draco wants to kill himself, but he's trying not to be dramatic about it. Harry wants to sleep with Draco, but he's trying not to be obvious about it. Misunderstandings! Pining! Grief! Self-loathing but in a kind of charming way? Feat. Misty the house elf who takes shit from no one, an Astoria who has her own mysterious aims, a Draco who is determined to use humour to get through things, and a Harry doesn't know what he wants, except maybe to touch Draco's pretty face. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Sincere Gratitude from the (Heart) Mouth by _Melodic_ (Sae) Rated: Mature Words: 1049 Tags: Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Public Blow Jobs, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Smut, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Redemption, Oral Sex, Getting Together, First Time, POV Harry Potter, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Post-War, Hogwarts Express, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Hogwarts Era, Confessions, Romantic Fluff, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff, Fluffy Ending Summary: Harry Potter knew, of course, that everyone was grateful to him for defeating Voldemort and basically saving the world, but he didn’t quite expect the way some of those would go about expressing their gratitude. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Black Me Out by JBankai89 Rated: Mature Words: 43928 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Trans!Harry, FTM Harry, Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mild OoC, Transphobia, Hate Crime, ron & seamus bashing, EWE, PostWar, Hogwarts Eighth Year, References to Mpreg Summary: Since his first day at Hogwarts, Harry has had a secret. Not even his best friends knew, and returning after the war for his seventh year, Harry is looking forward to a nice, quiet, Voldemort-free year. What he hadn't expected was Ron and Seamus discovering his secret and reacting violently to the news, nor did he expect his old school rival suddenly showing romantic interest in him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Try to Change by meshtams Rated: Teen and Up Words: 1567 Tags: Hogwarts Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Boys In Love, Love Confessions, Getting Together, Fluff, Musician Draco Malfoy, Song fic??, Gay Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Tattooed Draco Malfoy, POC Harry Potter, try to change by mother mother Summary: Harry hears music coming from the forbidden forest, and naturally has to investigate. ❤️ Read on AO3

#hogwarts eighth year #drarry fanart #drarry recs #game of drarry #wizards hearts #wh masterlist

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badbirep · 2 years

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so ao3 user watchriverdale said this in the author's note of their extremely excellent fic the lover's choice :

im also not even joking when i say that me and my therapist have had the exact same conversation they have about feelings and mind/body disconnect. i pay 200 dollars a session and i use it to write fanfic <3

and i was like actually excellent idea!

so missive from therapy desk, post-confession newly human cas is fighting so so hard against his emotions. he used to be an angel of the lord, he had it all on lock goddamn it (except he never did at all, but that's not how he chooses to remember it).

and now he's just freewheeling in this flesh body that is HIM. it's not even "his". it's straight up him. he's not in a body, he is a body. and he has no control over when he's hungry, when his back hurts, when is head hurts and worst of worst, when his heart hurts.

he SAID all that stuff about happiness in the being. he SAID that he knew that he couldn't have dean, and that he was happy just saying it. and he is, he swears! except for when he isn't and is absolutely losing his mind being lovesick around dean constantly and not having him. sure he wants to be happy just gazing upon dean winchester, still beautiful. and he is trying so so hard to do that, cause that's the right thing to do. his love is pure, he doesn't need anything for it to be complete, for it to feel his life with joy.

and yet he sits at the breakfast table feeling like his hand is on fire (and yet it's most definetely not!!!!) because it's right next to dean's hand and he wants to be touching him so bad. and he feels like it hurts physically to not be able to reach over and hold dean. cas is so confused and hurt and he doesn't understand why he can't just stop being like this, so greedy and out of control. he rejects the storm of feelings wholeheartedly and yet he can't seem to stop himself from leaking emotion all over the place and he can't help it and he feels like he's failing dean constantly. if he only he could make himself stop, if only he wasn't so desperate for dean's everything, if only he could actually follow through on his promises to love dean selflessly, from afar.

i'm still at the "realising im like this" stage of my therapy so i don't actually know how to fix it yet. i can see my extremely old lady therapist looking straight at cas and saying "you are human. you have to accept the wounded animal part of yourself, you will never succeed in fighting it." and cas is just like actually no thank you i'll keep struggling rip to you but i'm different

and just like me he's gonna become slowly more and more unhinged, cause that's what repression DOES apparently. except dean is repressing everything as well, so the whole relationship is extremely unwell.

all this to say that when i finally manage to get over my boy bestfriendship through fic it's over for y'all

#i wanna b sobsicles but for unwell cas #jayspeak #also i'm having the time of my life with that fic and i read everything else by that author and its all SOOOO good

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winchester-fantasies · 4 years

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Everyday

Summary: Just a series of different ways Dean shows love to his ladylove. ❤️

Word Count: 1228

Warnings: fluff (like...a lot), a bit of sensuality, allusions to sex

Pairing: Dean x Female!Reader

A/N: This was written for an anonymous request: If you’re still taking requests could you write something about the type of affectionate gestures dean gives to his girlfriend ? Xx Thanks so much for you request! Also, thank you to @samsknife for being so wonderful and beta-ing this for me! 💕

Winchester Fantasies’ Masterlist

You loved Dean Winchester.

If there was one thing you could be sure of, it was that. There were lots of reasons you loved him - his empathy, ability to feel deeply about many things, his protectiveness, and of course his good looks. But what you loved him for most was the way he made you feel loved and secure with him. You never had to worry about him turning to look the other way. You knew you were the only woman he wanted and the only one he had eyes for.

You loved your lazy mornings together when you’d wake up to find him watching you with a small smirk on his perfect lips, his eyes sparkling and wide, letting you know he’d been up for a while but just couldn’t find it in himself to leave you. He’d lean in, graze his lips across yours gently, whisper a gruff, “Good mornin’, beautiful,” and then he’d draw you into his arms and hold you until the responsibilities outside your shared bedroom called for your attention. You knew if anyone found out he was a big time cuddler, he’d adamantly deny it, but with you there was no pretense. He could let his guard down, be vulnerable, and show you just how he felt.

Throughout the day he would stop you as you walked past, hugging you tight. It was like love wrapped up in a single embrace, his warmth seeping into your bones and making you feel as if nothing could touch you. He’d pull away, his green eyes filled with affection and he’d lean forward to press a soft kiss to your brow. Other times he’d find you while you were cooking in the kitchen or doing laundry. He’d wrap his arms around you from behind, pull you into him and bury his face into your neck. His stubble would tickle your skin, and you’d laugh, and you would feel him smile against your neck. But he never let you go, only tightening his hold on you. Then your smile and laughter would fade into arousal and lust as he’d press soft kisses into your neck and behind your ear. Those nights - and sometimes days - you rarely left the bedroom, losing yourselves in one another as if it was the very first time.

A few times a month he’d take you out on a real date. He’d wine and dine you, telling you to wear your favorite dress and meet him in the War Room at 8:00 p.m. sharp. Your stomach would flip as you read the missive and you’d be on cloud nine for the rest of the day. Dean would act like nothing was different, stopping you in the hall with his hugs and giving you sweet kisses. Then 8:00 would roll around, and you’d find him just where he told you he’d be, dressed in his FBI suit, hair slicked back, face shaved. He was sex on legs and the most handsome man you’d ever laid eyes on, and you’d wonder just what you’d done to deserve him.

He’d hand you the dozen red roses, sprinkled with baby’s breath that he’d gotten you, telling you how beautiful and sexy you looked. You’d blush and dip your head, amazed that even after all these years, he could still make you feel this way. He’d lead you to the Impala and he’d drive you to your favorite restaurant, a little Italian place downtown. He’d step out of the Impala and hurry around to your side, opening your door and helping you out before he led you to the restaurant, his hand never leaving the small of your back.

His arm would come around your waist when the server looked you up and down, a silent warning that you were his and only his. Your stomach would fill with warmth and your insides would feel like jello as he’d lead you to the table, helping you with your chair before taking the one beside you, his arm immediately settling around the back.

After dinner, dessert, and a few too many glasses of your favorite wine, he’d lean in, his knee pressed to yours and his face dangerously close to your own. His eyes would be relaxed and clouded with arousal as his lips would skim over the shell of your ear, his warm breath cascading down your neck as he told you he couldn’t wait to get back to the bunker, and you’d shudder under his spell.

He’d lead you back outside, your hands clasped and fingers intertwined, and he’d press you against the Impala before you’d even had a chance to get inside. He’d kiss you with wild abandon, languid and passionate, and you’d wonder if you could die from ecstasy….

But it wasn’t just the intense and passionate side of him that you loved. It was his endearing, loving, and tender side, too. Sometimes, when you were feeling particularly low, he’d wrap you in his arms, rest his forehead against yours and give you Eskimo kisses until you cracked a smile a, “There’s my girl,” falling from his own grin. He’d lead you to the bedroom, undress you until only your bra and panties remained, then have you lay out on the mattress. He’d dim the lights and light a few candles, and then he’d give you a massage, his rough and calloused hands that were capable of so much strength - enough to rip a monster limb from limb - so gentle as he worked out the kinks of your muscles and blazed trails over your skin with his fingertips.

And after the massage, if there was a hunt and Sam came to get him, he’d tell him he wasn’t feeling up to it, and he’d stay home with you. You’d lie in bed, legs tangled together and you wrapped up in his strong embrace, and you’d watch chick flicks together. He’d play with your hair and when it was time for bed, he’d tuck you into his side and he’d run his fingers over your hip until you succumbed to sleep before waking up and doing it all over again….

**********

“What are you thinking about?”

You turned just as Dean walked into the kitchen and you realized you’d been staring at the wall, daydreaming. “Nothing much,” you said, turning as he came up to you and wrapped his arms around your waist, his hands splayed out on your lower back. “Just thinking about how much I love your little affectionate gestures. And how you always make me feel loved and cared for.”

“Mmm,” Dean hummed, a self-satisfied smirk crossing his plump lips. “I could get used to hearing you sing my praises.”

“Shut up,” you laughed, swatting his arm playfully. “But seriously,” you continued, sobering. “I love you. I didn’t think it was possible to fall even deeper in love with you than I already was, but I find myself doing just that...every. Single. Day,” you finished, each word emphasized by a quick peck to his lips. You leaned back and weaved your fingers through his hair as you gazed up at him, your heart swelling with love as he smiled down at you.

“You’re damn near perfect, you know that?” he murmured, his eyes holding a tenderness only reserved for you. “And I love you...more than you’ll ever know.”

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

Thank you for reading! If you liked what you read, let me know!! ❤️❤️

***Please do not share my content on any other platform without my consent.

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

Tags:

Everything:

@divadinag @mogaruke @calaofnoldor @defenderrosetyler @coffeebooksandfandom @emoryhemsworth @satans-0-spawn @fandom-princess-forevermore @titty-teetee @gallifreyansass @swiftrogerswinchesterthot @hollymac79 @codename-nyx @kalesrebellion @peaceinourtime82 @babypink224221

Dean Girls:

@weepingwillowphoenix @akshi8278 @thesuicidalflower @adoptdontshoppets @unmistakablyunknown @karikatz12481

#dean winchester x reader #dean winchester x female!reader #dean x reader #dean winchester fluff #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #supernatural #spn #supernatural one shot

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ladymazzy · 3 years

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One year on: the BLM event that divided a Gloucestershire town

I'm beyond furious and exasperated with the perpetuation of the lie that racism is a thing of the past. This woman is only 25, and her recounting her experiences of going to school as a Black girl in the West Country only around a decade ago speaks volumes

Some highlights from the article. (CW for racism and White Fragility™️):

Growing up, Khady Gueye was one of just a handful of black pupils at her school in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. By the time she was a teenager, she was desperate to fit in and conform. And so when her nickname became “Nigs” – short for the N-word – Gueye didn’t challenge it.

Here, in the rural west of England, where she had been fed racist stereotypes of black people her whole life, she didn’t want to be labelled “the angry black girl” or the self-pitying minority who “couldn’t take a joke” or what was considered a “bit of light banter”.

And so it was, that on the last day of school where it is tradition for year 11s to scrawl goodbye messages on one another’s school shirts, Gueye took home a shirt covered with the N-word in giant block capital letters across the front. “Gonna Miss You Nigs” was written on the back next to jokes about golliwogs and messages of good luck.

Gueye was supposed to consider it an affectionate send-off; it was written by her own friends. It was 2012, the year Britain proudly celebrated its optimistic and diverse Olympic Games opening ceremony, or as Conservative MP Aidan Burley would call it, “multicultural crap”.

“I became complicit in allowing it to continue, by being ‘Ha ha! Good joke guys,’” says Gueye, flatly. “But when you grow up in an area that is so predominantly white and are already made to feel different, you just do your best to fit in. The ideal is don’t call out racism. Let it slide. You become so accustomed to it, it becomes your norm.”

Now 25 and on the verge of finishing her English degree at Manchester University, Gueye has become a local community organiser and is more visible than ever in the town where she was born and grew up.

“I don’t want my daughter to grow up with the same experience I did,” she says emphatically, over lunch at her local pub. “This is my home and it’s a lovely area to bring up a family in. I want my daughter to have a life where she is celebrated for who she is, not feel attacked or unwelcome because of her skin colour.”

But Gueye’s attempts to hold a small “celebration of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) culture” sparked a furious backlash that, one year on, still reverberates throughout the small Gloucestershire town of Lydney.

...an online petition was set up to stop the event going ahead on the grounds that it was unsafe and high risk in the middle of a pandemic. Organiser Natasha Saunders wrote: “A mass gathering is a slap in the face to people who have been tirelessly shielding themselves, the elderly and loved ones from this virus.”

Anger, tension and outright abuse boiled over online as a counter-petition to support the event was organised. It got twice the number of signatures, leading Saunders to say that hers was more valid by claiming “90% of [signatories] are from Lydney, can you say yours was?” Later, she would make Eldridge-Tull gasp by posting: “He couldn’t breathe, now we can’t speak”, in a reference to Floyd’s murder by a police officer.

“We’re a happy community, we don’t really have an issue with racism,” said one middle-aged man, who didn’t want his name published, as he nursed a pint outside a local pub. “Outsiders bring their problems, but there’s not a lot of them here,” he said, echoing in politer terms a point that was made repeatedly to the Observer last week.

Last year, Gueye and Eldridge-Tull spent hours patiently replying to comments online in an attempt to explain the event and reassure people about it, but still received threats. Hundreds of screenshots of the abuse have been shared with the Observer. A typical missive read: “Fuck off. Not everyone agrees with black lives. I can’t say what I want on here coz I’ll be reported for racism. But I would bring back black slavery.” Gueye was repeatedly told to go back to where she came from if she didn’t like it and that she would be responsible for bringing harm to Lydney residents.

The pair’s standard response to those with genuine concerns about mass gatherings in a health pandemic, during a lockdown, was to keep explaining that social distancing was being strictly adhered to – two-metre grids were hand-chalked by Gueye and Eldridge-Tull on the site – and that PPE was being provided to anyone who didn’t have any.

“I think it speaks volumes that BAME people are still willing to protest for their human rights even though they are disproportionately affected by the pandemic,” wrote Gueye. “Maybe this should highlight the severity of the inequality in our society”.

....

When asked if she [deputy mayor, Tess Tremlett] accepted there were a lot of racist aspects to the abuse the organisers had endured, Tremlett replied: “I think some of the comments coming from supporters of the event were actually racist in themselves. They were called ‘white trash’, they were called Nazis and all sorts.”

But as anti-racist activists have spent the last year explaining, racism isn’t simply prejudice based on how one looks, but a system...[based] around a specific set of ideas – in this case, racist ones.

It is useful to explain why it is possible for white people to experience individual prejudice and unpleasant behaviour simply based on the colour of their skin but why it is inaccurate to call that “racism”. Being white does not mean one is more likely to be criminalised by the police, or that one is more likely to work in lower-paid frontline work or that one is more likely to be exposed to and die of Covid as a result.

In Gloucestershire, for instance, police statistics show that being black means you are nine times more likely to be stopped and searched by the police than you would if you were white.

The numbers are blankly disproportionate; there are just over 5,000 black people resident in the county compared with 570,000 white people. Last year, Gloucestershire council published evidence that jobseekers from minority ethnic groups had to send an average of 60% more applications to receive the same level of interest as white candidates. It’s not a conversation that Lydney, like much of the country, appears to have much interest in yet.

Tremlett, who has two decades of experience working in community engagement, explained that her sole reason for opposing the event was to be lawful. “Racism is the biggest insult anyone can say to me and I was called a racist by Khady’s team, whoever they are.” Was being called a racist worse than the actual racism that Gueye was continually facing in her everyday life? At this, Tremlett began to cry.

”You don’t understand,” she said, explaining that her daughter had been to three Indian weddings, that her builder was black, and that she had run an equalities panel for years as a councillor. Her experience – being called a racist, being abused online – when she felt she was doing the right thing, understandably made her defensive and upset. But it’s a difficult position for Gueye and Eldridge-Tull to deal with. Especially as she described Gueye as “aggressive and confrontational”.

Last year, Tremlett took the matter of the Forest of Dean’s BLM movement to local Conservative MP Mark Harper, who raised the matter in the House of Commons.

On 17 June, Harper, who may be best known as the immigration minister responsible for sending vans encouraging illegal immigrants to “go home” around parts of London, appeared to encourage an online pile-on against Eldridge-Tull, who had a tenth of his 30,000 followers, and demanded she apologise to the local community for tweeting: “The reaction to the BLM protest in Lydney has brought to light so much support, but so much hate. I love where I live, but I’m ashamed of my neighbours, and ashamed to be part of a community that has so widely endorsed and exacerbated racial hatred.”

....

When Gueye posted a picture of her school-leaver’s shirt on Instagram last year, one of her schoolfriends wrote that it was outrageous, and that she was impressed with everything Gueye was doing. “I was really happy she felt that but it was awkward,” says Gueye. “I messaged her back to say that she was one of the people who wrote those messages.” An embarrassed silence followed, but Gueye is hopeful and optimistic. “It’s still a positive sign.”

#guardian articles #uk racism #uk politics #blm protests #the uk is not innocent #never tory #there's a special place in my soul where i nuture my rage towards the kind of mfs who talk about the 'chip on your shoulder'#or that woebegotten idea that we 'need to take a joke' etc

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dragons-bones · 4 years

Text

FFXIV Write Entry #28: Humiliations Galore

Prompt: irenic | Master Post | On AO3

This fill is partially in response to @ahlis-xiv‘s fill for ultracrepidarian, which you can read HERE! (And it goes without saying you should read her other fills and assorted writing, too!) The Ahlis mentioned herein, of course, belongs to her. \o/

Synnove felt her face twist into something foul and ugly and absolutely capable of curdling milk as she stared down at the letter on her desk. Halulu took one look at her and immediately fled back to the relative safety of her own office one floor down.

The envelope was fine vellum, waxed to protect its contents, tied with twine and the tie further sealed with wax. It was unremarkable, really, and appeared no different from any other important missive that Mealvaan’s Gate might receive from near and far.

Save for the seal of the University of Radz-at-Han pressed into the wax.

Synnove’s lip curled up in a sneer.

Mama, just open it, Galette sighed from her usual perch draped around her shoulders.

Synnove grimaced, but reached for the envelope and slid it closer to herself on the desk. She wedged her thumbnail beneath the wax seal and wiggled back and forth until it popped off, then slid the vellum from the twine and opened the flap. Reaching in, she pulled out two letters, folded over and individually sealed with different wax and stamps, at which she frowned.

And then raised her eyebrows as she noticed the thicker letter of the two, the one closed by deep red wax with a plain stamp, had writing in a very familiar hand on the outside.

READ THE OTHER ONE FIRST.

Now, what in the six hells was Thaisie Valeroyant up to?

Synnove stared with narrow, suspicious eyes at the letter from the Chair of the Department of Arcanima from the University of Radz-at-Han’s College of Mathematics, drumming her fingers on her desk for long moments as she mentally flicked through a list of possibilities. Finally, she let out a heavy sigh and scowled, snatching up the other letter, popping the wax seal, and unfolding it.

My dearest Mistress Greywolfe—

Synnove dropped the parchment, recoiling with a disgusted shriek. Galette HISSED, rising to a crouch as she bared her teeth and bristled her fur, tails lashing.

She knew that handwriting, knew that deep blue ink, knew that absolutely repulsive cologne that wafted into her face.

The first letter was in her hand in an instant, wax seal ripped off and parchment unfolded.

I promise, Synnove, the other letter is worth soiling your fingers and eyes.

Synnove ground her teeth, rage roiling through her, but she took a deep breath through her nose for a five count. Held it for another five count. Let it out with a final five count.

“Thaisie, you are going to owe me so much alcohol,” she muttered under her breath. She set down Thaisie’s letter and reached up to pet Galette, soothing them both for a few moments. Then, she picked up one of the half-sticks of graphite from the pile in the corner of her desk, and used it to poke the other letter flat, sneering as she did. Once that was done, she threw the graphite into her trash bin.

Finally, with a grimace, she leaned over her desk to read the letter from Bahram Zarir.

Synnove sat back after the first flowery paragraph and exchanged a confused look with Galette. “Did he actually…?”

I think so? Galette chittered, ears flat against her head.

They leaned forward again to read the next paragraph.

“…Ah. Never mind. He still, in fact, has his head shoved up his ass so far that the apple on his throat is actually his nose. Good gods, how as he gone this long without developing critical thinking skills, or the ability to remember what he wrote in a previous paragraph?”

She continued reading, occasionally muttering comments such as, “My gods, you absolutely disgusting piece of worm-ridden filth,” to which Galette snickered. Finally, she reached the end of the letter, and slid back into her chair.

And started giggling.

It evolved into a full body guffaw, rising from deep in her belly, and Synnove bent over as she howled with laughter, for so hard and so long it became silent heaving that shook her whole body. Galette sighed and rolled her eyes, holding on as her perch pitched to and fro. As Synnove finally calmed again, she brushed tears from her eyes.

“Oh, my gods, that was hilarious,” she wheezed. “Gods, I only hope I’m there on the day his hubris gets his sorry plagiarizing ass killed so I can laugh him all the way to the Hell of Water. What a cunt.”

Still chortling and catching her breath, Synnove carefully picked up Bahram Zarir’s letter with the very tip of her thumb and forefinger, and dumped it in the trash.

“Please remind me to get Ivar to burn that later,” she said, wiping her hand on her pants.

Yes, Mama!

Then, finally, she picked up Thaisie’s letter to read.

He really is such a prick, isn’t he? It’s a wonder he hasn’t become a victim of Thavnairian politics, but then he’s probably too thick to be a credible threat to any of his relatives or their myriad enemies. Just a shame we got stuck with him. I’m fairly certain the dean was dreaming about defenestrating him and a few other of the legacy children during the last open thesis read.

In any event, I thought you might enjoy the attached to make up for the toad’s sorry attempt at civility: a copy of the abstract for Master Zarir’s latest article. It’s still technically in peer review, but you’re a peer, as dirty as that no doubt makes you feel. Do what you will with this.

Also, yes, I know, I owe you alcohol. I already have a nice bottle of arak picked out for the next time Thubyrgeim allows you off your leash, or I’m able to attend a Lominsan conference.

Kisses!

Thaisie

“You’re such an asshole, Thaisie,” Synnove said fondly, shuffling the parchment to the second page. Zarir’s greatest weakness as a researcher was that frequently, he did have original ideas…but was frankly terrible at the execution and he outright stole others’ work in bits and pieces and tried to make a whole from it that fell apart if one breathed on it too hard. So, what trash was he on about now?

She read the abstract once. Blinked. Read it again, slower this time, than gave it a third pass.

Synnove set the parchment down flat on her desk, mind racing.

Zarir’s article was in peer review, and therefore it wasn’t public knowledge or in open circulation; the only individuals with copies would be Zarir, the reviewers, and Thaisie. He wouldn’t be able to add anything, with how the University handled its legacies’ attempts at academia, the peer review was mostly for show and the article would be published in the latest issue of their mathematics journal. There would be no turnaround time for Zarir.

And there was no way for anyone else to possibly know what he was publishing. Further, it was incredibly common for academics to hit on similar ideas and develop them in parallel without knowing until the other was published.

Zarir’s idea was similar to that of someone else’s here at the Gate. Oh, not hugely similar, but enough for the mainstays in the field to have a solid guess of which articles either had been reading and drawing inspiration from. But Ahlis had gone off in a completely different direction and what was more, her math was sound, the research actually done rather than theorized, and with a high chance of her succeeding and creating a new breakthrough in arcanima. And Ahlis’s work was ready for presentation at the upcoming research symposium. At which a few of the Hannish—not Zarir, if only because the dean didn’t want to deal with the political fallout of letting him set foot in Limsa Lominsa and the resulting murder—from the University would be attending.

Synnove smiled, slow and deliberate and sharklike, a dark chuckle rising in her throat, as she reached for a piece of fresh parchment and a graphite stick. She was quite thankful now that she hadn’t replied to Ahlis’s note just yet.

Ahlis,

I think you are more than ready! You’ve done your due diligence, even surpassed it, in laying your foundation. I still cannot find flaws in the theorems and equations you’ve laid out—your mathematics might need the occasional proofing, but your grasp of the principles is superb, and we’ve all needed a second set of eyes on our work when we’ve looked at the numbers for too long.

You are an excellent arcanist, Ahlis. As intimidating as it is to present research, the symposium presents a wonderful opportunity to receive feedback and collaborate on further avenues to explore your hypothesis. And, if word on the grapevine is true, I have no doubt your work will be leaving certain members of our community absolutely green with envy.

Give ‘em hell!

-Synnove

She signed with a flourish and folded the letter into neat thirds, wrote Ahlis’s name on it, and bound it with some of the leftover twine from Thaisie’s packet. “Amandina, Roksana,” she called out as she tied off the string, “would you like to run an errand for me?”

The twins poked their heads over the edge of their basket, the picture book they had been carefully pawing through forgotten. Their ears stood straight up, noses twitching in excitement—and then they were tumbling out of the basket and darting right for Synnove’s desk. Oh oh oh yes yes yes! they peeped excitedly. Errand errand errand we can do it!

The carbunclets skidded to a halt at their mama’s feet and looked up at her with huge eyes, their mass of tails shaking with excitement. Galette huffed, exasperated as always with their endless amounts of energy, but didn��t otherwise say anything as Synnove leaned over with the letter in hand.

“Do you remember where the Gate’s mailroom is?” she said, solemn.

Yeah!

The arcanist held out the letter, and Amandina very carefully accepted it, clamping down with her teeth to hold it firmly.

“Bring this down to the mailroom,” Synnove said, “and give it to Coster, and only Coster. He’ll make sure it’s delivered to its intended recipient! And then, once you’re done, come right back here, all right?”

Okay, Mommy! warbled Amandina, a determined set to her face.

We’ll be right back! said Roksana with a peppy chirp.

Then, rather than turn and trundle towards the door to her office, as Synnove thought they would, Roksana took one of Amandina’s ears into her mouth, and with a pop! of displaced air they were…gone.

Dead silence, as arcanist and carbuncle both stared, jaws hanging open, at the space the twins had been in just a few moments before.

“When did they learn to do that?” Synnove said, faint and bewildered.

I dunno. Galette tilted her head. Can I learn how to do that?

“Absolutely not, you’ll use it to break into the coldbox for my pies.”

Galette slumped into a full body sulk.

#ffxivwrite2020 #final fantasy xiv #oc: synnove greywolfe #synnove's carbuncles #other people's characters #ahlis ildilayan #dt's writing

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