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he's the worst man alive he's the love of my life he's covered in blood he's weird about god and he's a lot, he's not perfect, but most importantly he's bisexual

Thinking of the scene that makes me the most emotional and I always go back to Regarding Dean when Dean is reciting to himself in the mirror and he starts to say ‘Castiel’ before remembering, no, he doesn’t call him that. He calls him Cas. That’s the name he gave him. That’s the name of his best friend. And that’s also the first time we hear Dean say that that’s who Cas is to him. And there’s just something about that that’s so raw and vulnerable, the fact that he’s saying it to himself but he’s also saying it out loud and that makes it more real than it was before, like he’s telling it to the universe so even if he can’t remember it, hopefully someone else will.

hello! it's been a while since you've posted any essay collection 👀 would you be willing to share your favourites of this year with us?

yes! here you go —

Disunited Kingdom by Fintan O'Toole

South Asia's place in contemporary climate fiction by Evan Tims

What's the matter with men? by Idrees Kahloon (archived)

Power to the Caribbean people by V. S. Naipaul (archived)

Can Russia ever be democratic? by Kyle Orton

Death by Design by Daniel Callcut

Joshimath: once upon a town by Rahul Pandita

Exposed by Sadie Levy Gale

In the Shifting Embrace of the Ganga by Arati Kumar-Rao

(Less essay, more interview) Matty Healy by Alexis Petridis

The Roots of Global South's New Resentment by Mark Suzman

How TikTok Became a Diplomatic Crisis by Alex Palmer (archived)

This review of Oppenheimer by Richard Brody of the New Yorker (archived)

India's new growing elite by Shekhar Gupta

There are definitely more I'm forgetting and which I will try to excavate!

i just made the most stupid thing

soldier castiel

Castiel is the only thing real in Dean's life. Everything else was wrote in the way Chuck felt was more appropriate. Mother, father, brother, with the story unfolding in the directions he set. They did what they were told, Chuck said, but not you, not you, not you, Castiel.

When Dean asks "what about all of this is real?" and Castiel answers "we are", he was right.

💀

Destiel dynamics in four pics

flustered- b. barnes

pairings: bucky barnes x reader warnings: very flustered reader, not sure if i exaggerated it too much but i think i did im so sorry about: requested by the lovely stefi!! flustered reader basically lol

it’s one of those nice kind of days—where the sky is leadened with gloomy cotton balls and the heat of the sun is muted. the grass beneath you is fresh and smells of petrichor in anticipation of the rain, already cold between your fingers and needling through your jeans.

a breeze flutters your lashes, urging your eyes open and your hands to splay like a starfish into the ground. something else pricks at your skin, pulling your eyebrows together.

“hey,” someone says behind you. bucky, you realize.

“hi,” you respond automatically, lolling your head back to catch sight of him. he’s tall and solid and upside down when you blink up at him, eyes just as piercing as they observe you.

“it’s gonna rain,” he informs, stepping over to stand next to you. “y’gonna come back inside?”

“no,” you answer definitively, staring back up at the sky. “maybe when the lightning starts.”

“lightning?” he repeats, grunting when he lowers himself gracefully onto the ground. his knee pokes into your thigh, but he doesn’t move it away.

you go still, concentrating on not shifting weirdly. “it’s pretty, but it makes me nervous.”

“what if i stay out here with you?” he offers.

“what are you going to do against lightning?” you ask, laughing. “maybe if it were thor—”

his own laughter is rough, genuine. lightly, he nudges your shoulder. “punk.”

you grin, a little pleased and a little flustered. “what?”

“i’m offering my protection. super-soldier protection.”

“oh, i’m sorry,” you apologize. “i didn’t realize you guys could control weather.”

“you are…” bucky begins, searching for a word. “incorrigible,” he finishes, teasing.

you bark out a laugh, meeting his eyes. “incorrigible!”

he nods. “‘s okay, though. it’s part of your charm.”

bucky turns to observe your profile, silently scanning your features. your thumbnail goes to trace the nailbed of your index.

you clear your throat, watching the clouds as they roll in the sky. “thank you,” you reply. it comes out a little strangled.

bucky clearly hears it, but his eyes crinkle. he hums. “s’my pleasure. i get to talk to you and see you, y’know, be impossible.”

you nod, not sure when to stop. you’re still stuck on his previous compliment, like a thread caught on a hook and you can’t help but pull, let your sweater unravel green and greedy and coarse.

“i didn’t know that was a charm,” you start unsurely. “or that i had charms, more like.” it’s not smoothly said, a little halted in that you want to explain further, only encouraged to by the chaste curve of his lips, amused and patiently heartening. you urge him to silence you. “or charm? is it just charm, singular? i think of charms more like the bracelet things, but charm could encapsulate the entirety of the—” you crane your fingers and move your hands as if they’re cupping something large. “the idea. which i guess is what you mean and it implies a lot more than one, right?”

you’re rambling, you know.

bucky is grinning, though, purely amused and bastardly pleased. he nods along to your words as if he’s listening closely to each rise in your voice, paying attention to each word.

you clear your throat and attempt to relax your tense shoulders. you’re not uncomfortable, you remind yourself. your anxiety carries none of the unpleasantness associated with it, instead something so largely gracious and massively salubrious that it makes you slightly ditzy, spilling out like honey and sneaking into the cogs of your brain.

it makes the wheels stagger and slow, your mind lagging to dig up something more to say. so, you say: “i bet you were really charming back then. you know, because you were so popular? like steve and everyone says.”

bucky chuckles. “were, huh?”

you know he’s teasing. he’s only ever teasing, but you stammer to take it back. “are! are real charming! really charming. i mean—i meant that it was just, like, a lot back then. not that it isn’t anymore, just… just different?” you have to explain, having piqued his actual interest. “back then, it was smoother? from the way people talk about you, i can’t imagine it wasn’t something automatic. now it’s, it’s more deliberate, i think.”

you’ve been talking for so long.

“but, obviously it still works, right?”

he smiles something small, crinkling the edges of his eyes lightly and mischievously as if he’s caught you in something. “why do you say that?”

you shake your head as you look for a response. “uh…”

bucky decides to take pity on you, moving away from the topic to stretch his torso. a sliver of skin peeks from behind his shirt, gleaming and distracting as you try to look anywhere but there. you fail, obviously, your focus betraying you.

“you look real nice today, you know,” he says, a smidge more serious and totally sweeter.

you heat up immediately, ears burning as you squeeze the lobe between your thumb and index. “you too,” you force out, overwhelmed with the compliment, skin prickling with its genuity.

bucky observes you for a few seconds, eyes slow and deliberate as they take you in from a foot or so away, and then he settles a few inches closer.

“what’s wrong?” he asks, but he doesn’t really want to know, isn’t truly asking in the words’ definitions. there’s a pleased mask in his expression, hiding something flustered from your attention from your scrutiny.

you only blink and shrug, the weight of his gaze increasing with every second he stares. the blue of his irises has always been gentle in a sharp way, deep and crushing and grand like the ocean. warm and comforting like the sun that it reflects.

you swallow when he leans in, close enough for you to be sure he’s being entertained by how flustered he’s making you. you can’t think, you realize after a blank moment, mind crowded with the way his fresh scent interrupts the petrichor.

he’s smiling when he finally pauses in front of your face, nose nearly brushing against yours close, close enough that you can see the stars in his eyes and count each charcoal lash.

"you know you don't have to be so nervous around me?" he whispers.

you shiver, unable to help yourself as you dig teeth into your lips and your attention flickers to his.

they twist up when they notice, only crawling further when you choke out an affirmation. “yeah, yeah. i’m not—”

your reply dies on your tongue when he swoops in, noses nudging when he kisses you. your eyes stay wide open for a moment before they flutter shut, your body frozen before it melts inevitably, slackening into him. one of his hands moves to hold your waist, lips smiling beneath yours as he pulls away.

you swallow, attempting to blot away the haze his kiss has glossed over your mind. his grin isn’t helping, blinding you and chasing away the breath that kisses your lungs.

“i’m not nervous,” you finally force out. “you’re just—just really—”

“i’m really?” he urges.

you frown. “mean,” you finish.

he laughs, and you’re dizzy again.

chilean poet, pedagogue, lesbian, rebel, gabriela mistral, who should be remembered not only as an female icon of chilean literature (as opposition of neruda, who was a rapist, abuser and dead beat father) but as a woman who loved another woman, despite being forced in a asexual box by men who couldn't accept such an incredible woman not being straight.

the woman who gained a nobel in literature, who wasn't appreciated by her own country because she was a woman.

I remember her, today and ever.

(gabriela mistral on the left, her partner doris dana on the right)