#I WANNA BE MARRIED ALREADY

[a-ikuoliver]

i love being in a relationship while i’m young, like i love telling people we’ve been dating since we were 18 (cue 18 by one direction) BUT GOD I HATE BEING 21 IN A SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP AND CANT DO SHIT AB IT

[zuzu-draws]

Stardew Valley Bachelor Portrait Sukuna, anyone?? (I made some quick pixelated gifs while musing lolol)

I wonder how many folks would romance him in-game 🤔 Make your attendance here, folks ✋

[choccy-milky]

seb vs. clora's Childhood Friend™️ 😇🥰 ((from my new chap! ao3/wattpad))

[housecow]

what's your flavor of stardew obsession? interior decorator specialist, spreadsheet panic or 'i blinked and it's been 7 hours'

idk but im like 4 days from unlocking the greenhouse in fall year one :3

[puppyeared]

learning abt friendship decay and "not reaching out to your friends for months at a time unprompted is not neurotypical behaviour" has me feeling a certain way

[bixels]

OUGGHHHH UR RARIJACK IS SO (explodes intio confetti with joy )

have uou considered: them trying on outfits they picked for each other?

or or or

Rarity washing and braiding AJs hair

or

Them celebrating the others birthday, trying to figure out what to get them and surprising them n all that

or them baking together and wgatever Ensues out of that

ANYWAYS KEEP DOIN YO THANG THEY R SO CUTE ❤️❤️❤️

Oh, I have lots of ideas for them.

Because I'm drawing them pre/early-relationship, I have a lot of stuff I haven't gotten to yet. I think, despite Rarity falling in love first, AJ is the most outwardly and obviously in love. Like, girl is in LOVE with her wife. The type to take off her jacket and put it over a puddle so her wife can cross. The type to walk around with hearts popping over her head.

Something I definitely wanna get around to drawing is how they were when Rarity first moved to Ponyville, because they would've hated each other, lol. AJ going from, "I can't stand her fake ass. 😒" to, "Yes Miss Rarity. Anything you want, Miss Rarity. 🥴" Or Rarity going from, "What a big, dirty brute. 😡" to "What a big, dirty brute. 🥵"

Anyways, later one comic idea I had for when they eventually get married is Rarity comes home to catch AJ trying to surprise her with a dinner. But things are going awry because AJ is so stressed and nervous about making everything perfect, and she even burns her apple pie. She has a bit of a breakdown because she feels she can't do anything right like she's supposed to anymore, and Rarity comforts her and tells her, why don't they bake the pie together? The comic ends with the two kneading dough together.

[kingkatsuki]

Be honest— Do you think your fave would get pissed off if you were to propose first?

[angelmush]

nice things lately (posing the stuffed animals when i make the bed, animal magazines in the mini library down the road, my aunt + uncle’s giant new cat they adopted on accident and are in love with despite their best efforts)

[p4nishers]

let me just say this: if crowley EVER makes an actual move on aziraphale and aziraphale gives even a HINT of reciprocation it's over for him in SECONDS bc u know aziraphale half asses nothing so it'll be like crowley tries to brush their fingers together and aziraphale fully beams at him and interlocks their fingers in seconds. crowley stares speechlessly at their hands for 5 minutes, looks up at aziraphale and faints. crowley gets aziraphale flowers and aziraphale puts them in the very center of his shop where everyone can see and keeps them alive for months. crowley fights a giggle every time he sees them. crowley offers his jacket on a cold night and aziraphale wears the jacket everywhere for weeks and gushes about it to everyone he meets. crowley chokes on his breath every meeting aziraphale is in it without fail. crowley slyly asks aziraphale on an actual romantic date and aziraphale SLAMS down their wedding invitations infort him of like "im so glad u asked, dear, i've been waiting for this" then launches into a rant about flower arrangements and table cloth colors and crowley is left blinking at him and trying not to explode. poor snake.

[anastacialy]

actually, fuck it, i AM writing the essay, even if no one will read it.

my thoughts on penelope, how she sees herself, and why the carriage scene's ending is the most important thing in the whole wide world under the cut. and bridgerton season three part one spoilers, obviously.

penelope featherington hates herself. bit of a strong start here but, there we go. that's what you get when i'm going feral about her again at three in the morning. (it was eleven a.m. when i finished writing this post. i rewatched all four episodes of season three...)

i'll start from the beginning — she isn't a confident person. i think that's what a lot of penelope hate really comes down to, not relating to her in that way at all. not understanding what being treated the way she has can do to you. so let's start here:

imagine for a moment, no one fucking listens to you.

this includes her favorite people in the world. her family, for one thing, that's obvious, but her best friend, too. many times we hear eloise discover and re-discover what penelope's interests are in the series because, as she says, "i didn't really hear it." she was so frequently not really listening to her. they've been friends for years, but huge aspects of her friend's personality were completely unknown to her. this isn't anti-eloise by the way, i love her too, but we're adults who can admit our favs are all flawed people. the show wouldn't be nearly as fun if they weren't. eloise continues to belittle others for their interests when they don't match up to hers (like that poor girl who was just really passionate about embroidery) and she's done so to pen, however unknowingly, for ages.

penelope tried to beg marina to not fool colin into marriage. she had so, so many other suitors, so many other choices she could have made. all pen wanted was to not have her other best friend slash crush make that life altering of a mistake. but for this, she was called a child. immature. talked down to as if she knows nothing about the world. (she had been mostly right, by the way, in her insisting that george must still love marina, would still want to marry her, discovering that the letter had been forged. if he'd not died on the battlefield, penelope would have been the one to secure a happy ending for marina.) when she wasn't listened to then, she got more desperate, telling colin that marina was in love with someone else to deter him from the marriage while still careful to not ruin marina's reputation and expose her pregnancy in the process. she tried. but no one would listen.

so only when the situation became dire, she did the only thing that she could, and took matters into her own hands.

which brings us to lady whistledown.

it's interesting, really, that she chose that name. to specify lady so she might be taken seriously, yet not hide under a pseudonym completely removed from herself (i.e. using a masculine pen name or implying she's not a part of the ton at all) it's clear that lady whistledown is, for the most part, what penelope wants to and yet fails to be: someone who commands attention, who people admire and trust for an opinion, someone who gets listened to.

by the time we find her in season three, she's fresh off hearing her crush saying he'd never, ever court her, and her best friend finding out that she was lady whistledown all along and had exposed a secret of hers — only after penelope had, of course, also begged eloise to stop seeing theo, to stop raising the queen's suspicions, and was once again ignored. her only friendships have been destroyed, and she has resigned herself to a loveless marriage of convenience because she can't stand to be ignored, controlled, and belittled by her family any longer. she's ready to take the devil she doesn't know over the devil she does.

so, when i say her self confidence is on the floor, i mean it.

yes, a sliver of hope remains in her, and we can see that in her decisions (wearing parisian fashions, for instance) but her plan remains, she is simply going to marry someone, anyone, because she has to.

but even still, her confidence has not taken it's last hit.

let's imagine some more: no matter what you do, people are going to laugh at you.

penelope finally, finally gets her big moment. people stare at her as she enters the room. she still immediately hides herself in a corner because that's who she's always been, but still. she has a moment. not quite what she'd imagined, i'm sure, as she bought all new gowns, but attention and awe nonetheless. but it cracks almost instantly when her social awkwardness comes out, failing to get anyone to ask her to dance, and shatters completely when cressida destroys her dress before she can ever take to the floor.

colin tells her she looks nice, and her immediate reaction is "do not mock me, please."

it's only after this that she confronts colin about what he said, only after this that she speaks ill of him as lady whisteldown — not saying any more than what his sister had already pointed out earlier in the episode, mind you, that his change in personality seemed disingenuous — only after she has been publicly humiliated that she lashes out in her anger.

and, this anger, she also immediately regrets after colin has proven himself to be kind. it's a bit like making a snide comment online without the ability to delete it after.

but when penelope has hope, she is kind. she writes of the promising ladies of the ton and wishes them well with their matches, when she has hope she speaks positively of would-be spinsters and their successful marriages. many of her earlier musings in previous seasons were to call the women of the ton beautiful, to speak to their skills.

but hope for penelope does not last long. she manages to successfully speak to one suitor at the next ball (which, though this is another argument entirely, is backed by a string quartet version of "jealous" as colin re-approaches her at the drinks table — any arguments that his feelings start at their kiss isn't paying near enough attention) but the entirely true rumor about her having help from him spreads through the vine and penelope is hopeless once more.

and a hopeless penelope is a cruel penelope, as we've seen, and this time, she turns that cruelty inward, publicly. while she later says it would have been suspicious if lady whistledown hadn't commented, in truth, she has proven time and time again that her emotions rule lady whistledown's writings. in that moment, eyes tearful, she was embarrassed and ashamed of herself, she decided to say so. she repeats the same sentiment to colin when he comes to visit her:

"in truth i brought this on myself. a sad, stupid girl who believed she might actually have a chance at love."

and here is where lady whistledown continues to be someone penelope sees as different to herself, because penelope doesn't see herself as a lady. not just for lack of title — she does not see herself as worthy of or requiring protection. to call back to antony's season one romance: "every woman is not afforded such gallant protection." "every woman is not a lady."

she says nothing of him bribing her maid to give them time alone. like most of the ton she doesn't think the time they spend alone together could be anything other than platonic, at least on his end. they spent extended time unchaperoned at the bridgerton house and not once did she speak on impropriety. he'd been alone with her in the previous season and even when they were caught no one had a thing to say about it. no one questions it because penelope is not recognized as desirable, not seen as needing this protection, not seen as a lady. she is seen, even by herself, as a spinster already.

when she asks colin for a kiss, she reassures him that she would ask nothing of him for it, she would not entrap him in a marriage citing impropriety, she doesn't even think about whether someone might see. she does not care in this moment if she is to be "ruined," she only wants to feel some illusion of intimacy, some imitation of being wanted. even her running back inside immediately after, and the subsequent conversation under the willow tree, are further proof that she doesn't believe he could have kissed her for any reason other than pity.

and, even after all she goes through with lord debling, she is still not the only object of his affections. the entire time she pursues him, cressida is there, hot on the trail, ready to sweep him away on a moment's notice. penelope writes of their dance that his choice of her is surprising. though her feelings for colin have not simply fluttered away once debling's shown interest, her possible engagement to debling is on a wavering tightrope. not once in this can she feel wholly at ease with lord debling, only afforded a bit of security once he asks her mother for her blessing. and amongst this, her mother still belittles her, saying she should not become greedy for wanting to marry someone who actually cares for her.

she asks lord debling if he might ever love her, in all the years of marriage they may have ahead, and he says probably not.

and when colin breaks up her proposal, insisting debling isn't right for her, still penelope does not even consider, can not even conceptualize that it might be done out of jealousy. colin having feelings for her is laughable, she says as much, and it is the same thing she has been told over and over since the start. he chases after her carriage out of breath asks to be let in, gets on his knees and tells her he can't stop dreaming of her and she tells him "please. do not say things you do not mean." she cannot imagine that any of this is real. it is confusion that prompts her to repeat the agreement they had in episode one, "but, colin, we are friends."

and while an entirely separate essay could be written about the rest of the carriage scene, it is what happens the moment the carriage arrives at bridgerton house that stands out to me. they have this moment, colin asks "could the carriage driver not keep on driving?" and they both laugh, the way they always do with one another, and he fixes her dress (carefully, avoiding using a select few fingers as he does so) and they kiss again, and he gets out of the carriage.

and for a single, heartbreaking second, penelope's face falls, and she calls after him: "colin?"

it is so clear in her demeanor that she thought that was it; that's all she gets. the fantasy is over and it is back to reality. for a split second, she believes he is no longer hers.

for a single second, it's as though she thinks he is going to shut the carriage door on her, and walk away.

but he turns around, hand outstretched, asking if she'd like to come in. and she's once again confused, "what?"

do not say things you do not mean. do not mock me please.

and when he says: "for god's sake, penelope featherington, are you going to marry me or not?"

she looks so relived she could cry.

[opticsel]

crazy to think that people my age want to have sex… and that many of them have had sex before… and that they are actively seeking out people to have sex with….. and that they talk about sex with their other sex-having friends……. couldn’t be me but y’all have fun tho! stay safe out there and stuff

[navree]

i just

who raised you, sir? why does MAWS slade insist on starting bitch fights with literally ever person he comes across at all times? why is he physically incapable of being polite or even just not being a dick? why is he beefing with someone who looks more like his comics version than he does? i love him.

[drpicklesart]

so I had the idea for something like this a while ago, but last night I walked in on my sister watching those compilations of stuff just. getting crushed in a crusher and I knew what I had to do.

[theneighborhoodwatch]

i love franklydear as much as the next guy, but i have to admit i’m always a little thrown off by how much fanwork portrays them as married from the get-go, because part of the appeal of franklydear for me is the prospect of someone having their gay awakening while also experiencing the muppets’ adaptation of silent hill.

[sweetest-honeybee]

Squints at the people calling Wally/Howdy an underrated/rare ship 😂

[gayofthefae]

UMMM. A HAPPY PRIDE TO FRANCESCA AS WELL?????????