#Just needed something to represent margaret

[captainofthepearl]

♠️♣️♥️♦️

For every ♥️ I receive I will write a love head canon

It's no secret Barbossa fell for the wicked lady of the sea.

She has elegance, beauty and grace, everything he couldn't resist.

Margaret Smyth is canonically the love of Barbossa's life.

I would picture him jumping into fights whenever to protect Margret.

Barbossa would more or less have Margaret on his mind even when he's out at sea.

When he's at the helm, he would pull out a miniature portrait of her when he's missing the woman he loves.

Beckett secretly invites Margaret to his manor while the captain's out at sea.

Barbossa trying to convince Margaret to stay away from Beckett.

Margaret and Hector are similar to Elizabeth and Will, except they are more passionate.

Barbossa saves every moment he's on shore with the lady he loves.

Hector has self-doubts about his daughter.

When he sees Carina, he sees her resemblance to his beloved.

Barbossa never forgot his wicked beloved and promised to raise Carina after her death.

For every ♦️ I receive I will write a personality head canon

Margret is strong, independent and elegant. She holds her own being except when she still has a soft spot for her two men.

Barbossa is fierce, stubborn and cunning. He would most show his soft spot to his beloved lady.

For every ♣️ I receive I will write a dark head canon

Barbossa held negative thoughts when Margret was pregnant with Carina. He wouldn't reveal anything about it until the day she was born.

When Margret passed, he was a mess; indeed, he had held no tears spilling however, her death still pained him deep down expression.

Sometimes when dreaming, he sees her ghost visit him in his dreams.

For every ♠️ I receive I will write a sex head canon

Barbossa being passionate with Margaret.

Lust would only be a part of it; it would be more loving and sensual.

Barbossa sharing romantic kisses on Margaret's deep crimson, rosy lips.

Margaret smiling at Hector as the two share a rendezvous night in Tortuga.

Jack getting jealous of Hector's affair.

Barbossa slowly and tenderly takes off his wicked lady's gown's shoulder sleeves.

A lot of tender smooching and touching.

Hector, surprisingly, is rather romantic. He would be gentle and eventually remove his upper and undergarments.

He would move through her slowly, tenderly, softly and lovingly.

Barbossa and Margaret spend their time privately inside the locked quarters.

Margaret cuddles up to a naked Hector beneath the sheets.

Barbossa enjoying the peaceful bliss.

[precious-little-scoundrel]

Four Weeks in New York

gorgeous gif credit to @violaobanion

Requested: ☑️

Warnings: SO. MUCH. SEX. 18+, reunion jitters, potentially out of character actions due to rough sex? but then again, they’ve missed each a lot other, ok?! Also, i dunno, but beware he’s a horny over thinker and he’s in a funny headspace due to, ya know, war. Jean is a champ, Harry can’t manage to blow a load for awhile, mild breeding kink if you wanna call purposefully making a baby that…Gerry Hamilton and Margaret Blakely make tiny little cameos in here and I swear I’m half thinking of writing this trio of women all giggling over their legendary husbands

Word count: a hefty 7k and we’ve got more coming for ya

Coauthored with m’baby @crazymadpassionatelove

Synopsis: Harry Crosby is sent stateside to be with his wife for a month of terribly needed R&R in the summer of 1944

Caveat: this is based off a portrayal of real people in a tv series, while Jean wasn’t represented by an actress as Harry was, in this price of media I intend the same. I mean no disrespect to the real men and women mentioned and dramatized herein.

Scene One:

Jean had been at it so long in front of the mirror she began to notice every grain of powder collected in her smile lines and every infinitesimal blur of strong coal from around her eyes and -she needed to step away, at least a few inches from the reflective glass and get a grip. At the more sensible distance of gripping onto the edge of the counter -marble and swanky like everything in this posh and paid for hotel- she saw her face restored to what it was, a pretty decent cutie’s with a perfect mask of makeup and freshly styled hair: fit for a homecoming.

It was going to be fine. She was going to be fine. She was going to need to make him fine again, and give him back to them strong enough to come back to her for good. Happiness and dread swirled in a gnawing cocktail inside her, the cruel thought of almost wishing not to be teased with him at all until she could keep him for good fighting with the braver parts of herself that wanted every second of him she could have, even if it had a big red finish line drawn at a month.

A month was a long time, a month was about all they’d had to be married before he left. Technically, or at least Jean wondered if technically, it would mean she’d only been fully “married” for two months. Of course that was nonsense to the general public and the pastors who reminded about vows and the wedding band she flashed at over eager servicemen, but to her select little girl gang, the ones who worked at the factory with her and who had to give up their husbands too- they talked about their brief marriedness with hushed and giggly fondness, like something out of a dream and just as brief.

The fiancés in the girl gang were jealous of this topic and Jean supposed they had a right to be. She indulged the innocents with all their questions about being “actively” married, tried to repay them with the same frankness she’d so desperately sought before her wedding. But as it was, she’d only had a month of active service, and while it had been spent as vigorously as any young couple’s first four weeks of legal license, it had left Jean in the interim with a plain impression of herself being a little bit of a hussy.

She wanted Harry so badly this past year since he’d gone she hardly thought it medically sane. Wanted him so badly, and that was something not even the girl gang could always bring themselves to titter about. It was one thing for Margaret Blakely to joke about her Ev coming back the previous month ‘taking’ his leave in more ways than one, but they weren’t often out here asking each other if nothing really fixed the hunger since their man had been gone. It was all Jean thought of. Jean wanted to ask if it ever cooled, if the sticky frustration with one’s own inadequate fingers ever subsided.

By the dreamy eyed state of the recently visited Mrs. Blakely, the answer appeared to be a resounding no. Nothing ever beat the real thing. And that made Jean want to writhe in frustration before learning that she too, would be visited by a on-leave husband.

A year of being married and only a month of it “active”, Jean had concluded it was a chronic case on her part of salivating need for her Bing, the only cure would be him -him inside her, in perpetuity. All she’d gotten out of Maragret had been a grinning warning to Jean to “get in shape for Major Crosby’s furlough, you’ll spend it on your back.”

Jean could freely admit to herself that she needed to be ripped apart by her man, she needed him lingering inside her when he left again. She just feared that it wasn’t exactly their usual way. How could she tell him, what if that’s not what he needed. What if it was all different, what if it needed to be?

Jean pointed a finger at herself in the fancy gilt mirror, red nails pointing at her fancy clad self in pastel silk and tiny bows, “He’s your husband,” she told herself sternly, trying not to sweat at the idea he could be here any hour, catch her in this state of intentional undress, and help himself to her jittery body, “he loves you, you love him. All you need to do is let him have his husbandly rights and things will go smoothly. It’s a vacation not a death trap. You’ve got a man to patch up, get on with it.”

This speech gave her four whole seconds of empowered determination before a vigorous set of knocks on the hotel suite’s outer door made her jump out of her skin in surprise. She could go open the door but then -what if someone was in the hall with him? And saw her in this state of…lack of…well, her in her lingerie. He had a key, they’d have given him a key. He was the Mister to her Missus Crosby, they were allowed a shared suite.

“Jean?” Hearing that dear voice for the first time in twelve months, even faintly from far outside the bathroom door, flooded Jean with so much feeling her knees locked up and her throat collapsed on her response. He was her husband, her Bing, her first and only love, they’d be alright. They had to be.

Harry gingerly closed the door behind him, the heavy painted wood shutting with a finality that made him feel terribly anxious. While he had been trudging up the hall to their suite he’d been able to laugh a little at his dismal procession, morose shuffling and hang dog attitude. It had been absurd for a guy coming back to see the wife who he loved. He knew that and he could say that again and again in his head in a voice that morphed more and more into Bubbles’ voice an-

-and now he was in the room and he wasn’t anticipating anything, he had arrived and as if he’d just touched down in occupied Europe, he couldn’t help his braced posture or hunted surveillance of the oddly empty room.

“Jean?”

She wasn’t in here, but the en-suite bathroom door was shut. She wasn’t in here but from the bathroom came wafting something so viscerally nostalgic of her that he felt his heart pound in devoted recognition before his brain even caught up: her soap. Not some fancy hotel brand, it seemed she had brought her old stuff, the stuff he’d lathered on her as many times as he’d had the chance before leaving, the stuff she smelled of before church and the stuff that got more strong and pungent when he made her sweat in it from their exertions in bed.

It smelled like Jean in here and it was enough to make him drop his duffel bag with a decided thump. He was staying. This was his wife, everything might be different but some things like soap -they’d still be the same, as would the dry mouthed want it filled him with.

“Jean?”

He ventured further into the room, not bothering to call her name again, maybe being around guys had made him callous to spooking her but no real harm would be done, he was…him.

“Oh! Bing?” Jean sounded flustered behind her door and Harry found himself grinning. “I’m coming! I’m coming right out!”

It sounded less like a reassurance than it did an order to herself, which was amusing and it made him wonder, just how awkward were the two of them going to manage to make this? God knows he’d tripped over himself enough times winning her over the first round, he had such hopes never to revisit the bumbling stages of courtship. Seemed like once they’d married and joined it had been smooth as glass ever since- until…until he’d stopped being himself.

Until he had wandered into a hotel room with a woman who didn't wear a matching gold band. Jean knew nothing of that though. She never would. Sweet peaches and cream Jean who had come all this way to see him. Bringing that soap and the books he saw stacked on the night table. Bringing that sweet, pink pussy he needed to sink himself into. Remind himself of who he was. He didn't want to be Major Crosby at the moment. He wanted to just be Jean's husband. He heard the clock in the room ticking, felt the sweat pooling at the back of his neck as he waited for her. Her Elizabeth Arden lipsticks lined up like perfect little soldiers on the dresser. It had been so long that kissing her was surely going to feel like the first time all over again.

There was more amiss in the room, upon further inspection, besides her trunks and her hat boxes and the lipsticks. Amiss in that: there were elements no hotel should have, the plate of very delicious looking misshapen fudge, for instance, the plate itself looking suspiciously like their wedding set. Harry could describe that pink and green pattern on ivory in vivid detail if you had asked him yesterday, tracing it now was like no time had passed at all since that first breakfast as husband and wife, tittering over having “things” of their own. And beside the plate a book, one he’d not finished when he went over, he realized with a lump growing in his throat. Then there was the bed beneath these things, tidily made but not pristine, ha -how could it be with homey floral sheets in place of pristine white and a monogrammed pillow case each.

Giant embroidered C’s. For Crosby, of course.

Jeepers -he’d taken Jean for the first time on those very sheets, now he was recognizing them, and some very uncivilized part of him suddenly wanted to rip the covers back and find out if her virgin blood hadn’t fully scrubbed out-

“Bing!”

He is awkwardly sitting on the edge of the bed, thumbing through the pages of Look Homeward, Angel when Jean manages to saunter out with a summoned amount of calm. His hair is sleek and trimmed, his jacket well fitting, his whole self in his army duds seeming so comfortable, filled out, self possessed -it’s the floral sheets beneath him that ruins the effect just a little, makes him seem shifty, out of place. That and those great brown eyes suddenly round as a newborn calf’s at the long awaited sight of her.

She’s seen the soldier’s return posters -does he expect the same greeting? No little party at the station in satin and lace here, but they’d both agreed it would be better to be private, secluded, uninterrupted. Now it feels too tame and mild.

Does he want that? That reunion embrace?

Before she can rethink it she rushes him. “Binger!” she gasps out right as he stands to meet her head on, long arms outstretched to engulf her. This she knows, this she dreamed of. If she squeezes too tight she must be forgiven, it’s too fabulous to be considered real for many moments, the feel of his flexing back beneath her hands and his chest under her cheek. It’s tight and jarring and not a bit smooth but it’s him, it’s him and all is well.

Harry has his nose buried in her hair, that smell is wafting in again. It’s Jean -hits him with the force of a rocket and he’s suddenly responding in kind, arms crushing her to him, can’t get close enough, can’t tell her enough about missing her and loving her and how he’s put one step in front of the other all these years for this moment.

“Oh Bing,” she exclaims again, her face just barely pulled away to really get a look at him, her hands on his cheeks, “I can’t believe it. I’ve prayed, every day I’ve prayed for this.”

Prayers -the word sours in his mind after what he’s seen, after how many he’s sent up and not plane returned with an answer. “Mmm, Mrs. Crosby.” he contemplates the dear face before him before dragging his hand beneath her hair, cupping the back of her head with his large hand, watchface cool on the back of her neck. She’s been waiting for him to kiss her, wanting to let him lead, hoping her initial enthusiasm would embolden him like before. Instead he seems lost in archiving her face, those dear, melancholy eyes flitting over every feature, the hands studying and firm but not a caress. It’s obvious there’s something missing here, a piece ajar from the puzzle.

Jean stands atiptoe carefully, and determinedly slots her lips against his plush, red ones. That seems to rouse him a bit, Harry responds instantly, making up for his hesitancy, deepening it as his tongue meets hers in a heart wrenching reunion of sorts. He always was fond of kissing, her Bing. Now he was kissing her senseless and this -this was more like what she imagined.

His hands trail from her neck down the her ribs and into the dip of her waist, over the swell of her hips where he vaguely notices she’s adorned in some silky little something, no doubt chosen and worn just for him.

Say something Croz, you big idiot —he thinks to himself, confronted with the fact he is gripping at her and sucking face without another word said besides inane repetition of her name.

“Jean you look…perfect.” he mumbles against her lips.

It’s boyish and reminiscent, the stumbling praises mumbled so earnestly. It makes her giggle fondly. She breaks their kiss and takes hold of his face in her hands, indulging a little inspection of her own. “My beautiful boy,” she croons, “you came back to me.”

She kisses the prominent bridge of his nose and his perpetually furrowed brow and the smooth below each heavily fringed eye, his cheeks, his chin, the corner of his mouth -she pressed at his chest till she’s got him sat on the edge of the bed again. He’s fully dressed, taut as a bowstring and she wants him, needs him, to relax. She can feel the tension, the uncertainty, rolling off him.

She won’t let them take this away from them, she won’t let them rob them of their comfort with each other.

She kneels gently before him and undoes his boots, enjoying the way he pets her hair, quietly admiring its shine and style. His trousers are creased and starched and knelt between his legs Jean finally notices it then, the prominent tent beneath the olive weave. It makes her breath hitch. Was he always this big? Even camouflaged by trousers?

“You must be tired,” she frets aloud, working on the laces, “and cramped from such a long flight. Did you take something? Your eyes are a little…funny.”

Harry nods before realizing she’s not one of his men. Wives tend to value words and sentences, the more syllables the better. “Yeah,” he croaks aloud, “something for the stomach.”

Oh Bing and his stomach. Ever the dutiful wife, Jean rubs the sock feet she just liberated and kneads her way up his calves, hoping to leech some of the tension out of him. She works her way to his thighs, rising back up to her feet when he grabs her wrists and pulls her into another kiss. It’s even hungrier this time and his first moan of the evening sends a jolt of longing triumph straight to her core.

“I’ve missed you.” she chokes out between kisses and he responds by biting her neck, his thumbs rolling the satin in circles on her hips. His front pressing hard and firm against her lower belly, making her mouth run dry.

Still, Harry’s not saying much and if he wasn't kissing and caressing her so ardently, she'd have no clue they were even on the same planet.

And so Jean decides to do something rather bold. Something her mother would not approve of. She puts her hands on his shoulders, briefly causing him to pull away from her neck, then she whispers temptingly in his ear, “Last night I…slid my ring finger inside me. pretended it was you…I won't have to pretend anymore, will I, Harry?”

She feels him twitch against her belly beneath his layers. It’s her turn to kiss his cheek and nibble his neck, finding his little groans to be intoxicating. His grip tightens on her waist as he buries his head against her with his eyes closed, breathing her in. That scent.

That's when she adds in a plea, “Y-y-you're gonna have to…open me

up again Croz.…..you know what I

mean?...my poor little fingers are so

tiny and now I'm back to how I was

on our wedding night…”

Harry’s groan is animalistic and pained and she -well Jean’s a horny, rambling mess and she can’t bring herself to be ashamed, she missed him too strongly. “You're a hero to America.” She swears into his panting mouth, “And to me. I'm gonna give you the strength to help you get through the rest of what you need to do. But I need something from you, I need you to put a baby in me Bing.”

That is what he responds to, like orders in war. He’s good at finding his way with directions. His head rears back and his eyes sharpen with concentration. Jean wants something? he’ll deliver it, always was that way.

He nods.

“Lay back on the bed Jean.” his voice is quiet but she’s never heard it so steady, so commanding. That must be the voice he uses when he speaks to his men over there. If she wasn't squeezing her thighs together and scrambling onto the bed to follow Major Crosby orders, well, she'd cum right then and there. This isn't the same Bing that reads the paper, his beautiful lips mouthing the words as he does, the one who brings her flowers just because, or is quick not to curse in public. This man before her is a war weary Major who is used to being obeyed. Jean intends to follow every word he says, the thought of seeing him off without a little piece of him nestled inside her would just devastate her.

She burrows up against their Crosby pillows, looking like an absolute treat and admiring her man's package that seems to be growing bigger by the second. He's panting like a wild horse above her and she realizes she should heed all that advice she'd been given. Be a good wife, take care of his needs. Her painted toes rub against the sheets as she slowly inches forward to help him undress. Major Crosby beats her to it though, ridding himself of his uniform efficiently and tossing it on to the floor in a rumpled mess accompanied by a huff.

Is he mad? Jean wonders to herself. His freshly exposed cock sure looks mad. It's red, and almost looks hot to the touch as it dribbles and leaks down his thick shaft.

Was it always that big? Were his eyes always so wild? Bright -she remembers them as being bright.

He collapses on her purposefully, a crushing embrace with his hands snarled in her hair, elbows to the bed, his belly to hers, his lips devouring her own. It’s a shock and a thrill, that first feeling of skin against skin again, Harry’s so warm his tongue is nearly scalding and she feels herself sweat in her skimpy finery. The anticipation is harsh, the dynamic fumbling in its ravenous rush, her head spins when an irrational spike of fear slices through the heady haze of desire that his touches coax. Touch? -a mauling of sorts, more like, he is all teeth and nails and assessing hands, grabbing at her ferociously.

Instinctively Jean begins to rub him, his shoulders, his neck, his forearms

-a soothing caress at a kinder pace than he allows but she means it well, channels that little spark of anxiety she feels to sooth his own keyed up self.

“I’m here, I’m here,” she keeps swearing as she feels him buckle just that little bit to the insistent kneading of her hands on his arms, “I’m not going anywhere.” she swears and the rigid line of his body sags further into her neck, some off kilter focus he’s carried about him slipping under her gentle persuasion. “Baby, how about a little rub?” she coos, lithely extracting herself out from under him before she thinks on it too long.

“That might be nice.” he manages, not sure what the hell it is he needs, “My neck maybe..took a little spill a few days ago...” he casually mentions the incident, underplaying that whole fiasco of passing out cold from exhaustion, splattering on the floor like the contents of a mop bucket.

“Then let me rub your neck.” she begs.

He allows it and with a slightly lost gaze he follows her movements as she props up beside him and brings him closer for leverage. She scoops his head into her lap with that familiarity that made him fall first and hard for her, and suddenly he is pillowed on the warm, giving belly of a woman. His woman. And Croz feels himself begin to melt from that feeling alone, long before her clever thumbs start working at the knots nearly calcified at the base of his neck.

She used to do this for him when he was at school, too much reading in an ill advised position had him often so stoved up he couldn’t be of any use on the baseball team. Jean had learned to work her magic then, and Harry had learned how very much he liked his face buried against the swell of a girl’s womb.

Oh fuck -her little speech comes rushing back to him- Jean wants a baby.

Damn the jet lag, the separation jitters and all the rest that got him sent here like a looney to a special holding facility. Jean wants a baby and he hasn’t been rock hard since Dartmouth only to let it go to waste by sleeping it off.

Right when she begins to feel the motion of her hands take effect on his rigid shoulders, her Harry is suddenly lifting his head again, face slightly flushed and creased from the lace of her nighty and he smiles at her then. Mischievous and warm, “C'mere,” he beckons with a voice that means something and so she follows him as he sits up, “stand up babydoll, show me that outfit. Let me appreciate ya.” He slides his warm palm into her smaller one and tugs her to her feet, an easy sort of dance move to bring her round in front of his position, swaying her back and forth just outside the v of his legs.

“Well, look at you.” he marvels at her, his expression gone soft under that wrecked mop of curls. Jean recognizes the old spark alight in him, the one that might go dormant for her when away or when she couldn’t make up her damn mind but anytime she wanted him back?—oh he looked at her like this, like he was lucky as hell to have her and intended to be brave with that luck. “Turn around for me, loverdoll, c’mon, show me what I’ve got, come onnnn Jeaaann,” he insists, his voice playful and insistent as he spins her with a hand at her hip until she shows him the back of this frilly little excuse for nightwear, “Look at that.” he whistles behind her and Jean feels her cheeks burn pleasantly, “Pretty as a fawn, Jean.” he punctuates this odd little compliment with the back of a finger running up the length of her thigh, to the little swell of her rump and Jean knows her legs tremble in helpless response. “Go on, strike a pose for me, I know you didn’t put on this get up for nothin’. Who'd believe it? My Mrs. Crosby out here lookin’ like one of those girls.”

‘Those’ girls, whoever they are exactly, are left nebulous and Jean likes it that way, it gives her a saucy bravery to pitter patter away from his hold and turn back to face his unabashedly admiring gaze. Jean cocks a hip and drops a shoulder, knee turned in, toes pointed. Gerry had made her perfect it a million times in the mirror when she should’ve been sensibly getting into a gown and getting some shut eye instead.

Thank God for Margaret Ann Blakely and her fun loving pastimes. And also: “Screw him for us Jean!!” -thank God for Gerry Hamilton and her brazen preoccupations with her own man, for how she piled on as she convinced Jean of an assortment of little silk things thrown into her suitcase, “Screw him good, for all of us! For Americaaaaa!” the young and empty Mrs. Hamilton’s candor had built until Jean was close to frantic to get into the taxi and leave her best friends and their antics behind.

Jean didn’t doubt for a single minute that Hambone and Ev would shortly be receiving letters that good naturedly bemoaned Jean and Croz’s luck.

“You think you needed to look like this to get me to nail ya?” her Croz teases her now and his grin is lewd and Jean likes it that way, it matches the disrespectful hands that reach out without her Harry’s usual calculation and instead paw at her tits like a sex starved man. It sends a line of electricity straight to the little button between her legs and Jean ends up leaning into those hands until she’s suddenly so near him she’s on top of him and then, easy as anything, he knocks her sideways and under him once more. Legs splayed wide and with a husband lying on top of her with a very determined look on his face -she reckons the games are over.

“Gonna be like a second wedding.” she squeaks out, giddy eyed in excitement, toes curling in terror, he feels so big slotted at the spot.

Was he always so big?

Harry slings her leg over his hip and he’s suddenly in her without even needing to fumble for entrance. Little Croz pries her open all at once in a smooth, brutal, unyielding shove and that’s all it takes, he’s so overwhelmingly substantial that Jean finds herself bowing under him in a climax from the painful pleasure of reunion alone.

“Really, already?” he chuckles at her as she hoarsely keens out her ecstasy beneath him, her nails digging crescents in the flesh of his tense shoulders, his own thumbs stroking along her throat, “I missed you too, Mrs. Crosby.” he laughs.

She slaps at him, lovingly as her throat still hasn’t fully come back to use, “God you feel good.” She croaks.

“Just wait till you learn there’s more.” he teases before pulling his hips back and keeping that far tip barely nestled in her petals before slamming in again so forcefully she feels something funny in her chest.

“Bing!” it’s not a protest on her part but, my God -he, they…they used to give it the ole college try before he left, but this? This must be what it’s like to get really and truly screwed.

Screwing her, that’s what he’s doing and she wonders in a vague haze of helpless sensations if he’ll auger a hole straight through her back to the mattress with this merciless rhythm. She’s as vaguely impressed by his strength and capability as she is by her own body’s ability to absorb it, her freshly rediscovered hole burning at the use and somehow it’s all just a wonderfully heated, overwhelming miasma of delight as she keeps on seizing under him and he bullies her right though one peak after another with only a wicked grin on those full lips to suggest he’s got any idea what she’s so happily enduring.

“I can’t stop, I just can’t stop, it's just so -it’s so much.” she babbles, very keen to get her point across but very unsure what her point actually is. All thoughts, feelings and intentions center around Harry and that fat schlong of his rearranging her insides. She’s not sure her toes have been uncurled in over a quarter hour and her mind’s not been her own for longer still. “You’re so much.” she wails, and for half of it she means not his size but how long he’s been going at it.

“And you’re gonna take it.” he confirms, the hand on her hip inexorable and his pretty face is half snarling at her in desperation. “You miss this?” his voice shakes from his exertions and Jean is sure she’s never heard a more attractive sound than his wrecked breathing, “Miss this, huh? Bet you did, so goddamn tight. No married woman’s got any…any…any business being so tight. Gonna fix that, gonna make you so married you’re not gonna-“ he presses her legs back until she feels her hamstrings burn, knees to her chest, his body lunging into hers…angry again? she doesn’t know he just keeps grunting “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

She’s milking him so perfectly, peaking and shuddering and clenching more frequently than he ever remembers and he should be so saved up he can’t manage to hold on but instead -the fuck if he can blow. It just won’t let go. The noise of his work is a lew phwap phwap phwap of split splat suction and from her whimpers and begs he knows he has already spent her but-

Goddamn! Came all this way, waited all this time and he can’t let loose?

Through the haze of her overstimulation Jean can feel something amiss, the tension back and worse than that, there’s the frustrated anger of before. Harry is breathing hard and his face is dark and the prominent vein across his alabaster forehead is popping so significantly she worries about stroke. He’s about to crack a tooth at this rate, his tension is so extreme and then suddenly, there’s a pause.

He stares down at the wet mess where they’re joined, brows knit together and mouth firm before a flicker ignites in his eye and in a fit of rage at himself and this deficient cock, he grabs at one of the decorative pillows and throws it across the room. It bangs dully against the window and flops to the floor.

Unsurprisingly the outburst against cotton batting and fancy trim does little for his pickle, he’s still stiff as a board and nowhere close to relief. He fought a whole goddamn war and came back just to not be able to get his rocks off. What a joke.

Gently as he can, and with rampant self pity running loose, he disentangles from Jean’s snug self and throws himself beside her on his back.

Bewildered Jean is more than a little grateful for the intermission. She does her best to collect her wits, looking over at him and clocking his defeated expression and closed eyes, the hand pinching the bridge of his nose. And poor Little Croz that is a furious magenta red with veins about ready to burst from swelling, sticking straight up from between his legs.

Shifting onto her side to face him rubs her poor kitty just wrong -or right- and a helpless mewl escapes her as she creams herself again from that little movement alone. The sound and shudder of his wife makes Croz crack open an eye, watching intently as Jean bites her lip and timidly runs her fingers through the hair on his chest.

“Come sit on my lap, Jeanie.” he mumbles.

She perks up with a smile, “Whatever my hero wants, baby.” she condones before shakily straddling his lean hips and sinking down with a noticeable squelch. It earns a drawn out moan of satisfaction from both of them. Sensing the agony and desperation of the man beneath her as she begins to lift her hips and slam them back down, juices splash on her feet from the movement. To lift his spirits she attempts her best at shoving her tits in his face while she does it and gets her nipples tugged in thanks.

This right here is perfect, she’s so full she can hardly bear it but he feels so good she ignores the burn of her legs and keeps her pace up, the beautiful expanse of her man laid out before her a perfect spur. The sun seems to have set by now and through the open curtains the sounds and lights of the city pour in, glistening off his sweaty skin like a million stars and doing nothing to dim the noise of his appreciative moans, the hoarse grunts of her name, the sounds of their sticky hips colliding.

“I've dreamed about being full like this every night since you left.” Jean tells him, stuffed beyond her limits it feels like he’s so damn deep he could describe the feel of her cervix in detail.

She can feel those tight bowling balls she's sitting on that need to unload inside her, and precariously she reaches backwards to fondle them with one hand, remembering how he used to react to it. She gets her first high pitched whine of the evening from him at that, his chest heaving and his head thrashing, curls everywhere. “Bing -- oh it's big, it's big, I'll take it all though I-I promise….we gotta make you cum, baby.” she determines, not needing the discarded pillow or fuming passion to alert her to his desperation, “Lemme help you…just fill me up, let it alllll out... you need to, must be aching so bad”

At the mention of the ache he begins to buck into her wildly like a feral thing. Jean would have toppled off from his vigor if he hadn’t seized her hips in an iron grip and held her still for his assault from below. Jean hears herself squealing and whimpering and begging nonsense, still a bit fresh -and respectful- to this new and ferocious side of him. Somewhere in it though, Harry’s beginning to crack, frustration going from anger to fury to desperation to some boyish and pitiful need for relief.

Harry doesn’t mean to groan so loudly, so pathetically but it’s all so perfect and he’s so damn close and Jean’s like a sprinkler down there she’s enjoying herself so much and -why the hell can’t a fella just blow?

Jean instantly stills atop him and cradles his face tenderly, soft searching eyes and lips whispering about …something, something something “baby boy” -and he shudders. His pants are harsh as if he’s about to have a heart attack and his chest is so winded and achy he thinks he might. Or else cry.

Wouldn’t that be fun.

Beneath his hands he feels Jean’s hips begin to flex and she’s grinding on him again, twisting her hips in a slow figure eight that feels like a man’s heaven beneath his palms, and ten times that for his cock. It’s not doing it enough to make him blow but for a moment he decides that’s fine, he inflates his poor lungs again and lays back, admittedly a bit too stiff and rigid, and touches her as she pleases herself on top of him. She giggles shyly to him and her near constant moans are music to his ears as she swivels on his cock. He enjoys watched the pink little folds absorb him and the way their curls brush and mix where they meet, his lower belly a wet mess and streaks of the same running down to her ankles, they’ve made such a soup.

Clam fuckin’ chowder, by the looks of it.

Maybe he did blow. Doesn’t feel like it. And after watching and coaxing her through another melting peak, he lets her sag onto his chest for a minute and regroup before, with a kiss to her hair and a hard smack to her ass, he tells her,

“Hands and knees, Jean, if you want that baby -hands and knees.”

He barked it like an order, and while a little startled by it, she still wastes no time in flipping herself over and off him, scurrying into the position he specified, shaky from so many orgasms and the anticipation of him back atop her. Wincing inwardly at the thought of that package at this angle with how sore she already is-

-and he wastes no time. But instead of a cock she feels the shockingly familiar but never less exquisite feeling of his tongue running up the messy length of her slit. Her face collapses into the pillows along with her pleased shriek of “Bing!”.

He he laughs warm and wicked behind her, enjoying the ass up display of what he’s done to her.

“Spread ‘em Jean.” he tells her, and two dainty hands leave off from gripping the covers to bashfully pull her cheeks apart and show her husband where his fat cock belongs. He can see her pulsing down like a living entity of its own, even in this dim light.

“I'll be good... I'll be good for you, Major. Tell me what to do.” Jean swears hoarsely, those fawnish legs trembling again.

“Just take me.” he mutters simply, mounting her suddenly with his hand on the back of her head, keeping her cheek to the pillow and her scream muffled as he shoves in and begins to plow this squeaking little lady like tomorrow is indeed not promised to men like him.

Beneath him, between the high pitched squeals of pleasure and the urgent whines of endurance, Jean is muttering a litany of …something. Again and again she’s saying words like “it’s ok baby, it’s ok” and Harry isn’t sure if it’s meant for him or her, she sounds like a drunk fairy and his head begins to buzz with likelihood. “It’s ok baby, they told me you'd be like this, it’s ok. I can take it. I’ve missed you—“ she just keeps muttering that and vaguely Harry is pretty sure that comfort is meant for him and he wonders who ‘they’ are and what ‘like this’ even means.

On Jean’s part she is legitimately unsure who’s she’s trying to convince, likely herself but also, maybe that part of her between her legs that’s torn between panic and absolute ecstasy at his rough usage. Jean's mind spins at the realization of how much she likes it, likes the feral proof of how badly he missed her, needs her, wants her still. Her sweet and mild Harry climbed on top of her and is now railing her, and while it’s not your average little jaunt in the sheets, she clings to her pillow and takes it with something like pride…in between the moments when Harry’s fat cock wipes her mind a starry white as her legs kick up helplessly beneath him and her back arches and her hole clenches and another happy mess slides down her inner thighs to the sodden sheets.

And all through it the best of it is Harry and his voice, half sane sounding for once this evening as if to balance out the animalistic pose he has her in, groaning above her,

“That's it, be my good girl..my good, good girl. Always so good to me.”

He’s petting her hair like she’s a damn Labrador or something, wrapping her beautiful curls around his hand, arched over her like a cat, it’s perfect and he’s so deep he thinks he could fuck his balls in, foot placed sturdily on the bed beside her for further leverage.

“-Croz! You gotta!” His wife wails nonsensically beneath him, he picks her head up by the hair to hear what the hell she’s jabbering about now, husbandly rights or how she was ‘told’ he’d be.

She’s so cock wrecked it ain’t even funny but when he prods her with a “What's that Jean?” between thrusts he gets a slightly more formulated thought-

“You gotta put a baby in me!” she insists through sobs, orgasm after orgasm turning her into this shaking, shuddering, limp excuse of a woman.

A loverdoll, for real.

Her words ping in his head like that damn red light everywhere he goes on base. A light at the end of the tunnel, an eminent thing he’s needed for. Tightness seizes his belly and takes him unawares, suddenly Harry’s roaring out a resounding,

“Oh FUCK! Jean! Fuck-“ that bounces around the room like a cacophony.

The hotel guests next door might be

wondering why a moose is dying in

Manhattan? But no sweat, it’s just Major Crosby seeding his willing wife.

Like a soothing balm on a surgical wound, Jean feels him exploding warm and sticky and healing inside her at last. It doesn't stop coming, rope after rope of the thick, steaming hot gold of his body swelling her own and this adds the finishing touches to what was already a melted woman. In his last rapacious thrusts, she can feel her body playing the minx, trying to squeeze him out but her Croz is having none of it, like a dying man to water, he uses every bit of strength left to shove himself back in and flood her until she’s a collapsed and leaking mess.

In a haze, Croz pulls his now mercifully limp cock out of her and surveys her wrecked self with bleary, appreciative eyes. “Looks like you been through a war of your own, baby.” he jokes but his voice is so wrecked from his previous yells it startles his newly moderated self and he ends up toppled over beside her, no longer capable of giving a damn about anything.

His eyelids refuse to stay open and his neck is laying funny but -fuck! He was just inside Jean!

“You ok, Bing?” he hears her sweet voice whisper beside him and it was no dream then, and God forgive him he was probably mean. She’s panting beside him and when he can’t manage to answer he feels her hand grab his wrist and gently guide him somewhere until he’s petting startlingly warm petals that are saturated with his spunk.

“Think you managed to open me up, alright.” she titters, still sounding drunk and he can’t help the way his cheek crinkles in a returning smile.

Smashed into the pillow as it is, it’s still the prettiest expression of the best man Jean has ever known. “Y-Yeah.” her man croaks, half insensible but his beautiful hand keeps petting her where she’s sore and recently excavated, his identification bracelet jangling softly in the stillness, “You were such a good girl Jeanie..a good wife…ya did your job.” he mumbles more, fully in Major mode as he begins to drift off, forgetting entirely that maybe a fella shouldn't praise his wife like she's one of his men gotten back from a mission.

But Jean takes the compliment well, knowing how it’s meant, knowing that maybe tomorrow when he’s more conscious and healed, she may be blocked out from that world entirely. It’s a little glimpse and she takes it for what it is, with soft appreciation. Smilingly she lets go of his hand to give deflated Little Croz some pats, the sticky, shrunken thing is playing at being harmless and she has a longing to meanly suck on it until it shows it’s true colors again.

But no, for now, Croz’s heavy and nearly insessible arm throws itself over her waist and drags her to him, slotting the married couple together like spoons in their drawer.

They could try to shower but that seems too daunting a prospect at present, and highly futile considering what lies in store -more of the same. And for her part, Jean doesn’t dare move and slosh and waste any of what her Bing gave her. His forearm is heavy over her battered womb, cum and abuse swelling it just that little bit as if she were on her menses. She’s not, those were two weeks ago.

When his hand splays and cups the swollen bulge he made, Jean whispers to his already snoozing self, “We made a baby Bing, I just know it.”

And if not— there’s four more weeks to make certain.

💋 Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is a writer’s lifeblood, please feel free to scream in comments or the inbox, I love it and wanna hear it all. Trust me, nothing is “too dumb”. Your thoughts mean the world to me.

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[stagefoureddiediaz]

Costume meta 6x10

Costume metas are back baby!!!! I’m so happy to be back writing these - you have no idea how much i missed writing them. This one is not quite as full on as my normal metas and has taken me far longer than I’d intended - if you’ve been following my posts over the last couple of days you will be fully aware of my insanity spiral over the Eddie of it all (as well as poker Buddie!) so I hope you’ll forgive me - I’ve not had the mental capacity I normally do to dedicate to costume spiralling!

No Eddie this week as he only appeared in uniform 😭 

A couple of more general things to point out - the use of Check - we see it on Nathaniel Greene and Phillip Buckley - which I think is a very interesting and loud choice considering this episode was all about fathers and fatherhood and the two fathers who are not all that (Mr Han is also in that number but his grey on grey suit was a deliberate choice that I will talk about in a minute) are the ones wearing check and tapping right on into my check theory!!! So Nathaniel is going to find himself in hot water very soon so the check is foreshadowing this for him. Philip (and Margaret as well actually!) in check is also foreshadowing whatever is about to go down with the Buckley parents (that happy family facade they’ve been putting on is about to crack big time!).

Grey is one of those colours that can be either warm grey (like we often see on Buck) or cool grey (which we have here on Mr Han) and that affects which meanings you attribute to it. Mr Han in double grey just about sums him up as a person - cold, conservative and controlling. Its also a colour that conveys gloom and frustration when worn in multiple like this, there is also the fact that ill people are often described as looking grey - which leads me to think that Mr Han being terminally ill is actually very likely!

The other thing I want to point out is the red harnesses - I know I don’t talk about the uniforms all that much except when there is something important an interesting in relation to them and this is very much that! Chim, Buck and Eddie are the ones we see in the red belt harnesses. Chimney removes his after Buck stakes his claim on it being his turn to go up the ladder and Chimney steps back from ladder detail. The reason I point this out is because its a very bright visual way of identifying and connecting both the fact that Chimney also has a red string of fate connected to Buck (I’m talking about family here and I know that technically all the firefam have strings of fate connecting them, but in this specific incidence its about the brotherly connection - the parallel to Kevin and Albert) which is relevant at that first moment but then the focus needs to shift. Eddie and Buck become the only ones distinguishable in the pouring rain - the only ones tied by that red string of fate - even when (and especially) when Buck is on the gurney.

over to our mains - below the cut to save your dashes!

Athena and May

I’m doing the two of them together this week because they are the costume version of yin and yang!

The silk blouse has a monstera leaf print - monstera symbolises suffocation in western culture which is a perfect symbol for this story arc - suppressing of evidence or information because of money etc. the use of navy red and white is also interesting - its very much a hint towards patriotism - a deliberate choice to play into the upperclass America vibe they’re claiming to be part of! 

Mays two main costumes are costumes themselves - they aren’t representative of who May is or her character, the are the clothes of the character she’s playing - Jada. As outfits for Jada - they are very much playing to type - teenager with issues who’s rebelling against straight laced parents - Both Athenas and Mays outfits work perfectly in sync with each other as the anthesis of the other. Mays are both in the same tonal range - burnt dusty reds, washed out blue greys and beiges - all in the same colour spectrum as Athenas ‘costume’ but tonally at the oposite end - where mays are dark and muted, Ahtenas are bright and bold

in the middle of the undercover work we get a reminder of who they really are - Athenas generally more muted palette - her comfort colour choices of black and olive khaki green, while May is back in her bold and bright blocks of colour. Perfectly summing up that while Athena is playing a role that is not a million miles away from who she is (and channeling a bit of Beatrice in the process because that blouse is a Beatrice blouse in every way!), Athena also tends to wear the olive khaki colour on top when she’s investigating something outside of work - and by this I don’t just mean full blown investigating, I also mean low key - clocking something is going on with a member of the extended firefam and she’s paying attention. May is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Jada! I’ve talked about May wearing this sugary bright pink before in season 5 and the scene here is somewhat of a parallel to the one in 5x15- youthful and considered feminine but also compassionate and caring. It is sensitive and intuitive. All things we see in this scene - May is using her intuition about Tamara and her being a ‘weak link’ that will get some information. We also see her showing compassion for Bobby in this scene.

Bobby

keeping it simple for Bobby this week - just the one outfit and its supposed to essentially blend in with his uniform - we see him working on things related to the wildfire that Wendell died in both at the station while in actual uniform, and then at home with Athena and May (as an aside the fact that we see bobby with his family esp his stepdaughter and then with Buck and no other members of the fire fam is very telling!!) - it’s all signalling Bobby is in work mode even when he’s at home.

Hen

If there was ever a cardigan to signal the fact that Hen is puzzled by Denny’s behaviour and new interests - this one is very definitely it - it literally has neutral face emojis all over it 😐😐😐 which are often used to convey mild irritation and concern - both things Hen is clearly feeling in this scene. Red is also a colour associated with both anger and and love - we know Hen loves Denny, but its very likely that there will be anger down the line when she discovers what Denny has been up to. This jumper also fits with my check theory - it is a big checkerboard - so its foreshadowing for the upcoming Denny issues!

I’m going to say something here which is being used as a narrative device - Hen is wearing maroon, because she is in the ‘male’ or ‘father’ parent role at this moment - I don’t prescribe to the concept of queer parents fitting into gender stereotypes of parenting (that theres a fatherly one and a motherly one!) nor do I believe sport is a fathers domain but in this particular instance the wardrobe team are playing into a costume theme they’ve developed - namely that maroon is the colour worn when (mostly male) characters are being fatherly in someway. It is implied in this scene and the one in the firehouse, that Hen is the one who has been the one mostly supporting Denny in his sporting interests - football (sorry soccer - Im British its football 😂) initially and now she wants to be supportive in his baseball interest. 

Not a costume thing, but I think its interesting and its costume adjacent, but I love the fact they’ve chosen two very different sports - one played with hands, the other with feet and the one Denny is taking up is the one where curveballs are a thing!

Denny

Or should I be calling him ‘D’?? 

we have this blue and black shirt - I have to confess my brain went off in 6 different directions on this one. Firstly there is the fact that its not that disimilar to what Christopher is wearing when Eddie catches him talking to his friends online late at night - the colours are different but the use of patterning is similar and the fact that Chris and Denny have paralleling story arcs is very 👀👀 It also ties Denny in with Hen as she also wears a lot of patterning similar to this. then there is the fact its black and blue - what is the first thing you think of when you say black and blue - being beaten up - potentially foreshadowing - not necessarily for a physical beating, more likely for the psychological bruising ahead. there is also the Rorschach test and camouflage elements as well. All in all its a shirt that speaks of secrecy pyschological trauma and trouble ahead!

This tee has me feeling all levels of insane. We have green for growth and renewal- its a bright green too, so its really reenforcing that idea. Then there is the design - a leopard in a jungle setting which is so many metaphors all rolled into one - the obvious ones of the jungle being dangerous, leopards not changing their spots and hiding in pain sight. But there are a few others - camouflage, the fact that leopards are nocturnal and solitary, they are also opportunistic. Then theres the jungle - jungles as well as being dangerous places, are also dense and in places impenetrable, they are overgrown and tangled. All of these things speaks volumes about what is going on with Denny right now, and the fact that he’s getting himself deeper and deeper into the jungle where opportunistic animals are waiting to strike. It a really clever use of imagery in graphic tee design to convey information and its something the show does a lot with the kids clothing!

Chimney

some really interesting stuff going on with Chimney in this episode - namely the fact that he’s wearing check - all the time, as well as the fact we get him in this lovely burnt orange colour!

Starting with the check - I’ve said it a million times and I’ll probably say it a million more, but the check is foreshadowing trouble ahead - in this instance its the unexpected arrival of the Han’s. The button down shirt under the jumper is maroon and burnt orange check - maroon is the colour of fatherhood in 911 verse so the maroon is a nod to that, both the fact that Chimney is a father (and a good one), but also that his father is the trouble ahead! While the orange - well orange is the colour of optimism, enthusiasm and emotional strength - the perfect colour for Chim in this scene - he’s being optimistic about what having the Buckleys to visit will be like - that together he and Maddie can get through anything. This opening outfit for 6b also shows us that Chim is in a much stronger place - things are going well for him - life is good and that has given him confidence and placed him in a better place emotionally.

then we get this blue check button down shirt - its light blue and a darker blue, and again the check is portending doom. I don’t want to make this all about Buck, (becasue it isn’t) but, the fact we see Chim in a blue check specifically while the Buckleys and Hans argue over Bucks sperm donation is super interesting. Its not only foreshadowing that Buck - who is also in blue, is about to come to harm in the place that was very nearly chimneys (as inBuck going up the ladder instead of Chim). It is also hinting at the fact that Chimney and his father (who is incidentally also in a blue shirt) are on a collision course. This check is about foreshadowing the two opposite disasters/ issues heading Chimneys way - the fact that he is about to potentially lose a brother - and one that has taken the place he was supposed to be in. That Chimney is going to have to reckon with the guilt and grief that causes - making this shirt about Chim’s connection to Buck but also connected to the idea of another man raising a child - much of Chimneys trauma stems from that very issue - he was raised by Mr Lee, had Kevin who was a brother in all but blood - who died in a work related accident and now he’s going to go through the same thing with Buck. the whole thing is setting up for Chimneys trauma to come and hit pretty hard - which all goes back to his own blood father - which is why we see Buck and Sang in the two very different blues and chimney in the check of both of them.

Maddie & Jee-Yun

Maddie going for full on black is such a choice! Black is a power colour, its sophisticated and mysterious, while also being authoritative and protective. It is also a colour of rebirth which is really important here for Maddie. This is a Maddie who is in the best possible place right now, but her choice to wear all black for the arrival of her parents is all about her wanting to but on a display of power while at the same time protecting herself and her family (Chim, Jee and Buck) its very much fake it till you make it - its not necessarily about her having power/control (which she does), but about the appearance of it.

This is about her rebirth as a person and as a mum and her showing that rebirth to those who have judged her in her life. 

the purple suit and bright blue top are an interesting choice. The jewel tones exude happiness and contentment. I’ve spoken before about how we often see characters in these brighter versions of colours when they’re in a good place or having fun (think of the times we’ve seen Athena in bright jewel colours, or even Buck) and here we see Maddie embracing that her daughter is having fun with her grandparents and her family is all together and not fighting or distant from one another - don’t forget this is likely the fist time she has experienced this ever. The purple blazer is in line with other things we’ve seen on Maddie this season - we’ve seen her in bright purple before. Purple is a really interesting choice to me because so much of its meaning is connected to mystery, but also the understanding of ones self better, building and strengthening emotional connections to our deepest thoughts and desires. its such a choice for this scene - the happy family Maddie wants, has wanted all her life and hasn’t had in her grasp until now, but also the Daniel of it all - that she is now free to talk about her brother, to share her knowledge of him and that she has been able to actually sit in her grief and come to terms with it. It’s a really powerful choice for her and speaks so much about how far Maddie has come.

Look I love love love what the show does with the kids clothes - its always so on point for the scene - and this Baby Jee tee is no exception. ‘Shapes I know’ - a literal point at the fact that families can look different - they come in different shapes and thats something Jee ‘knows’ and is experiencing. It’s literally one of the cornerstones of he show - that families look different and come in a multitude of shapes and sizes and in this scene the show is very much pointing out that the Buckley parents and Han parents don’t really understand that in any great depth. The Buckleys are only being supportive and nice when it suits them - when they’re in front of others and can be judged - creating a fantasy of a loving and supportive family to the outside world - while behind closed doors - they’re not really interested and are in fact the complete opposite. The Han’s have a very rigid view on family and that there is only one type of family (I’m expecting Sang Han to make some comment about Jee being born outside of marriage etc at some point) and anything that doesn’t conform to that isn’t acceptable.  

Buck

I so desperately wan to quiz the wardrobe department on the choice to have Buck in trousers that sit two inches above his ankle. 

You can’t see them in either of these pictures, but Buck is still wearing trousers far too short for his legs and its making me insane. I know Oliver has stupidly long legs, but its not like they don’t have the budget to get trousers made and tailored to fit him. I mean its been this way since season 2 and everything is intentional so they must have decided on it as a character thing but I for one cannot figure out what its supposed to tell us about him - the only thinking I’ve managed to come up with is that he’s stuck in this liminal space between child and adult - not really one or the other (because of the saviour baby and not knowing about it of it all) so its a play on the historic idea of breeching and short trousers! It’s literally the only reason I can think of as to why they would do this. Especially because the outfit he is wearing in his coma dream he’s wearing trousers that fit his leg length which only proves to me that its intentional!

If we see Buck figure things out this season and we then see him start wearing longer trousers going forwards - ones that are actually the right length for his legs I might actually ascend to the astral plane!!!

This green top continues the theme of seeing Buck in either blues or this light green shade - it echoes both the polo shirt from 6x07 when he made his donation, and the one he wore to the Ren Faire in 6x08 and continues to prove my theory about the use of these green shirts on Buck - the colour might not have gotten darker, but the fact its still the same light shade and we’ve had no further progress (in terms of where Buck is at mentally - the pregnancy is obviously progressing!) at this point in time - we know he’s wearing gree ni the coma - and its a darker/brighter shade - hinting that progress- growth etc is happening and that the coma will be the catalyst for that growth to start - I fully expect to see Buck in more green as the season progresses and to see it getting deeper and brighter as we go along.

I have so many thoughts about this dark navy blue shirt we see Buck wearing for the Buckley-Han showdown. Its yet more Buck in shades of blue - forget 50 shades of grey Buck is all about 50 shades of blue (I think were up to 12 blue tops now for him this season and the next highest colour he wears is green with 3)!!  theres the uniform aspect of it all - a bit like Bobby in this episode as well, but for Buck its almost like wearing the uniform gives him confidence and strength - superhero style - something he feels he needs to go through another experience with his parents. 

There is something to be said about the use of blues at opposite ends of the spectrum on Buck - from the light pastel blues to this dark navy almost black blue, almost like Buck is oscillating between where he’s at mentally - projecting confidence, reliability, loyalty and trustworthiness, while also suggesting that internally he is struggling - blue is also a colour depression and suppression. We have to remember that Buck is still trying to figure out who he is, what he wants and how to be at ease with himself and so the use of both dark and light blues speaks of the duality of Buck right now. I bring this up because looking back through my costume plots for each character its become obvious that this season its very much deliberate - all his blue outfits in previous seasons have been within a much smaller spectrum of colour - wearing blue but all similar in shade - tending toward bright blue or navies!

If you’ve made it to the end then I thank you - have a cookie on me 🍪🍪🍪 we all deserve them after that episode and we’re going to need out strength for next weeks!!

I hope you’ve enjoyed my deep dive ramblings on costume for 6x09 - drop me a reblog or a comment to let me see your thoughts - I love reading them!!

As always tagged people below - if anyone wants to be added (or removed from) to the list please let me know in the comments!

Until next week (when I have a feeling I might be being set up for a very very long meta post 😬😬😬) 

@mistmarauder @theladyyavilee @loveyourownsmiilee @leothil @girldadbuddie @kitkatpancakestack  @buckscurls @lemotmo @trashendence @elishareads  @clipboardsandstethoscopes @comfortbuddie @fiona-fififi  @callanee @calyssmarviss @pbandjeremiah @batgrldes  @spotsandsocks  @livingwherethesidewalkends  @idontshitpostbuttheolympicpark @diazboysbuckley @sweettsubaki @shortsighted-owl @sherlocking-out-loud @dickley-buddie  @favouritealias @hearteyesdiaz  @ktinastrikesback  @princesschez75 @bucksbuddie @oneawkwardcookie  @leatherat @moniquekatie @wanderingwomanwondering  @trickster-archangel @outrunningthedark @asharadaine @ajunerose  @talespinner230 @pop-kam @swiftiebuckleys @xxfiction-is-my-realityxx @butchjerry @mandzuking17 @yelenasbuddie​ @copyninjabuckley​ @name-code-black-widow​​ @rogerzsteven​

[marley-manson]

Do you ever think about just how much Hawkeyes character evolved, like, the other day I was thinking about that one deleted episode, Hawkeye on the double (?) or something like that, and how in that when he found out he was being duped by two people working together he staged his own fake attempted suicide via fckn minefield to traumatise them into never doing it again, like, comparing that to the joker is wild is crazyyyyy. Like obviously the scale of pranks there is off, but idk it just made me think, Hawkeye as a character definitely lost some edge as the show progressed

Yeah! lol it's kind of wild how much less of a mastermind Hawkeye became when the writers decided BJ's thing should be pranks.

I feel like the real reason for this is that the show's tone shifted away from satire and into character drama. When the show is a satire Hawkeye is the political centre, so his role in the story is to be right. The army/war can beat him in a tragic way, but in the early seasons his only righteous comeuppances that I can remember off the top of my head were like, Ceasefire when he got dumped three times in a row, and lol the script you cite, where there's more of an equal back and forth between him and the two women but it does end with Hawkeye nearly accidentally killing himself for real lol. So like, in the early seasons he occasionally gets narratively punished for misogyny, but otherwise he's meant to be the cool guy who is right and better than all the army representatives. And because it's a satire, I think that's great, it works very well, Hawkeye is an awesome character who absolutely should get narratively rewarded for driving colonels into early retirement and taking out their appendixes.

But then the show shifted to character drama instead and now Hawkeye needs flaws to examine, weaknesses the narrative can use to tear him down in a deserving way rather than a tragic way, etc. Sometimes his left-leaning politics ~go too far~ now, sometimes he's too self-righteous or unreasonable, sometimes he has to capituate to authority and admit rebellion is wrong, and sometimes the narrative tears him down just because we're meant to get some schaudenfreude from it, as in Joker is Wild. Because the narrative is no longer on Hawkeye's side by default, and often gets entertainment value out of punishing him for various sins, real or not.

So I don't think it's meant to be an intentional character shift, but it does make me want an in-universe explanation for why he loses his edge.

And the explanation I like that covers most of Hawkeye's narrative repositioning for me, including the lackluster pranks in later seasons and like, guilt in Preventative Medicine, etc, is that it's because of his shifting friend group. Trapper the constant supportive presence and enabling partner in crime is replaced by BJ who only selectively enables Hawkeye and often likes to take him down a few pegs instead. Henry the CO Hawkeye could walk all over is replaced by Potter who is successfully authoritative and puts his foot down. And Frank's gone and Margaret's chilled out so there are no more ideological enemies to target. Plus Charles is also someone willing and able to take Hawkeye down, and even Klinger is no longer into rebellion by season 8.

I mean when you think about it lol it does kinda make sense that Hawkeye would lose a lot of his enthusiasm for fucking with people when his new best friend yells at him for taking out an asshole army guy's appendix instead of helping him. And he might not want to go too far in retaliation for pranks when the whole cast turns on him pretty easily now, as in eg Fallen Idol. And it's probably harder to bring yourself to rebel against the army when you're making friends with a bunch of career army types like Potter, Margaret, and Mulcahy, and have no one else around who shares your ideological hatred for it.

ANYWAY yeah hope you don't mind getting an essay in response lol, this is like one of the aspects of the show I like talking about most, to the point where it's my inspiration for like at least 2 fics lol.

[cosmik-homo]

Running here to say someone JUST told me they will read death gate, so the pyramid scheme is working :)

I'm really glad I read it, I had a lot of fun! The final books didn't quite hit the mark for me but as a whole it was a really nice series :) what are your favorite parts if you don't mind me asking?

Yayyyy my empire grows!

I've been really rotating in my mind how to answer this, for basically the whole day. There's very much a case here of "the thing you latch on to as a 12 year old is gonna stay with you forever", and this series helped me unlock a lot of things that have become central to my life, from grappling with sexuality and gender in my tweens and teens to. Very actively opening the door to question the Zionist assumptions I grew up with.

And I do think that despite certain pitfalls (looking at you pryan) the politics of the series are pretty cool, for a fantasy shlock- the validation of rage and vengence instincts on the side of the opressed as real and human (as opposed to bestial or barbaric) while also being unconstructive to creating actually better futures to any sides involved, and the necessity of solidarity and empathy and models of shared life and whatnot are all kind of relevant to what I believe and do with local circles.

But more than that, I really love the character dynamics. Haplo's arc is just a really good examination and deconstruction of fantasy masculinity tropes, and its beautiful and cool and explains how toxic masculinity as we refer to it today functions very well for something written before the phrase was coined.

And Alfred...

Ok, I am entirely incapable of being impartial about Alfred "dopamine creator in chief" Montbank but before I go down that rabbithole, i think what I really want to say here is I often feel the way i recommend or advocate for the death gate cycle in itself kind of ruins for others one of the things I like about it the best and the most and find delightful, which is the entire Bait And Switch ordeal.

It's unique, it's fun, it manages Layers, and it's so interesting in it's meaning.

AUTHORS NOTE: I am going to literally physically cut off the incoming alfred rant when it reaches 300 words. i will let myself write it as much as i want cuz god knows i need the serotonin, this is my version of chasing my own tail, and then just cut it at that cuff.

~~~

What Alfred means and represents and does and is in the books is so cool, and it's another thing that being fixated on dgc changed for me. I used to enjoy star wars the way a normal person would, once upon a time. It was Alfred-Majoring that made me c3po crazy. cuz its like, what kind of people are important to a story, what kind of abilities and attitudes and emotions and symptoms are "normal" and "good" to have on screen or page, as opposed to how we as people react to traumatizing or difficult situations in real life? He's an active expriment in discomfort with the pathetic in yourself and in others, in empathy, in being allowed to exist and be loved and meaningful Ugly and Weird. yeah in some ways its just an ugly duckling but. the whole swan/dragon side coming to the foorefront doesnt make the duck not there, hes just an extremly wonderful and powerful ugly, neurotic swan and its awesome.

The fact that being outside a system because youre too weak or odd to belong or manage to fit in it brings you unique opportunity to question if it's necessary or good.

I read a lot of margaret weis interviews and she never directly talked about writing alfred but she does often mention she doesnt read a lot of sf/f- her favorite authors are actually dickens and austen, and between that and the prufrock connection tm I wouldn't be surprised if alfred was purposefully designed to be a Literary character dropped into a SF/F story- and its sooo interesting in how it interacts with the genre convetions of power/magic/masculinity/trauma/danger etc.

~~~

OK that 278 words but I'm gonna cut it off now, I finished my entire coffee and then some crackers. normal behavior ensues-

On a less Analytical viewpoint of "favorite parts" I will say that the plot, dynamic and Imagery of fire sea is the one I find myself returning to most on a sf/f level - being reminded of it whenever necromantic societies come up, or Life Changing Enemies To Working Together Field Trips, or whatnot- Serpent Mage is i think the best constructed and I am often thinking about the social dynamics Alfred experiences there, and I have a deep and unbridled affection and obsession to the iconic mess of a jumble of a novel that is seventh gate because. sometimes, you just need dragontorture/ xars murderous paternal bedwarding / ghost handhold/ psychicthreesome/ dog based ressurection / closing the gate/ epilogue with children serotonin in life. that was balls to the walls the entire way through. and it rocked.

As i recently explained to a very cool person who ran a lecture on deathgate in a local convention: "When i was thirteen i was like oh i love basing my identity on dragonlance lets go for a fun ride. ooh its kinda slashy yayy. and then the existential teenage conditions hit and i started appreciating the Mental Health Representation, and then the panic attack representation looked me in the eye and said Become Leftist. NOW. we were not joking about the opening your worldview arc it isnt a metaphor this is directly about you. YOU need to fight the horrors in a radical kindness and peace way, even though you have crippling fear, right now. and then i did".

AND there's dogs, and dragons, and gay people devotion. so,

[fideidefenswhore]

how was john ashley related to elizabeth? she called him kinsman but afaik they weren't blood relations? something like james boleyn's wife's relative? also, is he the john ashley asked about margaret douglas in july 1536? i found it interesting they waited for "lady boleyn" to leave. i'm guessing that's james's wife? bc anne didn't like her as i understand (idk why?) but not enough she wasn't allowed at court and let her be close to anne's crowd if not in it. i just find it interesting she didn't like anne and spied on her but elizabeth took her relatives as her own when she didn't need to

"From its inception, Elizabeth's household employed many of the princess' maternal kin. The first to serve as steward was Sir John Shelton; his wife Lady Anne—the paternal aunt of Anne Boleyn—was also employed in the household as the chief gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber. Elizabeth's first governess, Margaret Bryan, was distantly related to the Boleyns (being the half-sister of Anne Boleyn's mother). John Ashley, a Boleyn relative by the marriage of an aunt, joined the household sometime before 1540. Weak as these blood ties might seem to the modern reader, they weighed seriously with Elizabeth herself; for example, when John Ashley was arrested during the Seymour crisis of 1549, the princess interceded on his behalf, asking that he be released "for he is my kinsman"—even though his relation to her consisted of nothing more substantial than the marriage of his maternal aunt to the brother of Elizabeth's maternal grandfather [...]"

+

"Astley was also referred to as Ashley. John Astley's mother was Anne Wood, whose sister, Elizabeth, married James Boleyn. This made James [by blood] and Elizabeth [by marriage] the aunt and uncle of Anne Boleyn."

+

"But Anne could not just choose friends and allies as her ‘ladies of presence’, because Henry allowed several career courtiers to transfer from Katherine’s service. Lady Elizabeth Boleyn, Sir James’s wife, had always gravitated towards Katherine, as did Lady Mary Kingston, the Constable of the Tower’s wife, and Margaret Coffyn, the wife of Anne’s Master of the Horse. Lady Jane Calthorpe, although also linked by kinship ties to Anne, had done a five-year stint as Princess Mary’s governess. Jane Ashley, one of Katherine’s maids, served Anne and Jane Seymour before marrying Sir Peter Mewtas. Another, Margery Horsman, whom Holbein represents as slim and demure, stayed at court until 1537, when Sir Michael Lyster took her as his second wife." Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn & the Marriage That Shook Europe, John Guy & Julia Fox

[missmagooglie]

Ok, let's talk about the Couch Metaphor. Because on the surface, it's about romantic relationships, right? "My last two couches came with girlfriends"/"You mean your last two girlfriends came with couches".

But it's not just about Buck being single and wary of seeking a new relationship. Because when Bobby finally talks to Buck about the interim captain job, Buck's first question is "is this because I don't have a couch?" That's a discussion about Buck as a firefighter. It's about his career. His relationship status has no bearing on whether he is ready to take on additional responsibilities at work. But the couch isn't just about his love life, it's about finding a sense of fulfillment and contentment in his life overall. What the couch really represents is Buck's happiness. What he's looking for is something that will give him that sense of being able to look at his life and feel at ease the way that Bobby talked to him about.

If the couch was just about romance, there would have been no narrative reason for Margaret Buckley to insist on buying him a short lived replacement, or for Kameron to spectacularly ruin said replacement by giving birth on it. Those are two (three?) relationships in Buck's life that are decidedly not romantic, yet they are inarguably linked with the Couch Metaphor.

Buck is paralyzed by the idea of choosing a couch for himself. His insistence that he doesn't "want to pick the wrong couch again" belies the fact that he has never actually picked a couch before. Someone else picked his two previous couches for him. Just like Margaret did after the lightning strike, and just like he asked Natalia to do in the S6 finale.

The couch is not about Buck choosing the right partner for his happily ever after - which is why I honestly don't think him asking Natalia to go couch shopping with him at the end of S6 was the conclusion of the Couch Metaphor. He's found a girl, he likes her, but he is repeating past mistakes. He's asking her to help him pick a couch rather than having the self assurance to choose a couch that is right for him. He's still relying on other people to tell him what happiness looks like.

And to be honest, I think the show has pretty explicitly told us that the "right couch" has been there all along. Buck spent season six preoccupied with how other people define happiness, with what other people think he needs. From his self help book phase to Lev at the happiness convention to talking with Dr Salazar post-lightning strike, he's very explicitly looking for someone to just tell him the answer about what he should want and how he should feel and what he needs to do to get there.

There is one time this season that he outright rejects someone else's idea of what it is he needs, and that's when he flees his own apartment and the neverending train of well-wishers "just checking in" on Maddie's meticulously arranged schedule, and flees to a familiar blue couch where he is immediately comfortable and at ease. Because here's the thing; the canon Buddie of it all aside, Eddie and Christopher are Buck's family. They are the source of the happiness and ease that will allow Buck to feel that he is leading a fulfilling life. And reciprocally, Buck is the partner Eddie has been looking for so that he isn't moving through life alone.

But season six kind of ended in this place where neither of them is quite ready to see what they are to each other. They both think that there is something they've been missing, something they have to go seek out elsewhere. In some ways, I think they're both caught up in the notion that finding what they're looking for is supposed to be hard, that it's supposed to be some great journey that leads them to something new rather than just looking up at your best friend and gently realizing "Everything I want I already have with you".

And I know that starts to sound a bit like "Natalia isn't the right couch because Eddie is the right couch" like it's purely about a romantic relationship, but it truly and genuinely is more than that. Because Buck's couch metaphor is also about Buck accepting a horribly uncomfortable couch his mother picked out being a metaphor for her not knowing how to love him and grieve Daniel at the same time so she did both poorly, and Buck being willing to accept the little bit of love she managed to offer even if it was ill-fitting and abrasive. It's also a metaphor about how Buck's biological son was born on the Wrong Couch because he wasn't Buck's to keep, but Christopher fell asleep on the Right Couch in a perfect mirror of Buck because Buck's link to Chris through love is stronger than his link to Connor and Kameron's son through blood. And it's also just about Buck looking outward to find happiness and fulfillment instead of taking stock of what he already has. It's about him understanding that finding the kind of ease Bobby was talking about comes from acceptance and understanding rather than transformation. Buck doesn't need anything new to be happy, he needs to understand what he already has.

[remyfire]

I think the funniest thing about Hawk being Like That is that Alan Alda has writers credits on the show. This man voluntarily made his character the most touch starved needy desperate person on the planet and that's so fucking insane of him. But also Mr Alda I would like to give you a little hug and a kiss for giving him to us because I love him with my whole heart. And don't even get me started on the fact that Hawkeye yelled to a general "I want to have your baby!" In literally the first season. Like Hawkeye my love not everyone needs to know you want to be pregnant 😂 And truly he deserves to be absolutely smothered with cuddles, everyone loves him and he loves everyone and I think it could help fix him.

Listen my Trap brain is always on, he's my man, I am thinking about him quite literally daily. And now that you reminded me of the priest line I'm gonna think of that too! Like Trapper my love what happened in your past? Did your parents give you that many names in hopes you'd be a priest? Did you pick one yourself for confirmation? Why did you keep all of the names despite seemingly abandoning the religion? I am peering at him like a bug under a microscope and there's nothing he can do about it.

That little coffee through line with Margret is so cute! Even though I'm sure it was unintentional on the show's part I definitely couldn't help but think of it and flash back to The Nurses in both the scenes in Temporary Duty and CAVE. Margaret and cups of coffee representing her character growth is honestly so sweet and I love it. Also ooohhhh self proclaimed Military Brat Margaret Houlihan realizing that the Army Way isn't the only way or even the best way, and the things that would DO to her. The realization that what she's learned her whole life isn't necessarily good, and having to contend with what that means for her and her career and her personality. And also having to face her father after that, because we see in Are You Now, Margaret? that she cares very much about disappointing him and even affecting his career. Would such a realization maybe help her become more of her own person that isn't living only to make her father proud and keep up the Houlihan name? Or is her desire to be a point of pride for her family more important to her than her personal development? Truly she's so fascinating to me. And it's definitely an interesting parallel with Mulcahy, both of them having something so deeply ingrained in them that it h u r t s when it's finally inevitably broken out.

Everyone in this show suffered enough in the narrative for several lifetimes but damn if I don't wanna give them a little bit more hardship to really crack them open and wrap up their character development in the way they deserve. I'll definitely give them softness and love but first they need a little bit of pain I think 😂

(Also I am officially onto season 8! I finished Goodbye Radar last night and was a Wreck. Man I love this show)

Okay hi again anon, sorry for making this sit while thinking too hard about Hawk and Beje and Trap things.

I swear that Alan did more to break and attempt to breed Hawk than any of us fanfic authors have ever done. I am not entirely convinced that this man didn't start getting the bends once he couldn't whump Hawk anymore and instead pivoted to writing fanfics for the old distant zines that popped up in the '80s. He probably has multiple AO3 accounts right now just churning out agonizing pain. Alan we know what you are.

I do hate that we got so little development for Trap compared to Beej but it's also delightful because it means all of us get to sit here and rotate him on a merry-go-round that goes faster and faster and never stops. Anything is possible. He's so INTERESTING!!! He's like half a guy! No matter what anyone says, they could probably make it work! And that means I am in fact slam dunking the religious trauma into him at breakneck speeds. Sorry, bud (lie).

I'm so glad you mentioned Are You Now Margaret because that's one of those underrated episodes that always has its teeth so deep in me. We learn so much about her so fast. Her big friend group!! She had so many people who loved her and who she loves enough that she refuses to endanger them even though she hasn't spoken to make in years!! The fact that she will give her father that kind of deference even though we all know in our bones that he doesn't deserve it! God, Margaret.

I love people like you who run in with a wrecking ball just absolute decimating all these characters that we know and love so that I can come in after in my little clown car with hot chocolate and blankets. I am a simple author. I know what my duty is here. And it's getting everybody laid by everybody else but ALSO giving them extreme amounts of aftercare and pillow nests ;v; We all share such a vital role in this ecosystem.

[madwomansapologist]

TAYLOR SWIFT (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

Mary's Song (Oh My My My)

Aragorn: Elrond wanted you to remain in Rivendell, but you needed to represent the Vale Elves in the Fellowship of the Ring. And you needed to make sure Aragorn was okay.

I'm Only Me When I'm With You

Arisu: To live in a land without rules, but the one that forces everyone to keep playing, is to live in hell. Except for a few moments.

FEARLESS (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

Untouchable

Queen Maeve: You fell in love with Margaret, but all you can do is watch her on TV wondering if one day you won't feel so alone.

Mr. Perfectly Fine

Petyr Baelish: You should've know that he would break your heart. You just didn't knew he would be so indifferent. But Varys sees a very different thing.

SPEAK NOW (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

Ours

Amy Santiago: When your precint found out about your relationship with Amy, suddenly the best place in the world turned into a gossip den. synopsis: When your precint found out about your relationship with Amy, suddenly the best place in the world turned into a gossip den.

RED (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

Come Back... Be Here

Carmy Berzatto: You spent months telling yourself "Don't get attached." But when the feeling sinks in you realize: you don't wanna miss Carmy Berzatto.

1989 (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

I Wish You Would

Sidney Prescott: After a fight, you both chose to never ever talk to each other anymore. And so you both did, until the night mists take over your minds.

REPUTATION (TAYLOR'S VERSION)

So It Goes

Charles Boyle and Richie Jerimovich: A night out, with alcohol and the man you want.

Dress

Richie Jerimovich: People may not understand why you both decided to not let anyone know about your relatioship. They wouldn't understand how exciting it is to share a secret with someone you love. Or how funny it is to tease him on public.

LOVER

Cornelia Street

Jason Voorhees: If he ever broke your heart... you don't think time can mend that.

FOLKLORE

cardigan

Richie Jerimovich: Richie was fine with being left. After all, he wouldn't marry himself either. Richie gets that he's hard to love and easy to leave. Then why didn't you leave him yet?

exile

Shan Yu: It's done. Done. But why does it hurt so bad?

EVERMORE

it's time to go

Chidi Anagonye: The only way to guarantee that people on The Good Place could live a meaninful afterlife was to make sure that they could die. You just didn't imagine Chidi would ever make that decision.

MIDNIGHTS

Mastermind

Daenerys Targaryen: Daenerys had to confess something to you, a sin that she carried alone for to long, but little did she know it wouldn't surprise you.

@ madwomansapologist.tumblr.

[thebreakfastgenie]

thoughts on Inga?

I wrote all this from my memory of the episode, but it's kind of bugging me that I don't have time to rewatch it right now. So when I get a chance I'm going to rewatch it and update this with any new thoughts!

I think Inga is a good episode! I like it! I think it's slightly OOC at times, because it goes in on Hawkeye being sexist and downplays the sexism of other characters to emphasize it. BJ and Potter are sexist too, we see it all the time in other episodes, and it's what you'd expect for men from that era. Hawkeye is also sexist in specific ways that aren't totally consistent with his character. I can rationalize "when you go dancing, who leads?" in a million ways, but it's never going to really make sense for a character who has openly asked Margaret to step on him to react that way to a woman taking the lead in bed. And Hawkeye has never been traditional when it comes to sex, he's always been in favor of women taking an active role. And I know Alan Alda knew that because he's the one who was playing him that way for seven years.

Other things about Hawkeye's behavior in Inga feel exactly right to me. Hawkeye loves that she's smart, but freaks out that she's smarter than him. That feels consistent with who he is and also very realistic to how men often behave. The scene where Margaret takes him down is great and a great use of Margaret.

That being said, I think Inga is the way it is for a reason. Alan Alda was making a very important point about sexism, misogyny, and the way women are treated, and I think he prioritized that point over characterization. And honestly I'm okay with that. He was using the show and the characters to say something important, which is kind of what MASH is for. Hawkeye is Hawkeye, but he's also representing men as a class. I also really admire him for making Hawkeye, the beloved protagonist, his character, the cad who learns a lesson about respecting women. That takes a certain level of humility and commitment. The audience may not want to see an episode about how much their womanizing hero sucks, but they need to. It's important, though, that womanizing isn't Hawkeye's crime here. The exact nature of Hawkeye and Inga's dynamic is great and I think a lot of shows wouldn't have done it.

Hawkeye is excited at the prospect of hooking up with Inga, and when she arrives, she's totally into it! Inga likes sex! She wants to have sex with the hot male doctor! Showing a woman who's confident and successful and enthusiastic about a hookup was pretty significant for the time. Inga is totally into Hawkeye until he blows it by acting obnoxious. And she forgives him once he learns and grows and apologizes, but they run out of time and miss their chance to hook up. And that is so important. It would have completely undercut the message of the episode if Hawkeye had actually gotten to sleep with Inga.

I love them though and I do like to imagine maybe they run into each other again someday. Also Inga is gorgeous.

There's one specific thing not related to the main plot that always fascinates me about this episode, and it's Inga mistaking Klinger for a trans woman. Klinger is not especially pro-trans in that scene, though it's easy to read it kindly as Klinger just being freaked out because that's not what he wants and because people who are unfamiliar with it are often kinda weird about bottom surgery in general, even if they're not especially anti-trans, because people are just very protective of their genitals. If I'm being completely honest it can also be easily read as a joke that Klinger, for all his dress wearing, is still not onboard with the idea of a "sex change." But what interests me in that scene is Inga. Inga makes the reasonable assumption that Klinger is pursuing a medical transition and offers to help, and the comedy comes from Klinger freaking out and running away. Inga never approaches the topic as any other way than a doctor offering assistance. And that means something to me because this entire episode is about proving Inga right and showing her as "more advanced" than Hawkeye. Inga is vindicated by the narrative, so medical/surgical transition is vindicated by the narrative. Just not for Klinger. There's also a bit of behind-the-scenes trivia that provides some context for this, in my opinion. Dr. Walter Dishell, the medical advisor for MASH, was a medical advisor on several shows as well as a practicing facial plastic surgeon. His practice treated trans women and he mentioned being inspired by them to pitch episodes featuring trans patients to some of the medical shows he worked on. The way he speaks about trans people is very "cishet man in the 70s" but it's positive. I always wonder if this influenced Inga's line.

I think it's kind of funny that Inga is the one Alan Alda won the Best Writing Emmy for, because I think he wrote other episodes that showcase his writing talent better, but I'm glad the "respect women!!" episode won.

[hballegro]

potential layout. the colours arent necessarily representative of their outfits, i just needed 12 colours

disambiguation on my choices;

charles and margaret are friends and i think hes a good endcap. also he WILL be in purple something, somewhere, and yellow + purple is good. might move him on the other side of margaret but yeah

sidney and mulcahy have similar roles and vibe well

mulcahy is one of few people that will put up with frank, also short king needs a buffer between him and hugelarge bj

frank is competing with BJ and also needs a buffer between him and margaret bcause shes here to have fun not be stressed

do i need to explain why bj and hawkeye have to stand together

id have trapper next to bj if i thought he'd be able to maintain his 'sparkle on ;D' pose if trapper was next to him, so instead hawkeye has his besties on either side

henry needs to be near some of the old crew [ie trap and radar]

radar needs to be between his two dads. vital. a world he never knew and always deserved

potter needs to be near his daughter [klinger]. non-negotiable

klinger has enough swag to be able to be an endcap

felt like im trying to seat a fucking wedding wherein every other person has beef with 4 members of the family and INSISTS to be paired with a person that is already matched with someone they'd kill on sight

might shift around but thats what i got for now

[m0e-ru]

is teddie included as an izanagi in that post? i dont think ive heard that take before

in the first reblog of that post, I mentioned in the tags that he's like "the son of god" to me

I'm not sure if I ever explained it properly, but some personal headcanon of mine and something I do utilize for this au is that Teddie is connected to Izanami, as if he's really their son. He's not necessarily supposed to represent any one of the myth's Izanami's 10482819 children, I just believe he came from another, more subtle fragment of Izanami-no-Mikoto when it broke apart to its major pieces, that being Marie and the Iznmi right now. It's like you cut a pastry in half and he's like, a big crumb that falls off because you can't really split it properly.

And to me, Teddie is mostly his own creation, compared to Marie and Iznmi who inherit the more direct identity and duties of Izanami-no-Mikoto. To reiterate briefly, Izanami-no-Mikoto's 3 main duties is to "walk with man (you can interpret this as manifesting as a human or at least with a humanoid appearance and be in the human world)" "protect mankind (which is essentially keep them from harm in a guardian diety kind of way)" and "grant their wishes (which is answering their need for a guardian and other such things people in Inaba would ask for and desire as a collective)". While some things like being a guardian is clear to Marie, and how granting wishes no matter how self-destructive is clear to Iznmi, and that they both have a humanoid manifestation and appear in the human world to interact to people, Teddie's identity is something that came from himself and what he experienced as his own existence and entity outside of Izanami.

Imagine, like, it's more of a bit of Izanami-no-Mikoto's essence fell rogue and acted as a catalyst for the ego of a new entity, which came as the form of a Shadow, instead of an actual deity or something major like Marie or Izanami; That's Teddie. When people started falling into the TV World and the IT came around, he wanted to be around people as a sort of instinct and answering his connection to humans. Thus, he gathered what he could find from the collective unconscious and crafted a form that was friendly and approachable to humans, which was a mascot. You could say Yosuke officially named him because of hearing his "kuma" speaking quirk in the original Japanese writing.

Some of the evidence for my headcanon would be of his knowledge of the TV World he probably shouldn't have. He can explain a lot of stuff (albeit for exposition's sake and convenient writing) about his own home and adamantly refers to it as his home. He can say that TV Studios (dungeons) manifest as the "reality" for the ego that is present in the TV World (victims that fall in). Even his nose is very sensitive to smells, which is enough to navigate the TV World, such as recognizing other Shadows and if they're violent or not, other people and can interpret what their issues are from the TV Studios he enters. Like Rise recognizing the instability and restlessness of the TV Studios through her Persona, Teddie can do that too that because it's built into him. Even at the very end of the game, he can "recall" that the TV World that was just an eerie TV Station was originally a vibrant forest full of life, which was what the collective unconscious was before it became hollowed after desiring to hide the truth.

Another piece of evidence I like to pivot more on is the fact he can make conduits from the TV world to the human world. The Investigation Team conclude there are no entities from the TV World that could exit on its own, hence, only a diety like Iznmi could have given handshakes and powers to enter the TV World, or a powerful individual such as Margaret, a Velvet Room attendant, made a temporary conduit from Marie's tomb (her Hollow Forest) to the human world in the mountaintop. It would be dangerous for every Shadow to have the skill to straight up leave the TV World. You could also say regular Shadows don't have the desire to leave the TV World, unlike Teddie, so they just stay where the fog lingers most. But I would like to emphasize the former statement. Even if Shadows could leave on their own, they have to be granted access by Iznmi to reenter the TV World, unless leaving also meant being able to return just as easily. So, Teddie has some of the power of god to make these portals out of the TV World and reenter with no issue; he just doesn't have enough power to merge realities or something lol.

I do like to entertain the idea that Teddie is connected to the Izanamis, or even say he's like the son of god, all for funsies. I mean, it's already a coincidence that Kagutsuchi took his face and is already canonically Iznmi's son in myth and in the game itself. It's like they're brothers in a way, which makes their rivalry (ri-bear-ly??) even funnier to me.

So no, I don't consider Teddie as an Izanagi, nor an Izanami. I don't necessarily think he has a counterpart in the myth like Kagutsuchi either. He's just Teddie. He's the son of god, which means he's son of the people, as he came from their collective ego, of course. He's an impressionable child who just so happened to be influenced by not the best influence and made him into what he was. And from there, he's off to make himself more "Teddie" than ever.

[electronickingdomfox]

"Dwellers in the Crucible" review

The crucible was for me...

Novel from 1985 by Margaret Wander Bonanno. I almost skimmed this one for mere completionist sake, but can't say I enjoyed it at all. There's nothing wrong with the writing, mind you; in fact, it's probably better than the average TOS novel in that regard. But the content... It's as if the author wanted to make a "darker and edgier" version of TOS, and I don't think it worked very well. Besides, I found it very, veeeery boring.

For starters, remember all those times Kirk tried to persuade some warring planet about the benefits of peace, because humankind, despite its violent past, had finally overcome its worst instincts? Well, it was all bullshit! As it turns out in the novel, the only reason the Federation planets aren't annihilating each other, it's because of the existence of some "Warrantors of Peace". These are close relatives of Federation higher-ups, that keep implanted in their hearts the codes for ultimate weapons. So if some politician wanted the codes for final destruction, he'd have to kill first his own loved one. Peace exists, but mainly thanks to this deterrent. Sounds bleak? There's more.

The main characters are Cleante (a human girl who's the Warrantor for Earth), and T'Shael (a shy, stoic Vulcan woman and the Warrantor for her planet). Together with other representatives, they're kidnapped in a joint Romulan/Klingon plot, to force the Federation into... something (I don't really know what the hell they wanted to accomplish with this kidnapping, or what were the terms for releasing the hostages; the novel isn't clear at all). The Enterprise crew has only cameo appearances, and they just send a spy into Romulan territory to learn where they keep the hostages. Well, Saavik is there (the story is set a bit before The Wrath of Kahn), who's half-Romulan and all that, so obviously, Kirk chooses for this mission... Sulu. Anyway, the spying amounts to nothing, since they don't really solve the problem in the end. And that's about it in regards to the usual crew. They're barely there, but even in those brief appearances, they somehow manage to act out-of-character. The Romulan Commander from The Enterprise Incident (isn't there ANY other commander in their whole empire?) makes also an appearance, and has in fact a greater role in rescuing the captives.

Apart from all this, there's something that really surprises me. Either Bonanno had powerful contacts at Pocket Books, or the editors fell asleep with this one, because I don't understand how it was published at all while the previous novel ("Killing Time") had such problems with censorship. There's a prevalent focus on sex, far more explicit than any other TOS novel before (save, perhaps, some of the worst Bantam titles), and lots and lots of rape attempts or sexual abuse in some form or another, to fairly disturbing levels. Cleante is also blackmailed into a sexual relationship with one of her Klingon captors, to save T'Sharel's life. And the novel (perhaps in an attempt to make it sound less dark) tells us that Cleante is actually kind of okay with this, and ended up liking her abuser a bit... And well, sorry, that makes it sound worse. The Deltans too, are hyper-sexualized, and we're told they need to have sex and maintain physical contact almost at all times (including, apparently, the Deltan child that's kidnapped with his grown-up cousins), lest they die. Now, there was something about Deltan pheromones in TMP but... the whole point was that they just made a celibate oath upon joining Starfleet? And that was no problem at all for them?? I'll also never be a fan of this idea that both male and female Vulcans go through pon-farr (regardless of what later series have established). It runs so, so counter to what's seen in Amok Time with T'Pring...

I'm not going to dissect the plot, since there's not much in the way of events. For most of the story, we just follow the prisoners as their Klingon captors torture or perform sadistic experiments on them. In-between, there are flashback scenes that show how Cleante met T'Sharel in Vulcan, learned many things about her culture, and developed a strong friendship with her. Those parts are perhaps the best, since they develop many things about Vulcan society (while details about Romulans and Klingons, instead, are borrowed from the novels "My Enemy, My Ally" and "The Final Reflection", respectively).

To summarize, this is at times a pretty dark, depressing story, and left a bad taste in my mouth. Above all, because this is the last place I'd have expected to find such content. Granted, TOS had its own "torture episodes" (The Empath and Plato's Stepchildren) but... I don't know, this story seemed to me far worse than those episodes, which I in fact liked. It may have been because of novels like this one, that Pocket Books got all Draconian with publishing rules in the 90's: no focus on original characters in detriment of the original crew, no explicit sex, no developments about the "Vulcan Way" beyond canon, etc.

Spirk Meter: 6/10*. There's a scene where Kirk invites Spock into his cabin, right after getting out of the shower, and having barely covered with a towel, as if that was a normal thing for them. Besides, Cleante and T'Sharel, with their close relationship, mentions of t'hy'la and sacrifices for each other, are obvious placeholders for Kirk and Spock. At the end, when Kirk and Spock give them advice about how to keep a relationship between a human and a Vulcan, it really sounds like an old married couple counseling some newlyweds. Moreover, the parallelism is made explicit by the narrative. Loses points, though, because using two throwaway characters to portray Spirk instead of the originals, feels like a safe screen, and not a very ballsy move. There's also this pervading "no homo" disclaimer, for both sets of characters; either by reminding us of how much Cleante likes men, or having Kirk lusting after Cleante just after meeting her... (you know, this girl who could be his daughter, and also just came out of a lot of abuse... ugh!).

*A 10 in this scale is the most obvious spirk moments in TOS. Think of the back massage, "You make me believe in miracles", or "Amok Time" for example.

[thatscarletflycatcher]

"You think shipping a victim with her rapist is better than the character being disabled for a while"

Look, if you cannot escape the level of the plain text of the novel to address the meta level that all that happens in the novel are choices the writer made, and you cannot ask why he made them, then you and I are not speaking of the same thing, and will not understand each other.

When you are adapting a text, you need to stick to at least the main plot points of the story. Jonathan Harker goes to Transylvania and becomes the count's prisoner. The count goes to England. Jonathan escapes and marries Mina. Lucy is attacked, killed and turned by Dracula despite the efforts of Van Helsing and the suitors. The suitors kill the bloofer lady. The gang gets together, Mina gets bitten, they destroy the boxes, Dracula flees, the gang pursues him, [redacted].

The fact that Mina gets turned cannot be avoided because her bond with Dracula is what allows the gang to know what he's doing. Bram chose to write it that way. Any of us could have chosen 100 different ways in which Mina doesn't get nerfed the way she does, but then either the plot (not the characterization, the main beats of the plot) changes significantly, not allowing for the ending as-is on its bare bones, or you are left with a character that serves no narrative function.

Characters with little or nothing to do in a plot can be fine in a book, if their inaction is the point because it is telling us something about the character's situation or personality. Lady Middleton in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility is such a character: her whole point is that she's little more than a sexy lamp, insipid and empty.

But inactive characters in movies and series tend to exist only for comedic effect. Unlike in a book, where such character's presence is only noticed when the narrator is focusing on them, in a movie you cannot remove them from the scene. If you are adapting Sense and Sensibility and keeping Lady Middleton, you will have to place her in every family scene, but give her no reaction, no lines, no action, because she doesn't have any in the source material in those scenes. Your only other choice is to change her characterization so as to give her something to do that doesn't disrupt the plot as is. This second route is taken every time Margaret Dashwood appears in an adaptation of S&S; she's given lines and very minor things to do, perhaps something symbolic representing the desires of other characters, but nothing that can change any of the basic plot happening.

Now, here you have Mina. Mina is a crucial character in the first half of the story, a very active character. Reached the end of September, Bram has been left with no idea as to what to do with her because the book cannot end just yet and he cannot bring himself to kill her because of many reasons. So he breaks the characters figurative arms and legs so that she can get bitten and turned and taken off the action (as a side note, I know spoilers and I don't think that justifies or changes it) and then he can manufacture delays to make the action last till November.

You are an adaptor of the book. You are working on a context where emphasizing the purity and fidelity and Victorian sex mores of the work would be read as repressed. The book makes it so that the attacks on Lucy and Mina are about Dracula destroying the morale of British men and taking their women, the ones that can bear children and therefore the future of British culture and society, to destroy it. Dracula himself says it in a line. But that is VERY xenophobic and antisemitic and that shit won't fly on a post wwii world. You cannot make Dracula really the foreigner coming here to rape women and destroy England.

But you also cannot have Mina not being turned and keep the original plot, because then she will be chilling in the background for half the movie with nothing to do, and that creates comedic effect and you need horror and suspense.

Your options are very limited unless you are making an adaptation in name only. So you think:

Oh, I can make at least one of them a reincarnated love of Dracula! I have solved the xenophobia-antisemitism problem (mostly), AND I have removed the implication that Mina's assault is all about getting at the men in her life, AND I have given her the current acceptable version of "she's a white wealthy woman and therefore delicate and in need of being protected at all costs" which is "she's experiencing romance/sexual attraction beyond the constricting barriers of her time and place."

I have said it before, I will say it again: I'm not saying it is a good idea, I'm not shipping it and I'm not saying is unproblematic. What I'm saying is that the mechanics of it make sense, and that the idea doesn't come out of the absolute nowhere, it isn't random and it isn't necessarily about romanticising rape or machismo.

[variousqueerthings]

Margaret and Hawkeye really just Happened on this show!

it’s interesting that in an episode in which Hawkeye is bouncing off the walls, because he feels lonely/underappreciated/left out

and Margaret is finding out that yet another man she thought actually liked her for her is expecting her to fundamentally change for him 

the two of them meet right in the middle (after some initial, very interesting miscommunication that sort of isn’t miscommunication):

Hawkeye: Scully and I are completely different kinds of guys, but you and I didn’t get along so hot either.

Margaret: That’s exactly my point! You different men are all alike! Frank Burns. Donald, my former unwedded husband! You! And now this ninny.

Hawkeye: We-ell, excuuuse us all for not being perfect.

Margaret: Perfect? Huh, none of you even tried.

Hawkeye: Margaret it’s not that easy to become something else that somebody wants you to be, believe me I spent a lifetime not doing it! I couldn’t do it in med school for the woman I loved and I won’t do it now for an army I hate. You can’t order people according to your own specifications, you have to take them as-is.

-

Margaret (to Scully): I’m me. Sometimes a nurse, sometimes a Major, sometimes a woman in love. Sometimes all three at once.

Scully: Sounds like it’s crowded in there.

Margaret: And sometimes it’s lonely in there.

Hawkeye says these things as if he didn’t fundamentally change his understanding and respect of Margaret in exactly the complex ways she expects (and deserves to expect) other men to do so! 

In the beginning he wasn’t respectful of any of her, diminishing her self as a woman, as a nurse, as a Major, because he didn’t respect the army and saw her as a representative of everything wrong with it, but he chose to convey this disrespect through not perceiving her personhood (this tracks with how he engages with people generally of course -- see Charles in the beginning -- but it’s especially obvious with Margaret, because of the ways it’s grounded in misogyny).

And! He! Changed! And they’re both feeling quite rough in this scene for their own reasons, so neither of them is acknowledging this fact in that moment, but then!

Margaret: The latest Mr Right just left. I’ve got the only heart in Korea with a revolving door. Well, no more Buddy-oh, from now on I check them first to make sure they meet the Minimum Standard Requirements.

Hawkeye: And what are they?

Margaret: 20% my father. 10% Scully… about 10% of you.

Hawkeye: Oooh, thank you.

Margaret: 3% of Frank Burns and 2% of my ex-husband.

Hawkeye: Hmm.

Margaret: … 1% of my ex-husband

Hawkeye: Uh-huh. Mm. Maybe you and I are just too choosy. We’re both waiting for a custom fit in an off-the-rack world.

Margaret: Sounds like a loooong wait.

Hawkeye: Well I have just the thing to pass the time away. You ever play double-solitaire scrabble?

Margaret: Double-solitaire?

Hawkeye: Yeah. You make whatever you can outta what you got, and I make whatever I can outta what I got. And we don’t score off each other. And if you need any extra letters, like a Y for sympathy, you can borrow one of mine.

There they are! Those kindred spirits! “I’ve got the only heart in Korea with a revolving door,” she says to Hawkeye who knows exactly how that feels (and I choose to read it as if she kind of knows this, but he’s letting her get this off her chest).

10% of Hawkeye is such a big compliment, I love that, because it also shows how she changed in terms of what she considers it right for a man to be -- and of course, a lot of her perception of the army and war and Right and Wrong has changed because of Hawkeye.

And when Hawkeye mentioned Carlye (another episode with some ghosts - Carlye, Frank, Donald...) as someone he didn’t change for earlier -- it’s so fascinating that he did do that for Margaret.

They’re so easy with each other. There’s no doubt there, no need to posture/perform, no need to fear how vulnerability will be taken. 

Hawkeye sat with her after Kyung Soon left and Margaret had discovered the first of Donald’s affairs. Hawkeye was the only person to notice she was upset about the dog. Margaret shared that she’s afraid of loud noises to help him feel better about his claustrophobia, and then he distracted her as they were doing surgery during a shelling. (Also in hindsight, the two of them having sex, because they’re having a panic attack during another shelling where they’re afraid the house they’re hiding in might cave in... makes the claustrophobia/fear of loud noises wonderful Texture in hindsight). 

(Hawkeye knew she was thinking about Joan of Arc, because He Knows Her)

They may be talking about finding love in the future, but whatever they are to each other is an example of one of the deepest relationships I’ve ever seen on TV, and it fills me with endless delight!

(I wonder as well how much of that delight is watching two people who care deeply about one another in real life getting to let that shine through onscreen)

[tricornonthecob]

And my ADHD

LK 117: Captain Bath Salts

(pt1)(pt2)(pt3)(pt4)(pt5)(pt6)

Wait... does she get the joke??? Surely the 15-year-old 18-year-old gets the joke.

oh my GOD this hurts even more knowing how the actual Margaret Corbin ended up.

Obligatory Keeping Up With The Howes

I also love this episode because we really see Sarah being seriously conflicted about what side she's on for the first time.

Because he's just Some Guy, James, not a representative of Decisive Masculine Heroism.

Y'all might wanna find some better cover?

oh my GOD SHE SAID "DO WE"

FUCK I love this scene.

Okay so its likely too gruesome for a kids' show, but the real Margaret Corbin, after her husband fell, got fucked up in the face, chest, and arm by grapeshot, which is the artillery equivalent of a shotgun blast. She didn't get it amputated, but never got the use of her arm back and must have been disfigured by the blow. Can you fucking. Imagine. Being Sarah rn? The utter carnage.

She said "us"

Pretty sure her experience with the camp followers is what made Sarah become an American, but she spends the next few years burying the combat trauma and denying it and denying it until her crisis.

"fuck. fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck Sarahhhh"

Wonder what's going on in his mind rn. He was so into Fort Washington standing and fighting - he needed a victory so bad - but then, the fort fell. And now he has no idea if his best friend/beloved, who was endangered by the battle he was so enthusiastic for, is alive.

Not to mention, in the real battle, the camp followers were imprisoned as well. There were something like 2,000 people captured as POWs that day? Including Margaret Corbin, who somehow managed to survive her wounds AND British prison. She was one of VERY few in that group to survive.

Buddy. You was wrong.

Meanwhile all he can think about is Sarah.

Damn part 6 coming up. I mean, this is my favorite episode, so....