#and he thought margaret was a problem lmao

[toxic-libra]

style - jwy (m)

pairing: wooyoung x fem!reader (interactive here) words: 6.9k genre: second chance romance, smut warnings: 3rd person pov, this is 'based' on style - taylor swift, mentions of old hollywood movies (please watch them bc they're super good), smut with biting, thigh riding, oral (m and f), not my best work but give me a chance pls a/n: i was supposed to post this on his bday, but i was at taylor's concert and lmao i kind of got depressed after and hated everything i wrote. this is my debut with ateez so i wanted it to be perfect, but inspiration just fucked me up and i decided to post it anyway since it's been too long already :(

Jung Wooyoung remembered it all too well. He remembered how the delicate musky sandalwood of her signature perfume made his heart tug whenever she was near, the way his stomach flipped when their eyes met, and how his fingers always itched to be touching hers.

Autumns and winters were always the worst.

He could hear all the lines of Rebecca (1940), one of her favourite movies, whenever someone tried to make small talk with him about the weather.

‘Most girls will give their eyes for a chance to see Monte.’

Clenching his jaw, he locked his phone and tossed it aside, trying to digest the fact he was the one who took that damn picture and she decided to post it just when it had been two months since they las saw each other. Not that she was as considerate as to block him so he wouldn’t spend hours on her social media, feeding on any crumble of appearance she dignified her followers with.

Y/N was petty like that.

She didn’t block him, no. She muted him and vanished from his life, but she didn’t give him the pleasure of not having to erase her from his world. If he wanted her truly gone, then he had to do it himself… Which, of course, proved to be a failure.

Because he didn’t want her gone. He tried moving on, only it didn’t work.

Wooyoung wondered if she also thought they made a huge mistake.

Turning his streaming service on, he searched for another one of her 40’s TOP5. Clicking on ‘The Shop Around the Corner (1940)’, the Old Fashioned tasted way bitter on his tongue than it should.

With a condescending sigh, he relaxed against his couch, and waited for Klara Novak (played by Margarete Sullavan) and Alfred Kralik (James Stweart – not surprisingly, one of Y/N’s favourite actors) to engage in their enemies to lovers plot as if he didn’t see that damn movie a thousand times already. Only this time, like others during this year apart, she wasn’t around to swoon over any minor interaction and to almost beam in happiness when Mr. Kralik said:

‘Take me out of my envelope and kiss me.’

Oh, there he went again… Quoting old movies like it was part of his personality.

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A month later

Y/N dried her hair and breathed in the woody scent of her haircare products – a tiny bit of her heart warming at the thought of Wooyoung. He used to love how she smelled.

“Are you ready, big sis?” Jongho knocked at her bedroom door.

“Not even close! You can go first, I’ll tag along later.” She yelled back.

“I’ll wait, no problem. I’m afraid I’ll ruin the surprise by mistake.”

“You just wanna make sure you don’t miss his shocked face when he sees me.” She giggled.

“You know me too well.” He sighed in feigned despair. “But do hurry up, please.”

“I’ll try.”

Y/N couldn’t rush everything. She wanted to look so good Wooyoung would almost faint as soon as his eyes laid on her. Not that she wouldn’t almost faint either… Just the perspective of being at the same place he was made her throat dry.

She missed him in ways she never missed anyone else before.

Deciding on the black dress, she admitted that the fact that he loved that colour made her like it even more. The small slit that drew up her right thigh would also catch his attention, and she couldn’t wait to have it all for herself. Her jewellery were ones he gave her over her birthdays, just to poke at their own stupid game. She didn’t spend much time on make-up, choosing to remain simple and classic – eyeliner and red lipstick… Which Wooyoung also liked.

Most men hated being smudged with lip tint, but he adored it.

The first person she saw was Seonghwa. With one of the prettiest smiles that graced humanity, the tall and handsome man approached her with open arms.

“Isn’t this the greatest surprise ever?!” He chuckled, kissing her cheek.

“Glad you like it,” She hugged him tight. “Because I’m back for good.”

“Oh.” Although subtle, Hwa’s smile faltered slightly.

“What?” She frowned.

“Does everyone know you’re back?”

“As of now, just Jjong and you.”

“Right. Makes sense.” He muttered to himself, doing his best not to look over his shoulder. It would be heart wrenching to let Y/N see Wooyoung with his date first thing inside the party.

Of course, she would eventually meet them… There was no way his friend would be as crass as leaving the girl alone because his ex (and the woman he was still in love with) was back in town. Wooyoung could be a little impulsive, but he had manners. And Y/N probably wouldn’t get that hurt from it, but she’d get hurt, nonetheless.

“What makes sense?”

“Oh, the fact that the boys were so quiet. If they knew you were coming, they’d be hyped as fuck.” It wasn’t even a lie, just not exactly the truth. “Let’s grab you a drink and get going, then.”

Hwa’s smile was slightly off, but she didn’t point it out.

Ordering her standard autumn/winter drink – French Connection –, Y/N relaxed against the bar stool. Jongho was nowhere to be seen, which made her a bit insecure. Things were always bit easier when her brother was next to her.

“So, what else is new? How are you guys doing?”

She was fishing for information, obviously. She couldn’t directly ask about Wooyoung because her friends didn’t know they secretly met in Monaco more often than not.

In her defence, the first time happened rather unexpectedly, and it led to a second, and a third… By the fourth, they decided it was better to pretend every time was an accident and keep their friends out of it. Wooyoung normally wouldn’t be this good keeping secrets, however, something in him had shifted. His boyish air had vanished almost completely, leaving his wicked jaw and sharp eyes without the warmth he once carried within him.

He walked with confidence, still. Nonetheless, every move seemed calculated, controlled. The carefree Jung Wooyoung she loved was swept by the future CEO Jung. And while she looked at Seonghwa, she wondered if he had noticed that too.

“We’re fine… We’ll probably be even better with you around now.”

“I hope so.” she grinned as the bartender handed her a glass. “Oh, thank you. Where are the lads? I want to see them. Is everyone here? Hongjoong too?”

With a sigh, he held her hand. “Listen, darling, I’ve something to tell you.”

“Go on.”

“Woo… Wooyoung came here with a girl.”

For a second, Y/N felt the air burning her lungs at the same time someone punched her stomach. Well, she supposed he wouldn’t stay single forever… However, the fact that she had to witness it a month after meeting him was too sour and pitiful. “Oh, I see.” Her voice came out crooked.

“It’s nothing serious, I’m sure. Just a date for the party.” Hwa squeezed her fingers tenderly. “You know he’s still as much in love with you as you are with him.”

But before she could react to his words, her attention laid on the man in question: dressed in a black three-piece suit, his dark long hair was slicked back, only some bangs’ locks falling off from the gel hairstyle. Y/N clenched her jaw, heart thumping so fast she was sure everyone could hear it. Luckily, there was no girl next to him, only her friends.

“Shall we go greet them?” With a haughty pose, one that differed completely from what she felt inside, she tugged at Hwa’s arm, dragging him towards their group.

In slow motion, Wooyoung watched Y/N approach him. When their eyes met, the party seemed to disappear, only the two of them in the ballroom. His fingers flexed on the Old Fashioned glass, demanding a lot of self-control as not to rush to her, hug her tight and kiss her senseless. He couldn’t do that for a thousand reasons, but the impulse was almost cruel.

He still loved her.

He was afraid he’d always love her.

“Long time no see, Wooyoung.” Her smirk was subtle, and there was a twinkle of mirth in her beautiful orbs. The playful tone was laced with politeness, but he knew her all too well.

As if they didn’t see each other a month ago in Monaco, he breathed slowly, letting his lips stretch and mimic hers. “Long time no see, Y/N.”

Straightening her back, her suave pose disappeared as a girl’s hand rolled around his forearm. Then, the jest was replaced by possessiveness, gaze darkening. Jealousy was the lousiest bitch.

“Oh, hello! I’m Lia.”

Well, at least that didn’t come accompanied by ‘His girlfriend’.

“Enchanted. I’m Y/N Choi.”

And since the girl didn’t react at the sound of her name, Y/N supposed she was rather new there. Lia was new enough to not know about her, and wouldn’t stick around enough to do so.

“I can’t believe she’s back!” Hongjoong celebrated, a huge grin on his face and open arms.

“I’m back, Joong.” She agreed, hugging him. “Back for good!”

“That’s awesome!”

“Were you living abroad?” Lia questioned, curious.

Y/N sipped on her drink, cocking her head to the side. “I wouldn’t call it ‘living’, but you could say that, yeah.” It was more like ‘suffering while trying to pretend everything was fine’.

“Why, though?” The quip came from Wooyoung. His eyes were glinting with a mix of grudge and challenge. “I thought you’ve always wanted to move abroad.”

“Where did you live? Europe? The USA?” Lia butted in.

“I spent some time between London and Monaco.”

“Oh my God! Monaco must’ve been a dream! I’ve heard there are some cute guys there, and rich too. Did you meet any? Are they really handsome?”

Y/N chuckled, feeling rather silly for being jealous of that girl. No one would dare to talk about crushes and money in front of a potential boyfriend, so that meant Lia felt nothing for Wooyoung, right? “Oh, I wasn’t feeling like… Meeting new people there.”

Which wasn’t exactly a lie. Why meet any boy if her heart was still set on her ex? Why pretend she could replace him with another rich dude?

She couldn’t, it was pointless.

Not when Monaco screamed them. If she was Taylor Swift, ‘Cornelia Street’ would be called ‘Monte Carlo’. And like Taylor said on her lyrics, Y/N couldn’t walk around any corner of the small principality without being reminded of Jung Wooyoung.

It didn’t help that, although breaking up, they engaged in secret rendezvous more often than not… And each reunion just proved her how any other men paled in comparison to him. It was ridiculous to have an ‘affair’ with her own ex-boyfriend; she always condemned people that broke up and still kept hooking up with each other… Until it happened to her.

To be quite honest, the reason they broke up wasn’t exactly because of bad behaviour. There wasn’t cheating, nor deceiving. They didn’t fall out of love, either – in fact, Y/N was sure she loved him even more with each month apart. However, love alone wasn’t enough to calm her restless mind, and he too seemed eager for… Well, she didn’t know?! Things were just different. The weight of responsibilities and the need to make something, any difference in the world drove them apart.

Wooyoung was taking his position in his father’s business, and Y/N had no idea of what to do with her life (again). She acknowledged her timing was shitty, for he needed something concrete to hold onto while everything changed… But… She was afraid of not being good enough for him. He was becoming the Business Prince he was born to be, and she… She was just the shallow heiress with nothing important on her ‘life curriculum’ that the media thought her to be.

Then, London seemed a good escape.

It was a familiar place, offering her some comfort. Not warm and soothing like Wooyoung’s presence in her existence, but enough to keep her going.

She occupied her mind with a Master’s degree in Creative Writing, and when it was over, she had the overwhelming desire to call Wooyoung and tell him she finally did something about those 68 stories she wrote throughout her writing life.

Now, they were face to face and she didn’t know what to exactly say.

“Right…” Jongho intervened. “Big sis, we should greet some people now.”

And like smoke, Y/N disappeared from his sight for the next hour.

Ordering his third Old Fashioned, Wooyoung recognised the almond-shaped red nails, especially the black onyx ring on her middle finger.

“A Death in The Afternoon, please.” She smiled at the bartender.

“No French Connection?” He looked at her.

“Summer habits die hard.”

“I thought you preferred winter.”

“Any champagne of preference, miss?” The man asked Y/N.

“Veuve Clicquot.” They answered at the same time.

She sighed, biting a faux grin and playing with the gold band on her finger. “I see we still have some stuff in common… Does your date like signet rings?”

Wooyoung was wearing his black onyx signet ring… Y/N’s one twin.

“I’ve no idea; never asked her.” His eyes traced her neck. “No pearls?”

“Not with black satin.” She quoted Rebecca (1940), heart thumping with expectation.

“I thought it was never wearing neither one nor the other.”

Thank God he still remembered the movie!

“You can’t blame me for loving pearls and black satin, I look divine in them.” She jested, flicking her hair in a haughty way. “So, I try not to wear them together.”

Ogling her from head to toe, Wooyoung’s grin was one of a panther, although he felt his stomach tightening and the annoying dryness of his throat. “Cheers to that. You do look divine.”

“Thank you. I put a lot of effort in this.”

“It wasn’t needed. You look good in anything.” ‘Even better if stark naked’, but he obviously wouldn’t say that. Before he could comment on something else, his drink arrived. “Thanks, lad.” Turning to her once more, he kept grinning, although less sincerely. “So, see you around, Y/N.”

“Wait.” She called out before she could stop herself. He just raised his eyebrow, like he used to do whenever giving someone his initial attention. “I was hoping we could talk about my being back home… At some point this weekend, maybe?! Are you free?”

“I’ll be free after the party, if you want.”

“Well, don’t you have other plans with your date?”

“I don’t and you already know that.”

“Why did you invite her?”

“I couldn’t just invite you, could I?” He retorted.

Her jaw clenched, swallowing the apology. They were in public, not the right place to discuss their relationship. “Text me when you’re ready, and we can meet up.”

“Alright.”

“See you later, then, Woo.”

“See ya, Y/N.”

Wooyoung still lived in the same penthouse. It was painful sometimes, for the whole place had a bit of Y/N in it. He kept their photographs, kept the clothes she left behind, kept everything he could. It wasn’t his wisest decision, however, breaking up with her wasn’t one of them either.

And now she was back.

She was back and wanted to talk about it.

Now, way past three in the morning, he wasn’t drunk, but had the weirdest taste on his mouth – something like hope. His heart was beating heavily against his chest, and he couldn’t wait to smell her again. To touch her, kiss her, set every emotion free.

Dragging himself to the mirror of the entrance hall, he combed his hair with his fingers and smoothed out his shirt, opening two buttons just because.

At the sound of the doorbell, he took a deep breath and straightened his back.

“Well…”

The small, almost timid smile Y/N gave him was enough to make his knees wobble.

“Hi there… Uh…” She opened her arms. “Here I am.”

With a chuckle, one that made her eyes water a bit, for it resembled the Old Wooyoung so much, he let his body cage hers, holding her in a tight hug.

Wooyoung always gave the best hugs.

“Hi there, love.” His voice was slightly raspy, quite full of emotion, the nickname slipping past his tongue before he had any chance to keep it locked.

They remained there for a minute or two, feeding on each other’s presence and feeling each other’s warmth as if the sun was finally out after a fortnight-long storm.

“I’m back, Woo.” She said against his torso. “I’m back for good now.”

“And what does it mean?”

Y/N knew he wanted to hear her exact words, even though he already knew why she was there. And, because she loved him so, she didn’t have any problem laying her chest bare for him.

“It means I’m sorry I backed off when you needed support. Sorry I freaked out and thought lowly of me, and ended up hurting you… Hurting us in the process.” She put some distance between them, trying to be as honest as possible. “All this time apart proved to me that you’re my only one and I was really dumb for thinking I could ever move on from you.” She offered him a shy smile. “I wanted to be worthy of you, but I didn’t understand I could do that while being with you. My mind and insecurities blinded me, and I ran away. I hurt you deeply, and I’m so very sorry for it.”

Wooyoung nodded, face serious.

“You did hurt me.” He agreed. “I wondered what had happened, why you stopped loving me.”

“I didn’t.”

“This was clear by our second meeting in Monaco.” His grin was slightly off. “But it angered me that, although we kept seeing each other, you never suggested for us to get back together.”

“I still thought you deserved better.”

“Well, turns out I’m the one who gets to decide who or what is good for me, Y/N. And you were it.” He noticed how her expression dropped, probably due to the use of past tense. And Wooyoung had learned to be cruel to others, his job required him to be cold and controlled, but he could never be like that with Y/N. “And you still are, even though you hurt me.” Her beautiful eyes stared at his, hopeful. “When I saw you at the party tonight, the world slowed down. It’s no use pretending I don’t miss you and I don’t love you; we’re old enough to stop playing these games now. It was alright when you were in Europe, but now you’re back, and I’m not in the mood for halves. So, it’s either all of it, or nothing at all. It’s either starting over together, or ending everything.”

She didn’t hesitate, despite the ultimatum. “I want to start over. I want to be with you.”

“So no running away whenever things get difficult, nor making assumptions, ok?! I’m not one of giving second chances, Y/N.” He warned. “And I’m not interested in having my heart broken again. I hate being like this, hate being sceptical and cold. This isn’t me.”

Y/N nodded. “I won't let my insecurities and paranoia hurt you again.”

“You can talk to me, you know? I want to make you happy, see you happy. If things get hard, I’m more than honoured to be your safe-haven… You don’t have to move to fucking Europe to sort it out.” He rolled his eyes, sounding more like the Wooyoung he once was.

“Want me to pinkie-promise?” She stuck her pinkie out, grinning.

“God, how I’ve missed your inability to take things serious!”

“Hey! I’m mature now.”

“Nah,” He shook his head, one hand cupping her cheek. “You’re mine now.”

“I’ve been yours the whole time, and I don’t plan on running away ever again.”

“Thank God.” Wooyoung whispered against her lips, starting a searing kiss.

Y/N relished in his lips, fingers threading in his dark locks. He tasted like Old Fashioned and home; he felt like the rays of sunshine on a spring day; he smelled like the best mix of spiciness and man. She couldn’t get enough of him, and it was pointless trying to pretend so.

“Woo, I…” Her voice was breathy, conflicted.

“You…?” He frowned, brown eyes fixed on hers. “Should I stop?”

“No, don’t!” She sighed. “It’s just… I don’t know if… There’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“I…” Well, they’d agreed to be back together, right? It was better getting it off her chest quickly, so he wouldn’t doubt her later on. “I love you.”

With an easy smile, one that obviously didn’t mirror the flood of emotions, Wooyoung kissed her urgently, again. She sighed against his mouth, tongue quickly searching for his before she lost her last thinking brain cell. It didn’t take more than a minute before a cheeky and feminine hand found its way down his torso, tracing with pointy nails from his belly to his crotch. Wooyoung pulled her hair, pushing her face upwards and changing their kiss angle, then, he groped her ass, relishing on the feeling of her plump bottom and the luxurious velvet of her dress.

Y/N gasped for air, pressing sloppy kisses on his jaw and neck. She gave him small bites, sucking on his skin and mirroring how she would do on more private areas. She untucked his shirt off his trousers and fumbled with his belt, patience running thin.

Why the fuck was he wearing a belt, in the first place?!

“Don’t you dare getting on your knees now.” He warned, predicting her actions.

“Pardon?” She hesitated.

“I’ll come so fast if you give me a blowjob now, we’ll lose all the fun.” There was an adorable blush on his cheeks, despite his mockery tone and bossy warning before.

Her heart tugged at the sight.

“Then we do need a new approach, for I was really hoping to choke on your cum as soon as possible.” Now it was her turn to say something obscene with flushed cheeks.

“May I choke on yours first?” He offered, a smirk growing on his lips.

“By all means.” Y/N giggled, shaking her head in agreement.

Wooyoung pushed her against the wall, eyeing her for a brief second before stealing another kiss. At every stroke of his tongue there was a silent promise; he tried to pour both love and lust in it. Then, he got on his knees, pushing her dress upwards and revealing her legs. Y/N helped him by holding on the skirts, bunching the fabric up next to her waist. She felt his hands on her feet, undoing her shoes, then they were on shins, tickling their way to her thighs until they rested on her bum, kneading at the flesh in pure hunger.

Wooyoung kissed her lower stomach, nibbling lightly at her smooth skin. “I’ve missed you so much.” He murmured against her, grip tightening.

“I’ve missed you too.”

“But I’ve missed you more.”

“Is this a competition?” She eyed him in defiance.

“What if it is?!”

Y/N chuckled, combing his hair out of his forehead.

“Then I won.”

“I don’t think so.” Wooyoung touched her panties, his thumb drawing small circles right on her core. He kissed her right there, his tongue swiping up and down the lace and its warmth travelling through the fabric, making her shiver. “You better hold onto my shoulders, love.”

Y/N moaned loudly, feeling her legs bend a bit and skin tingle. She quickly took her dress off and tossed it aside; getting drunk in the way Wooyoung’s eyes sparkled as he looked up, hypnotised by her boobs. She rested her head against the wall with a loud thud, but pain was the last thing on her mind. Slowly, he rolled her undergarments down and launched his mouth on her, sucking and licking in lazy strokes like those that he knew would drive her insane. His touch, his kisses, his presence… She beamed in joy at the sight of him, and she would regret every second of their breakup because it was a waste of time for both of them. As for Wooyoung, he knew no other woman would compare to her; no one else fitted him as Y/N did.

She tugged at his hair, forcing her hips down to create a bit more friction. His short nails scratched her thighs, bringing her even closer. Normally, she would prefer to lay, but there was something rather wicked about that position, especially knowing that they were by the door… It didn’t matter he lived in the penthouse, she wondered if people on the other floors could listen.

His heart fluttered as she came, the most wicked and lustful moan of his name coming from her lips. Y/N felt gooey, her legs begging for buckling down and resting anywhere… Preferable on a bed… However, Wooyoung seemed to have other plans.

Tugging her by the hand, he brought her to the nearest chair in his living room and sat down with her nestled on his lap. He kissed her jaw, delicately biting at the flesh.

“Ride my thigh, love.” He murmured against her chin. It sounded like a suggestion, but Y/N understood the meaning: an order.

“While you’re wearing trousers?”

“Mm-hm.” He shook his head in agreement, finger pads pinching one of her nipples.

“Won’t it stain?”

Wooyoung’s eyes flew back to hers, a mockery gleam fighting its way beyond the lust.

“Are you trying to gain yourself some minutes?”

Busted.

Ugh, how she hated him for knowing her so well!

“I’m just thinking about how embarrassing it’ll be for those doing your laundry.”

“I’ll do it instead.”

“You? Doing the laundry?!” Y/N grinned in pure jest. “Jung Wooyoung, part-time millionaire and part-time CEO, doing housework?!”

“Full-time millionaire and full-time love of your life, as decided minutes ago.”

“What an amazing career.”

“You just gotta focus on what you do best.” He shrugged, putting on a serious expression though his voice was soft, cheerful even.

“Well, God help me, for you do that perfectly.”

Y/N kissed him, shivering when his arms rounded her waist to pull her closer to his crotch.

“Ride my thigh, Y/N.” Wooyoung said again.

Her eyes flew shut after listening to her name falling from his lips. Promptly, she moved, straddling his leg and rocking her hips against his pants. One of Wooyoung’s hands groped on her ass while the other went up, scratching her ribs on the way to her boobs. His head dipped down, tongue darting around the bud, licking and sucking it as he felt her body tensing.

“It’s too much.” She moaned.

He paid her no mind, keeping the assault until she started trembling.

“Can’t you take it?” He rasped against her collarbones. “Can’t you do it for me?”

Y/N gulped, mouth dry and heart beating so fast she was sure Wooyoung could hear it. She was also sure he knew she would do whatever he wanted as long as he kept making her feel good, so she just went back on grinding on his thigh without answering directly to his question. Besides, words escaped her as her second orgasm approached.

“Fuck, love, you’re fascinating.” it came out breathy, Wooyoung’s teeth sinking onto her shoulder. He felt the spot next to his knee wet, noticed her hips losing strength speed.

It was the second bite that undid her truly. She shook, nails leaving red lines on his backs and arms tightening around his neck, bringing him even closer. Then she collapsed against him, panting. Wooyoung peppered kisses around her jaw, smoothing her hair and praising her for being the best of girls, for obeying him and cumming again.

“Wooyoung,” Y/N croaked. “I’ve made a mess of your trousers.”

“It’s ok, love. We’ll take it off.” He smiled softly. “Are your legs working?”

“Barely, but I can try to stand up.”

“No, no, no. I’ll just put you...” He murmured while pushing her to the side and standing up himself, leaving her on the chair. “See? I’ll take it off.”

“Oh, no, wait!” Y/N slapped his hand. “Let me do this.”

Fuck, he could cum on the spot. She really was at his house, the living room’s dim light casting over her while she fumbled with his trousers, and it downed on Wooyoung that she was back.

And she still loved him.

And they were together again.

“Here, sit down, you’re making me uncomfortable.” She gestured, getting on her feet too.

Oh, damn, he knew where that was going.

“What did I tell you about getting on your knees?”

“You choked on my cum already, now it’s my turn. Be fair!” Y/N pouted.

Wooyoung blinked slowly, taking a deep breath.

“Oh, God, the things I wanna do to you.” His thumb caressed her bottom lip. Soon, he forced it in, attentively staring at her mouth while she sucked it inside, cheeks hollowing. “Please, if you could do the same to my dick, I would…”

“It’ll be a pleasure.” Y/N chuckled, bringing his hand to full view and tracing her tongue on the tip of his finger. His chestnut eyes were a shade darker, pupils blown open.

“All mine, I guarantee.”

But before she could dive in, a familiar ringtone erupted from the floor, his trousers vibrating at the rhythm. It startled them, though Y/N’s reaction was only a small grin whereas Wooyoung’s was an annoyed grunt, cussing in a low voice.

“Maybe you should pick it up?”

“Absolutely not.” He refused to move and spoil the moment. His dick was hard, he finally had her back and between his legs (ready to suck the soul out of him)… He waited more than a fucking year for that, whoever called could damn wait too.

“What if it’s important?”

“There’s nothing more important than your pretty mouth around my cock, love.”

“But…”

“On your knees, darling.”

She gulped, slightly annoyed by the fact he could change the mood with only one phrase. It never failed to surprise how much effect he had on her.

Trying not to let his temper rise, Y/N went back between his legs. She caressed his thighs, nails trailing them slightly. Then, she went up, unbuttoning his shirt while he glanced at her with a hunger in his eyes. She pushed off his shirt, being awarded with the sight of his tattoo. Hands palming his torso, she mapped his skin, tracing the Latin phrase, wanting nothing more than to eat him open. She licked her lips, heart thumping loudly against her ribcage.

“Why are you staring?” He wondered. “Do I look too tempting?” He jested.

“Yes.” She didn’t hesitate. “Delicious as fuck and all mine.”

“I like how it sounds.” Wooyoung dipped his head down, pecking her lips. “And you’re all mine.”

“Always have been.” She agreed.

His stomach churned at the gleam of lust in her beautiful eyes. “Suck.”

The order came out simple and serious, a bit like the new Wooyoung he was.

Y/N’s hands found purchase on his thighs, the very ones she rode a while ago. Well, she was already in the rain… Let it all get wet.

Literally.

She gathered some saliva, palming his dick and spitting right on its head. Wooyoung breathed audibly, chest rising in a lungful expanse. Y/N moved her hand on him, spreading her spit and hearing his quiet moan. With a grin, she closed her eyes and sank down on his shaft, tongue circling the tip and tasting the salty pre-cum.

“Fuck.” He groaned.

She wasn’t that good with having dicks on her throat, always gagging and getting teary eyed, but this time she wanted to surprise him. She wanted to make him feel as marvellous as she felt during her two orgasms. Hence, she watched her breathing and swallowed him deeper. Wooyoung said something through gritted teeth, a hand flying to her hair and holding her head in place. Y/N hollowed her cheeks, bobbing up and down for a brief minute, forcing the movement against Wooyoung’s command. His hips bucked, making his cock hit her throat and she feel the burn in her eyes, tears coming almost automatically.

“Fuck, love, you’re gonna…”

He was cut mid-sentence by her gaze and thought he would explode. If there was anything hotter than her sucking him off and his cock was gagging her… Wooyoung didn’t really want to know. He honestly wouldn’t survive it.

Y/N repeated the motion, then she backed off with a gasp, drooling all over him. His hands were shaking, making him slightly embarrassed.

“Don’t stop even if I gag.” She ordered.

“Ugh, the things I wanna do to you, darling…”

“It’ll have to wait a bit.” She kept her fingers busy, caressing him while she took a breath.

Then, Wooyoung watched, mesmerised, Y/N’s wickedness take control: she turned her attention to his balls, licking it up and nibbling at the sensitive skin like he used to do with her clit. Words escaped him, so all he did was let out a raspy moan, tightening his grip on her hair.

Her tongue swirled around his shaft and she swallowed him again, tilting her head slightly so he could start fucking her mouth. He caught on her idea and adjusted his position, moving his hips smoothly, testing the angle. Y/N gagged once again, because that way he hit a spot too close to her throat, and although it was a bit uncomfortable, she couldn’t be hornier. Just tasting him and hearing him moan, knowing it was her own doing… It made her all wet and desperate. Glancing up, she locked eyes with Wooyoung – he looked hypnotised, almost drunk on the scene… On her.

It was all so erotic, so lustful, so right. He couldn’t tear his gaze as his dick disappeared on her plump lips, accepting all of him in as if she was born to suck him off, as if she was starving for it.

“Can I cum in your mouth, love?” He asked, wiping a small tear from her eye, his thumb caressing her cheekbone while he kept thrusting inside. “Or should I cum in your pussy?”

She whimpered, doing her best to shake her head positively, nails clawing at his thighs for support. Her knees were starting to hurt, legs sore and quite numb, but she really wanted to taste him before they properly fucked.

At her consent, Wooyoung’s mind clouded, Y/N being the only thought echoing. He shivered, the orgasm hitting so strong his belly clenched and his toes curled; he spilled inside her mouth, a deep, sexy groan erupting from his own.

Y/N swallowed and wiped her mouth, climbing his legs and sitting on his lap. She caressed his face, drawing all of his angles and mapping them on her mind once again.

“I love you.” She whispered next to his ear. “And I intend to make it up to you every day.”

“You’re a fucking minx.” Wooyoung murmured, a small smile reaching his mouth.

“Full-time minx?” She joked.

“Yeah. And full-time love of my life, so don’t fret.”

“Good.” Y/N stole a peck. “Good.”

They kissed in a lazy, tooth-aching romantic dance. He could taste himself on her tongue, and it was addictive, making him want to ravish her on the spot.

Then, after catching some breath and regaining more strength, Wooyoung hooked his arms around her legs and stood up, grinning at her wide eyes and high-pitched yelp.

“Hold tight, love. We’re going to the couch.”

“You should’ve said that before.” She giggled.

Wooyoung moved as if he was used to carry her all the time. Laying her down, he hovered over her, kissing her once more. This time, it was sloppy, teeth clashing as they touched each other all over – Y/N’s sharp nails digging at his back, leaving red lines on its length, while he groped at her thighs and ass, letting her wet pussy grind against his stomach and hips. She moaned, breaking the kiss and bending her head backwards when she felt his touch creeping down, stopping right at her core. Wooyoung didn’t mind it, kissing her neck instead, and plunging two fingers inside her, moving them slowly.

“Oh, fuck.” Y/N cursed. “Please, Woo, please.”

“What are you begging for, love?” He chuckled, eyes sparkling with mirth and lust, heart beating a bit too fast at her desperation, at the fact that she was his again.

“You.” Her teeth tucked his bottom lip at the same time she tugged at his hair, her pupils blown wide, hungry and desperate for anything he could give her. “Always for you.”

“But I’m already yours, Y/N.”

“But I want more. I want everything, Woo.”

“Your wish is my command, darling.” Setting his fingers free, it was time to fuck her properly.

He thrusted, finally linking their bodies. She hugged him, nails digging onto his back and leaving crescent marks; her legs pulled him even closer. His cock twitched, being devoured by her tight cunt. Wooyoung couldn’t even control his own muscles, so eager for his own release and to make Y/N feel good, like she deserved after repenting.

They were so focused on each other that every movement felt calculated, synchronised. Where she went, he followed, and vice-versa. His belly tensed up when one of her hands held his ass, groping at it while she let out a low, sexy laugh.

“You fucking minx.”

“It’s mine to touch,” She pouted, bathed in feminine power. “All mine.”

Something switched in his demeanour and Y/N gasped in surprise as he pulled her arms up, a strong hand blocking them from moving.

“Well, you’re all mine too. Mine to touch,” He brought another hand up, fingers intertwining with hers. “Mine to kiss,” A hungry, wet kiss stolen. “Mine to please,” His pace quickened, cock throbbing while she clenched around it. “Mine to…”

Love.

He growled, combusting in emotions. Y/N seemed to understand, because her eyes shone in a warm, romantic gleam. She got teary, pleasure so unbearable, so suffocating her body couldn’t take it anymore. She was still sensitive from the other orgasm, which made this one stronger, more devastating. Gripping at Wooyoung’s hands, she found in him her safe-haven.

Feeling her clenching around him just made his dick harder, and he was surprised at the fact… Normally he had to rest a bit before he went from one orgasm to another. Sitting up, Wooyoung hugged her by the waist, bringing her body closer, letting her nipples grind against his torso as she rocked against him in a steady speed. Bouncing, Y/N created enough friction and Wooyoung moved to match her speed, their muffled moans paired up with their hips colliding were the only noises echoing in the room.

They kissed again, messily and hungrily. She held him with such strength, anchoring on him as if her life depended on that. It was intense and raw, her body subconsciously trying to conquer his, claim his as hers… Although she didn’t need that anymore. He wouldn’t belong to anyone else… He didn’t want to. It was Y/N from the beginning.

“I’ll probably leave some red marks on your shoulders…”

“It’s ok.” He kissed her jaw, muffling another moan.

At each sharp and fast thrust, at each moan and kiss, they got further lost on each other. His dick twitched in earnest, feeling her so snug and wet around him. Y/N trembled at the breath denial, causing her stomach to tighten in delight. Wooyoung felt his body giving up and cursed low, unable to hold back anymore.

“Love…” He rasped. “Are you with me?”

Her teary eyes were enough answer. Wooyoung wanted to say a couple dirty things, however, the grip she had on his cock robbed him his sanity, so he just plunged on her violently, guiding both of them to the climax. Y/N shook from head to toe, moaning his name like a prayer and squeezing him like she had claws. He bit on her shoulder again because he knew she loved that. His fingers dug into her skin, also leaving marks.

The only noises were their panting. He rested his face against her neck, giving it small bites and kisses. Playing with his dark, long locks, Y/N sighed in contempt. How could she think it was possible to be happy without him when she was only happy with him, because of him?!

“Why?” She heard his muffled voice.

“What?”

“Why are you sighing?” He moved slightly, so they could look at each other.

“Just because.”

“Perhaps because you’re in your favourite place in the world with your favourite person?”

She couldn’t help but chuckle. “God, you’re so conceited!” Slightly tugging at his hair, she shook his head a bit. “My favourite place is Monaco.”

“This still makes me your favourite person.” He grinned.

“Aren’t you going to sleep?” Playfully rolling her eyes, she pouted.

“I’m not tired at all. I suggest we grab a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and celebrate a bit more, hm?”

“Will you help me remove my make-up first?”

“Of course, it’s classic Y/N-Wooyoung behaviour.”

She smiled, knowing that everything would be alright again.

[royal-confessions]

“I feel sorry for King Charles, rest of BRF and rest of United Kingdom. They welcomed them with open arms, did more than they should to accomody them and this is level of gratitude shown?! Unbelievable.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I'm not a fan of King Charles, but do people seriously think he's racist? The man who walked his biracial daughter in law down the aisle with no objection when her entire family snubbed her? As far as I know he doesn't have a problem with his grandchildren being 1/4 black either.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“A friend of Meghan reportedly said that she (Meghan) viewed Charles as a "second father". Actually feel sorry for the man (especially since he gave her away), not knowing he would receive the Thomas Markle treatment.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“If the RF really bullied Meghan off/were racists towards Meghan, then why was Harry allowed to marry her? It's that simple. The RF had the biggest chance to bully her off in H&M's dating stages, and had she not married in then yeah, I would actually believe the RF was indeed racist, but the opposite happened. They were the ones who bullied themselves off LOL, especially once they found out they would never be given the same kind of importance as W&C (They would still be/could've been FAR more important dynastically-wise than Andrew, Edward/Sophie, and Anne/Tim and their families + Margaret's descendants + Elizabeth and Margaret's cousins and their families which is why I don't buy their victimhood) and also because they realized they couldn't just demand stuff they wanted on their terms (like A&L's titles for example. Ultimately, those were given to them due to the letters patent issued by King George V in 1917 that H&M refused to respect.) You want me to feel sorry for crybabies who also happen to be millionaires? Check your privilege and f*ck off. I know people support H&M because they want the drama/want a genuine reason to hate the BRF/genuinely want there to be another victim like Diana was (why TF would you want that LMAO go check yourselves). But it's just that. Just a middle-aged woman and a near-middle-aged man acting like 5- year-olds just because they thought they could get away with sh*t but had a rude awakening.” - Submitted by Anonymous

“I think royal family was very supportive and welcoming towards Meghan. They let her attended official royal event as a fiancee while Kate and other married-ins had to wait. They were also very supportive of their career as a actress and let her do films after marriage while meghan herself didn't want to. They even let her wear a white dress and tiara even tho she was previously married, HER FIL WALKED HER DOWN THE AISLE, how sweet is that. Her in-laws paid for the whole thing and even the dress” - Submitted by Anonymous

[crime-wives]

ouat 1x01 thoughts

god regina, you dramatic bitch. “I shall destroy your happiness if it is the last thing I do” ok darling, you can destroy me if you’d like

henry is so small, his tiny cheeks awww

not to be gay but… emma swan in the pink dress. fuck. i forgot how attracted to her i was. and the HAIR, the fucking princess curls. jesus christ her ARMS.

“bail bonds-person” i love her

yesss bitch, strut across the street like you own it. absolute icon behavior, slamming that asshole’s face into the steering wheel.

babe you’re so sad and pathetic with your vanilla cupcake. i bet she wished for family.

not her apartment door saying ‘cast a spell’

“My name’s Henry, and i’m your son” agevgsvegw STOP

her having a panic attack in the bathroom, so real.

once again, her ARMS, i want her so bad

henry’s cute little freckles, i can’t do this.

idgaf abt snow and charming “She poisoned an apple because she thought I was prettier than her” shut up bitch, you know that’s not why

“Oh kid, you’ve got problems” emma swan, insulting children since 1983

ok but the fact that they chose the name ‘emma’ in a fairytale world, lmao

evil queen theme song playing as they enter storybrooke

emma swan wearing the most dyke outfit possible. getting ready to impress milfs

not that there’s any significance, but emma’s license plate is: 836•M4X

snow and charming are so annoying istg

ewww the blue fairy, i hate that bitch (derogatory)

regina running towards henry and wrapping him up in a hug. her eyes are wet. good lord, her first reaction is concern and worry, not anger.

“I found my real mom” my HEART. her face after he said that, so stricken and hurt, baby…

emma’s little flustered, ‘hi’ when talking to a gorgeous milf. ok babe, we get it, you’re gay.

graham leaving bc of emma and regina’s immediate sexual tension. and regina’s eyes roving over emma.

first ‘Miss Swan’ of the show at exactly 21:00 minutes.

emma swan is so desperate to impress regina. it’d be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic (affectionate)

“Sneaky bastard” once again, emma swan insulting children since 1983

crashing into the storybrooke sign like the absolute icon she is

the cgi 💀💀

yay!! curse time :)

emma waking up in a jail cell. she just does not give a fuck about this shit.

her lips parting when she she’s regina, ok babe, she’s hot we get it

LIP SCAR

god mary-margaret pisses me off

go regina, knock over mary-margaret’s shit, absolute queen

“She’s kinda a hardass” yes but that turns you on, doesn’t it?

gina’s so hot when she’s evil

putting a newborn through the wardrobe to save themselves, a+ parenting

henry mills, once again, the most mature one in a situation “You don’t have to be hostile. You like me, I can tell. You’re just pushing me away because I make you feel guilty.”

“I wanted you to have your best chance. But it’s not with me. C’mon, let’s go.” go emma! be the mature adult i know you can be

petition to get emma swan a therapist so she can deal with all her issues (trust me, she’s got a lot of them)

“Look, your mom is trying her best. I know it’s hard, and I know sometimes you think she doesn’t love you, but at least she wants you.” emma swan, standing up for regina mills since the moment they met

mmm regina’s voice is so hot.

her unhinged laughter, i love her so much

“Where are we going?” “Somewhere horrible, absolutely horrible” takes them to maine

emma swan is so fucking desperate for regina’s approval. she wished to not be alone on her birthday, baby…

second ‘Miss Swan’ of the show at 38:43 (i will be keeping count of all of them :D)

regina fidgeting with her blazer pockets, she’s so anxious

first “He’s my son” at 39:01 minutes

“I will destroy you if it is the last thing I do” babe, it’s kinda gay to have a nemesis, just saying

third ‘Miss Swan’ of the show at 39:32

baby… gina is coming apart at the seems

god, not to be gay, but regina’s HANDS at 40:27 agevvegse

emma’s only staying because of regina’s provocations. she wouldn’t have stayed for henry.

gold is so icky.

she’s staying a *only* a week, sure babe, sure.

also side note, i forgot how good the coloring was in ouat. like its very faded, maybe indicative of storybrooke being stuck in the past???

[elegantwoes]

LMAO you have just completely lost the plot. That's so embarrassing. What is Sansa DOING in the Vale ?? It’s about to be book 6 out of 7 and she can’t even rule or command 3 flocks of peasants. NOTHING about her arc is about learning how to rule, not like Jon and Daenerys. Sansa doesn’t know how to tax, she's bad at maths, she doesn’t know how to negotiate, battle strategies or how to command armies. She’s NEVER had any experience in ruling much less run a household. Her biggest achievement is throwing a lavish feast and tournament for nobles (while winter is on the horizon and with it starvation) while Petyr hoards food to gouge prices and she does nothing about it and doesn’t even ask him about it. Do you think Elizabeth I, Wu Zetian, Margaret I of Denmark, or Catherine II of Russia were traditional, soft and delicate ??

Ah, sorry, I forget, Sansa also thought about Mya Stone, “She could be pretty, if she would dress up like a girl.”

Sansa’s narrative arc is a slow, subtle and steady one. Clearly she’s a dark horse character who is meant to take the reader by surprise. In order to enjoy her story in heart’s content you have to have a patient mind. The fact you can’t do that sounds more like a you problem rather than a Sansa problem. Secondly, running a household is what Sansa does in AFFC and the fact there hasn’t been problems indicates that she has been doing a good job. GRRM doesn’t have to spell everything out to you in order to get that, like are you a child? Read between the lines, anon.

I don’t know all the women you mentioned but I know a thing or two about Wu Zetian and Elizabeth Tudor. Are you seriously comparing Sansa to women who accumulated majority of their power in their mid twenties? At Sansa’s age Wu Zetian was a maiden still living at home and doing her homework like a good girl.. Elizabeth was being sexually abused by pedophile Thomas Seymour (just like what Sansa is enduring right now. Sansa shares similarities with her too, not just Eleanor of Aquitaine).

Thirdly, Sansa doesn’t need to learn everything for you to understand that she has a political arc and is groomed by GRRM to become a ruler. Like Jon has his pit falls too but that doesn’t take away his political arc. All that tells me is Sansa is exceptional in area where Jon is lacking and Jon’s strongest area are Sansa’s weaknesses. It’s almost like GRRM is setting them up to combine their skills and work like a team. Funny isn’t it. Fortunately they will likely meet in TWOW and then Sansa can learn what she lacks from Jon. So I say wait till the book comes out before judge Sansa’s TWOW sample chapter (which by the way is likely only a draft). Patience is a virtue, anon. Exercise some.

I fail to see what that random quote about Mya Stone has to do with the point you are making, but since we sharing quotes I will share one too:

By the time all the new knights had been given their sers the hall was growing restive, and none more so than Joffrey. Some of those in the gallery had begun to slip quietly away, but the notables on the floor were trapped, unable to depart without the king's leave. Judging by the way he was fidgeting atop the Iron Throne, Joff would willingly have granted it, but the day's work was far from done. For now the coin was turned over, and the captives were ushered in. (A Clash of Kings, Sansa VIII)

Sansa at the age of twelve can listen to hours of court hearings without feeling bored or restless, something what adults twice, or even thrice, her age cannot do, for some of them quietly leave court. In this scene Sansa is on the gallery (Sansa leaned forward, her hands tight around the gallery’s wooden rail) and she could just easily leave without being noticed, but she doesn’t. She stays till the very end. You what this tells me? That Sansa can handle the day to day boring bureaucratic work that is required from a ruler. In fact she loves it. I mean she voluntarily decided to attend the court that Ned held in AGOT and then excitedly told everything that happened in court to Jeyne. Miss. War Criminal on the other hand grows bored of holding court. So who exactly is not suited to rule here? It certainly isn’t Sansa.

[mistressemmedi]

https://www.tumblr.com/mistressemmedi/740063884004802560/anyways-the-funny-thing-about-the-dakar-is-that?source=share

Can you explain the full story, please?

Absolutely but we need to start from the beginning. Back in the 70s this French madlad, Thierry Sabine, got lost in the Sahara while competing in another rally raid. He made it back to civilization and thought to himself "This was a great experience, we should make it a regular thing! Rally raids in the desert!" so, in 1977, Thierry organized a large scale rally that would cross the whole Sahara - starting point would be Paris and the end would be the capital of Senegal, Dakar.

I guess Thierry was not the only madlad around because 180+ other drivers/riders etc decided to join in on the fun. Popularity rose the following few years thanks to big name entries such as Jacky Ickx. The rally was very much an adventure: you got a general map indicating stops you should make on your way to Senegal and... That was kind of it. No teams, no real backup. People showed up in modified everyday cars, someone even raced in a modified Rolls Royce lmao

So by 1982. the rally was kinda known but it wasn't the scale it was today. Enter our main character: Mark Thatcher, absolute weapon of a man (honestly, look him up... Man does not sound like he's the sharpest tool in the shed lmao) and unfortunate son of one Margaret Thatcher (prime minister of England at the time). He decides to enter the rally with his lil Peugeot 504 with no real prior experience besides racing Le Mans twice (which... uh, very different from a rally in the desert). So he starts off with his co-driver and mechanic in tow and gets lost in the desert. It happens, right? People usually turn up after a day or so. Well, after 3 days he's officially declared missing and mommy dearest is informed. Obviously the son of the Prime Minister being lost somewhere in the Sahara is quite a big deal, so the news was all over that, and Old Maggie decided to flex some of that British muscle - a rescue is launched, involving three separate countries who sent out military aircrafts to search for this moron in the desert, as well as Algeria dispatching its soldiers to find the guy.

After a few days, Mark is found about only 50 kms away from the main route of the race 💀 which caused quite a bit of embarrassment on an international scale to his mom.

Anyways, bad publicity is still publicity after all, and by the year after there were 450+ entries to the rally which included big name manufacturers such as Porsche etc. and it evolved in the crazy 2 week rally that we know today!

Bonus - Quotes from Mark Thatcher about the whole ordeal:

Before competing he said:

"I've now raced in Le Mans and other things – this rally is no problem."

In 2004, Thatcher wrote about his experience:

"I did absolutely no preparation. Nothing."

"We must have hit something. ... We stopped. The others stopped too, took a note of where we were and went on. But the silly bastards – instead of telling everyone we were 25 miles east when they finished the section, they told them we were 25 miles west."

"So The Boss (the prime minister) does entirely the right thing, picks up the phone to the ambassador in Algiers and says, "Can you find out what is going on?" The ambassador then rings the prefect of the region who says there are four people missing and that I am one of them."

[utilitycaster]

thoughts re: skip/norman (also on the aso discourse the d20 fandom went through and also as a big skip/norman fan)

The ultimate problem that I see with the pc concept of skip/norman is that aso had heavy heavy themes of autonomy and "owning yourself", whether that's literally, through gunnie, or figuratively, through syd, margaret, etc. the leading question that was prompted by having one of the pcs literally being something that takes over a body and removes the original owner's control of it was just, WILD to me to tee up and then not explore.

norman was an asshole, for sure, but brennan and zac put just enough effort into making him a realistic person that the way doing brain surgery on him without consent was played straight for comedy felt a little strange. it is fascinating to me to discuss skip's position as a literal parasite in the galaxy and how he still deserves the right to exist and live, and how that intersects with norman's same rights, but aso just didn't have time for that.

and aso is a comedy, and one of my favorite seasons, so it's a pretty small issue that this is kind of shrugged off (that's where I disagree with the people who discoursed about it). like, I don't think that was what the season needed to be about. but, d20 in general is so committed to themes and philosophy uniting the pcs that the glaring hole that is the skip/norman of it all duct-taped over with "ahhh symbiosis is a thing" stands out. skip as a pc concept in the sense of his backstory isn't wildly dark to me (I mean, gunnie's is already pretty awful lmao), but in the sense of what he says in terms of the larger story, he feels a bit out of place.

there's a lot more to say here about how the Wurst crew's actions play into that given that he was their asshole boss, etc etc, but essentially: I thought skip/norman just kind of incidentally brought up some points via backstory/pc concept that were a little too complex for a 18 episode comedy season of dnd.

ps. pib fits perfectly into neverafter imo and I adore him completely

I'm going to be totally honest: I learned about this discourse re: Skip and autonomy long after it happened and my gut reaction was "well that's fucking stupid." I also haven't rewatched it and my memory for D20 seasons is often nowhere near as strong as for Critical Role.

I did not blink once at the concept for two reasons:

I'm familiar with sci fi and "creature that takes over the bodies of others" is a pretty standard trope, and not only that but one that has been played for both extreme horror and comedy. Which isn't to say you can't explore the concerns about autonomy but like...I do not find this to be remotely obligatory, which sort of removes all the concerns raised above. "Oh yeah, brain slugs, I know about those, one took over my cousin for a few years" is to me an entirely valid way in-universe of dealing with it. Cannot stress enough that at no point did this seem weird or horrifying to me. Which doesn't mean that it's not valid for others to feel that way, but it just...did not even register as a thought people would have, because it felt so utterly organic to the genre and universe.

I'm also familiar with actual play and Zac and Brennan were quite careful not to abuse the possession mechanic (to the point of creating Norm so that Zac would essentially have his own PC to possess as his real PC) so I have autonomy concerns re: the metagame.

I will also admit that I found the theme to much more be a case of finding one's place within the tough universe in which the characters must live, rather than autonomy and self-ownership, which puts Skip's story well in step with the rest of the group as he fights against his father's wishes. I should also add that I don't see any disjoint in Starstruck being a comedy. All D20 seasons are comedic; even the more serious ones are still comedic in tone and choice. They've also gone extremely dark at points, and that's a choice one can make in comedy, and in my opinion, a valid one.

[machihunnicutt]

I would like the sons and bowlers thoughts please

Under the cut bc it’s soooo long lmao

Things in sons and bowlers that make me crazy (in no particular order)

1)The idea that daniel pierce shields hawkeye from things that he thinks will hurt him psychologically and actively tries to distract him with kindness/good things i.e. making him elaborate breakfasts while his mom was dying in the hospital and downplaying the extent of her illness. I think this is so interesting bc we’ve often seen hawkeye deflect with jokes/go out of his way to help people inside and outside of OR and make sacrifices to do so/ downplay the extent of his own pain/trauma in order to avoid inconveniencing people and the idea that this is a behavior he learned as a child, way before the war is a major clue to the events in GFA

He doesn’t deal with his trauma, he minimizes it to the point of repression and convinces himself things are alright! He’s become his father! That blows my mind idk

2) hawkeye just has his dad and his dad just has him! We saw in where there’s a will that he leaves everything to his father but this really drives home how much hawkeye loves his dad. Like i think part of why this makes me crazy is that i have daddy/mommy issues but i feel like for hawkeye this is a big character beat that people overlook. He’s not like the others at the unit in that they all have families/career aspirations/grounded support systems to return to and for hawkeye all he’s got is his dad and he really finds his support system in the MASH…and yeah he’s a workaholic and a brilliant surgeon but he’s also the kind of person who thrives on human connection and cannot live without his connections to those around him. Like hawkeye is all heart AGH what happens when someone like that is removed from a place where they formed deep connections?

Also the fact that he’s like iv’e said ily but what if he doesnt know i mean it like man u really don’t expect people to listen to what u say

3) back on daniel, sorry but i love food/mealtime/cooking themes with hawkeye too and the fact that shared, homemade breakfasts were his father’s symbol of love and protection just makes the absence of good food at the MASH even more devastating. I also see hawkeye as someone who can disassociate from his body easily (the drinking, the sleeping around, the constant sniffing of food/not eating if it isn’t appetizing/ going long periods without sleep and insomnia, the manic episodes/psych problems) so the reconnection of family to food is important here too! Like i’m going to get to charles but the fact that he tells the story about feeling tested at dinner and his related food associations, i think it’s really telling that in contrast we get hawkeye and daniel talking about the good times they had eating dinner together

4) brief margaret tangent i like that this is a reversal of the early seasons trope of her sleeping with someone for some plot/ulterior motive and now when potter asks her if she’ll do that she’s like fuck off and then uses the guy for bowling tips and not sex lol i just think it’s a succient way to show her development over time and i also love when she gets to do sporty/more traditionally masculine things and not be dunked on for it

5) bj and charles scheming idk i love this in any episode i like that they bring out the evil asshole in each other i find it funny and charming they’re my faves for a reason i think dos and mike are both soooo talented

6) the contrast between charles’ home life and hawkeye’s and how thats shaped them. i ‘m really interested in the similarities between charles and hawk i think they have similar backgrounds and similar drive/talent/pressure to be surgeons and be the best at what they do/similarly desperate desire for connection with people/to art and music and theater etc. and they can be similarly overconfident/stubborn it just manifests so differently in their behaviors. I feel like this is one of the few times we see them acknowledge each other as people and put aside their differences in order to support each other idk u know i love a charles plotline im human

7) speaking of supporting people! Also crazy about bj’s progressive loss of the ability to provide hawkeye with emotional support and here he doesn’t even know hawkeye was struggling bc hawkeye’s like don’t tell anyone ! he doesn’t want to tell his best friend his problems bc bj doesn’t help him with things like that. And in fact telling bj might be something that sets bj off further like every day this man’s mental health is crumbling he’s hanging on by a thread and hawkeye knows this, more finale set up that’s so subtly done i love it

7.5) also the fact that if daniel’s surgery had gone badly this would be another hawkeye doesn’t get a real goodbye situation (.i.e his mom, trapper, henry, carlye, tommy, kyung hee, bj etc.) whyyyy do they do this

8) there’s bowling like come on are u serious i love bowling and they’re so cute bowling

[bisluthq]

I think the point is that we all knew you’re losing me had been brewing for a while, but we thought it had been written closer to the break up. So (making up dates here) if she had written it March 2023, then maybe it was something she had been thinking about for a year, since March 2022. But if we have to move that back to 2021, then when did they start having problems? The surprise isn’t that they were having problems in late 2021, I think we had all figured that out. The surprise is that she wouldn’t write that based on him going to Panama alone, that had to have been on her mind for a while in 2021. You’re losing me is when you’re reaching your breaking point and if that was happening in December she must have felt that way for a few months (imo). So when in 2021 did the problems start?

Something else I find interesting is that I’ve seen people bring up Taylor spending her birthday in New Orleans last year because Joe was filming there. I have never gotten that because I don’t think I would care if I had to celebrate my birthday in a different city because that’s where my boyfriend is working at the time. But I guess the timeline makes sense if she was upset about the Panama stuff, they fixed some things so she was hopeful about the relationship working out in the end and then by December 2022 he was once again working on her birthday and she had to go to him and that maybe brought back those feelings? Then she was going to the 1975 concert without Joe by January.

A few other points too:

- YLM made me think Joe didn’t know Taylor wasn’t happy, but if that was written and recorded in 2021, and she decided to stay with him, then he probably knew about those problems.

- The house could’ve been his compromise? Maybe she wanted the relationship to move forward and he agreed to buy a house together?

- Maybe he thought the house thing was enough and he didn’t realize she was feeling that way again (or still) and that’s why he felt a bit blindsided

- I think it’s kind of funny that she deleted the lavender haze midnights mayhem video. Maybe they were doing better at the time and things went downhill again after midnights came out and when the tour started

- I wonder if she showed the song to him, if she talked to him about it without the song or if she never even brought it up because things got better and she pushed it all down. I want to know if it got better because he tried to make things better or if he did something that made her feel better about the relationship and he was still in the dark about her feelings

- Back to the house thing, it’s possible that she told him she wanted more commitment and he agreed to buy the house, but it’s also possible that he was ready to buy a house with her and that made her think he was finally committing more but then things went downhill again

- it’s heartbreaking to think she’d been feeling the “I wouldn’t marry me either” line for that long

- What are Jack’s thoughts in all of this? They wrote that when his now wife and Joe were in a different country filming a movie, which clearly wasn’t a problem for him and Margaret who are now happily married. He was probably one of the few people who knew about these problems

all valid thoughts and I don’t think we’ll ever get them answered because we aren’t Taylor lol or Joe. Jack probably has the most accurate tea beyond those two (maybe even more accurate because he probably heard both sides and like the truth would’ve been in between) but he’s not gonna tell us either lmao. Who tf knows lol but yeah it’s surprising she RECORDED that song way back then and yeah I wonder if he ever heard it lol.

[dapper-nahrwhale]

More thoughts after getting to season 5:

Sarge- technically the CO of both the reds and blues, Cornel Sarge of the reds and blues, two separate mash units that were in competition with each other that combine after their CO flowers was killed. He believes he's won the war against blues having taken the team but that's not really what happened. More the Potter of the group than the Henry

Caboose- the radar. look at me and tell me I'm wrong. Please. He loves his animals. He's silly.

Simmons- mix of frank (rules stickler tattler) and trapper (guy who goes along with the bit) and a tiny bit radar (company clerk to the CO), also one of the only doctors that joined voluntarily while everyone else was drafted.

Grif- ok grif is the hawkeye and Klinger of the group, the guy always trying desperately to leave but never can. End of statement.

Donut- one part Klinger (outfits) but he's not trying to get out he's just trying to make things nicer, one part every other corpsman that comes up.

Tucker- the other half of trapper, bj in the sense he has a kid.

Kai- enlisted as a nurse once grif left because she couldn't stand to be alone anymore

Church- was the temporary CO when Flowers was gone, then Wash took over. Wants the war to be over so he can go home.

Tex- ok shes the Cornel flagg. Possibly cia. Possibly AWOL. Who knows. But she drops in every once in a while to cause problems then leaves.

Wash- the new blue team CO sent by command, sarge refuses to listen to any dirty blues. So it's not going well.

Carolina- the Margaret, chief nurse/doctor in charge. Very GI, military brat through and through. Former doctor on the very front lines that was transferred the reds and blues after her whole unit (the freelancers) were killed. Or so she thought.

Then the lieutenants. They are the under the rest and are lieutenants, and nurses.

Dr Emily grey. Chief Head surgeon sent there much later. Obvi. Lmao. Of course. Best of the best.

And Doc the priest. Because I think it's funny to call him father doc or whatever. Also trained as a field medic. But he needs to not be a doc in a room full of them ok it makes sense.

*holds out hand* anyone want to join me in creation? Rvb mash au I'll go first

Doc is their priest and everyone else is the doctors

[unseelieaccords]

I mean, Ebenezar knows about Maggie. He learned about her in Changes. It'd be nice if he could meet her properly, now. Bonnie on the other hand... would be a big surprise, but I think Dresden could trust him with it. Considering what they talk about while in the apartment, it seems like it'd be IC for them to talk about that there.

Ebenezar only learned that Harry had a daughter in Changes. I don’t think he knows that Harry is actually looking after Maggie full time now, and considering that the Red Court went after Maggie in order to get at Ebenezar, it makes sense that Harry would want to keep that on the DL IMO.

But honestly? I think the easiest way to kill off Ebenezar at this point would probably be for Harry to just up and show him Bonnie, start the conversation with, “So I might have maybe picked up one of those Blackened Denarii things and then the fallen angel trapped in it kind of perhaps in a manner of speaking fell in love with me and then we sort of how do you say... made a brain baby that almost killed me but also saved my life?” and voila. Instant heart attack for the Blackstaff. Job done.

[icarus-suraki]

Thunder, dahlia and sunset!

thunder: would you ever get a tattoo? If so, what are you planning on getting? My. Mother. Would. Kill. Me.

That's an exaggeration but she does find tattoos creepy, and I do value my mom's opinions, so I don't think I'd ever get a tattoo because I wouldn’t want her mad at me or disappointed in me or to think I’m gross or creepy.

But if I were to get a tattoo? A year or two ago I would've 100% gotten the muted posthorn from The Crying of Lot 49 on the inside of my wrist (probably my left wrist but that's just because I'd draw it there with a Sharpie or waterproof eyeliner Back In The Day).

I was planning on going to Dublin the year I turned 38 (2020) because Leopold Bloom in Ulysses is 38 and I didn't succeed in getting to Dublin when I was 22, which is Stephen Dedalus's age in Ulysses. My plan was to get a tattoo while I was there of my favorite line from Ulysses: "The heaventree of stars hung with humid nightblue fruit" and the Doodles Family from Finnegans Wake. I kind of wanted the Doodles Family under my collarbone the way some people have Roman numeral dates?

Anyway, tl;dr: COVID put the kibosh on that one and I probably wouldn't have had the courage anyway lmao lmao. But having been called Issy for several years by a brilliant Irishman, I feel like I too am part of the Doodles Family (that's obscure and I apologize).

"So it goes" has also been a top contender in the past, especially when a classmate in the English department said "I love how you just say 'so it goes' like in Slaughterhouse Five." I never realized I did it but apparently I did. I still do, I think. That classmate was writing her senior research paper on The World According to Garp. I was writing mine on The Catcher in the Rye.

Otzi the Iceman's tattoos are also cool but the Ukok Princess found in Siberia has better ones and it would be neat to replicate those.

For a while in the past, I thought it would be really cool to have a set of sigils or geometric patterns all over my back and maybe down one arm, something that was like ~ooooh I'm well-versed in strange magic and carry such signs on my body oooooh~ Maybe this was inspired by Fullmetal Alchemist but I can't really remember. Geometric and sigil tattoos are super cool but I think my intention there is kind of cringy. (I also had some even more decidedly cringy tattoo ideas when I was younger--like the classic cringe "feathered wings on my back" kind of shit. Let us not speak of those days.)

I think I'd want only one or two pieces and they'd need to have significance to me and I'd want them to look intentional in some way. I worked with a guy who had this amazing Celtic knotwork cuff around one wrist. That was his only tattoo and the only one he intended to get because that was the kind of "style" he wanted. It was really intentional. I thought that was an interesting way to look at body modification/tattoos because most people I knew who had tattoos always wanted more.

My problem is that I know my interests change--a lot. So if I were to get a tattoo (fixed) for an interest (mutable), I'd probably regret it in a major way sooner or later. I'm better off sticking with henna and waterproof eyeliner.

Although if I ever went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem Old City, I'd get a tattoo from Razzouk Tattoo because that's 700+ years of history plus they seem to use a lot of of Saint George imagery who's kind of important to me because of the Margaret Hodges and Trina Schart Hyman book Saint George and the Dragon. But going to Jerusalem isn't high on my to-do list, despite Margery Kempe falling off her ass and onto her ass when she first came in sight of Jerusalem.

Except: I do want to go to Japan and I wouldn't be allowed into an onsen if I have tattoos, so that probably cancels these plans entirely.

dahlia: describe your ideal house / apartment I'm eating too much avocado toast to afford my dreams, but anyway...

sunset: do you consider yourself to be a lucky or unlucky person? Both.

Stephen King's Dark Tower series induces a special kind of brain rot. I don't consider myself to be in the fandom anymore, but you don't entirely get over it. I mean, in the fandom, you call yourself a Tower Junkie. I'm basically a recovering Tower Junkie. It's kind of always in you, even if you're in recovery. I bring this up because there's a concept that fits from the series.

So in the DT series, there's a concept called "ka mai." "Ka" is kind of like…fate? But more like changeable fate? Or like a tendency for certain things to happen in a certain way? It's not like "thou art doomed unto this fate!" It's not like Oedipus. It's more like "yeah, it's me, so that figures." It's complicated. But Uncle Steve was balls-to-the-wall on morphine for a lot of the last books, so…

Anyway, ka is like fate or a trend in events, but ka mai means something along the lines of "ka's fool." In other words, sometimes the trend in events in your life is like a sweet romantic lover. And sometimes it just fucks you over. And that's me. I'm ka mai.

I feel like when I have good luck, I have really, really good luck. And when I have bad luck, I have really, really bad luck. It's feast or famine. I had a long string of bad luck and job rejections and unexpected expenses and odd frustrations not too long ago. But suddenly I've been getting job interviews and more potential job openings and unexpected connections and certain things are panning out. And it's like, yeah, that figures. When it is good, it is very, very good. But when it is bad, it is horrid.

It's probably confirmation bias, but it sure seems true.

Either way, I like to remember a Cormac McCarthy quote from No Country for Old Men: "You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from."

(Also shoutout to whoever it is in my area that actually has KA MAI for their license plate. I've only seen your car twice at most, but it felt like maybe that in and of itself was ka. Maybe.)

Summertime Asks!

[cdyssey]

Regret

Summary: When Fran doesn't come down to breakfast after spraining her ankle, the whole house is concerned for her—especially Niles and Mr. Sheffield. Set after "An Affair to Dismember."

A/N: Okay, so I've binge re-watched nearly four seasons of The Nanny in four days, and had to get at least one fic out of my system, lmao.

Fran Drescher's acting in "An Affair to Dismember" when she suddenly broke while talking to Maxwell made me sensitive. ;-;

AO3 Link

—

Breakfast is a remarkably boring affair without Miss Fine bursting through the door, raising her arms in a floral robe, and proclaiming, with signature adenoidal stylings, “Good moooorning, everyone!” 

The clink of silverware, the scraping of ceramic plates, the ruffling sound of Mr. Sheffield anxiously attacking the New York Times like a new Andrew Lloyd Webber play has just dropped—all of it is so terribly drab that Niles spends the first fifteen minutes of her pronounced absence coughing loudly in the hopes that his employer will pick up the hint to do something about it.

“Oh, do go get a bloody cough drop, old man,” he finally snaps, smacking his newspaper down on the table. “You’re driving me mad.”

“Sorry, sir,” Niles arches a brow as he refills Mr. Sheffield’s coffee mug. “I have asthma.”

He turns away to replace the coffee pot on the side table.

“And half a mind to kick your tetchy derrière,” he mutters under his breath.

“What was that, Niles?”

“Nothing, sir! Just saying thank you for your attentive care.”

“Dad,” Master Brighton thankfully interrupts, “where’s Fran, and what have you done to make her mad this time?”

Niles immediately turns around again in time to see his boss’s shoulders straighten in that way they often do when he’s indignant.

Or guilty.

Or some mixture of them both.

“I beg your pardon, Brighton,” he replies stiffly. “Why do you immediately assume I’m the problem here?”

“Process of elimination,” Brighton shrugs. “Fran’s not mad at me, Maggie, or Grace, and Niles is one of her closest friends.”

“You’re so astute, Master Brighton,” Niles smiles wryly as he moves to the left to get a better view of Mr. Sheffield’s face. The vein in his temple is beginning to throb, which is always a good time.

“She hasn’t dated anyone recently,” Miss Margaret pipes up.

“And she’s always fighting with her ma,” Miss Grace adds, “but that's never kept her from Belgian waffles before.”

“So, Dad,” Brighton grins, patting his father once on the back, “unless our math is wrong, that leaves you.”

“Goodness me,” Mr. Sheffield mutters, angrily stabbing a piece of link sausage with his fork. “I didn’t know I was in the presence of the lost Hardy Boy.”

“So you did do something!” Margaret exclaims. 

“No! I bloody well did not, Nancy Drew. For your information, Miss Fine accidentally hurt her ankle clubbing last night with Val. I don’t think it’s broken, but I’ve called a doctor to come by just to check.”

“Tsk, tsk. And you didn’t offer to pick her up Cinderella-style and swoop her downstairs so she wouldn’t miss breakfast?” Niles asks chidingly, only to be greeted with a nasty glare.

“Yes, I did offer to bring her down to breakfast as a matter of fact... but Miss Fine seemed strangely subdued when I spoke to her through the door... I didn’t know what to make of it to tell you the truth...”

Mr. Sheffield’s brow contracts as he searches Niles’s face for an answer, and Niles stares back just as studiously, observing the profound concern in his employer’s dark eyes.

The gentleness.

The romance.

The stunningly oblivious care.

Niles sighs fondly.

Unlike Miss Babcock, he’s never had the heart to kick poor puppies when they’re down.

“I’ll bring her Advil and a fresh ice pack,” he promises. “Perhaps some pain relief will help her to regain her spirit.”

“I hope so,” Mr. Sheffield replies, self-consciously turning to his plate again, the tips of his ears rather pink. “I hate when Miss Fine isn’t feeling well.”

“Here, here,” the whole table concurs.

—

Twenty minutes later, Niles is at Miss Fine’s door with a silver tray laden with all the essentials: painkillers, an ice pack, a mug of coffee (milk instead of cream and extra sugar), and a copy of the new edition of Gloss. He lightly taps on her door with the side of his loafer.

“Miss Fine, can I come in?”

“No,” comes an immediate and sharp reply. “I’m not dressed!”

“How discouraging,” Niles sighs smilingly. “What ever shall I do?”

“Suff’a, and at least give me a minute to find a brassiere.” 

“Oh, we’ll be here all day then.”

He hears a strange thud, a collection of evaluations (“dirty, dirty, slutty, Maggie’s, dirty”), and an assortment of Yiddish curse words he now vaguely recognizes from being friends with Miss Fine for nearly four years now. And then finally— 

“Come in, Jeeves, but shut the door behind ya ‘cuz I haven’t applied a morning layer of lipstick yet.”

Niles elbows the knob and pushes with his shoulder until the door lights open to a peculiar sight. Far from being neat, Miss Fine’s room looks like Macy’s after its annual Black Friday sale with clothes strewn everywhere—from the dressers to the wardrobes to the floor. An empty suitcase is lying on the bed next to Miss Fine, who is sitting in bed wearing an oversized t-shirt, her injured ankle propped up on a pillow. Niles can tell, even from the doorway, that it’s red and swollen, but to his satisfaction and relief, it doesn’t appear to be broken.

“Welcome to the jungle,” Miss Fine mutters when she notices his incredulous gaze. “We got all the animals out t’day.”

“I can see that,” Niles replies, placing his tray on her bedside table and shutting the door. With his usual efficiency, he then walks back over, retrieves the ice pack, and gently places it on the affected area, frowning when she flinches.

“Mr. Sheffield said that the doctor was coming at ten,” he says as he gently lowers himself onto the bed, clasping his hands primly on top of his lap.

“Mm,” Fran grunts noncommittally, grabbing the two Advil pills and knocking them back with a swig of coffee.

“What? You’re not curious as to whether or not said doctor in question is single, Jewish, and living in a Manhattan penthouse? Miss Fine”—Niles reaches over and places the back of his hand on Fran’s head—“do you have a fever?”

“Oh, Niles,” she swats his hand away, “I’m not in the mood.”

“It’s been awhile since I’ve heard that one.”

“Niles!”

“Sorry, Miss Fine,” he withdraws his hand with a laugh. “You know I have to warm up before Miss Babcock arrives.”

“Glad to assist,” Fran quips, taking another sip of coffee, and it’s only as she closes her eyes to savor the taste, that he notices there are lines beneath her eyes from what seems to have been a sleepless night. 

The smile sinks from his face.

“You know,” he says quietly, “in all of our acquaintance, I’ve never known of you to injure yourself while dancing.”

Fran opens her eyes only to immediately glance away, tapping her long nails against her mug.

“Val tripped me up when she thought she saw Elton John,” she shrugs dully. “Turns out it was just a really lifelike poster of him behind the bar...”

“I see,” Niles returns, raising a brow. “It was nice of Miss Toriello to forgo her weekend trip with her parents to come back and… boogie woogie oogie with you.”

“Dammit,” she pouts, scrunching her nose. “I didn’t think I’d told you that.”

“You didn’t. I overheard you and Miss Toriello gabbing on the phone about it yesterday morning.”

Fran can’t seem to help herself; she smiles crookedly, even as she shakes her head.

“I dunno who’s more absorbent sometimes—you or the dish sponge.”

He smiles back at her, patting her uninjured leg gently.

“Me, naturally."

"I can believe it, Chatty Cathy," she sighs.

"Now tell me, Miss Fine"—he regains his solemnity quickly, unwilling to let her deflect with jokes—"why does your room look like a tornado went through Loehmann’s?”

Her dark eyes immediately glance around the messy room, as though looking for an excuse and failing to find one.

It’s only now that Niles is sitting down, taking everything in, that he notices that most of the articles strewn about are her favorite clothing items, from her holographic Versace dress to the black tube top that Mr. Sheffield can’t pry his eyes away from every time she wears it.

“I almost did a very stupid thing, Niles,” she half-whispers, looking down into her coffee cup, her fingers tensed and shivering around the handle. “And the thing is, maybe it wasn’t really all that stupid? Maybe it was the smartest thing I could of done in a lifetime of doin’ so many stupid things.”

She pauses briefly before sardonically adding, “People included.”

Though Niles doesn’t have enough dots to connect the full picture, he has what he needs in the way of evidence to get the basic gist: Nigel being in town, the two of them going out, Nigel leaving town, the suitcase, the swollen ankle, and Miss Fine's uncharacteristic melancholy, smeared across her face so sharply that it may as well be lipstick.

He swallows thickly, suddenly grasping how close that they had all been to losing Fran forever.

“Well,” he says, making an effort to hitch an oblivious smile on his face, “isn’t it your mother who says that everything happens for a reason? It seems as though you’re right where you belong.”

“Yeah,” she snorts indelicately. “Twenty-nine multiple times over, single, and livin’ in a mansion with a man who won’t even commit to his meal orders at restaurants, much less his very available and desperate nanny.”

“Beautiful, young, and living in a mansion with three children who love you, a butler who’d be lost without you, and a man who won’t commit to his tie choices either but still cares for you deeply all the same,” Niles corrects her softly. “He was very worried for you when you didn’t come down to breakfast this morning. He didn’t even do the crossword on the Times.”

“Gee,” she rolls her eyes playfully, “how romantic.”

“Very,” Niles grins, “a modern day Romeo—emotional hangups and all.” 

With that, he pats Fran again and stands up; he has no doubt that Mr. Sheffield will be calling for him soon to interrogate him as to Miss Fine’s wellbeing. 

Maybe he can even get C.C. on speaker phone to rub it in her face.

“Y’know, Niles,” Fran smiles at him fondly, “if this whole Mr. Sheffield thing doesn’t work out, we should elope in Vegas in ten yea's.”

“Only if you wear this little number,” he says, bending down and picking up a black cocktail dress from the floor, folding it neatly over his arm.

“You wish you could be so lucky.”

“If we’re going to be in Vegas, anything can happen, I suppose.”

After he retrieves the silver tray from the bedside table, he bends down and kisses Miss Fine lightly on the head, his heart hurting when he notices the way that she closes her eyes beneath the gentle touch—young and vulnerable and terribly hurt by something he can’t quite fix with a well-timed witticism.

“Get some rest, Miss Fine," her murmurs against her head. "I'll check on you a bit."

“Thanks, hubby."

—

Scarcely ten minutes later, he’s down in Mr. Sheffield’s office as per usual, offering the producer a fresh cup of tea even though he had already drunk his traditional two cups at breakfast. 

He insisted, though, on a third, for some excuse he couldn’t quite come up with.

And instead of coming up with an excuse, he immediately asked for all the particulars of Miss Fine’s health.

Predictable chump.

“Thanks, old boy,” Mr. Sheffield frowns, returning to his crossword, tapping the end of his pen arrhythmically against the paper. “Let me know when the doctor for Miss Fine arrives. I want to be there when he checks her over.”

“Ooh la-la-la,” Niles hums, dropping a sugar cube into the tea with a zesty plop.

Mr. Sheffield places his pen down on the desk angrily. 

“Not like that… I just want to ensure she’s going to be well… you know, for the children’s sake.”

“Yes,” he sighs theatrically. “How will the children ever be able to bear their nanny having a twisted ankle?”

“Oh, shut up,” Mr. Sheffield snaps. “I don’t pay you to be sarcastic.”

“No, sir, you pay me to help you with the crossword when you’re missing three-across,” Niles smirks knowingly when he glances down at the incomplete puzzle. “What’s the hint?”

Mr. Sheffield adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose before looking down again.

“A word that means feeling bad for not doing something that you should have done all along. Disappointment. A sense of shame.”

Niles straightens up with a long-suffering shake of his head.

“Oh, sir, do I really have to spell it out for you?”

[marybeatriceofmodena]

Been reading a lot about Jane Seymour lately just to piece together her story from the VERY little we know about her, and there seems to be that line of thought that Henry didn’t really love her and/or that he may have married her in a rush because she believed she was pregnant and/or miscarried later... 

And honestly, I have my gripes with David Starkey’s book about Henry’s wives (and him as a person lmao), but one thing I do agree with him is that Henry tended to marry women he knew before marriage and that it came as close as it possibly could to marrying for love at the time (making that one of the reasons why the marriage with Anne of Cleves fell apart)? 

I guess I would go one step further by saying that Henry may have married these women because he was more in love with the archetype they represented in his eyes rather than the women themselves? To sum it up: 

Katherine of Aragon: She *was* a catch, after all, being the daughter of two of the most respected monarchs in Europe at the time (Ferdinand and Isabel), and she did bring a lot of prestige and legitimacy on an international level to the Tudor dynasty (I make her sound like such a broodmare, barf, but that’s medieval political alliances for you). Add to that the whole aspect of her being a bit of a damsel in distress due to being impoverished after Arthur’s death, and that all appeals to Henry’s sense of chivalry. Add that to how ambassadors would write that Henry and Katherine seemed very close and loving in the first few years of their marriage - except, of course, that luster starts to wear off with Katherine’s miscarriages. So, um, I guess the broodmare comparison isn’t so far off from Henry’s PoV. *barfs again* 

Anne Boleyn: She had the Renaissance Queen thing going on, similarly to Margaret of Austria or Marguerite de Navarre? Katherine was no dunce herself but my guess is that Anne was probably the kind of Renaissance Humanist Nerd who just goes on and on about stuff and is super passionate about it, added with a sprinkle of courtly love, so no wonder Henry is all heart-eyes about it? That gets shattered (or at the very least troubled) by Henry’s infidelity, but it does seem like his vision of her as the Perfect Renaissance Intellectual Queen was still going strong even close to her death, to the point it’s entirely possible Cromwell may have wanted Anne dead since Henry would have trouble completely detaching himself from her if she stayed alive (although I do think that thanks to some serious mental gymnastics and probably some brain damage after that 1536 jousting incident, he ended up really believing Anne was guilty).

Anne of Cleves: I mean, there’s the whole debate on whether she looked like her portrait or not, and what exactly pushed Henry to divorce her - but you know, while I agree that a big part of it might have been political motivations, I also think it may have been a lack of chemistry that just wasn’t compatible at all with the imagined idea Henry had of Anne before she came to England (whatever that was). 

Katheryn Howard: I mean, that one is pretty obvious. Pretty young girl who’s very graceful and joyous, makes Henry feel young again, and the minute he has enough evidence to believe she’s not as pure and wholesome as he thought, and worst of all, she reminds him of his own long lost youth... off with her head. 

Katharine Parr: Like, I think that a lot of the traditional point of view on Katharine being Henry’s ever-patient nurse might be due to how she was presented during her position as Queen Consort and after - nevermind her accomplishments but also the less savory parts of her life... And yeah, her Protestant sympathies might have not vibed with Henry’s traditionalism, but ya know, a caretaker also shouldn’t make you feel annoyed when you’re in pain with *GASP* heretical thoughts... 

So with Jane... the problem with people who’ll go on how she was boring/plain/nasty/cold or even a sociopath is that a) we have next to nothing of Jane’s own words so she can’t even present herself as guilty, much less defend herself; b) I feel like that kind of PoV is exactly the kind of treatment Anne Boleyn gets from her detractors, which leads to a rather ironic case of a double standard? 

We don’t even know the circumstances that led to her becoming Henry’s mistress, considering there are so many unanswered questions about her earlier life, such as the following: 

1) Why wasn’t she married yet, when at least one of her younger sisters was wed before her? And no, the “because she was boring and ugly lol” excuse doesn’t work, simply because it wouldn’t have mattered much for noble parents of the time, especially an ambitious family like the Seymours, since it was all about properties, riches, and getting heirs (and with Jane’s mother having lots of kids, it would be expected that Jane would be similar). 

2) How much of her marriage with Henry was her doing and her will? Like, I can buy the narrative of a young woman seeing herself becoming an old maid and being constantly belittled by her family as a failure of sorts, going for the golden goose but getting more than she bargained for, just like she could be a pawn used by various factions of the court who would have a reason to see Anne out (Catholics, for one, and Cromwell and his people, not to mention that Edward Seymour WORKED for Cromwell, so people who’ll try to claim that Cromwell had nothing to do with Anne’s trial and/or Jane becoming Queen make me lol). And for all the people accusing her of being a sociopath for getting engaged to Henry the day after Anne was beheaded, one begs to ask the question of how much of it was her will, and moreover, what kind of say she would have in it? For all we know, she *could* very well be the only one of Henry’s wives along with Katheryn Howard who had pretty much no say in marrying the King - not to mention that I don’t think her family would have been kind to her after failing to do that and effectively becoming an old maid. 

And, most importantly, it wasn’t a case where “it happened one night”, where Henry sought comfort to Jane, she fell pregnant by accident and welp, time for a shotgun wedding? Simply because Jane *was* Henry’s mistress for a certain period of time, three months at least (unlike Mary Boleyn probably lmao), which does kind of make me think: “Yeah... I don’t think she was that boring and nasty, tbh”

Now yes, Henry didn’t exactly treat Jane with the same amount of respect he treated his other wives - but I wouldn’t see that as evidence that he didn’t love her, simply because of the archetype he may have attributed to her? Namely the one of the Modest Daughter of a Country Gentleman Who’s Elevated to the Highest Position But Keeps Her Humility, unlike her predecessor? 

It’s entirely possible that Henry saw Jane as a sort of Cinderella figure, but that more importantly, he expected her to stay demure. So him treating her like garbage at times? It’s probably him realizing that Jane had a mind of her own (although I don’t really think she was some sort of mastermind, since some of her doings as Queen seem a little... gauche, added to the fact her husband was a wee bit of an arse and didn’t have much patience for her “mistakes”) and wasn’t the demure country girl he wanted her to be, so added to his probably still present turmoil about Anne, it made him snap, while she found redemption giving Henry a son... and conveniently die afterwards after fulfilling her duty. 

[magaprima]

Okay, maybe it’s my knowledge of history, maybe it’s the fact I did studies years ago into human trafficking where similar instances happened, maybe it’s knowing people in my family’s countries have had to do similar things throughout history, maybe it’s the fact I remember my lit tutor saying ‘how a person reacts to a fictional character’s plight is revealing of how they would behave in reality’, but I am getting so fed up of people condemning Lilith for what happened to Adam, or worse, mocking and belittling it like ‘omg she straight up murdered her kid lmao wtf’ which was actually a real comment I just fucking deleted off a GIF set I made. See, this is why I’m seeing these idiots, because they feel the need to comment on a GIF they’re NOT EVEN REBLOGGING. But whatever, I digress. My point of this post is:

 LILITH DID NOT MURDER ADAM. SHE DID NOT KILL HIM IN PETTY REVENGE. SHE DID A HEARTBREAKING THING THAT MADE HER WANT TO DIE WHEN IT WAS DONE IN ORDER TO SAVE HIM FROM THE HORRENDOUS CRUELTY AND ABUSE SHE HAD SUFFERED FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS. And this is without the added consideration that the trauma of such a painful, unnatural birth and post-natal exhaustion and other hormone/chemical issues would have effected decision making and problem processing. 

Okay, so listen; mothers killing their children to spare them from horrors is not an invented concept. It is horrendously true and has happened throughout history. Primarily, to stop their children being taken into slavery, being raped by invaders, saved from sex rings or taken for whatever miscellaneous yet horrendous situation they’re in, which has included abusive fathers. I am speaking as someone who is Irish, where Cromwell swept the land throwing children into slavery (my great-great-so-on Uncle was a child who was taken, but he survived, and we have relatives out in the Caribbean due to this, which is also how a great-great.great-grandparent met his wife. But again, I digress) and knows there were instances where those, unable to hide their children, killed them rather than submit them to the absolute horrors Cromwell’s men were inflicting (they raped a lot of women, murdered the men, raped and/or stole the children. Whole villages were decimated) and as someone with Mexican grandparents and knows how ancestors were treated so violently and cruelly by invaders that killing children to spare them was by no means an uncommon reaction (and an entirely understandable one).

The most famous incident of this happening, possibly because she was already a slave and therefore considered ‘property’ rather than an unnamed native person being dragged from their home, and it was recent enough for official news reports, was Margaret Garner. She was a runaway slave, and, when surrounded by slavers to take her back, she cut the throat of her 2 year old daughter, and planned to kill her other three children and then herself, but the slavers got to her first. They then told her she was property and not a mother at all, and they weren’t her children, but the slaver’s property and therefore she’d damaged property. The horror of that story is undeniable and Margaret’s actions undeniably understandable and cry for sympathy and empathy....and YET, there are still people who condemn her today. Really. So it shouldn’t surprise me there are people condemning a woman in a fictional story too. 

More recently, there have been cases/stories coming forward of human trafficking victims, getting pregnant through no fault of their own, and, knowing the child would be trafficked too, have smothered them in their sleep before they could be taken. 

Lilith is an abuse victim. Severely abused. She is treated as a slave, Lucifer even says ‘you belong to me and only me’ considering her to be his property, ‘Lilith knows her place; to serve’, ‘there is no escape to Tibet or anywhere else’. Lilith, really, in part 1 and half of part 2 has fucking Stockholm Syndrome; she has no reason to be loyal to Lucifer, we see how afraid she is of him, yet she sticks by him and is grateful for the scraps of approval he gives her. She has suffered so much abuse for thousands of years and lived through it that she had been entirely mentally conditioned by it. It took a huge amount of inner strength, and developing relationships with others (namely Sabrina and Adam 2.0, but also the likes of Theo Putnam, Mrs Meeks) for her to break free of that mindset.

But Lucifer is her abuser. There are countless instances of where we see her absolute terror; look how she begs for mercy after Sabrina’s failed Dark Baptism, how she flinches and covers her face when he comes near her, think of the terror in her eyes when he says ‘and you know what I’m like when I’m bored’, think of her sickening fear in part 3 when she realises the Dark Lord is free, how full of panic and fear she is trying to find out where he’s hiding, of how she desperately tries to hide at fucking Mary’s to get away from him, how she’s dragged out by her hair, think of the fear she has on her face when she chooses to face him and watch the horror on her face as she realises what he’ll do to Adam, and look at the fear and broken spirit of her when she realises she can’t stop him. 

Lucifer has abused Lilith for millennia and convinced her that it was love that he was ‘lifting her up’ and ‘making her worthy’, classic abuser language. He even used her own freaking familiar against her. She was treated as property, treated however he chose in that particular moment, and by her own claim she’s done ‘unspeakable things’ to help him, believing she loved him. THOUSANDS of years of abuse and she’s only recently broken free of that, before she’s forced back into his arms, metaphorically-speaking. She is now, however, aware it’s abuse, and she knows what she’s suffered, and how cruel he is, and how he made her into something else, how he used that abuse and cruelty to mould her into what he wanted (think how differently she behaves when she’s his ‘loyal servant’ to how she behaves when she’s free from him and independent. We see a very different Lilith). She knows what Adam will suffer, because she’s suffered it herself. When Lucifer says he’ll suckle on a hell hound and ‘toughen him up and all that’, the expression on Lilith’s face is heartbreaking; she knows exactly what he means by toughen him up. It’s the same as ‘make you worthy’. And the thought of her son going through everything she went through, and then constantly having to fight for his life, fighting against Caliban or Caliban’s children, suffering everything Lilith has, but never having known anything else, never having anyone who loves him truly, no one who could help him escape...it fills Lilith with fear. 

And, she’s seen the Dark Lord get his way over and over again. She’s seen how even Sabrina accepts him as her Father now. She knows the Aunts offered to protect her, but even Hilda is only suggesting they leave, like they can’t actually physically fight him, only do their best to keep Lilith safe. And Lilith knows he’ll find her eventually; her experiences and her severe abuse mean she sees it as inevitable, because she’s ‘learned’ it’s inevitable. Lilith cannot see a possible way to keep baby Adam safe. She knows the only way she can protect him from the Dark Lord is to kill him, and destroy the body (or devour the body, however you wish to interpret the bloody scene) so he can’t resurrect him after he’s killed her. Because, yes, Lilith intends to die. Like Margaret Garner, her plan was to die WITH her child, but she was stopped. Lucifer knew that was her intent, that that was what she wanted (she does openly beg him to kill her) and that is exactly why he makes her immortal, so she can never be with her son, but by cursing her with humanity-- to age and rot etc-- he’s making sure she will only get weaker and not have the power to get back her son by any means. 

Lilith continues to try to join her son throughout the next episode, to the point of getting a hold of the only blade that can kill an immortal, and it’s only when Marie gives her her son’s spirit, placing it in something solid, meaning-- with magic-- Lilith does have a chance to bring her son back, that instead of wanting to die, she decides to destroy Lucifer instead, as she has nothing to lose. Either, she destroys Lucifer and takes all her power back and gets her son back, or she fails and she dies. She essentially becomes a woman with nothing to lose, and they’re the most dangerous people, because there’s nothing to make them hesitate. As Lucifer learned in a very hard way. 

[adamarks]

simon snow has fucking dragon powers or some shit and this is my goddamn proof

Whilst you people were having a meltdown over Baz and Simon not hashing it out (Simon’s not in a place of understanding his self worth enough for that yet.), I was having a meltdown about Simon Snow The Literal Fucking Dragon. 

Now, this is obviously going to have major spoilers for Wayward Son. I’m going to assume you’ve read it if you’re reading this. I’ve put a lot of thought into this theory and this is a long ass post so I’m putting it under the cut. Now. Let’s go, lesbians!

First and foremost, let’s start with the wings and tail. 

Simon’s wings are established at the very beginning of Wayward Son to represent something. We don’t really get to quite know what that something is until they start referring to Simon’s wings the same way they used to refer to his magic. 

The most direct reference to Simon’s wings symbolizing his magic is in Simon’s section of the prologue at the very end of the book:

“It’s time for me to stop pretending I’m some sort of superhero. I was that-- I really was-- but I’m not anymore. I don’t belong in the same world as sorcerers and vampires. That’s not my story.

Dr. Wellbelove said he could remove the wings. And the tail. Whenever I’m ready. I could go back to school then, or get a job...”

This section directly confirms that yes, these wings are a metaphor for Simon’s magic. They’re all he has left connect him to the world of magic. They’re the only thing still making him feel even remotely on the same level as Baz and Penelope. (This book really was all about the concept of self-worth and how completely lacking it affects not only us but those we love. Phew, talk about a doozy. No wonder we’re all crying.)

Now that we’ve established that Simon’s wings, at the very least, are his one tether to magic, let’s drive the nail into the coffin of the wings and tail being absolutely, 100% symbolic of his magic. 

As I mentioned earlier, the book starts treating the wings exactly the same as it treated his magic. This even starts before Wayward Son. The first mention of Simon’s emotions relating to his wings and tail is in the first book. In the epilogue, in Baz’s section, during the dance scene. 

“His tail whips out of my hand. It tends to slash around when he’s upset.”

This really starts to come out in the last fourth of Wayward when he’s “itching for a fight.”

His wings constantly poke, prod, and generally annoy Baz and Penny because he refuses to put them away. Almost.... like... how his magic..... felt suffocating.... and too much... and he couldn’t push it back... or tamp it down. *cough*

Okay, so that was all pretty basic, boring, base-building stuff, yeah?  Pretty “whatever we get it.” 

Well, here’s where it starts to get fun. 

Let’s talk about Simon’s Mirrors.

Lemme just explain what the hell a mirror is, first. In case we all flunked our high school Lit classes. 

A mirror character is, in simple terms, a character that acts, looks like, or reminds you of one of the main characters. Through these “mirror characters” some important information about the main character is revealed to us subtextually. 

Let’s name our Simon mirrors:

Ebb 

Agatha (she’s being developed as her own character but that’s not stopping her from mirroring our good lad.)

Aunt Fiona (to some extent anyway. she doesn’t really factor here.) 

There might be some minor ones I’m forgetting (I’m not including foils) but these are our main guys. 

I put Ebb on the list first, but let’s start with Agatha, the cranky heroine of our dreams. 

Throughout the whole first book, Agatha is shown to be Simon’s mirror. Them both mooning over Baz in almost the exact same way. (Jesus Christ they’re embarrassing to watch.) The waiting on rooftops, the handkerchief. (Don’t get me started on Simon carrying around Baz’s scarf in Wayward. I’m soft and everything hurts. Our poor, stupid, stupid boys.) It’s not exactly subtle. 

In Carry On, Agatha reveals just how much Simon also resents his fate. He never really expresses it, but Agatha is reflecting to us how he’s feeling. They both get progressively less resigned to the bullshit “Chosen One” fate as the book goes on. They both make it out alive. Maybe everything will be okay. 

But then Rainbow rolls up with a Sex On The Beach and Gucci sunglasses to tell us that “fuck no everything’s not okay.” (She’s right. God, I could go on a rant about how no one ever talks about how you feel when you’ve defeated the villain. When you’ve escaped the dungeon. Hhhhh)

Wayward Son immediately sets Agatha up as even more of a mirror than she was in the first book. We’re shown right away that the two of them are both in a depressed funk. They’re both at “15%” and miserable. These two are echoing each other like NEVER before and I am LIVING for it. 

Like, we even get this amazing bit in Chapter Four:

“That would feel like an answer to... the question of me. Then I could say, ‘Oh, that’s who I am. That’s why I’ve been so confused.’”

They! Are! Struggling!

Now, how does this relate to Simon having literal fucking dragon powers? Good question, thank you for asking. 

In Chapter Fifty-Six, when Pen and Agatha are stuck in the back of Fuckwad Vampire #3′s car, Agatha says this:

“I honestly thought I could walk away from it all-- like magic was a place. Like magic was a person. Or a habit I could break.

When Simon first came to Watford, he couldn’t make his wand work. He could barely cast a spell. He thought they were going to kick him out, that he wasn’t magic enough. 

“You don’t do magic,” Penelope told him. “You are magic.”

I... am magic. 

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I claim it. Whether or not I carry my wand. 

It’s in me, somehow. Blood, water, bone.”

They!! Are!! Both!! Magic!! 

Magic is in them! Magic is with them! They’re made of the stuff! They can’t cut off this part of them, no matter how much they want to. (lmao. talk about good old internalized homophobia. I don’t really have an opinion on what Agatha’s sexuality is, btw. I’m using homophobia as a blanket term because I have no clue what’s up on that front.)

Simon is made of magic. He doesn’t want to remove his wings. Even though he has to hide them. Even though he thinks he’s a Normal now. Like Penny said, “an aeroplane is still an aeroplane even if it’s on the ground.” (I’m not sure that’s verbatim, apologies.)

Simon still has magic. We just can’t see it. He’s made of magic. He is magic. He was literally conceived during a spell. Bitch is as magical as you can get. 

But where is the magic???? Where’d it go???? Hello????

I’m getting there. I promise. First, we need to talk about Ebb. 

Ebb wasn’t only Simon’s weird Aunt figure; she was his mirror. Ebb was what would’ve happened to Simon if he hadn’t rejected the mage at the end of Carry On. Ebb just gave in. She didn’t want to fight anymore, and she figured Shithead The Great knew more than she did. 

God I just fucking hate Mage so much like holy shit. Anyway, anyway. 

Ebb was the strongest magician next to Simon. She didn’t want to fight. She didn’t want to use her magic for any great purpose. She just wanted to be. Agatha even reiterates this in the epilogue of Carry On.

 “Like, they couldn’t just let her be.”

(No, Simon doesn’t miss killing things in Wayward. He misses excitement and having a purpose. He mainly misses having a purpose. Not having one of those fucking sucks.)

What the fuck does Ebb have to do with this? Why can’t I just get to the point?

My point is!

My Point IS!

That goddamn dragon with the sheep was supposed to remind you of Ebb.

So, let’s do the math. If 1=1x1= 1 then...

Ebb = Margaret = Simon

Sure, sure we had Simon screeching that he wasn’t a dragon. But Margaret was immediately like, 

“Not yet.” She pets his wing. “Are kitten. Someday dragon. Someday ferocious.”

Simon smells like a dragon, but also apparently “smells like iron.” Whatever the fuck that means. I mean I guess it means that Baz could still sippy sippy. (Which is gonna happen or I’ll eat my own toe.) 

One more thing: 

“I wanted wings,” he says. “I wanted to fly.”

“Why tail?”

“I wanted to be free!”

Gee, that sure sounds like what Agatha was saying earlier, huh?

YEAH OKAY HE’S HALF DRAGON!! WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT!!! WHAT THE FUCK AM I ON ABOUT!!!!

Omg thank you for asking. I’m going to blow your mind with my final point. 

The Final Point: The Baz Problem.

Wayward Son is, by all accounts, Baz’s book. It develops everyone beautifully and everyone has an arc, but this book is where Baz gets to shine. 

We found out in this book that vampires are immortal.

This introduced a whole new issue, an issue that surfaces every time immortality is introduced as a possibility for one character but not the rest. 

Someday, Baz will be left alone.

He’ll inevitably outlive everyone he cares about. We all know our poor, beautiful, delicate bastard boy couldn’t take it. How deeply he cares is his most beautiful and wonderful trait, and this could break him. 

I wonder, how long does a dragon live?

Penny talks about the improbability of Simon and Baz in Chapter Three. 

“Star-cross’d lovers. ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.’ The whole shebang.”

Simon’s magic was always described as smoke and fire. The first creature we learn about Simon fighting was a dragon. (Chapter 1, first page of Carry On)

“You’ve slain a dragon, Simon. Surely you can manage a long walk and a few buses.”

 God, I just really hate Bitchface the Mage. Anywho.

Simon. The One Who Came to End Us. Simon. The One To Save Us All. Simon is the dragon and the knight. He’s his own worst enemy. His arc will be completed once he accepts the “dragon” part of himself. It’s poetic as fuck, I must admit. 

Simon has to find love and care for himself, and then this baby dragon will be grown. He’ll be “on top” as Margaret had said. (God, could you imagine all the dragons waking up? How fucking epic would THAT be? Fingers crossed.)

The monster that drains living things and the monster that burns all in its wake. These losers are starcrossed, but they complete each other. Dumbasses. I just love them so much why can’t they get their shit together. 

Simon and Baz’s storylines are utterly intertwined. They’re perfectly matched. Simon might not know it, but their hearts are already tied together; they beat in sync. They’re two stars orbiting each other. And, if we’re all very lucky, maybe they won’t crash. Maybe this story won’t end in flames. 

So, in conclusion, I really really really want Simon to breathe fire. The only other way I could see this twisting is the wings somehow going away and Simon getting a regular-magician amount of magic. That’s kinda lame tho and doesn’t complete his arc correctly. This dumb boy is a dragon now and there’s nothing we can do about it. (EDIT: actually yeah simon’s not gonna lose his wings no way in fuck. check out my meta.)  Also? I would sell my soul to see Simon getting really possessive over really weird objects for his hoard. 

Thank you for sticking with me this far, dear reader. I’ll leave you with this thought: Baz is Donkey and Simon is the dragon from Shrek. 

Check out my other meta on the future of simon and baz’s relationship and how penny and agatha relate 

scarf meta as well check it

Gonna be tagging peeps so this can circulate better. 

@carrybits @neck-mole @watfordwallflower

[lady-plantagenet]

What hasn’t already been said: The Spanish Princess 2

Episode 3: GOOD Grief! (we finally have a good episode on our hands)

To all those of you keen enough to have come back for another segment of ‘what hasn’t already been said: TSP’, as opposed to have just been scrolling when you see this - welcome back! (Scrollers you too <3)

Drawing of Thomas More’s Son AKA who Margaret Pole at this point wants to be the step baby momma of ;).

To anyone who’s seeing this for the first time: what this is a list of observations, jokes, reactions and criticism which occur to me upon a rewatch. I wait every week until Saturday to do this so that I have had my fill of scrolling through the tag and aggregating what has already been said. I tried doing a whole spoof (here where I gave up 10% in) but tbh a) I don’t know the history well enough b) it’s more time consuming than I thought and c) this series is just not as funny or as crazy as TWQ, so it’s untenable. Having said that: This is not a hatepost. I’m not hatewatching this series and nitpicking on purpose but expressing my honest views and trying to find the good in it as well as the bad.

Without further ado...

First Scenes: 

LMAO the way Wolsey suggests they break their alliance with Spain is freaking hilarious because the actor delivers the lines as if he were a high school girl making a personal attack by suggesting the prom change its theme to 70s disco to the chagrin of the peppy up-and-coming rival.

Also @ Henry VIII looking like the peppy up-and-comer’s bff and shy stan with that pencil bite and small smirk when Catherine loses her cool against Wolsey.

I’m sorry... who is Henry married to again?

Also what is Margaret Pole doing at the council meeting?? I’m not saying I don’t like it.

Margaret Pole warning against certain repetitive thinking creating madness :(((

Attempted Naked Twister:

Oh Catherine, what is with you and all the other STARZ protagonists and that weird politcky bedroom talk? Who actually finds this sexy?

‘Catherine you are unnatural’ ooof that line delivery was somehow haunting.

Was the whole ‘I can’t be rushed you are off-putting with your overpowering’ a callback to Arthur and Catherine? Apparently there’s another writer for this episode so I won’t put all subtly past them. 

Scotland:

‘Shitey men’ asdkjashd

Look I’m tired of all this ‘my children won’t be safe’ line getting repeated. Look mate, murder of royal infants and children was not exactly a common occurence, even in cases of deposition. The Princes in the Tower are an exception to this but a very infamous case for that reason. Child murder was extremely taboo. In situations like this with an infant kid, no one is going to bother murdering the babies and taking their thrones, the lords will just vie for power and make themselves de facto rulers and oust the queen. It’s not a question of safety but a question of holding power. Stop giving all women characters perma mummy brains.

Maggie being all caring:

‘Barnaby’ *scoffs* ‘Such an English name’ - OH MAN 0_0 is Catherine mocking them for trying to adapt ? Like I know it’s meant to show her envy for Lina, but it’s coming out all messed up.

Our girl Maggie’s smile screams I’m beating your ass in chess.

Anyhow this is the least histrionic we’ve seen Catherine so far.

Chaplain vs Catherine:

I’m interested how Catherine will feel at Stafford’s execution given that I have noticed this show build up to a friendship between them.

Why is everyone laughing at the whole ‘will you delight us with new schemes’ line was not that funny?

LMAO at Thomas Boleyn’s attempted brown-nosing. 

You know what? Ruairi is a decent actor. When he says ‘so you admit it? you lost the child because you tried to be a man?” the actor conveys Henry’s troubled mind, lowkey scare towards Catherine and bewilderment all in one. The way his eyes do not move but just widen emotionlessly also gives this sense that he is being manipulated (which I guess they are going for with Wolsey). Then the whole choir music in the background.. I don’t know.. I’m liking this, it’s creating a vibe of a king of haunted and increasingly paranoid Henry. I’m sure they are going for that, so good.

Ursula Pole and Mama:

Maggie Pole say ‘riches don’t keep you safe’ with tears in her eyes :’(. Please tell me how this is not her thinking on her parents and granddad Warwick and what befell them ;’(.

I find Ursula refreshing actually, don’t get those types of heroines often. But they are making her similar to a gold-digger, an exhalted marriage was first and foremost considered a thing of honour. Noblepeople wouldn’t speak in such mercenary terms regarding their marriages. 

Post Mary Defiance:

I love the ‘horse’ nickname from Brandon n’awwww

Also just realised what made TWQ so atmospheric - that wierd ‘oooo’ sound effect in the background when a character was being paranoid or worrying. They are using it during Henry’s ‘How is it that I have no sons?’ and it is just... so effective.

Catherine calling them ordinary children... she just keeps striking me as more and more classist. Like ok, I know every royal was... but still, I thought she was meant to see Lina as a friend and equal despite her race and status. To add the race element, this kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Also it is so clear by the end when Catherine states how the king is upset with her, she expects Maggie to ask her about it.. but she doesn’t lmao.

Back to Scotland until Sexy boy fencing:

I love me this soft boi. Angus <3 <3

I like how they address that some men don’t really like killing and that violence isn’t inherent in a man’s nature.

Oh man, are we supposed to look at Lina’s house and deplore the impoverished conditions? It would go for at least 3,000,000 pounds in today’s property market?

Is Catherine being particularly classist again with ‘Why u not becoming a butcher Wolsey, ey?’. 

Though I will admit the ‘but giving meat to the poor is also good’ was one of her only smart comebacks.

Just realised, Catherine’s pink dress pretty as it is, looks straight out of the 1570s... why?

Montage and After:

You guys are right, there is this weird longing between Henry and Wolsey lmao. It is actually insane.

So basically Catherine is officially depressed

OOOFF we have Stafford as regent instead of Catherine. (edit: I suppose it’s cause they go to France which they didn’t historically? Also if Stafford is at home then what is his son later doing in France, why would he be there without his father. This show didn’t think this through)

Meg Singing:

An impassionate speech is not too anachronistic. But despite the title of this post (what hasn’t been said) I will reiterate that 16th century and Medieval people’s problem wasn’t that they were ashamed of their grief and didn’t cry. In fact, crying was somewhat more socially acceptable then than it even is now! Even manly men like Arthur were written as crying in literature such as Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Obviously you couldn’t go overboard, but in truth crying was indeed often too performative rather than hidden too much behind doors.

Pole and More UWUWU in France and after:

I LIKE THIS INTELLECTUAL FLIRTING

It’s nice to see a depiction of romantic feelings between mature and level-headed subjects.

God Mary Tudor is so beautiful in this scene jesus. and the music when she was being presented was also very beautiful.

Maggie Pole getting given ‘a modest income’ yeah... she was one of the wealthiest peers of her day.

Also Maggie’s lady cousin not lady aunt Frost!

‘shaking of the sheets’ lmaoooo

William Compton cracks the hell out of me. I love this guy. He is just so creepy and twisted yet super keen and friendly. ahaha He looks like a riot, I hope we see him more. lmao tiles.

Also this palace feels very anachronistic almost 18th century-ish.

I like the Louis and Mary sequence, it’s nice seeing him trying to make her feel less scared, but OMFG when he lay on that chair.. for one second I thought they were trying to kill him off already.

Scotland: ‘Love is an open doooooorrrrr’ + Last Scene:

I ship Meg and Douglas ahhhh this soft boi x strong woman match is everything Henry and Catherine could have been.

I wonder... why is Lina speaking in Spanish more than Catherine. hmmm Are they trying to foreshadow Lina’s eventual return home and how Catherine become a true englishwoman?

Conclusion:

7.5/10

I cannot in all fairness believe it. This was actually decent. I’ve given up on historical accuracy long ago so by this point I’m focusing more on how it stands as as drama. I mean, TWQ was also a flop when it came to grasping the complex issues of that era but why do I feel compelled to rewatch it every year? Because it had atmosphere when it came to acting, music, certain aesthetics (though the costumes let me down often). It felt adequately gothic and dark, yet bright and jewel-lish when it had to be, sometimes both at the same time. Some one-liners were also memorable etc...

So far TSP 2 did not have any of this. Everything felt way too off and anachronistic. But not even consistently anachronistic. The music was also often very meh (though I just noted the absence of the spanish stringy theme that kept playing in season 1 - I guess I understand why), the dialogue very clichéd (‘alright lads let’s throw in the words: king, crown, power, fight, battle + other buzzwords and we have ourselves Shakespeare’) and so on... but I saw a change in this episode and I couldn’t initially point out what it was.

Upon rewatch, I identified some of the improvements (noted above) but above all: The producer was different! Boy does it show. Unfortunately, I think she is only for this one episode which really sucks. Come back! There is more chemistry between the couples, less predictable interactions, pervy Compton, cinnamonroll Douglas, better music, more scenic shots (e.g Douglas and Margaret in church) e.t.c. I hope it will match the rest of the STARZ productions in getting better towards the end.

Look it’s no masterpiece. But I’ll give credit where it’s due because at least this time it didn’t leave me feeling wanting and unsatisfied (if that makes sense).