#fuck what’s the ship name for Russia and France. help

[renonv]

Got mega inspired by @temtamtom ‘s gorgeous art so I went a littleeeee crazy 🫶

The rest of gay sillies below ⬇️

Ivan will regret letting them go this day but he WILL get Francis back for it (as history will tell)

[versilperihelion]

i did feel like looking up which portrait was which and give some descriptions as a totally normal thing to do at 6 am soon before work cause who's gonna stop me, monarch cops? (well work's gonna stop me cause no way i'm getting this done in 45 minutes), so thank you for doing half of it and imma attempt to describe each in short based on what the wikipedia says through the lens of what we were taught about each of them at school for how they're remembered. there will be tangents for important context and embedded wikipedia links for convenience.

top-left (my life is a living hell and i have nobody to blame but myself), John II Casimir Vasa (Jan II Kazimierz Waza, imma call him J2K here)

*inhale*

okay so.

we must first talk about parallel universes the royal elections in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (PLC from now on, lazy). 1573 the nobles decided that after the second major dynasty ended heir-less they'll be electing each new king. that seemed like a good idea at the time for them with all the juicy benefits they could make the king promise them, plus they'd keep from losing local prestige points. that proved to be a bad idea long-term cause it weakened the PLC and allowed external influence to seep in and you can read more about the partitions of Poland. But other than that, select a king from some valid noble home, make him promise benefits to the nobility, roll in the dough.

so J2K was a Vasa. you might recall that name from one ship known for its extraordinary lack of buoyancy. that's cause J2K was from that Swedish family and the third (...and last) Vasa king elected in a row. this will be important in a few sentences. first, let's talk about the Cossacks in the south-east who revolted against the rule of the catholic nobles and were supported by Russia that invaded so that's already bad. but Russia was also taking over the north-eastern parts (current Estonia-Latvia area) which Sweden didn't like cause they wanted to dominate the Baltic that i can only barely and as a technicality call a sea. and didn't help that J2K was making claims to the Swedish throne, even titling himself as the king of Poland and Sweden in official stuff, which was a bit of a no-no across the tiny pond.

so if you want to have a gist of how bad the Swedish invasion was, in Polish it's most commonly referred to as the "potop szwedzki", or the Swedish Deluge, with the word deluge only really used in that form otherwise to talk about the biblical one, the big boi water. sooooo yeah. J2K abdicated eventually and left to France cause he was on good terms with them. and the folks here had to pick up the pieces. a fun thing to note with that earlier how election diminished the king's power and empowered the nobility, it's commonly said and taught (though it's incorrect) that the first instance of the use of liberum veto was during J2K's reign - it was on the parliament deciding the next election, but close enough. what was liberum veto, in short? imagine there's a session of a parliament of representatives of nobility. one dude stands up and shouts "fuck this shit!" and that is binding as "this session of the parliament is now dissolved, everyone go home". sounds like a stable political system, right? also fun fact, guess who was supportive of the Swedish Deluge, given PLC was mostly catholic at the time (with the eastern parts being local majority orthodox as we gathered last paragraph)? one certain self-appointed lord protector from a small island to the west. you know, the one near Calais. wild times those years were.

no wonder the country got erased from the maps for 123 years huh

fuck me it's 7 am now and i'm just 1/9 through.

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top-middle (my life is a living hell and God will regret letting me live), Mieszko II Lambert (imma call him M2L)

and now we go back to when years started with 10-. this guy was the third confirmed ruler of still young and recently established properly Poland, and its second king. there were rumors (convenient for German rulers at the time) that he usurped the throne after the death of his father. he may have also not treated his two brothers too well, whicih would check out later.

when Germans were busy M2L went lootin' which understandably lead to a war.it went badly and more states allied against him. so his two brothers struck back to grab power, M2L had to try to flee to Czech, he was captured and castrated (he had a son prior to that, fortunately), while his brother Bezprym took control, sent back the Polish crown jewels (given by the Holy Roman Emperor to M2L's and Bezprym's father after being recognized as a proper king. not M2L's own ones, that'd be weird), and was murdered a year later. M2L returned, formally rejected getting the crown back, and split the country between him, his other brother, and a nephew. got all the pieces back eventually before dying but left the country messy, weakened, and a bit less christian than was made by his predecessors, with pagan uprisings and whatnot.

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top-right (my life is a living hell and i'm making that everyone else's problem), Sigsmund II Augustus (Zygmunt II August, Z2A)

so you know that second major dynasty and whatnot and how when it ran out the elections were established? yeah that was the last guy of that dynasty.

well, he did formally unify the Kingdom of Poland and Grand Duchy of Lithuania, till now just in a personal union, into one state - the PLC. he also had the total of three wives (one after another), at least one controversial for his court, fought a war with Russia and Sweden for control over the Baltic that ended with nothing interesting, and died causing a problem for everyone with needing to introduce elections. which well, as we've established, wasn't really really that big of a problem to the nobility. until it was but that was the future nobles' problem.

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middle-left (i have no idea how i got here, even less where i'm going and i have nobody to blame but myself), Stanisław II August Poniatowski (SAP from now on)

*inhale* oh boi. where do we begin with you. like he tried. he tried to some extent. but really couldn't.

on one hand he was a reformer, propagator of art and sciences. on the other, he got elected with support of Catherine II of Russia with whom he maintained an alliance. you might have a vague "oh no" of where this might be going.

elected as part of a military coup done by the nobles supported by Russians, he inherited a huge fucking mess, but still tried to do at least something useful despite not being too liked. the big mess at the time was regarding the law protecting non-catholics from discrimination. i'm really not gonna go into all of this mess, you can look it up. Russians being orthodox and having the king very on their side were very involved. political reform plans kinda died cause he had to enshrine all the privileges granted to the nobles and the PLC became a Russian protectorate.

some nobles got together to fight back against the Russian influence and threat to the catholic faith in the country. how did that go? oh. the first partition of the PLC ceding some territory to Prussia, Russia, and the Habsburg Austria to avoid the growing influence of Russia upsetting the balance of regional power. wwwwwwwwwelp.

sadly it's really not that much of a surprise. with how the state had been weakening with nobility doing whatever they wanted it was a matter of time. Russian ambassador was effectively co-ruler along with SAP. SAP to his credit still tried to do something and it was around that time that he was doing a lot of the science and art promotion. he also tried to do some reforms, cleaning up the political mess, leading to the constitution of the 3rd of May (1791), putting some more limitations on the noble abuses of power, putting peasants under royal protection, adding some equality, and turning the PLC into a constitutional hereditary monarchy, notably the second such constitution document in the world after certain thirteen colonies did theirs. 3rd of May nowadays is a national holiday commemorating it and leading to many people taking 2/5 off to have a tree free days block which if 1/5 lands on a monday or 3/5 on a friday, hell yeah dude. so clearly it was a momentuous-

oh, Russia doesn't like the whole hereditary monarchy thing limiting their influence and is invading. well shit. PLC tried to defend itself, its ally Prussia decided nah we're out, or in fact you know we're in on Russia's side, and SAP had to back down. so you know how i said "first" partition of the PLC? yeah time for the second one, Habsburgs sat that one out cause they weren't really participating.

and then there was the uprising headed by general Tadeusz Kościuszko, participant in the American war of independence, trying to do something after the king effectively gave up. it was also around the time of the French revolution. wild times huh. anyway the uprising failed and the third partition completely took all the remaining territory of the PLC and split it between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. SAP abdicated. and went to Russia where he fared pretty well for himself. until 1918 Poland would only exist as two rump states for a bit, the Duchy of Warsaw set up by Napoleon, and the "Kingdom of Poland" set up by the Congress of Vienna and given into the Russian sphere of influence (soon annexed) so the tsar stops his tantrum and lets them do the rest of the work. Lithuania didn't even get these rump states till that time. sorry guys. you kinda got a Wales treatment in this whole deal.

soooo yeah. Stanisław August Poniatowski. gold star with "you tried" in comic sans.

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middle-middle (i have no idea how i got here, even less where i'm going and God will regret letting me live), Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki (MKW)

phew okay. who's next after all that. oh. Wiśniowiecki. ffffffine.

this guy was elected right after J2K. you know, the first guy from this list. he ruled for four years. he just. really didn't do much. he faced internal conflicts between royalist faction and pro-French faction, had a war with the Ottoman Empire and had to bail from it cause he got food poisoning, handed over the military command to hetman (field marshal) Sobieski, who won the battle, got that shit on track, and not too long later when MKW died got elected as the next king and gained respect of the Ottoman Empire. so yeah. biggest achievement of MKW? making Jan Sobieski look even better.

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middle-right (i have no idea how i got here, even less where i'm going and i'm making that everyone else's problem), Sigismund III Vasa (Zygmunt III Waza, Z3W)

hey so remember the first guy from the list, the third Vasa king in a row? this was the first one. during his time, Poland (and Lithuania counted together) reached their, and let me quote the Historia Civilis channel here, "beefiest" territory. he was also legitimately the king of Sweden at the same time. well, for a time until the war with Sweden cause there was a fear that he'd try to bring catholicism back to Sweden. so that eventually lead to what we know about J2K. oh yeah and then there was the thing with going against Russia during the time of several False Dmitrys there. that's how Romanovs got the throne there.

but anyway until that happened, during that war with Russia, PLC actually did pretty well, getting all the way to Moscow and there was a possibility of his son taking Russian throne, if and only if he converted to orthodoxy. he did not. the empire struck back. i don't know for sure but i think the meddling with the whole Time of Troubles, and the rejection of the orthodox faith, and making a mess in Moscow might be at least part of why Russia has historically be so hell-bent on taking Poland. the anniversary of kicking the Polish out of Moscow is a holiday in Russia now, the Unity Day.

so yeah Z3W had a really big chance and chose his faith (that got him into a war with Sweden) over making Poland the beefiest state in history. bummer. at least alt-hist folks can have a field day with that one. also he moved the capital from Kraków (Cracow) to Warszawa (Warsaw), so i guess i can thank him for making Kraków less smoggy in the 21st century.

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bottom-left (i'm having a GREAT time and i have nobody to blame but myself), Jogaila, Ladislaus II Jogaila (Władysław II Jagiełło, W2J)

so you know that second big dynasty? this is its first guy and the reason why we in the end had the PLC in the first place.

originally the grand duke of Lithuania, got picked to take the Polish crown after the last guy of the first dynasty died without a male heir, the crown went to a guy from Hungary for a bit, and then to his daughter who was crowned king (yes, not queen), and then married Jogaila, he got baptized, they became co-regents, and kicked the collective asses of the Teutonic Order in 1410.

solid lad. well remembered. did fine. his portrait is on the 100 PLN banknote.

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bottom-middle (i'm having a GREAT time and God will regret letting me live), Bolesław II the Bold (Bolesław II Śmiały, B2S)

either the Bold (Śmiały) or the Generous (Szczodry). historians can argue about that, i don't feel like it. remember M2L from earlier? that's his grandson. and between these two there was a bit of a mess to say the least.

he tried to get Poland out of the imperial dominance from the west so in the conflict between the Holy Roman Empire and the papacy he sided with the latter. well, it worked, he got crowned king after all that mess with M2L. didn't really take much shit, and when a bishop opposed the punishments he was handing out, he handed out one for that bishop too. until that point where he had to flee to Hungary and his brother took the throne, he did fine in strengthening the state.

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bottom-right (i'm having a GREAT time and i'm making that everyone else's problem), Bolesław I the Brave (Bolesław I Chrobry, B1C)

okay who's last. ah, right, twenty dollars the hedgehog.

so that was the son of the first guy we historically know for sure ruled Poland the father of M2L. he supported christianization of Poland and when a bishop from Prague went to the territory of Prussians (the Baltic tribe, before the Teutons took over and made the place German) and got sliiiightly killed, B1C bought his body back for as much gold as he weighed. that was nice enough of him to do that the Holy Roman Emperor came over in year exactly 1000, gave him some gifts (allegedly reliquaries), recognized his sovereignty over Poland, and established an archdiocese so the church in Poland had some local leadership. then the emperor died, new one didn't like him so much, there was another war, and at some point B1C was crowned as the first king of Poland.

oh yeah and the 20$ the hedgehog non sequitur joke is cause he's on the 20 PLN banknote.

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it is now 9 am for me. whoever got this far, enjoy looking up more of this stuff if you're curious. both a pity and hooray that none of the rulers from around the feudal fragmentation made it into those 9 cause it would've been interesting to bring up but at the same time not sure if i'd feel like writing that. have fun taking that wikipedia dive.

New Meme Alignment Chart came to me in a fit of Mania this morning. Have fun kids!

[alifeasvivid]

tagged by @americapersonified and @astralastrid

The USUK headcanon... quiz? Thingy? XD

In what decade did they officially become involved?

Officially? Like publically, the answer is obviously post WW2. Probably a lot of crashing together and falling apart before that though, I’d say as far back as the revolutionary war. I view their age gap as smaller back then actually and it’s likely that something happened, England freaked out, America got hurt. Idk, I know American history from so many different perspectives now that I’m willing to hear out any theory on this subject XD

Who tops? (USUK or UKUS?)

Whoever wants to on any given day. *sly grin*

Was either of them a virgin before their first hookup?

Otoshigo makes a good argument for America being a virgin before it happens, but I have this headcanon that everyone except me hates (which is fine) that America lost his virginity to France in exchange for help with the revolution. As for England, he is the erotic ambassador so I’m gonna have to say hard no on that one. I actually have a fair few headcanons about their other sexual/romantic relationships.

Obviously I (really) low-key ship PortEng. I would also buy England having affairs with France, Spain, India, China, and Japan. For America, I’d say France (see above), Mexico, Russia, Japan... someone made the case for Israel once somewhere and I’d buy that under the right circumstances.

If not, to whom did each lose his virginity?

I don’t have any solid headcanons about this (even the one above I subscribe to always), I’m willing to go with whatever works in context of the art/comic/fic/what have you.

Are they more patient with each other in private, or do they bicker/tease each other all the time?

I think it ebbs and flows. Their general mode of communication is kind of snarky and most people would probably be low-key concerned to hear it. But if someone’s having a bad day, it turns right off and slips straight into gentle “Hey babe, whatcha need me to do?” or soft “How can help you, love?”

I would say they are more patient with each other in private than in public if only to “keep up appearances,” since neither would want to be seen as “weak” (an unfortunate reality), but I also maintain that if you give them both the same target, they’ll unite and fire at that poor bastard instead.

Will they ever get married?

Uhh.... no. That’s just not how things are done anymore.

If so, where will the wedding be held? (Add other details if you wish.)

N/A lol

At whose house do they most often stay together?

Probably America’s? If only because the UN headquarters are there.

Do they refer to each other by their nation names or human names?

Nation names in private/around other nations, human names whenever actual humans are present. The human name is the disguise, the nation name is their real name.

This is another one I’m super flexible on, make the right case and I’ll roll with it.

What pet names do they have for each other?

Arthur (uses pet names less often): Love, My Darling, Dearest, Pet

Alfred (uses pet names more often): Babe, Baby, Artie, Sweetheart, Darlin’ (but it must be said with a drawl)

Who drives?

LOL this one’s easy. Obviously this depends on where they are. If the location has right-side of the road driving, Alfred. If it’s left-side of the road, Arthur.

Is Alfred good at making Arthur’s tea?

Yes, actually really good at it, BUT he only does it as a plea for mercy after he has deeply, deeply fucked up OR if he really, really wants something, otherwise hot water + tea bag = close enough for jazz, babe.

It’s universally accepted that Arthur sucks at cooking. Does Alfred enjoy cooking? Is he good at it? Or does he usually stick to McDonald’s and fast food?

I heard way back when that they were gonna make an anime, but I never saw anything come of it (XP), so I stick with the strips in that England is a very, very exceptional baker.

I love the idea of America as king of the bbq and I’m with @historihet in thinking he can follow a recipe, but isn’t super creative normally (unless it’s to make something Actually Unholy like “deep fried butter”... but that’s shock/novelty value more than serious). On the other hand, there are probably several dishes he does very, very well and has them commited to muscle memory and feels comfortable taking a few liberties with.

Do they shower together? (Often; not specifically for sex.)

Not for sex. It’s annoyingly difficult to have sex in the shower. Otherwise, I think Arthur at least would want to draw boundaries about personal care/grooming. Alfred probably agrees once he’s shown why it’s sensible. They shower alone.

Baths are another matter entirely.

Who smells better? (In your opinion.)

I can’t bring myself to be this cliche. P: Scent is a huge thing for me so I have a pretty extensive headcanon for this, but... typing it out is like making a blind person watch a silent film.

How vocal are they in bed?

They are both very vocal, but Alfred is louder. Arthur does the dirty talk* and the moaning. Alfred does the crying out and gasping.

*Arthur’s dirty talk is legendary and Alfred is weak and he can often finish just from Arthur murmuring devilishly in his ear.

Who has the more active libido?

You might think the obvious answer is Arthur, but... Alfred’s 19. I had a cis boyfriend at 19 and uh........... like you can’t turn that shit off for anything. 

I imagine they’re really about the same, which is ideal, but Arthur generally has more control over how much or how little he gives into it, whereas Alfred might tend to get a bit... overheated. Arthur probably encourages it, just to make Alfred crazy, because whether he’s topping or bottoming, sex is always better if Alfred’s really riled up.

Is spending time together easy, or are they forced apart for long periods at a time?

I prefer to think that it’s fairly easy for them to move around. It’s just more convenient that way. Long distance stuff makes me sad. Also, if they’re apart for 2 years or something, that might not feel like much to them, all things considered.

Are they wealthy? Or do they live modestly?

They probably live fairly modestly, though I’d imagine America has houses or apartments in a few different states for convenience. In terms of outward material wealth, I’d say they’re supposed to keep a low profile, but since a Nation-tan’s personal possessions don’t age, their houses are probably treasure troves for historians, particularly England’s library.

For Alfred specifically: Glasses on or glasses off?

On. Sometimes even during sex. England likes how they go all askew.

How often do they break up?

They’re tsundere, but not emotionally unstable I think, so not often. If they do, it’s serious and lasts awhile, but they always come back together.

Open relationship?

Absolutely not. They are both imperialist and incredibly possessive.

Did Arthur actually care for Alfred before the American Revolution?

Uh... of course? I’ve talked about this at length before, but the short answer is yes. Was he in love with him? I don’t think so. You’d have to make a really compelling case for that one for me to believe it. Attracted to him? Maybe (see above). Was America his favorite colony or particularly special? No way, but that doesn’t mean England didn’t care.

I’m too tired to tag anyone, but please please do this if you want! And tag me in it so I can see!

[imaginethebeautifulworld]

How would Canada, Prussia, and Romano handle every country but theirs dying? And the micronations. Asking since I'm writing a fanfic, and it's set in the future with time shenanigans. [And yes, america dies, italy, Russia, Germany, everyone but those three and the micronations since they're so small]

Hello, lovely!

This ask took me a bit to warm up to; Hetalia is my happy-go-lucky escapist fandom, but the more I thought about this, the more my own curiosity was piqued.

I took the liberty of assuming this was sort of a “sudden death” scenario, and that the lads find out the Others are missing at relatively the same times. I also tried to be optimistic, and I apologize if some of it is unrealistic.

Hope this is sufficient, and perhaps inspires you in your future writing ventures!

*

Lovi and Gil knew immediately that their brothers were gone. 

Lovino felt the hegemony fall to his shoulders as he was watching the sunrise, sitting on a dock with his feet under the water. He was immediate rage, cursing any name he could think of for the responsibilities now falling to him, for daring to take away someone so young. 

Gilbert, on the other hand, knew as he was brushing his teeth, bright pink bubbles swirling down the drain as he simply collapsed into himself, crumbling to the floor. “I was supposed to go first. Not you. Never you.”

Matthew was the first one to reorganize, take charge of the situation. With all major world powers gone, Canada was now the leader of what remained of the Free World, and he took his duty very seriously. Having been in Berlin already for a meeting, he hunted down the remainder of Germany, dragging the eerily quiet Gil along with him to find any others.

Mattie played the strong one, keeping a stiff upper lip throughout the first few weeks of the crisis. It’s not until he goes back to his house and sees one of America’s stray Converse and Mexico’s favourite hoodie that he completely breaks down.

The humans are in chaos, the global economy having crashed, and a large majority of them now gone. There is panic of an epidemic, of a possible apocalypse, with looting and strong alliances forming between any survivors.

It has been three weeks.

Gil remains stiff and silent, though he does consent to food, sleep, and bathing. Lovino hovers near him in case the idiot tries to do something foolhardy when he finally overcomes the shock.

Italy, what is left of Italy, ties with what remains of Germany for second in strength in this new world. Lovino keeps a stern face, greets each minute of regrowth with a solemnity that Feli and Toni would have teased him endlessly for. When Marcello bursts through the meeting doors one evening with news about refugees, he nearly loses his composure; Seborga looks more like Veneziano than Romano ever cared to admit.

The panic has mostly settled, and an eerie sense of calm and faux normalcy hangs in the air for humanity. There is no real normalcy- Most continue trying to determine if their loved ones are still alive, many don’t return to work, some carry on as if they had no interruptions.

After months of debate, Rome is once more declared the centre of the world, and Lovino and Marcello move permanently into their family home. Many of the micronations soon join them, adopting Ladonia’s preferred communication strategy of staying in touch digitally.

Lovino takes on his new responsibilities easily. He’s lost half his population before, led empires before, been at the centre of the universe before. So long as he keeps himself busy, he can ignore the missing sarcasm, ignore the missing “Fuck!” tossed around every five minutes. The big house is almost filled to capacity; it still feels too empty.

It has been two years, and Humanity is working together to connect everyone who remains to a proper global network. In times of distress, everyone comes together. 

Most migrate nearer to the micronations, seek out shelter in one of the three main remaining nations. But there are some who refuse to leave their homes, and efforts are made to ensure everyone has access to medicine, electricity, and clean water. 

There is more progress now, with no real economy to stop it.

Gilbert remains quiet, though he observes everything. He signs whatever forms need his attention, acknowledges any issues to be addressed. But he can’t help thinking that it should be Freidrich or Ludwig here, that they should both be here.

He misses his inside jokes with England, with Scotland. He misses raising hell with France and Spain and Denmark. He misses shit-talking with Japan, Belgium’s bounding energy, Seychelle’s fierce optimism. All gone, with the survivors trying to build a new world order out of the ashes.

Ten years, and Mattie officially moves in with Lovino. Castel Sant’Angelo has once more been renovated- now into a central home, with more than enough space for every representative to keep their own room. Mattie just shrugs when Lovi raises a brow at his luggage. “It was too quiet, and someone has to keep you in line.”

It has been twenty years; Gil still has yet to speak.

Several attempts have been made to create some form of economy. Each was shot down.

Humanity, now interconnected more than ever, has resumed interest in teleportation and space travel.

Twenty-five years, and everyone now understands at least three languages.

Thirty years, and Mattie sometimes swears he can see Ukraine keeping watch over the garden.

Thirty-five years, and Lovino and Marcello are thick as thieves. Seborga is finally as deadly a shot as Romano, and Lovi has started to embrace his more childish ways at his brother’s encouragement.

Forty years, and two of the Big Three are arguing over which Grecian deity most closely fits them. Lovino insists there is no way he could be Zeus, just as there’s no way in hell Mattie could ever qualify as Poseidon. The debate could have raged for hours, but a dark scowl from the unanimously voted Hades left them both feeling too sheepish to continue.

On the forty-fifth anniversary, Lovino snuck off to the north, taking a boat to explore what still remained of Venezia.

Fifty years later, and the first person to Mars smiled for the camera. In a dialect birthed after the Great Disappearance, she sent love to her family, and made a small speech about progress and adventure and all the hopes for the future.

Millions of miles away, from a small kitchen in the Black Forest, a grainy television delivers the message to a soul older than comprehension. The words sank in, the phantom of a firm hand resting on his shoulder. “We will continue to rebuild, and we will grow stronger.”

For the first time in decades, Prussia smiled.

Fifty-seven years, and no one questioned why Matthew is completely smashed during the first two weeks of July.

Sixty-three years, and Mattie was trying to dig Prussia, Sealand, Wy, and Hong Kong out of a mud pit, cursing up a storm as the four continue to throw more earth at their rescuer’s head.

After eighty-six years, Gil has stopped wearing black. He came to breakfast with a vintage white t-shirt that read “Spread Pages, Not Legs (the ace agenda)” across the front, and Mattie nearly choked on his orange juice before he finished reading.

One century later, and no humans are left alive that can remember the Great Disappearance, the only recounts in history books. The world has rebuilt, and the people have learned to move on.

The micronations have grown into their power, now hosting monthly meetings to discuss policy, agenda, progress, shipping- All the things that society needs to function.

Missing from today’s meeting are the three eldest nations, who had left early in the morning without a word. No one is sure where to find them, where they could be. They’re not gone though, so there is relief.

It is 5 am local time. The sun will be rising soon.

Matthew murmurs a chant, golden glow slipping past his lips and circling around the small trio. Lovino harmonizes with his own sounds, some deep, dark, and inexplicably ancient rasping coating each syllable, cold air tying itself to the dancing lights. Gilbert watches on for a moment, holding in his hand a pile of letters and Alisdair’s old lighter, waiting. The moment comes, and he sets the papers ablaze.

The winds of Lovi’s spellwork and the control in Mattie’s ensures not a speck of ash will hit the ground, and all three watch as their words fly up, disappearing in seemingly midair.

They wait until they are satisfied, then begin the hike back to their car, parked on the old A303, Mattie nearly tripping as Gil rushes past him, desperately trying to beat Lovi in their impromptu race. The Canadian snickers quietly as both of them fall in the process, underestimating the steepness of the hill. Taking the initiative, he rushes past them, outright cackling at the outraged squawks of protest behind him.

None of them see the hazy figure sitting atop the bluestone, smiling softly before fading away.

The world is finally at peace.

*

And one addition, in case anyone was curious:

[shachaai]

[Fic] A River to Cross and No Boat to Get Me There

Pairings/Characters: America /& f!England Rating: Teen Summary: Brussels, Belgium, July 2018. Over drinks, England and America (do not) talk politics. Really.

Notes: Written for @aph-fanficchallenges’ Shipping & Platonic Week 2019, Day 1: Old-Fashioned. It’s late. orz The way I write these two always feels like it straddles a line somewhere between platonic and strangely romantic/sexual, and I think you can choose to read this as either shippy or not - either way, there’s a kind of (resigned, exasperated) love there. Also on AO3.

   July, 2018 A bar in Haren, City of Brussels, in the Kingdom of Belgium

  The bar is all suits and badges, but, as long as a guy knows what he’s looking for, the woman sitting nursing her drink at the bar - smart, dark grey skirt suit, name and face on her badge hidden by being tucked away behind the lapel of her blazer - stands out from the other people in the room.

She’s the only Nation in the room.

Well, she’s the only Nation in the room until America sidles in, quite proud of himself for his tracking abilities in an urban landscape without the use of spy satellites. He takes himself to the bar beside his quarry and leans over its polished top to nab the bartender’s attention, body angled towards his colleague.

“An Old-Fashioned for me, sir, and -” he begins, and eyes up the drink in front of his companion: a tumbler about a third full of booze and ice, deep brown with shimmering tones of gold - someone is hitting the spirits early (earlier than him) -, “another one for the lady too, I think?”

The bartender gives him a look and America is just about to repeat his order, a bit more clearly this time, when England sighs beside him, looking up from her one-woman stare-off with her drink and repeats his request for him. In French. (America assumes it’s French. There’s a L’Old-Fashioned in there anyway, rolling off England’s tongue in the way it never does in front of France, and a rather pointed s'il vous plaît.)

The bartender nods and gets to it, leaving England to give America her trademarked suspicious look. She’s foregone pretty hairclips today so has to sweep back some of the side-fall of her sharp bob to glower at him effectively, and that sort of effort usually means business.

“This place isn’t your usual. Why are you following me?”

Blunt.

“Everyone else was busy,” says America, and tries a charming smile that hopes England won’t point out how unlikely it is that all of the Nations involved in NATO apart from England and America have found something else to do with their lunchtimes. There’s always at least one Nation at loose ends for another to pounce upon.

England’s frown deepens and her eyebrows arch for the sky, so America lets his smile drop. There’s no real point lying, though the waste of his acting talents does make him pout. (In another life, Hollywood would be just eating this up. Begging for his time.)

“Alright , I came seeking refuge in audacity?”

“I’m audacity?” England asks, sounding undecided on whether she should be offended by that or not, only to swing her legs round hastily when America goes to pull out the barstool beside her and stomp down an unladylike heel on the foot rest, preventing its movement. “Oh - no, no, no, no, no, Jones. I think you’re a blithering idiot at the moment as well.”

“Oh, come on. ” America protests, and gives the barstool another halfhearted yank. (Not a serious yank, because if he did that he might break England’s ankle, and England and the British and Washington all of the rest of NATO would eviscerate him about him with their tongues and Russia would be a smug asshole about it again, and God, England would never let him forget it if he broke her leg. Ever. ) “I’m buying you a drink!”

“Caveat emptor,” says England snippily, and doesn’t let up on the barstool. Whoever said the English were civil, gracious and polite? “I came here for some peace and quiet, for a change.”

“Yeah, well, I came to join the club.”

America had figured England had someplace to go when she’d pretended she’d not noticed the way France was deliberately ignoring her and swanned out of the NATO headquarters like she had better things to do. Without talking to any of her own people either. It usually meant England was taking herself directly to the nearest source of both dimness and decent alcohol so she could bitch-text whoever wasn’t at the latest conference with her about how much she hated everything.

A drink and getting away from everyone glaring daggers into his back or offering gentle ‘suggestions’ about his boss had sounded pretty great to America, so he’d followed her. There isn’t enough time allotted for lunch for England to get totally wasted (something the world and certainly America must be very grateful for), but some mild inebriation for the both of them would probably make the afternoon’s meetings a lot easier to get through.

America toes one of the barstool’s feet, letting the dull thud shake up through England’s heel. “We can’t be social pariahs together?”

England still looks suspicious. “Alone, together?”

“With alcohol,” says America, right as the bartender slides their drinks over to them. The guy might hate English, but he has pretty good timing, so America digs out one of what he thinks is one of the more high-value pieces of rainbow paper most of Europe calls money out of his wallet and tells him to keep the change.

England huffs at him, but she withdraws her heel so America can finally pull the barstool out to sit, distracting herself by fishing the maraschino cherry out of her Old-Fashioned to pop it between her lips. “I swear: if you try to talk shop with me right now, I’ll stab you somewhere unpleasant.”

“Didn’t know there was somewhere pleasant to stab a guy,” America comments as he finally takes a seat, holding up both hands in the universal gesture for whoa there when England grins a grin that looks entirely too mean for an elaboration to be anything America wants to hear about in public. “I’ll take your word for it; I don’t wanna know!”

“Where did your spirit of adventure disappear to?” England teases him, and finishes her first drink in one long swallow before reaching out to her new cocktail.

America picks up his own, gesturing in the vague but not explicit of England beside him as his fingers slide in the condensation on the glass, “There’s adventure, and there’s…”

“Where angels fear to tread?” America takes a swallow of his Old-Fashioned so he doesn’t have to answer, the bitters heavy on his tongue under the whiskey burn, and England snorts at him. Flicks back her hair again, but thankfully doesn’t reach out to pat his cheek. “It’s been a long time since you were a cherub, darling.”

America squints at her, because he might have to recalculate just how quickly England can get herself shitfaced when the mood strikes. (He really needs to clean his glasses.) “How many drinks have you had? ”

“Not enough,” sighs England, which is a feeling America can definitely empathise with. At least as long as England isn’t sliding sideways off her barstool. “I keep hoping the alcohol will drown out all their squabbling.”

“S’it working?”

“Like fuck is it.” England toasts him idly, takes a sip of her drink, and then grumbles, “And you don’t help.”

“Thanks,” says America with the same amount of cheer. Maybe he can drown himself in whiskey.

“I’ve my own shit to deal with without my people harping on about your shit,” England continues unnecessarily, because America, of course, could not have possibly heard any of this same spiel from any of the other Nations or their people gathered in Brussels that day already. “If your tit of a boss could just not do what he did in Canada and leave one thing unfucked for the rest of us, that’d be smashing.”

“That’s the plan,” America sighs - and then hurries on before England can harangue him further, “but what’s your strategy?”

The element of surprise works - for once - in his favour, and England is distracted. “Hm?”

“For winning over Europe,” America clarifies - and then pauses with his glass against his mouth, sweet cherry bobbing against his lower lip, realising something. “Is that why you’re wearing a new suit?”

He’d thought England’s skirt suit had been smart: it’s all crisp lines with a nipped waist, dark grey herringbone blazer against the stiff white collar of her blouse, but the straight skirt is definitely showing off a lot of her legs.

America has heard far too many people compliment England’s legs in front of him over the years, and he groans at the mental images. “It is, ain’t it?”

England has the decency to blush - or at least allow all the booze she’s imbibed so far to do it on her behalf. The colour bleeds down her throat, and America groans again into his Old-Fashioned, taking a large swig from his tumbler and tucking the cherry into his cheek. “I -”

“I don’t wanna know,” America gripes, and hopes the whiskey will burn his revelation out of his head. Europe.

Still pink, England coughs, and takes another sip from her own cocktail. For a few moments, they have quiet.

“...Probably for the best,” England admits quietly, eventually, and then shifts enough over on her stool so she can nudge her knee up against America’s. “Thanks for the drink.”

     The 2018 NATO summit was held in Brussels, Belgium, July 11-12. It took place in the (new) NATO headquarters found there, in a complex in Haren (part of the City of Brussels municipality). I don’t know if there are any good bars nearby the complex, but you’d think there would be with all the demand there must be.

The 44th G7 summit was held in La Malbaie, Quebec, Canada, in June 2018 - obviously, before the NATO summit. It received a lot of attention internationally because of (as others have more tactfully put it) ‘a significant decline of relations of members with the United States’, and was dubbed G6+1 by France and parts of the media as a result. The US withdrew in what seemed like a huff from several important international agreements, and was widely condemned by international politicians, climate change scientists, trade policy experts, foreign policy experts… etc. The US President left the summit early in order to travel to Singapore for the USA’s first summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, and was dubbed ‘the democratic world’s worst nightmare’ - all of which, of course, led to a rather fraught political atmosphere for all nations going to the NATO summit the following month.

...Do I really need to make a note about Brexit?

All the titles for this ‘verse come from poetry/literature created around the time the fic is set. This one is taken from a few lines from the poem Running, by Joy Harjo, which was published in July 2018 in The New Yorker: Now I have to find my way, when there’s a river to cross and no Boat to get me there, when there appears to be no home at all.

[inkstaineddove]

Trouble in Moscow

Ship: RusPru

Characters: Russia, Prussia; mentioned Poland, Germany, Hungary

Summary: After hearing from the other nations behind the iron curtain that Russia's been acting differently, Prussia decides to visit his old friend and prove once and for all that they're lying. The only problem is Gilbert's lack of knowledge in what's been happening in the USSR since Stalin came to power.

Moscow, 1949 "Gilbert! It is so good to see you! Your face is so red from the wind, come in! I have some borscht on the stove, but there's plenty of vodka to warm you while we wait." Ivan couldn't wipe the grin off his face or his arm from around the Prussian's shoulders. It had been too long since they'd last seen each other under peaceful circumstances. "Please, make yourself comfy! Do you need a blanket? It's been a long time since our winter war, hasn't it?" For his part, Gilbert was brimming with joy as well. It had been too long that someone had actually been glad to see him. He hadn't felt like his presence was valued in such a long time. Not even his own damn brother, but he wouldn't think about that. Not tonight, not in the company of such a good friend. "Hey, I didn't fall into a river! You don't have to fuss over me this much! My hearts keeping me warm enough right now, but how can I turn down such good vodka? I'm not a complete bastard." He sat down on the couch, nuzzling himself into the cushions for maximum warmth and comfort. For all his protesting, Prussia really was feeling a chill down to his bones. He'd forgotten how harsh Russian winters could be, even on so-called good days. He gratefully took the glass offered to him by his host and had a sip. He had a couple more. "God, you've got this shit down to a science."

Russia sat down besides his friend. Pride filled him at the compliment. "Da, we do have the best. It's a shame others try to compete, don't you think?" He took off his coat, growing too warm from the fire and soup being cooked in the next room. "How's the adjustment been? No one treats you like a war criminal?" "All of them except Hungary have been doing their best to avoid me. You and Erzsi are the only two who understand what Roderich and I were trying to do in our small way." He shrugged. "I expected it. If any of them had been particularly warm towards me, that would've been more suspicious. Feliks is starting to talk to me again, but only in letters or telegrams to insult my entire existence. It's incredibly weird, but I'm not going to harp on the guy. He's had it rough." Ivan nodded along. At the mention of Feliks, he grew tense. His grip on his coat sleeves grew tight, bunching the fabric up in his fist. "Poland. He hasn't...mentioned anything about me? No weird stories from him or Lithuania?" "From what I've heard from Erzsi, they've been saying you're acting really off. They keep calling you paranoid and possessive and a whole slew of horrible things." He paused a beat. "Shit, that was in private. Well, whatever. I don't get the point of it. You seem perfectly fine to me, but those two are always gossiping. It's really annoying. They beat us up a few times in the Middle Ages and still act like hot shit. Like who just got put back on a map? It's a disgrace." Ivan laughed at that. Some of the tension was relieved from his body. He released his grip on his sleeves. "He really thinks he doesn't need me - or all of us! - when he couldn't be trusted to run his own country for such a long time. He's such a strange guy. He should be grateful for all the assistance he can get." "He's had a rough decade. Honestly, I talk big but I do feel bad for the guys. Both of them. They've had it rough the last few years." Gilbert finished down the rest of his drink. "Da, and they'll have a couple rough more." Ivan sung under his breath, chuckling darkly to himself. Gilbert snapped his head to look at his host. The Russian sensed his unease and smiled. "I said I hope they won't have any more rough years. You've been on high-alert for so long you don't know how to relax. Your glass is empty, let me fill it." While not entirely convinced, Prussia wasn't going to disagree. The easiest explanation was that he'd misheard. Why start a pointless fight when he'd just arrived? He smiled sheepishly and held out his glass while it was refilled. "You're right. Relaxing. I need to try that again. You've always been a laid-back guy, maybe you can teach me how." A grin filled with genuine warmth spread across Ivan's face. His body felt like it was vibrating. "You really mean that? I would love to! I rarely get any visitors and to make it so our friendship blooms like a sunflower in May would be so wonderful!" Suddenly, his whole mood shifted. His back stiffened and he bent his head down. He was deflated and seemed to be overtaken by something darker. "Ah, but Stalin would grow suspicious if I had such a close male companion. And he gives me so much work, I could be a unreliable partner at best." He stumbled, realizing his choice of words. "Not that I'm looking for us to be partners! That would be-be wrong! Da, wrong! So I'm....I'm a man with many things to do." The room grew incredibly tense afterwards. Ivan's face was bright-red, his embarrassment growing as he replayed what just happened in his head. He was forcing himself to stare intently at the painting of a sunflower on the wall and not at his companion besides him. For his part, Gilbert was absolutely confused. He drank more and tried to figure out why Ivan was so upset about forming a partnership with him. Were you not allowed to run a company? Or, if you do, it has to be with members of the opposite sex? This communism thing and that Stalin guy were a lot stricter than he thought. Gilbert leaned over and put his hand on Ivan's shoulder. Mustering up all his charisma, he gave his most dazzling smile. "Hey, I've got no problem with us forming a partnership in secret if you're worried about what your boss thinks. I've had plenty like that before and they worked out fine." Ivan's face turned even redder. He jumped up and dashed into the kitchen. "ThankyouGilbert!" He shouted over his shoulder, his voice suddenly up an octave. He pretended to fuss around with the borscht while calming himself down. Gilbert poured some more vodka and shook his head. "Some people are allergic to success," he muttered. He took a sip, enjoying the buzz that was coming on. He grinned wide at Russia when he came back into the living room. Thinking about all that had happened, he began to laugh. "I don't know why Poland and everyone else are so afraid of you. Everyone's been saying you've had some sort of personality shift since 1917, but you look like the same old Ivan to me." This killed any butterflies still lingering in Russia's stomach. He sat down and turned his full attention to his guest. "I had no idea they said those kind of things. Why would they be scared of me if we're all friends?" Gilbert threw more of his drink back. "It's the most ridiculous bits of gossip. Toris is saying you're out here rounding up his citizens and killing them in Siberia. Feliks and your sister with the big tits - Katya, is that her name? -  too! Can you believe it? Like, I look at them when they say that and it makes me wanna laugh. It's you! You've always just wanted friends, how do you make any by killing their people? Fucking ridiculous. Isn't it?" He had been laughing the whole time. There was radio silence next to him. Gilbert shut up. His voice was hushed. "Ivan, please say this is ridiculous." Russia had his eyes closed. He didn't want to look at his friend for fear of seeing what would be in his eyes. "The revolution did put me in a bad place. A lot of violence and bloodshed, that never sits right with you. It changes some parts of who you thought you were. I've got issues now, new issues. I have to be worried about everyone who wants to hurt me. Sometimes, the people who are supposed to love me are the one's who hurt me so I hurt them back. I never stop loving them though." Prussia was dead silent. He ran his hands through his hair and groaned. Personally, he was thrilled with his good luck. One dictator to another. That's what his fate had been. That's why France and Britain were so excited to see what life under Russian eyes would do to him. This wasn't supposed to be something he looked forward to, it was a punishment all along. "You need help, Ivan. You need help as a person and you need help as a nation." "If there's villains all around you what do you do? You create a system that prevents others from cropping up and crush the ones already here! That's all I'm doing and there's nothing wrong with it. I understand that you're sensitive right now, but you'll figure it out soon enough and I was hoping you would help me." Russia smiled. "You've always understood matters of brute strength and of discipline. I need that kind of leadership and insight." "No! I don't want to be a pawn anymore! I'm tired of being some lowlife's bully! I want out, out of this damned system!" Gilbert jumped up. "How do you expect me to sympathize with hurting innocent people after everything I've seen? Ivan, I was sent to every one of those damned camps multiple times! I've seen so much death and been part of it, I don't want to be part of it anymore!" Slowly and with great caution, Russia rose. He moved gently towards the distressed nation, like he would a cornered animal. "Gilbert, I would never send you to see what was happening. To be frank, you're never going to be privileged enough. All we need is a mind. Teach our police effective means, help our military straighten out, and get more discipline from everyone. I thought this is what you were known for, no?" He smiled and held both of Prussia's shoulders in his hands. "I would never ask of you to do anything so upsetting as that. Come, sit down and have another drink. Good, you're calmer now, yes?" Prussia, now wrapped comfortably on the couch and downing another glass of vodka, weakly nodded. Russia smiled and sat across from him on the table. He took a sip of vodka from the bottle before continuing. "This wouldn't be for nothing. You'd be paid well, get many great things the others will be without. You'll be trusted and keyed in on important things. Isn't that what you've missed? Having bosses and officials remember that you matter? There's no more little brother to walk all over you, you'll be treated like my equal because you are my equal." "And if I say no?" Prussia chuckled. "Who am I kidding, I know how this works. I can't, you've said too much, I know too much. I have no choice. I haven't had a choice in so fucking long." The anger was coming back, but instead of making him want to fight, it made him tired. What could he do? He was trapped. Even if he spoke out, no one would listen. His host rose and patted him on the shoulders. "You'll get used to this. And when it's winter and you're warm while all the other's are trying to figure out how to get heating in their flats, you'll thank me." Ivan rose and returned to the kitchen to begin pouring the borscht in their bowls. He brought their dinner back to the couch where they'd be warmest. For a long time, they ate in silence, the only sound passing between them was the occasional slurp. "Have I just sold my soul?" Gilbert's voice was faint and lacking all of his usual energy. Without any joy, Ivan smiled. "We haven't had souls in a long time."

[impulsive-hws-blog]

My end-all stance on 2p’s

- the Chinas are Best Friends in any verse in which they interact you can not convince me otherwise.

- the China duo and the America duo team up to form the Ultimate Meme Squad

- the N.Italy duo are actually super close but Luci always pretends to hate Feli in public. But Lordy if someone starts talking shit HES GONNA START SWINGING

- Kuro has a crush on Feli full stop. It’s my favorite crack ship. I’m putting it into a fangame. Buy my silence.

-Gilbert is Head. Over. Heels for Klaus. Like he has a scrapbook of pictures of him. He made a Spotify playlist. He called France to sob about it at 2 am while drunk. He’s GONE. In any verse in which they meet there isn’t even a question about it.

- the poor Russia duo, they can’t do anything right. Ivan always tries to help and makes things worse, Nikolai always tries to be evil but ends up helping. It’s awkward. They don’t like each other.

- when two groups of micronations merge, it’s likely the end of the world. Peter and Henry (my name for 2p Sealand) when working together can and will topple governments in the name of prank wars.

- Wolfie (1p kugel and MY BABBY) and whatever the fuck their 2p is named have a weird relationship that basically consists of Wolfie singing “a whole new world” while showing what’s-his-face pride flags.

- also what’s-his-face is pastel goth. I drew him and I forgot what I named him in sorry

-Arthur feels threatened by Oliver but the great news is so does Tino and they bond over being jealous of how much the kids like Oliver.

- Francis babies the SHIT out of Alex and Matt. And they let him because despite being a dad... he’s a cool dad who’s alcohol policy is “if you’re going to drink do it at home where I know you’re safe” and not “alcohol is a sin, we don’t even have cough syrup in this household!” (Oli means we’ll I swear and he has a point with the sore throat home remedy thing, cough syrup is expensive and peppermint tea is delicious!)

- Antonio’s main goal is to PROTEC THE SMOLS and if his bastard 2p Santiago gets within 3 miles of Lovino or Flavio he will Actually Go Berserk.

- Flavio sometimes cries when Antonio shows him affection cause he’s not used to it

- what’s better than spamano? Spamonomono!!!!! Spamano2 electric boogaloo! FLAVIO DESERVES TO HAVE TWO ANGRY BOYFRIENDS TO PROTECT HIM

[sugainmycoffee]

Yoonmin Fandom Metrics

 Last month a survey was conducted to analyze the metrics of the Yoonmin fandom. Here are some of the responses:

Of these 903 responses, 826 of them (92%) of the respondents had selected that yoonmin are their only ship, their main ship or one of their main ships. This group is the one that will be focused on for the rest of this analysis. (Also was that one person lost? Did you get home okay?)

Of this focus group who mainly ship yoonmin, the bias distribution was:

Unsurprisingly, Min Yoongi and Park Jimin, the two individuals responsible for the YOON and the MIN in yoonmin, came out as the top two biases’. 

However, Min Yoongi, with a staggering count of 453 votes (55%) heavily outweighed all the other members, hereby proving that he was in fact not fucking around when he claimed “Sorry mom, your son’s too popular,” in his Mic Drop verse. 

As a follow up to these results, respondents provided their second bias (if any) to help the other members stand a chance against Rap God Min Yoongi. 

(He still took a whopping 23% of the votes). 

The most interesting part about these graphs is that it alludes to the fact that most yoonmin stans bias Yoongi (not Jimin, although he is obviously second in rank). This is probably due to the fact that of the “popular” bangtan ships, Jimin’s name comes up multiple times. Thus Jimin stans are more evenly split in who they ship Jimin with, but there are not that many “popular” Yoongi ships.

A little more detail on the focus group and how they came to stan bts and ship yoonmin is summarized in the following graphs.

BTS’ popularity has grown exponentially, with the greatest increase seen from 2014-2015 due to the release of their HYYH series. A parallel trend was observed in this analysis with the growth of the Yoonmin Fandom.

The next part of the survey focused on “Secondary Fan Creations” as Mr. Bang likes to call them. This includes but is not limited to: fan art, fan fiction, photo edits, video edits, blog posts, memes and so forth.

The results show that 99% of us are on Tumblr for the right reasons.

In terms of creating fan content, 31% of the respondents bless us on the daily with their contributions to the fandom. (Amen.) The rest of the majority enjoys and wishes to contribute to doing the lord’s work. 2% of the respondents who consider yoonmin their main or only ship do not create or want to create fan content because they think it is wrong (and that’s okay - to each their own). 

The next question was the most revealing and one of the most important to this analysis. Of the 861 responses, 640 voted that the reason they ship yoonmin is due to their relationship / interactions themselves. Only 2-4% of the respondents said they shipped yoonmin because of how they look together/aesthetics, fan content, external influences, or the availability of yoonmin materials in the fandom itself. This outright disproves the common (and tired) anti-yoonmin stan (and “rare pair” stan) claims that yoonmin is usually shipped for these reasons.  

Of the 30 respondents that chose “other” their reasons often eluded to specifics moments / interactions by yoonmin. Some of the more notable mentions are:

“They look like they understand each other’s struggles.“

“Their real and supportive friendship, they know each other's limits and share their vulnerabilities, so soft for each other, involve each other in the most intimate parts of their life.”

“Everything?? Idk they just vibe with me best, they're lovely and sift but also savage and have a really fun dynamic that i enjoy best.. they calm me when I’m upset as well which is like surprising bc I don’t calm down easily. +their soft moments like the earlier answer.” 

“Because Yoongi is so whipped for Jimin and they look at each other like they have galaxies in their eyes“ 

“They look like they are real / they act like they are married / they honestly seem like they’re in love.” 

“the way they are with each other in general. platonic or not, they love each other, care for each other a lot and it's nice to see. “

“From what I saw, it felt very real. Like yeah, I could get that super unbreakable bond with all of the BTS ships but for some reason, Yoonmin just stuck out for me and it felt really genuine and not just for fanservice.“ 

“Just...everything” (Many of you said this or voted for multiple categories from the above so everything x 10)

“You Know” (thank you Anonymous, I do know :’). 

There were so many other great ones yoonmin is such a soft ship with even softER STANS istg but I won’t post them all here but you can see them in this supporting post.

It is commonly believed that ALL yoonmin stans only ship them because of the “typical” subby bottom jimin/ dom top yoongi stereotype. The data below proves this is untrue - as 34% of respondents don’t care at all or like all dynamics equally, and 18% prefer a more balanced switch relationship dynamic. Combined, the votes for these categories make up over 50% of the responses, signifying that, no, not all yoonmin stans, in fact not even the majority of yoonmin stans, ship them for this reason. 

It should be noted though that, of the 48% of fans who expressed a preference for a specific relationship dynamic, 5% preferred top jimin and 43% preferred top yoongi (so yeah, top yoongi is more popular, but only to the minority group of the stans who actually have a specific dynamic preference).

Similar results were observed for which dynamics yoonmin stans feel are most realistic.

FANDOM FAVOURITES

Special thanks to my partner in research @syubd​ ♡ who organized and compiled the below lists of fandom faves.

Note, I have removed the “N/A” and “All” from the rank to more accurately reflect individual favourites. Furthermore, I have removed myself from the rank to eliminate an obvious bias as it is my survey most of the people who took it would be my followers (but thank you to all the people who chose me as their fave!)

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN BLOGS

N/A - 260 votes

All YM Blogs - 107 votes

@yoonminist​ - 182 votes

@yoonmin​ - 97 votes

@foolsyoongi​ - 64 votes

@yoonminficrec​ - 48 votes

@parkjizzmin​ - 41 votes

@softeyoongi​ - 37 votes

@jimiyoong​ - 27 votes

@yoonminedit​ / @yoonminfiction​ - 25 votes (tied)

@mintysugasweet​ - 22 votes

@yoonminnet​ - 19 votes

Other - 217 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! The real winner is “N/A” and “All YM Blogs” so tbh if you run a ym blog, don’t be discouraged, you all out here being amazing and we appreciate it!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN ARTISTS

N/A - 474 votes

All YM Artists - 107 votes

@knart95​ - 144 votes

@artofennun​ - 52 votes

@yuniizu​ - 42 votes

@kkumri​ - 30 votes

@finny-red​ - 22 votes

@NanoNoonie - 19 votes

@askjeon​ / @min_x_minmin - 14 votes

@kharys​ - 10 votes

@colorcalamity​ - 8 votes

@thaidesu - 7 votes

Other - 109 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! Special shout out to literally all fan artists that share their talent with us on the daily. You make this fandom what it is!!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN AUTHORS

N/A - 342 votes

All YM Authors - 122 votes

@MissterMaia - 161 votes

@Sharleena - 71 votes

@sugamins/BabyLove - 70 votes

@mintsoda - 43 votes

@PrettyBoyKiller - 35 votes

@springrain21 - 29 votes

@momora - 28 votes

@staticscreen- 22 votes

@jflawless - 19 votes

@Elemir - 16 votes

Other - 475 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! LOOK AT THE DAMN OTHERS LIST. SO MANY GOOD AUTHORS TO CHECK OUT!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE BTS SONGS

N/A - 9 votes

All -  23 votes

Spring Day - 41 votes

Intro: Serendipity - 24 votes

Tomorrow / Blood Sweat & Tears - 20 votes

Autumn Leaves / Save Me / Mic Drop 16 votes

Young Forever - 13 votes

Rain / I Need U - 11 votes

Pied Piper - 10 votes

Let Me Know / Baepsae - 9 votes

Lie / Sea - 8 votes

Love Is Not Over / House Of Cards / BTS Cypher 4 - 7 votes

Others - 140 votes

Comments: This category was added to the survery much later and therefore did not have as many responses as the others above. Nonetheless, there’s seems to a correlation between who you ship (yoonmin) and fave BTS song. Many of the songs on this list have “yoonmin parts in the MV/Choreo” like Spring Day and BST, or are song’s where the two have particularly shined and / or produced. (They might also just be on this list because they’re lit songs in which case truuuu I agree). 

DEMOGRAPHICS

YM SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS: GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

Overall, there were ym stans from 74 countries and/or regions that participated in this survey. The below countries were home to 10 or more respondents:

USA - 292 respondents

Germany - 44 respondents

Canada - 33 respondents

UK - 29 respondents

Brazil - 26 respondents

Australia - 24 respondents

Philippines - 24 respondents

England - 20 respondents

Indonesia - 20 respondents

Mexico - 20 respondents

France - 18 respondents

Portugal - 18 respondents

Italy - 14 respondents

Singapore -12 respondents

Sweden - 12 respondents

Turkey - 10 respondents

In addition 15 respondents declared “N/A” to opt out from providing their location information. 

Other - 195 respondents (Click To See Complete List of Respondent Countries)

Argentina - 5 Armenia - 1 Austria - 7 Bahrain - 1 Belarus - 1 Belgium - 2 Chile - 9 China - 2 Colombia - 5 Costa Rica - 3 Croatia - 5 Czech Republic - 5 Denmark - 5 Ecuador - 1 Estonia - 6 Finland - 9 Great Britain - 1 Greece - 6 Guatemala - 4 Hong Kong - 2 Hungary - 5 India - 8 Ireland - 7 Israel - 1 Jamaica - 1 Japan - 1 Kuwait - 1 Lithuania - 1 Macedonia - 1 Malaysia - 9 Maldives - 1 Malta - 1 Morocco - 2 Nepal - 2 Netherlands - 4 New Zealand - 5 Northern Ireland - 1 Norway - 3 Pakistan - 2 Palestine - 4 Peru - 1 Poland - 8 Romania - 6 Russia - 1 Saudi Arabia - 2 Scotland - 2 Serbia - 2 Slovakia - 5 Slovenia - 1 South Africa - 3 South Korea - 1 Southeast Asia - 1 Spain - 9 Switzerland - 4 Thailand - 3 Trinidad and Tobago - 2 Ukraine - 2 Vietnam - 2

THANK YOU ALL FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS SURVEY!

[pmcurtis]

Okay you know what fuck you. All i did was ask for a request and you fuck me over like that? Welcome to the real world Huntie, that shit dont fly. You took WAY too long to answer it, and when you did it was really poor quality. I will be UNFOLLOWING and messaging you daily about how much you suck.

Dora: ¡Hola! Soy Dora!Boots: And I'm Boots.Dora: Today is Friendship Day. El Día de La Amistad.Boots: Ooh ooh ahh ahh! I love Friendship Day.Dora: Me too!Dora: On Friendship Day,... friends get together, and dress up, and have parties, and wear special friendship bracelets.Boots: Ooh ooh, I love friendship bracelets. Dora I wanna see the friendship bracelets. Can I? Can I?Dora: Do you want to see the friendship bracelets? Great!Boots: Ooh, friendship bracelets.Dora: When we all wear our friendship bracelets, it means that we'll always be friends, forever.Boots: Forever and ever?Dora: Forever and ever.Dora: Shout out all around the world, every boy and every girl, put on your bracelets say its friendship it's Friendship Day.Boots: Shout out all around the world, every boy and every girl, lift up your bracelets say its friendship it's Friendship Day.Dora: When we wear our bracelets, we'll be friends forever you and I, and rainbow colors will light up the sky.Both: Shout out all around the world, every boy and every girl, lift up your bracelets say its friendship it's Friendship Day.Dora: Our friends are coming to celebrate Friendship Day with us. Let's say hi to Benny the Bull and Isa the Iguana. Say "Hi!"Benny and Isa: Hi!Dora: Let's say, "Hola" to our friend Tico the Squirrel. Say "Hola."Tico: ''Hola."All: Shout out all around the world, every boy and every girl, put on your bracelets say its friendship its Friend...ship Day!All: (cheering)Isa: I can't wait to wear my friendship bracelet!Dora: When all our friends from around the world wear their friendship bracelets... the bracelets will glow and rainbow sparkles will light up the sky.Isa, Tico, and Boots: Whoa!Benny: That'll be just so cool!Boots: Wow!Dora and Isa: Wow! It glows!Swiper: (rustling)Dora: Uh-oh. That sounds like Swiper the Fox.Boots: He's going to swipe the friendship bracelets.Benny: He can't do that.Isa: We've got to stop him.Dora: If you see Swiper, yell, "Swiper!"Dora: Do you see Swiper? Where?Boots: There he is.Benny: Hey, where'd he go?Swiper: You're too late. (laughing)Dora: Swiper, wait!Dora: Those are friendship bracelets.Swiper: Friendship bracelets?Dora: Yes. If we don't have friendship bracelets, we can't have Friendship Day.Dora: I even have a friendship bracelet for you.Swiper: You do?Swiper: Uh-oh.Dora: Swiper, what's the matter?Swiper: Look. I've been flying my Swiper Copter all around the world swiping bracelets. I didn't know they were friendship bracelets.Boots: Oh, no.Kids: Dora! Dora! Dora! Dora! Hey!Dora: Uh-oh. Our friends from around the world are calling for help.Dora: Let's see if our friends still have their friendship bracelets.Dora: Are there bracelets in France? No!Dora: Are there bracelets in Tanzania? No!Dora: Are there bracelets in Russia? No!Dora: Are there bracelets in China?All: No!Boots: Dora, our friends don't have their friendship bracelets.Dora: And the bracelets won't glow unless all our friends around the world have one.Swiper: Oh, man! I'd better give back these friendship bracelets.Swiper: Uh-oh. I'll never be able to give back the bracelets back now.Dora: Swiper, we've got to bring the bracelets back. We can do it together.Dora: I need your help. Will you help us bring back the friendship bracelets back to our friends? Great!Boots, Benny, Tico, Isa: You can do it, Dora. We know you can. Si se puede.Dora: We've got to go around the world to bring the friendship bracelets back to our friends.Dora: Who do we ask for help when we don't know which way to go?Dora: Map. Right.Dora: Will you check the map to find out where we go to bring back the friendship bracelets?Dora: You have to say, "Map."Boots and Swiper: Louder!Map: Who's the guy you need to know when you've got a place to go? What's my name?Fiesta Trio:The Map.Map:Say it again.Fiesta Trio:The Map.Map: Who can help you say,"Hey, I figured out the way!" What's my name?Fiesta Trio: The MapMap: Say it again.Fiesta Trio: The Map.Map:bI'm the Map, I'm the Map.Fiesta Trio: He's the map, he's the map.Map: I'm the MAP!Map: Oh, no! Dora and Swiper need to bring back the friendship bracelets or there won't be any Friendship Day!Map: To bring back the bracelets, first you go to the Eiffel Tower in France. Then, to Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Then, up to the Winter Palace in Russia. Then to the Great Wall Of China.Map: So remember: Tower... Mountain... Palace... Wall.Map: Say it with me.Map: Tower... Mountain... Palace... Wall. Tower... Mountain... Palace... Wall. Tower... Mountain... Palace... Wall.Map: So, you tell Dora, first you go to the tower.Dora: Tower... Mountain... Palace... Wall. Where do we go first? The tower. Right.Dora: The tower is far away, way across the ocean. Do you see the tower?Boots: Yeah, There's the tower.Tico: Ahi estaBenny: Wow its so far away.Isa: How are you going to get there.Dora: Do you see anything we can use to get across the ocean?Dora: A boat! Right. A really big boat can get us across the ocean to the tower.Boots: Dora you can do it. I know you can.Dora: Yes Boots. But I need your help.Boots: Friends help friends. Right Dora?Dora: Right. But I need you to stay here, and be in charge.Boots: Me? Be in charge?Boots: That is so cool.Boots: I'll be in charge, Dora.Dora: Come on, we've got to bring back the friendship bracelets, to save Friendship Day.Dora: Vámonos, let's go!♪ ♪Dora: Say it with us.Dora and Swiper Tower, mountain, palace, wall. Tower, mountain, palace, wall. Tower, mountain, palace, wall. Tower, mountain, palace, wall.♪ ♪Both: Come on vámanos, everybody let's go.Swiper: Come on let's get to it.Dora: I know that we can do it.Swiper: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Dora: Around the world.Dora: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Swiper: Around the world.Swiper: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Both: Around the world.Dora: ¿A dónde vamos?(rhythmic clapping)Both: Around the world.♪ ♪Both: Around the world!♪ ♪Swiper: Are we there yet Dora?Dora: We have to look for land. If you see land, yell, "Land ho!"Both: Land ho!Swiper: There it is!Swiper: Hey, Dora, I can see the tower.Dora: Right, Swiper. That's because... were in France.Dora: In France, to say "hello," we say "bonjour."Dora: Can you say bonjour?Dora: Great say bonjour with us. Ready?Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French people: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Dora: ♪In France they love to meet their friends in a nice cafe.♪Dora: ♪To say hello the way they do, everybody say.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French people: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪French person: ♪Bonjour.♪Dora: ♪A big croissant and yummy cheese are things they love to eat. Come on, let's all say bonjour to everyone we meet.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪Both: ♪Bonjour.♪Amelie: Dora! Dora!Dora: There's my friend AmelieAmelie: Bonjour,Dora.Dora: Bonjour, Amelie.Dora: This is Swiper.Swiper: Bonjour!Amelie: Bonjour!Amelie: Dora, everyone's at the tower, but there are no friendship bracelets.Swiper: I've got the friendship bracelets right here.(rustling)Amelie: Uh-oh, that sounds like Fifi the Skunk.Amelie: That skunk is always trying to swipe our stuff.Swiper: She'll try to swipe our friendship bracelets.Dora: If you see the skunk, yell "Skunk!"Swiper: There she is!Amelie: Follow me, quick!Swiper: Uh-oh. I wonder which street we take to the tower.Amelie: To get to the Eiffel Tower, my mama told me that the smiling gargoyle will help us.Dora: Gargoyle?Gargoyle: Oui. I am the gargoyle. Bonjour. To find the tower on Friendship Day, the diamond stones will show you the way.Dora: We have to look for the streets with the diamond stones.Dora: Are the diamond stones on the first street or the second street?Dora: Right, the second street.Swiper: Wow! That's beautiful!Dora: Come on!Swiper: Uh-oh, which way do we go now Dora?Gargoyle No. 2: Bonjour. The Eiffel Tower is just steps away. The circle stones will show you the way.Dora: We have to look for the streer with the circle stones.Swiper: Circle stones, cirlce stones!Dora: Are the circle stones on the first street, the second street, or the third street?Dora: Right, the third street.Swiper: Those colors are crazy! I love France!Dora: Come on!Amelie: We made it to the Eiffel Tower!Dora: Look at all the kids here for Friendship Day!Swiper: Dora, I just gotta give back these friendship bracelets.Amelie: That sounds like Fifi the Skunk again!Dora: Do you see Fifi?Swiper: There she is! She's gonna swipe the bracelets.Dora: Quick! We have to say, "Fifi, no swiping." Say it with us.All: Fifi, no swiping. Fifi no swiping, Fifi, no swiping!Fifi: Alors, zut!Dora: We stopped Fifi!Swiper: And she didn't swipe the bracelets.Amelie: Des bracelets pour tous!(fanfare plays)Boots: Dora! Dora!Dora: That sounds just like Boots. Do you see Boots?Dora: Boots! Look, it's Boots on the TV. He's calling from home.Boots: Dora, more friends are here, even the Grumpy Old Troll.Grumpy Old Troll: Hi, Dora. I'm here for Friendship Day, and I can't wait to get a bracelet.Boots: Dora, the friendship bracelets are starting to glow.Dora: We have to bring back all the bracelets to get the to glow and light up the sky.Boots: You better hurry Dora.Swiper: Where do we go next, Dora?Dora: Tower..., Mountain..., Palace..., Wall.Dora: We made it to the tower. Where do we go next?Dora: The mountain, right. Mount Kilimanjaro.Amelie: Ooh, Dora, the mountain is very far away.Dora: Do you see the mountain?Amelie: Wow there it is!Swiper: How are we going to get there?Dora: Do you see anything that can give us a ride?Dora: Right. The scooter can give us a ride to Mount Kilimanjaro.Amelie: Dora, thanks for bringing the bracelets back.Dora: Friends help friends.Amelie: And good luck, Swiper.Dora: Come on. We've got to bring the friendship bracelets back to save Friendship Day. Let's go.Dora: Say it with us.Both: Tower, mountain, palace, wall.Both: Tower, mountain, palace, wall.Both: Tower, mountain, palace, wall.Both: Tower, mountain, palace, wall.Both: Come on vamanos, everybody let's go.Swiper: Come on let's get to it.Dora: I know that we can do it.Swiper: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Dora: Around the world.Dora: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Swiper: Around the world.Swiper: Where are we going?(rhythmic clapping)Both: Around the world.Dora: ¿A dónde vamos?(rhythmic clapping)Both: Around the world.♪ ♪Both: Around the world!♪ ♪Swiper: Hey, Dora, I see the mountain.Dora: Right Swiper. We made it to Tanzania in Africa.Dora: Let's say hello to the people in Tanzania.Dora: To say hello, we say "jambo".Dora: Can you say "jambo"?Dora: Sing... ♪ Jambo". ♪Dora: Sing it with us.Both: ♪ Jambo, jambo, jambo, jambo. ♪Dora: ♪ Here we are in Africa, in a beautiful village. The people make beads to wear, they love to sing. ♪Dora: ♪ If you meet someone you say, jambo. ♪Both: ♪ Jambo, jambo. ♪Dora: ♪ If you want to say hello, jambo. ♪Both: ♪ Jambo, jambo. ♪Dora: ♪ When you hear the drums, you have to move your feet. Ugali and boga, are such a tasty treat. ♪Dora: ♪ If you meet someone you say, jambo. ♪Both: ♪ Jambo, jambo. ♪Dora: ♪ If you want to say hello, jambo. ♪Both: ♪ Jambo, jambo. ♪

[iguessiwritestuffnow]

Anastasia AU

So I saw Anastasia (the broadway one) in June and it was amazing like if you get the chance go see it. But anyway, since i’m absolute trash i’m jotting down some ideas for a newsies anastasia AU. (based more on the broadway version than the movie but like the plots aren’t too different so). also yes this AU would make more sense with jack and kath as the main characters (love interest) but when was the last time I wrote something heterosexual?

Note: this turned into a somewhat humorous summary of anastasia feat. javid

-So its 1917 in russia and the royal family is having a great time (said royal family is the Jacobs, but we’ll stick with the name Romanov because ‘jacobs’ is not russian)

-David is like ten or something? Sarah is nineteen, and while she adores her family, she has plans to go to Paris to spend time with her girlfriend  lady in waiting, Katherine. David doesn’t want her to go, so she promises she’ll see him soon and gives him a music box and they sing a haunting lullaby together, etc, y'all now how the story goes.

-like five minutes after Sarah leaves a bunch of revolution people come and kill the nobility for the sake of communism. (i feel rlly bad that Les dies). Sarah finds out about this and is Very Sad

-Time jump like ten years. Russia is now Very Communist and people are generally upset about that. But there’s a Rumor in Saint Petersburg that hey?? Maybe that david kid isn’t dead??????? And it turns out his older sister Sarah, who is currently chilling in Paris with her gf, will pay a Lot for his return

-Jack Kelly and his bff Crutchie are basically poor con artists who are bitter about communism. they want to Leave Russia but that’s Difficult. (crutchie is like thirty something- jack’s 22- cause i need crutchie to be older cause he used to be a count or something?). Jack hears about the missing prince rumor and thinks, hey, i could make money off of that. he ropes Crutchie into helping him, and they buy a music box that probably belonged to David. they’re really pumped about this plan

-who else happens to exist in Russia at the time? a kid named Davey who is currently like 20, and can’t remember the first ten years of his life. he’s spent all of his life travelling Russia with close to nothing and no memories, and he really wants to Leave. someone tells him, hey, hit up Jack Kelly he can get you out.

-so he goes to see Jack and Crutchie, who decide, hey, this kid looks vaguely like David (and has a very similar name, because fuck you i didn’t want to come up with another name). Davey sings an angsty ballad about not remembering shit. Jack is instantly smitten. Jack and Crutchie (who i will now refer to as the Dream Team to shorten things up) convince him that he’s probably a lost prince and davey just. goes along with it.

-the Dream Team tries to teach Davey all the Things about being russian nobility and. don’t do well. its okay they tried. Crutchie actually tries to be nice and helpful. Jack and Davey engage in some banter

.-theres this whole subplot in the musical about this ultra-communist dude and his struggle between wanting to kill anastasia for being a romanov and being in love with her. hes v morally grey and actually kinda interesting but i just. dont want to deal w/his story in this. if yall have ideas on how to include him in this lmk

-Jack sings an Upbeat song about how much he fucking hates Russia but also he loves it???? Davey is smitten (My Petersburg is a Bop listen to it)

-ngl i don’t really remember how this part happened in the musical so im going to go off of what i remember from the movie. The Dream Team + Davey go to rehearse in some old ballroom that used to be used by nobility. Davey has intense flashbacks and ends up singing that lullaby he heard literally ten years ago. He may or may not hallucinate his dead family. 

-turns out everyone Fucking Hates Russia but also loves it.

-they leave russia. Crutchie is pumped to see his friend Katherine, who will hopefully take him, jack, and davey to see Sarah. Jack and Davey are both Nervous

-they arrive near Paris, and the Dream Team rush ahead to relish in the fact that they finally got out of Goddamn Russia. Davey stays behind for three minutes and seventeen seconds to sing about how he’s going to finally find his family??? He’s scared but also happy and just. My boy.

-Crutchie is Very Excited about being in Paris. He was there a lot when he was nobility I guess? He leads a very nice musical number about how great france is. Jack comes to the realization that, wow, after this, he’s probably never going to see davey again??? that sucks. Davey meanwhile is Shook by Paris

-Davey Crosses a Bridge

-also somewhere in here Jack and Davey dance with each other. Its cute and crutchie ships it

-meanwhile, in the Richest part of Paris, Sarah and Kath are a few minutes into Reading Letters and Chill when sarah gets sad. She’s angsty because there have been a bunch of fake Davids and she just misses her little bro:( Kath tries to comfort her gf and give her hope, but Sarah just insists they Close the Door forever. She can’t deal with any more pain. She asks to be alone

-kath goes to a russian club to get drunk (not with liquor!!! fame works quicker!!!) and sing a BOP about missing being russian nobility. (dudes. Land of Yesterday is amazing)

-Crutchie and Kath meet up and Crutchie is like “hey so me and my buddy Jack brought a guy who may or may not be David can we see Sarah?” Kath is worried at first but eventually she agrees cause she and Crutchie are Good Friends (the characters they’re based on have a relationship in the musical but none of that straight shit in my AU)

-Davey has nightmares about All of His Family Dying and Jack comforts him by telling him a story about a parade he was at when he was ten. ten year old Jack had watched a parade of russian nobility, and had such an instant crush on young David that he just. ran out in the middle of the street to see him. David had smiled at him and that was jack’s bisexual awakening

.-In order to Add To the Story of Davey Being David, Jack has Davey retell the story from his POV. he says basically the same stuff, but then adds on that Jack had bowed. But Jack never told him that??? Wow turns out Davey is David!!! What a surprising turn of events

.-Jack and Davey finish the song in a very romantic duet and they’re about to kiss but then Jack bows to him instead

-Crutchie comments on how in love Jack and Davey are and wow this might fuck up the plan

-They go see a ballet. Davey sees sarah and is excited!!! thats his sister!!!! he just needs to convince her of that. Sarah sees Davey and wonders if thats her bro?? but no she cant get hopes up. Jack wants to protect and support davey like a good bf

-Kath recognizes Davey as the kid crutchie told her about and takes him to go to see Sarah while Jack waits outside. Jack convinces himself that they can only win. But… even if it works, and he gets the money, he’s going to lose Davey?? He realizes that he loves Davey and pining ensue

s-in the meeting, Davey realizes that there was a reward for finding David and figures that Jack and Crutchie were just using him and he is pretty heartbroken. he storms off, but Jack stays to try to convince Sarah to talk to Davey again. she respects his boldness and agrees. Jack on the other hand, thinks Davey hates him now and is heartbroken. he decides to leave Paris

-Sarah and Davey talk but she still doesn’t believe him. He shows her the music box and sings their lullaby. Sarah is Convinced and joins in on the lullaby. They hug and share a sibling moment. Its very cute.

-theres a Press Conference about David

-Davey realizes he kinda doesn’t want to be a prince cause he’d rather be gay for Jack. Sarah is chill with that. Davey decides to go after Jack

-Davey nearly gets shot but doesn’t.

-Davey finds Jack being angsty as he’s planning to leave. Jack makes some bs comment like “leave me alone i don’t want to be in love with someone who doesn’t love me for the rest of my life.” Davey decides Jack is being stupid and kisses him. They leave Paris together and live happily ever after!!

-(Meanwhile, Sarah lives in Paris with Katherine- they are happy and in love. Crutchie mostly stays with them but also joins Jack and Davey regularly on their exploits. Everyone is happy forever.)

so yeah this is stupid

[my-dear-hammy]

Heads or Tails

Masterpost

Chapter Twenty: Two Homes

AN

Check who finally updated something! Since when did I get so slow? Like seriously?

----

Warnings: Sadness

----

Monticello.

Jefferson breathed in the fresh country Virginia air, there'll never be a scent quite like it. Breathe it while you can Jefferson. This is the last of it. What was he going to do with the land anyway? Sell it? That just hurt his heart. Let it sit here and eventually get confiscated by the government since he was officially a criminal on the run, unless everyone in the cabinet knew to keep their mouths shut. If they didn't, Lafayette was just as screwed in France as Jefferson was in America.

Focus. Worry about that later. Now he needed to pack and get out of the country before the government catches up with him. Or Hamilton.

He couldn't face Hamilton now. Not with knowing that he was about to leave his life forever. He barely managed the first goodbye without breaking apart, he couldn't do it again and Hamilton was no doubt hot on his trail. Whether it was to beat him senseless for his deceit or to hold him close and cry.

Jefferson didn't want to find out. It would be just as heartbreaking either way.

Jefferson walked down the halls, listing things off to be packed and sent off to France. His books being the main thing. He finally decided to let Madison decide what would become of his beloved Monticello along with the instructions to give every slave an education and set them free. Monticello wasn't going to be producing cotton anymore anyway and it was the right thing to do.

Jefferson stayed the night there before taking a carriage to the coast where he boarded a ship and left once again for France.

Hamilton made it to Monticello hours after Jefferson left and after interrogating the people there, set off for the harbor. He missed the ship by mere minutes, watching it pull out of the harbor and the winds catch the sails, carrying her out to sea and out of Hamilton's life forever.

Fuck that.

***

France.

Just how Lafayette remembered it, well, it's was a little more bloody. And the Queen and King had lost their heads. And-

Nevermind.

France was like a second home, after he'd spent so many years here. It was nice to return, even if it wasn't under the most pleasant circumstances. War was never pleasant, even if it was for all the reasons. The people hailed his return, throwing flowers, cheering, sending gifts, they cried out his name and pressed forward just to brush against his clothing.

Scary, right?

That meant that either word of Lafayette's other life hasn't reached France yet or Washington's cabinet kept their mouths shut. He prayed it was the latter but had the strong feeling it was the former. If it came to it, Jefferson would flee to Switzerland or England or Russia. China maybe. He didn't know. But for now, he had only one destination in mind.

He stood on the front step and rose his hand to knock on the wood, letting it fall sharply and waited. Seconds ticked by, feeling like an eternity, before the door swung open.

"Jefferson?"

Lafayette smiled, "It's Lafayette, actually."

"Oh, of course. I should've known," the man said, pulling Lafayette in for a hug and clapping him on the back. "It's good to see you old friend."

"It's good to see you too, James," he replied, hugging Monroe back. "How's France treating you?"

"Just fine, getting awfully bloody though. I'm surprised you came, I figured the most you would do is try and win some support for France. I thought you left Lafayette behind"

Lafayette scratched the back of his neck, "Actually, I did try. And I failed, so now I'm here because no matter how hard I try to deny it, I am the Marquis de Lafayette and he would do everything in his power to help."

Monroe nodded, "Well, it's good to have you back, as both Jefferson and the Marquis. Either way, you're my friend and fond of wine and I happen to have a freshly opened bottle inside if you'd like to join me," Monroe offered, stepping out of the way of the door to permit Lafayette entry.

"I'd like nothing more," Lafayette grinned, stepping inside.

They both settled comfortably in the living room, sipping from their wine. "This brings back memories," Monroe said fondly, "We just need Laurens and Hamilton."

Lafayette smiled sadly. "The good old days when it was only about surviving to the next battle and having a good time with close friends."

"To the good days," Monroe toasted.

Lafayette rose his glass, "To the good days," he echoed, taking a drink.

"Remember when I first met you as Lafayette and I talked all night about you? As Jefferson? That must've been so awkward for you."

Lafayette laughed, "Actually, I didn't remember being Jefferson then so it was all very entertaining."

"What about all the times after?"

"Yeah, you never really shut up."

Monroe laughed, "I aimed to be like you."

"Ew, bad idea."

"I discovered."

Lafayette laughed good naturedly.

"You know," Monroe continued, "Morris is here as well. He leaves in a coupled weeks to return to America but we should be sure to invite him to a drink as well."

"Sounds good, but for now, I should focus on helping France. Any idea where to start?"

***

Right now, the most Jefferson could do was try and keep the crowds under control, which worked for a while since they all loved and respected him so much. But as their thirst for violence grew, so did their annoyance with Lafayette preventing it. He was too late to save the royal family but he wasn't too late to save certain innocents. Lafayette went as far as to step in front of a cannon right as it was about to fire.

Luckily, he did not get blasted to pieces and the people halted.

He got offered the lead position of government several times but turned it down each time, feeling the people should lead themselves. He knew Hamilton would yell at him for not jumping at the opportunity.

Lafayette's thought often strayed to Hamilton but did not have time to dwell on them as he was constantly being called upon to deal with one disaster or another. Though Washington and his cabinet seemed to have kept Lafayette's secret, they still did not send aid, though Washington expressed his regrets for not being able to.

Deep down, Lafayette knew that the United States should stay neutral but he couldn't help but be bitter about it. Monroe and Morris helped in every way they could but could only do so much since they were Americans and weren't technically supposed to get involved. As weeks passed, Morris finally said goodbye and Monroe and Lafayette saw him off at the harbors as he sailed back to America.

Lafayette wished he could go with him.

He had too much work to do.

Honestly, Lafayette was doing okay. There were days that were absolutely horrible and he liked to drown them out with obscene amounts of wine. Those were typically the days he had the time to think about Hamilton.

He was just pouring his first glass on one of those days when a knock sounded at his front door. He walked over, glass in hand, swung it open, "What is it now-"

"Lafayette."

"Alexander?"

[i-am-very-very-tired]

Soon after three P.M. on Tuesday, May 15, six bay horses, each with a plumage of black ostrich feathers, trotted toward Gloucester Cathedral drawing a Victorian funeral carriage, its cargo bedecked with white gardenias and surmounted by a black galleon hat. When the horses fell into step they looked as if they were dancing, even flying, some said. As the carriage entered the courtyard, led by a footman with a silver-topped cane, a black cape, and an undertaker’s top hat, the effect was of consummate gravitas and theatricality, the perfect dramatic exit for English fashion icon Isabella Blow.

The previous Monday her husband, Detmar Blow, had sent out a text message to all their friends: Issie died peacefully last night. I am heartbroken. DETMAR. A bank holiday in Britain, a slow news day, ensured that Isabella, a beloved English eccentric known for her outrageous hats, and who had been at the vanguard of British fashion for a quarter of a century, would be on the front pages the following morning. In New York, it was the day of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute gala, fashion’s premier night out, when the perfectly primped and preened, exquisitely depilated international fashionistas come together for a party thrown by Blow’s mentor, Vogue editor Anna Wintour.

News of Blow’s death at 48 was shocking, but it was no surprise: it was well known she had been depressed. Her husband told the press his wife had died of cancer, but, in truth, she’d taken her own life. “It’s a small detail,” says milliner Philip Treacy, one of Blow’s many fashion discoveries. “There was nothing tragic about Isabella. She was the life of the party.”

A few days earlier, in London, Isabella Blow had sat for her last portrait—for a Vanity Fairportfolio by photographer Tim Walker and stylist Sarajane Hoare, on English eccentrics*.* She was fragile, but the photo shoot lifted her spirits. She laughed with her dirty laugh and was full of ideas for the image—a castle turret, armor by designer Alexander McQueen, the sacrifice of a pair of rare-breed sheep from her home to supply a decoration of blood.

“A funeral, done really well, is just like a wedding,” she said ominously.

It would soon become clear what she meant. Blow’s funeral was at least as dramatic as her wedding had been, 18 years earlier, in the same spectacular Gothic setting. Her pages then were pallbearers now. Then, as now, she wore a hat by Philip Treacy. Detmar wore the same ceremonial Sri Lankan suit for both occasions. Then, as now, Blow had choreographed an event as glamorous and outrageous as the identity that she had forged for herself.

But at the service, Blow’s wide circle of friends wondered if she was driven to her undoing by the shadow of her own creation or if this was ordained in her history. She was drawn to extremes and spent her life on a roller coaster of intensity. In death, the question was the same: How had it come to this?

That Isabella Delves Broughton, a slight and busty English country girl born with blue blood in her veins, had even ventured into the fashion world was unlikely enough. That she became an iconic, globe-trotting fixture of it was the stuff of fantasy.

For more than 20 years, she kept herself on a creative high, her persona preceding her like the bow wave of a ship. People saw her as eccentric, but she disliked the term. “Her humor and eye were eccentric, but her brain really wasn’t,” says Nicky Haslam, the British society decorator. “Most eccentrics are a pose, and it’s a frightful bore. Like Diana Vreeland, Issie could think in a surreal way.”

Nevertheless, her eccentric public image was one she spent her life cultivating with her daring choices in clothing, particularly hats. Dressing without a hat, Blow explained, was like not being dressed at all. “It’s meant to be a sensual, erotic display. You’re there to get a new husband, a new boyfriend, whatever. And you can get it. It’s a sensual thing. It’s the old-fashioned cock-and-hen story, the mating dance. Men love hats. They love it because it’s something they have to take off in order to fuck you. Anyone can wear a hat.”

“Fashion is about emotion,” she once said, standing outside a fashion show in Paris in the rain. “It’s about love.” Women, she continued, “love clothes because they mean something to them—the day you met the man you love, the day you got married, what you did before you made love to somebody. It’s psychological and tied to the spirit of a woman.” Once she had an idea, her enthusiasm knew few limits.“I’d say, ‘Maybe I’ll do a collection based on Catherine of Russia,’ and she’d say, ‘Ooh, yes. Go for it!,’” recalls designer Manolo Blahnik. “Once we had a project doing shoes from animals in the sea. We made an octopus shoe, which was incredibly difficult. Then she wanted a shoe like a carnivorous plant. . . . She would bring in extraordinary books about Surrealists, animals, dresses of queens … ”

Blow could spot talent at a distance, and would push and encourage and promote until they were household names. Along with Treacy, she discovered the models Sophie Dahl, Honor Fraser, and Stella Tennant, designer Hussein Chalayan, and, perhaps most famously, McQueen, whom she found in the early 90s at the Royal College of Art.

Where many fashionistas dress head to toe in the latest labels out of vanity, Blow could hardly care less. She wore clothes for dramatic expression. At fashion shows, she would often be the only one in a sea of serious, black-clad women to cheer on the outfits she liked, effortlessly balancing Treacy’s latest design on her head. She was interested only in originality, says her friend Ronnie Newhouse, wife of Condé Nast International chairman Jonathan Newhouse and an art director. “Most people in fashion get excited about being connected to people who have already made it. Issie got excited by discovering people. They could be from anywhere and usually were.”

She helped bring British fashion to the forefront by infusing it with elements of the island’s history and mythology—whether it was King Arthur, the Bloomsbury set, or the Bright Young Things of the 1920s—and was a central figure in the British cultural renaissance of the 90s. (Blow would help produce *Vanity Fair’*s 1997 portfolio “London Swings! Again!” In it, she posed alongside Alexander McQueen for a memorable portrait by David LaChapelle.)

Early in her career, at Tatler—which, like Vanity Fair and Vogue, is owned by Condé Nast—she was perfectly placed to usher in a new look for the British aristocracy; because she was from it, she didn’t have to take it seriously. She joined the society magazine as a fashion assistant during a creative high point there, and helped to distinguish it with wit and subversion, shaking up conventions, aware of correct behavior but not enslaved to it.

“It was the emergence of the upper classes as sexy,” says the designer Antony Price. “Nobody had seen them as that before. She repackaged them. Up to that point they’d been a joke.”

No one recognized that more than Blow, who proudly traced her heritage back to the Battle of Poitiers, in 1356, where Edward, the Black Prince, routed the French army and captured King John of France. During the battle the Black Prince was almost taken prisoner. One of the squires who rescued him, John de Delves of Cheshire, had a title bestowed on him, along with a family motto, “Haud muto factum” (Nothing happens by being mute), and the right to crenellate his castle. Blow “was proud of her chivalric past,” says barrister Orlando Fraser, a cousin of hers. “She had a medieval heart—bold, haughty. She had an earthy sense of humor and she loved to shock.”

Though inspired by her aristocratic lineage, Blow was also burdened by the strange legacy of her family. Her grandfather Sir Henry John “Jock” Delves Broughton, a gambler and bon vivant, had inherited Doddington Hall, a large 18th-century house, and an estate in Staffordshire, in 1914. He received 34,000 acres of good land and considerable investments that, in all, provided him with an income of £80,000 a year, a vast sum. But Broughton was beset by fears of running out of money and began selling off the land. He made poor investments and gambled wildly. He lived, his friend Lord Carnarvon said, “high, wide, and handsome.”

In 1940, Broughton took his young second wife, Diana, to Kenya’s Happy Valley, locus of a society of licentious expat British aristocrats. Within the year, Diana had begun a public affair with Josslyn Hay, 22nd Earl of Erroll, a specialist in seducing rich married women. Broughton was as jealous a man as Diana was promiscuous, so when Erroll was found in his car on a country road outside Nairobi, killed by a single bullet in his head, Broughton was the natural suspect and was soon charged with the murder. The themes of spectacle, sex, and death were now firmly etched into the template of the family.

Broughton was acquitted, but he returned to Doddington Hall with his reputation ruined. In December 1942, he checked into the Adelphi Hotel, in Liverpool, gave instructions he should not be disturbed, and overdosed on morphine. James Fox’s 1982 book (and its 1987 film adaptation), White Mischief, was about the scandal.

By the time Isabella was born, in 1958, the family was living across the lake from Doddington Hall. As Blow later said, she lived with beauty at a distance.

“It was very macabre. Their cottage overlooked the big empty house. It looked black,” says publisher David Macmillan. “It had that touch of faded glory—very grand furniture from an enormous house stuffed into a small one. The unique English look of trading down.”

At the age of four, Blow witnessed the drowning of her young brother, the family’s only son and heir, in shallow water in the lake. “I can remember everything about it,” Blow said. “The smell of the honeysuckle, and him stretched out on the lawn. My mother went upstairs to put her lipstick on. That might have something to do with my obsession with lipstick.”

The family was devastated by the loss. Blow’s parents, Sir Evelyn and Lady Helen, seemed to lose interest in their three daughters, Isabella, Julia, and Lavinia, and they were soon dispatched to an all-girl boarding school. When Isabella was 14, her mother shook her daughters’ hands and walked out on them. “The repercussions of her brother’s death were enormous,” says author and university friend Liza Campbell. “Here she was, the eldest child, but a girl and therefore quite useless. It’s a hangover from the medieval times she loved.”

Sir Evelyn remarried. On his honeymoon in the Caribbean his new wife, Rona, 25 years his junior, became concerned about his unsightly varicose veins. Upon returning to England, he underwent surgery to have them removed but in the process got gangrene and lost one leg above the knee.

Blow was sent to secretarial school in Oxford. “It was a little hedonistic,” recalls Adam Boulton, political editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News, who was an Oxford undergraduate at the time. “There was always a lot of drinking going on. Isabella always wore cocktail dresses. She’d come into the drawing room, wiggle her hips, and lift her skirt. It was her thing. The only issue was whether she was wearing underwear or not.”

From Oxford, Blow headed to London. She took odd jobs, eventually finding a position as a salesgirl at Medina, a boutique in Knightsbridge, where friends would come to borrow clothes for weekend parties. A career in fashion started to make sense. “She went into fashion because she liked dressing up,” says Macmillan. “She liked being another person, for the day, for the moment, for the event of it.”

In 1979, Blow went to America to study art at Columbia University and then to Midland, Texas, where her first husband, Nick Taylor, an Englishman, planned to make it in the oil business. He didn’t. While in Texas, Blow took a trip to New York, where she was introduced to Anna Wintour, then creative director at Vogue. Wintour offered her a position as her assistant. “She appeared in the corridor wearing a black lace mantilla, looking like a cross between a woman in an El Greco painting and Alice Cooper,” says screenwriter Evgenia Citkowitz, then also a Vogue assistant. “She washed her desk with Perrier. She was completely baroque compared to her co-workers—they looked like androids in the uniform of chic.”

Blow became a part-time Factory girl in the orbit of Andy Warhol. “Issie was seeing Jean-Michel Basquiat, or at least he was sitting in her office a lot of the time,” recalls Wintour. America gave Blow the opportunity for re-invention, but there was an undertow of self-doubt. “One always wondered how she really felt about herself that she had to camouflage herself in these extraordinary outfits,” says Wintour. “That was there from the word go, but it got more extreme as she got older.”

She returned to London in 1986 for the job at Tatler, already separated from Taylor; they would soon divorce. In 1989, Isabella Broughton met 24-year-old Detmar Blow. Sixteen days later they were engaged. Detmar, six years her junior, had an estate 100 miles west of London. In theory, he was wealthy; in practice, he was not.

After their fairy-tale wedding, Isabella put her energy into renovating the cottages on the estate to rent to friends from London. The happy newlyweds lived at Hilles, a large Arts and Crafts house that was filled with tapestries, suits of armor, pikes, and other medieval flotsam. “They were like two children set loose in a big house,” says her friend (and the author’s sister) Lucy Birley, “but they were both desperately insecure about money and fueled each other’s fears.”

They created a salon, entertaining writers, artists, intellectuals, and minor royalty. But as in so much of her life, the fantasy could be hard to support. “She transformed herself into this extraordinary creature,” says interior decorator Camilla Guinness, “but there was always the sense that she was only just keeping her head above water.”

And her marital home was not truly her own. Helga, Detmar’s mother, gave the young couple use of Hilles under the provision they would vacate if she wished to visit. Isabella felt she was a caretaker in her own home, a situation exaggerated by sibling rivalry. Behind the bohemian façade, it became like a daytime soap opera: Detmar and Isabella at Hilles; his sister, Selina, and her husband, Charles Levinson, a doctor, in a smaller house; Amaury, Detmar’s younger brother, roaming the hills in a shawl with two Irish wolfhounds for company; and Helga, pulling the strings from her home on an island off Sri Lanka.

To Isabella’s enduring sorrow, she and Detmar were unable to have children. The Levinsons had more success: they produced one son and a daughter and were encouraged by Helga to see themselves as the rightful occupants of Hilles.

To resolve the dilemma, Isabella offered to make a way for Detmar to find a woman who could bear him a son. In 2004 the couple separated. Detmar began an affair with Stephanie Theobald, the social editor of Tatler rival Harper’s Bazaar and a lesbian*.* Isabella’s choice of a lover was a disaster, a Venetian from an old family of glassblowers. It ended badly in a financial dispute. Her friends cannot bring themselves to mention his name. “He’s not worth the space,” says European fashion P.R. woman Karla Otto. Detmar and Isabella’s separation lasted for 18 months. Friends say this episode marked the start of her decline into serious depression.

Still, her legend only grew in the world of fashion. She committed herself to her visions absolutely. Sometimes the event itself surpassed the vision. Musican Bryan Ferry recalls a shoot in Blow’s apartment: “Issie had blown the whole budget on a cocktail shaker and ice bucket. She had also hired an 80-year-old man in a white tuxedo who used to do the bar at Claridge’s. She spent all her money on extravagant things like that. As I walked in she said, ‘Darling, would you like a cocktail?’ It was four in the afternoon and the poor man had been standing there all day. It was sheer Evelyn Waugh.”

To her old friends, her behavior had not changed with time but had only become exaggerated. “She was a great one for upping the stakes,” says David Ogilvy, a singer and music producer. “She’d always be very funny about the situations she got herself into.” Indeed, she placed unique strains on the institutions of fashion. In one incident, at Tatler,she was sent up to Vogue to look at some photos. “She was banned from going up there for three months,” recalls stylist Joe McKenna, “when a member of the staff walked in to see her bent over a light box with no knickers on underneath her skirt.”

Isabella Delves Broughton was now Isabella Blow, a personality—much sought after for her opinions, endorsements, and keen eye for emerging talent. She was a fashion star. Her outfits more extreme, Treacy’s headdresses more imaginative and extravagant. But her essential dilemma was not resolved. Blow still worried about money. She felt unappreciated, unrecognized by the business; if the creative parts of the fashion world had embraced her style and wit, they were getting harder for the workday mainstream to accept. She had successfully established the Style section of the London Sunday Times and had been a fashion editor at British Vogue only to find herself cast away from both. She was retained as a consultant by Swarovski, the Swiss crystal maker. She convinced her designer friends to use the crystals; Swarovski was re-invented. But they, too, let her go.

“She was brilliant at finding new things and could always find new ways of looking at things,” says photographer Mario Testino, a friend from their early days in New York, “but it was hard for her to define her job, and it was hard to find ways to pay her. So you find a designer, or you find the model, but how do you invoice for that?”

“Issie wouldn’t just sell you the specific skill of someone but their entire life. Like a slave trader! And she did it in an extremely sophisticated, lewd, and seductive way,” says Malcolm McLaren, architect of punk rock in the 70s. “She was like someone constantly in search of an idea. But the idea was her, and nobody ever managed to put the mirror up in front of her and say, ‘Issie, it’s all about you. You are the artist, but you’re not telling anyone, so you never get the compensation or recognition.’”

Blow was still haunted by what happened with her most famous discovery, Alexander McQueen. In 1997, Blow happened to be having lunch with Tom Ford, then head of Gucci, who mentioned that he was looking to make acquisitions to expand the Gucci group. Blow always claimed that she suggested he buy McQueen’s label. They entered into negotiations, and a multi-million-dollar price was agreed upon. The happy party set off on a now legendary train ride to Paris to sign the documents. When they got there, Blow found there was no mention of her—and there was no role for her in the new company. “Isabella’s name was never on the contract,” a lawyer involved in the negotiations said. Fashion was showing Blow its coldest face. She was devastated, and some blamed McQueen. “In a sense, what makes designers successful is their ruthlessness,” offers one well-known fashion insider.

Equally likely, the executives making the deal saw Blow as an unnecessary bottom-line expense. Whatever the truth—McQueen declined to speak for this article—Blow put aside her hurt and the pair remained cautious friends. (McQueen, along with others, would pick up some of her private hospital bills in the year before her death.)

“She couldn’t separate the fact that you can do something for money and it doesn’t have to be any good and that no one will know you did it. You just get paid for it,” says Vogue writer and Bergdorf Blondes author Plum Sykes. “She couldn’t do something unless she loved it, and she couldn’t bear things that weren’t beautiful or interesting.” And fashion, for all its emphasis on creativity, is a business.

As Blow’s world darkened, so did her sense of humor. She began regularly wearing a Victorian mourning ring, and expressed her desire to be buried in Treacy’s Pheasant hat. She told The New Yorker that, upon her death, her heart was to be taken from her body, placed in a heart-shaped box, and given to Detmar. In 2002, on one of her last trips to New York, she was flown in by Swarovski on the enticement of “the two C’s”: the Concorde and the Carlyle hotel. She came in her Spanish-widow look. “My husband recently died and I’ve been left incredibly wealthy,” she told The New York Observer.

Blow was always prone to mood swings, but they were becoming more pronounced. The fear of ending up penniless became a fixation. While her love of clothes and design never failed, her interest in the fashion business waned. “What is happening is they’ve destroyed the spirit. It’s globalization, Americanization. Now it’s just ‘Write the check,’ she told reporters in Paris. She hadn’t given up completely, though. She began to look abroad for opportunities. Adventure ran, she said, in her veins—her paternal grandmother, Lady Vera, who sailed the world in a cross-channel ferry, had a major influence on the young Isabella and remained, 40 years after her death, a heroine to Blow. She began work on producing a series of books titled Arabian Beauty, focusing on fashion in the Middle East, with Sheikh Majed al-Sabah, nephew of the Emir of Kuwait, who owns high-end clothing stores in Kuwait and Dubai. India, too, would soon present an opportunity for renewal.

Blow also flirted with the idea of becoming a fashion reporter for Al Jazeera. “Darling, it’s too exciting,” she told friends. “I’m potentially going to be the Elsa Klensch of al-Qaeda!” “I told her she must be crazy,” says Treacy. “And you can’t go round saying that. You mean Al Jazeera, not al-Qaeda!”

At the Milan shows in February 2006, Blow told her old boss Anna Wintour that she intended to kill herself. She then began telling all her close friends. Talk of suicide was offered conversationally, and was difficult to separate from her wit and sense of humor.

Blow abandoned Milan and returned to London. “She was just struggling within herself,” says Wintour, “but even in that situation her spirit and ability to laugh were undiminished.” Wintour, Birley, and Newhouse arranged for her to enter a residential treatment center outside London. She went, but left halfway into the six-week course.

Two weeks later, while her husband was out at a dinner for designer Vivienne Westwood, Treacy happened to drop by Blow’s London apartment—only to find her in a weak state, having overdosed on sleeping pills. With that first attempt to take her own life, Detmar placed Isabella under the care of the medical authorities.

Blow began a course of electroshock treatment, the controversial procedure that is once again gaining popularity as a way to manage bipolar depression. She told friends she felt as if she were losing her mind. The periods of relative normality grew shorter. “It’s like when you get a sore throat and you know that you’re going to get flu” was how she described the onset of depression. “You know it is coming, but you can’t do anything about it.”

In April 2006, events took a turn for the worse. Blow was traveling unaccompanied to a treatment facility in West London when her taxi was stopped in heavy traffic on the A40 motorway. She got out, walked up a pedestrian overpass, climbed over the railing, and dropped 30 feet onto the road below. She broke both ankles. The seriousness of the incident would come to signal the start of a steeper phase in her decline. Friends say she began to withdraw from her old circle. Tatler began looking for a new fashion director. Designers stopped lending her clothes.

“After all her disappointments, the depression fit naturally into place. She could have all the ideas in the world, but she knew she could no longer deliver,” says Robie Uniacke, an old friend. She began thinking not of how she would kill herself but how she wouldn’t. “Her certainty was absolute. I thought, There’s no way to get through to this person. She’s already on the other side.”

Her ankle injuries did not, however, prevent her from setting off for Indian Fashion Week in August 2006, as a guest of the Indian Fashion Council. Her friend Tikka Singh, adviser for LVMH on the subcontinent, had arranged for Blow’s visit and hoped to collaborate with her on a new handbag. Condé Nast in London began to receive unusual calls: Blow, who was staying in a suite at the Imperial in Delhi, was running up a large bill and planning a trip to the Himalayas. Singh wanted to know who was picking up the check. Not us, said Condé Nast.

In a further complication, Blow was mistaken by the Indian fashion press as being an official Condé Nast representative. Since there was great excitement over the launch of Vogue India, Blow was identified as a kind of envoy for Vogue, sent by management to research potential candidates for the editorship.

“She’d become like a whirling dervish,” says Nicholas Coleridge, managing director of Condé Nast in London. “She started giving interviews to the press. There was an article on the front page of the Hindustan Times with a big picture of Issie in a huge hat and the headline MAD HATTER BLOW ARRIVES IN INDIA TO APPOINT VOGUE INDIA EDITOR.” Before it went any further, Singh put her on a plane home.

For three weeks she’d be on a high from the shock therapy, then she’d start to come down, go back to the hospital, then the cycle would start again. Friends felt Detmar might have been unable to deal with the situation in part because of a previous experience; Jonathan Blow, his father, had committed suicide when Detmar was 14 by drinking the weed killer Paraquat, a poison that causes the internal organs to slowly shut down; it is the method of suicide favored, oddly, by lovesick Hindus of Tobago.

In the fall of 2006, Isabella decided to take flowers to her father’s grave at Doddington and, mirroring her grandfather’s suicide, checked into a nearby hotel. This time she took the precaution of calling Treacy to let him know she would be overdosing with pills—her “Marilyn Monroes,” as she called them. Treacy called Isabella’s Tatler colleague Kate Bernard, who found out that she’d booked a car on the magazine’s account, and traced her to the hotel, where her plan was thwarted. Other attempts took even more bizarre turns. One of Blow’s heroes, and a fellow manic-depressive, Virginia Woolf, drowned herself in 1941 by filling her pockets with stones and walking into the River Ouse near her home in Sussex. Blow went to the river, but it was dry after the summer drought.

On another expedition, she went back to the lake at Doddington, where her brother had drowned four decades earlier. She entered the water but found herself too buoyant to succeed. At one point she asked a veterinarian for tranquilizers for a horse that had broken a leg. That scheme failed when the vet wanted to see the horse first. She considered jumping off a bridge over the Thames in London, but upon learning that there were nets to catch jumpers decided that it would be too inelegant to become entangled.

Earlier this year, during a weekend at Hilles, Blow borrowed her husband’s car late one night. Friends feared her disappearance signaled another attempt—and it did. She rammed the car into the back of a Tesco’s supermarket truck. The car was totaled, but Isabella was saved by her air bag and emerged from the wreckage unscathed. “I always hated Tesco’s,” she told Detmar.

Blow returned to India earlier this year with the actor Rupert Everett on a trip sponsored by ICI Dulux, the European chemicals giant, to select new colors and help promote the company’s textiles for saris. But her gloom didn’t lift. She walked out of fashion shows early. “One thing’s for sure,” she said. “I won’t die of boredom.”

Blow went back to Delhi to look into manufacturing for the handbag she wanted to produce, and then to Goa to stay with Karla Otto. There was another overdose, on the beach, and yet another rescue. “It was just a question of time before she would finally succeed,” Otto says.

When she came back from India she underwent more shock therapy, resulting in a spectacular high. “She rang me quite late one night,” recalls Lucy Birley. “I thought she might have taken acid or something. She said she was buying a castle in Kerala and she would have a farm of white peacocks. We were going to lie on the balcony and she would wear a necklace with emeralds the size of bird eggs. It was like being plugged into a surreal film, extraordinary and dislocated from reality.”

In March of this year, Blow was to fly to Kuwait to begin work on the first Arabian Beautybook*.* “She felt the U.K. was not really home for her anymore,” says Sheikh Majed al-Sabah, the financier of the project. “She was hoping that if any major magazine was going to come to the Middle East, she’d have strong contacts and knowledge.”

Blow was the creative director and stylist. She invested her energy and dedication, getting designers excited about making something special and different. Photographers, too, were inspired by Blow’s vivid imagination and committed themselves to the production.

“This will be my comeback,” she told friends.

But as the date for the trip drew close, the £10,000 that Isabella was expecting as an advance to cover the costs of the preparations had not come, nor had the plane tickets for Blow, her assistant, and the photography team. Finally, £5,000 was wired to London, along with two tickets to Kuwait. The sheikh had dropped Blow’s team and selected a Portuguese commercial photographer. He had also decided to use clothes stocked in his stores, Villa Moda. Blow set off for the Middle East anyway.

“You need me more than I need you,” the sheikh allegedly told her, and gave her 20 minutes of his time before flying off to Milan. Blow was devastated. With her vision in ruins, she took an overdose on the shoot and was hospitalized.

“Issie insisted on specific outfits from specific designers. She insisted on a Hussein Chalayan dress that unfolds and nothing can be worn underneath. I cannot put our women in such dresses—dresses with total transparency,” the sheikh says. “And she didn’t have any special feelings for the brands I wanted to push. She looked at it from a conceptual point of view. I look at it from a realistic point of view.”

Back in England, the disappointment of the Kuwait trip pushed the fragile Blow to a new low. A few days later she had surgery to have an ovarian cyst removed. (In some cases anesthesia can trigger depression.) Another round of shock therapy didn’t kick in the way it had before. “It hasn’t worked,” she told Treacy.

On April 30, her sister Lavinia, who lives nearby, drove her three hours to London for the Vanity Fair photo shoot. Two days later, Isabella sent a letter of wishes, a kind of will, to her long-suffering accountant. She told a friend that she had an “idea.” Many had heard of Blow’s ideas before and knew they harbored ill. Back in the kitchen at Hilles that Friday, she mentioned the same thing over the phone to Kate Bernard, but a visitor came in before she had time to elaborate. She promised to call back but did not.

The following morning, Saturday, May 5, Lavinia went out for groceries and returned to find Isabella curled up on the bathroom floor. She’d been sick, the blue in her vomit suggesting something more toxic than sleeping pills. In the car to the hospital she confessed she had drunk weed killer in the field below the house. “She was worried she hadn’t drunk enough,” Lavinia says, but then, in a statement that is harder to interpret, Isabella tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry,” she said, “because I’ve sicked it all up.”

The doctors in Gloucester said they couldn’t be sure how much of the poison she had ingested until tests came back from Birmingham. For most of that day and into the next, Detmar, Lavinia and Julia, Philip Treacy and his partner, Stefan, clung to the hope that she had taken less than a fatal dose. But the next day, Sunday, doctors at the hospital confirmed the worst: Isabella was dying. They could not say how long it would take, perhaps as long as three weeks, but the process under way could not be reversed. Philip and Stefan sat with her through most of Sunday. They laughed about Issie’s having forgone a hospital gown for an itchy and uncomfortable silver lamé shirt. “Since when did I ever care about comfort when it comes to fashion,” Blow reminded them.

“She wasn’t depressed,” recalls Treacy. “Even as she was dying, she was making everyone laugh.” But she told him with resolve, “I can’t bear to look at my feet anymore.” She didn’t mean the injuries to her feet from her jump the previous year. She meant that she couldn’t bear her depression—looking at her feet while lying in hospital beds.

Close friends made arrangements to visit her; she made plans with Detmar. Everyone went back to Hilles for the night, planning to return the next morning, but Blow was weaker than they knew: she had taken several times the lethal dose.

Isabella Blow passed away peacefully in her sleep a few minutes after five in the morning on May 7. Several days later, friends say, Alexander McQueen asked a medium to contact his friend. “Isabella is with her grandmother. She is happy, and wishes everyone would not be so sad,” the medium told McQueen. Sometime later the medium called back with a new message from Isabella. “And by the way,” she had said, “my mother is not to have any of my hats or shoes.”