#i have historically made friends v easily

[uptownhags]

i haven't been "the new person" in a place in soooo long. this first weekend by myself was cozy and wonderful bc i am fully, 1000% exhausted. but just knowing that on future weekends i have to like...go out....and meet people....?? sounds fake!

[sinisternymphette]

everybody loves my baby

an historical au | 1930's florist!reader x dilfgangster!rafe (minors dni)✶

tw: v!olence, sex

✶ gangster!rafe, who makes sure everyone knows that you're off limits. Whether it is by gently placing his hand on the back of your soft neck and slowly caressing it with his calloused knuckles, using one of his large fingers to softly trail down one of your arms while the both of you are sitting next to each other in a restaurant, putting his muscled arm around you like a mantle, giving you warmth and comfort, and even taking your hand in his to plant a kiss on the palm as he closes his eyes and sniffs to take in your scent without the care of what others might think of your intimacy. You were his and he was yours, and that was truly all that mattered.

✶ gangster!rafe, who would do anything to protect you. Literally. If anyone ever laid a hand on his pretty little florist, they'd have to go through him, and it certainly wouldn't end so jolly.

"You dared to touch my woman, hm. Well, not so confident now, are you."

he said in a low, menacing chuckle as he shook his head slowly, cornering the man before him in the lonely and dimly lit corridor behind the bar. He had gone to the washroom for just one minute- one minute without you in his plane on sight, and a man walked over to you and started complimenting you before giving you a rose. That wasn't the problem though. When you thanked him kindly and smelled the rose, he pulled his arm up to brush a strand out of your face. And so, he had to take the matter to his own hands.

"Now now, i'm sure you're a good fella and understand that it was just a minor misunderstanding!"

the man quickly said in a pleading tone, obvious fear in his wide eyes, which were easily comparable to a frightened doe's, before proceeding to pat Rafe's shoulder with one of his shaking hands- almost as if they were old friends. Rafe shook his hand away in a swift motion, as if he had just been touched by a rat who had come out off a trash can. He punched the man on his ribcafe after his fake of a charming smile vanished and turned into a dark frown as if he was no longer who he was before. His other hand reached to the other's mouth as the man made muffled yowls of pain. He, however, didn't even flinch once.

"You're damn lucky i'm a generous man, so make sure to take this as a lesson for the future, yes? to keep your hands to yourself? wouldn't want to cut all your fingers off and make a mess on my shirt."

he then smirked almost playfully, his expression once again changing in a matter of seconds before moving his hand up and shaking it, then putting it inside the pockets of his brown pants and using the other in order to adjust his white, high quality long-sleeved shirt. The man was now practically on the floor, whimpering as he crouched against the stone wall behind him as he shamefully covered his face with his shaking hands. It was truly an embarrassing sight. Once Rafe was finished, he turned his back and opened the back door to the bar, tilting his head to the side and staring at him one last time.

"If you'll excuse me, I have to get back to more important matters- the wonderful evening I was having with her before you, very rudly I might say, abruptly interfered."

✶ gangster!rafe, who likes giving you nicknames that represent your beauty such as 'dollface', 'peach', and his personal favorite, 'dandelion'. You absolutely adore them too- the way they always roll off his tongue so sweetly, like butter being spread on a slice of bread. He's a man who admires and cares for your body, your mind and very being as if you were a princess or a delicate porcelain vase with beautiful painted flowers.

"Look at you, m' pretty dandelion all dolled up for me." he murmurs as he carefully places his head over your shoulder, blue orbs looking into your eyes through the mirror of your bedroom while his hands found your waist and gently nestled around it. His lips were slightly curved upwards, making the hint of his smile shown to you. One of his fingers traced small circles on your waist, making you let out a small and flustered chuckle as you covered your mouth with one of your hands in a polite manner to hide it. You were wearing one of your newer dresses- a pretty light blue polka-dotted dress that perfectly hugged your figure. This, was one of the many dresses Rafe gifted you in the past two weeks. Your lips had red tint and your cheeks had a faint pink color on them- a little bit of makeup, but not too much. His eyes trailed down, all the way to the contour of your legs and to the white leathered heels you were wearing. in his eyes, you truly were a work of art- like a Renaissance painting that had come to life. Now, he was a man that firmly believed that actions spoke more than words, so as soon as his eyes met with yours once again, he planted sweet kisses on your neck alongside little nibbles. This, was his own way of letting you know that you looked absolutely stunning.

✶ gangster!rafe, who, despite having so much blood on his hands, is always careful with you and tries to avoid showing you his darker side as much as he can. Who doesn't want you to know all the sins he has done, all the people he had killed before, in fear of loosing you forever.

''Y'know how much I care about you, right kid?'' he asks after taking a long drag from his cigarette, voice almost a whisper as he's sitting on the sofa of your living room while you laid next to him, head resting on the armrest and legs over his lap while his free hand slowly massages one of your bare feet. He stared at you, blinking slowly. The sudden of a question made you open your once closed eyes and perk your head up to look up at him with an innocent, confused stare. ''Well, certainly. I always have.'' you replied softly, giving him a reassuring smile before it vanished as soon as it appeared. You sensed that something was wrong. After all, why else would he ask this? ''Why do you ask?'' you continued, now scanning the expression on his face, despite the fact that he was a very hard man to read. He swallowed, but maintained eye contact. ''Nothin'. Just wanted to let you know how much I love you all over again.'' He knew he shouldn't lie to you- that he should tell you the truth about where all his money comes from, how his family got as powerful as it is, what kind of person he actually is. But it was too dangerous. Luckily for him, he was a good liar, an actor- if you may call it that. He grabbed the foot he was massaging and placed it near his lips before he kissed each one of your fingers in a slow, sensual manner. This made you relax and soon enough, you were resting once again, breathing calmly as you felt safe in his presence.

✶ gangster!rafe, who tries to stop by the flower shop every single day to say hello. No matter how busy he was, how much trouble he had gotten himself into, what kind of business he was doing that day, he never forgot about you. Ever.

✶ gangster!rafe, who likes to take you back to where the both of you had first met every once in a while. The place, in question, is les deus magots.

✶ gangster!rafe, who might be rough between the sheets, but is as gentle as he can be afterwards and makes your comfort his prime priority.

you let out quiet mews as he pounded into you, you legs wrapped around his hips as your plush breasts jiggled up and down in rhythm with his thrusts. Your plump lips remained parted as you felt out of breath, feeling an intense flutter in your tummy that only got stronger as his movements picked up a speed. It felt so good- too good, in fact. You couldn't help but let out some tears that started to run down your cheeks, eyes closed shut as you listened to his grunts. The bed was shaking, making the crackling sound echo through the bedroom.

''There you go, shhh, you're okay.'' he whispers soothingly as he plants a soft kiss on the side of your cheek, both of you laying inside the warm bathtub. There were scented candles on the bathroom countertops, The lights on the pastel green walls turned off in order to enhance the ambiance of the room. Your muscles finally relaxed, and you felt yourself slowly start drifting into sleep while one of Rafe's hands massaged your shoulders. He seems content, blue eyes full of emotion as he looks down at you, hot breath against your neck and tiny droplets of water landing on your back from his wet and messy hair.

✶ gangster!rafe, who lets you spend his money on whatever you want, no matter what. All you have to do is ask, and he'll give you some cash- no questions asked.

✶ gangster!rafe, who loves the way your eyes brighten up whenever you're at the park and you find a pretty flower. Who later takes it from your little hands and places it on your hair.

✶ gangster!rafe, who gifted you a puppy one day as a surprise .

''So, I got you a little something.'' he tells you while he held in front of you a rather large red box with a big white bow around it between his arms. His tone was blunt, his expression the same as always, yet he was lightly tapping his foot against the wooden floor of your home. You were confused, to say the least, But of course- you accepted it, quickly taking it from his hands- perfectly manicured nails gripping it tightly. It was heavy- very heavy. ''Oh! I wonder what it could be!!'' you said almost in a lyrical shriek, excitement in your voice as you sat down on your sofa, legs crossed while you placed it right next to you. Suddenly, it moved, and your widening eyes drifted from the package to Rafe. ''No...no.. gosh, Rafe don't tell me it's what I think it is'' you murmured, placing your hands over your mouth. You were met with silence. Of course he didn't answer. Instead, he just tilted his head, almost as if he was attempting to hide the sly grin that was beginning to form on his lips. Not being able to control your excitement any longer, you carefully opened the box, taking the upper part away and revealing what was inside. You gasped, and your pretty shrieks of happiness filled the room. Rafe Cameron had gifted you a cocker spaniel puppy. A real puppy- not a plushie. ''Oh my goodness.. oh my goodness! oh wow- I have no words!'' you ran up to him and hugged him tightly- maybe a little too much. The puppy trotted towards the both of you and barked happily. ''Glad to be makin' you happy, peach'' he said before gently taking your chin in his hand to make you look up at him before kissing you on the lips.

✶ gangster!rafe, who wouldn't admit it out loud, but sometimes thinks that maybe.. you really are 'the one' for him...

✶ a/n : GUYS GUYS I DID IT!! I know this is a bit short, but tbh.. I might write more about gangster!rafe in the future :) if anyone wants to request something with him you can feel free to do so too. I tried to include a little smut, but eh.. this was my first ever fic (if you could even call this a fic) so it's probably a bit...meh. Either way, I'm glad I finally finished it, and I hope it was enjoyable to read!!

✶ creds : @amariisflossy for the gangster!rafe idea, @dollywons for the second header

@sinisternymphette 2024

[yellowmagicalgirl]

hot day in summer (hot iron touching skin)

Douxie takes his shirt off in front of his boyfriend and accidentally reveals a scar.

CW: references to historical branding and anti-Romani sentiments

AO3

FFN

Krel didn't understand why Douxie refused to use magic or technology instead of physical labor. Why work harder when they could work smarter? They didn't have to drag this table up the stairs to Douxie's apartment. They could have used Krel's wormhole generator. Alternatively, Douxie had already known about this table for a few days. It wouldn't have taken that much more time for Claire to use a shadow portal to transport the table to the apartment before she, Nari, and Archie set out on their quest to leave a few red herrings across South America and Europe.

The air conditioning wasn't working in the halls of Douxie's apartment building, either, which meant that Krel was sweating. He was spending way too much time in his human transduction to be producing this many fluids. Maybe if he drank less water, he wouldn't sweat this much.

Or maybe he'd get another stern talking to from Coach Lawrence and Principal Uhl for fainting from dehydration and lack of sleep. Again. Stupid human bodies.

"Please tell me the air conditioning works in your apartment," Krel said as he readjusted his grip so the table wouldn't slip out of his sweaty hands.

"It's out for the whole building," Douxie replied. "I'll turn the fan on when we get inside."

"Why don't you run the fan all the time in this heat?"

"And spend that much on electricity?"

Krel fought the urge to let go of the table and smack his forehead. Right now would be a great time to have four arms so he could facepalm without dropping the table. He was stronger in his Akiridion form, anyways, but no one wanted any random New Yorkers to learn the truth about space. "Zoe is your best friend. I'm a tech genius. We could easily build you a near-perpetual generator!"

"Near-perpetual?"

"I still can't fully reverse the second law of thermodynamics. Entropy will one day come for all of us."

Well, maybe not for Bellroc, not unless Skrael turned on them.

Maybe Douxie sensed the change in Krel's mood. Maybe he had merely come to his senses after all this unneeded hard labor. Douxie used his magic to unlock the door. The two of them set it down just inside the entryway of Douxie's apartment. As Krel closed and locked the door, Douxie took off his shirt.

Maybe all this hard labor hadn't been a bad thing. Maybe Krel could be grateful to the heat. Maybe -

Krel's blood ran cold. "Who did this to you?"

There was a brand on Douxie's chest in the shape of an angry, red V. Based on how much the burn had healed, it couldn't have been more than a few weeks ago. How hadn't Krel noticed it before? Why hadn't Douxie said anything?

Why hadn't Archie and Nari said anything?

Who did Krel need to hurt?

"Did wha-" Douxie followed Krel's gaze down to the brand. "Oh. That. Don't worry, it's not as bad as it looks."

"Someone branded you."

"Yes. It was about five-hundred years ago, though. One of the King Edwards passed a law against vagabonds. I'm still not sure why I was targeted and not the other poor people of the town - maybe I look too much like my mum? She was Romani, and considering the wording of the law..."

"It doesn't even look five weeks old, much less five centuries."

"That I get from my da. He was part fairy. The brand was made of iron, so it didn't heal correctly. I normally use magic or makeup to make the brand disappear when I take my shirt off; I forgot to today. Sorry for worrying you. Now, let's get this table in the dining area."

You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry for bringing it up, Krel wanted to say, but he could tell that Douxie wanted to drop the subject. "Can we please use magic to finish the job?"

~

Author's Note: Edward VI established the Statute of Vagabonds in 1547. If you were a vagabond or Romani, you were supposed to have been branded with a large V on the chest under this law. Vagabonds also could've been enslaved for two years, although historians were unsure whether this law was actually enforced due to the impracticality of implementing it, and the law was repealed three years later.

[r0-boat]

Can I please request sfw slice of life headcannons for reader and Volo? (Ps. I hope you had a great Easter!)

Thank you so much and I hope you have a good *looks at calendar* April 27th

Volo x gn!reader slice of life hcs

Sfw cut for length

Cw: slight Angst with a happy ending.

Scars heal, although some take longer than others... after years, you finally begin to accept that you may not be able to go home ... however, slowly but surely, you begin to cultivate your new life in the strange lands of Hisui. Still hurt knowing that you could never go back home, but you knew there was your second home.

The village was remorseful of how they treated you, offering to all help and build you an actual home. You now live in a small humble Cottage a little ways outside the village you could still get there easily on your Pokémon's back. While the boarding that Cyllene gave you was nice you wanted something else...

Sometimes you wonder how he is doing. After he disappeared, he left your heart better and broken. Making you question if the time he spent with you was real... if all the things he did to you and said to you were honest and not just to lull you into a false sense of security... you knew the village would never accept him back, but you also knew how painful he was. You saw in his eyes when he threw out his Pokeball; underneath that mad smile was a scared, confused man, who had no one in his life other than a dream. Volo claimed he hated you, but was it true?

As your Pokemon snooze is away while you brush its fur you hear a knock at the door... you weren't really expecting anyone today you opened your door expecting to greet Lavington, Cyllene... your eyes widen seeing a blonde-haired man standing in your doorway. His standing failed looked like the days alone in the wilderness had not been treating him well recently, and his face filled with regrets and sadness. "V-olo?" His name Falls from your lips.

After years of searching for Arceus, he knew he finally had everything.... his life dedicated to one God sacrificing everything he had and everything he built. To him, it was worth it... until he found you, he first saw you as your stepping stone, a simple obstacle in the way of his true dreams... But after he spends more time with you, something that he has never felt before begins to stir inside of him... it scared him... he tried to push it back as much as he could, thinking that nothing would matter once he finally reached his goal.

After Spear Pillar, he couldn't look you in the eyes anymore, he fled...

He has been better in recent days, choosing to live with you instead of chasing a dream till it drives him to Madness. You made him realize that he deserved a normal life that he earned his own path.

He reassures you that the feelings he has for you is genuine that he was an idiot for leaving you on Spear Pillar, Volo expected you to hate him... But you didnt?

The two of you now live in the cottage together every morning when the weather was nice volo goes outside in the garden and either relax or studies some old historical texts (still a history nerd)—occasionally going out on his own Adventures to look for more ancient ruins. Your Pokemon who once stood as great enemies now frolic and play as friends.

Volo's heart melts when he wakes up to the smell of your cooking no, he does not miss being a gingo guild member and finding what he can eat. He claims your homemade potato mochi is far better than the ones they serve in the village.

Volo does claim that he never once cared for that Village since how they treated him and you, but Volo did regret his actions and what he did even if the village would never accept him even if the gamegoeso Guild would never accept him, he still wanted to grow as a person and have everyone remember him as what he is now.

Volo has learned how to cook when he was just a traveling Merchant. He would only eat the wild berries he would find and had no time to cook..., but with you on his mind, he wants to make you smile with something he pours as hard into.

Sometimes you still have nightmares of The Village casting you out alone and cold as Giratina staring down at you. you wake up in a cold sweat, ready to cry, only to be held by Volo. I am making you remember that you are safe now and you are not alone.

Volo also still has nightmares of Giratina swallowing him down to this Distortion world where he belongs or Arceus standing before him to judge him on his sins of Pride and envy, greed, gluttony, and Wrath... but he feels at ease when he holds you close

Volo once asked you what was life like in your old time... you told him everything he seemed a little lost on the topics of technology and buildings however he seemed more intrigued when you told him about the many different kinds of Pokemon and places that you've seen... there is a bigger world out there.

Maybe one day the two of you should leave Hisui and travel the world just like in your stories...

No more worries no more expectation just you and him and the wild Untamed Wilderness and the Pokemon within them.

[alphabetatoes]

check this out (nanami kento x library assistant!reader)

a.n.: had an awful night, so why not write something self indulgent? not proofread. if there's one thing abt me, i love a blond man in a suit! c.w.: jealous nanami, modern/non-sorcerer college setting, possibly ooc w.c.: 756

Nanami had started coming to the library as a way to find solace from the chaos of university life (and mostly to get away from Gojo). The environment was quaint and nice, and the staff were always polite and eager to help with any query he might have had. So one day, when he needs to do research on a final project, he comes up to the front desk and asks for your assistance. 

The first thing you notice about him is how tall he is. Whether intentionally or not, he has a presence that demands attention. 

“How can I help you?” You ask, closing the book you had been thumbing through.

“I need to find some books discussing historical anomalies.” He speaks bluntly, avoiding any pleasantries that might force him to exhaust his social battery. 

“Let me see what I can find.”

Once you found a fair amount of materials, you took him over to their respective locations and grabbed everything as requested. “This should be it. If you have any more questions, please feel free to ask!”

“Thanks.” Nanami gives you a polite nod and exits with his materials. 

About an hour passes and yet Nanami can’t stop thinking about you. The sweetness in your voice- the way you spoke in such a way that made him feel like an old friend. Whether he wanted to be or not, he was smitten. He chastised himself for falling so easily. Y’all had only interacted for a short few moments, but that was enough to have him done for.

A few days pass. You’re leaned up against one of the shelves, using your hand to absentmindedly play with your hair. The person you’re talking to leans in close and whispers something in your ear, causing you to giggle. Nanami watched you from a table across the room, unintentionally crossing his arms and neglecting the essay he had been working on up to this point.

Jealousy? But Nanami didn’t get jealous. He knew how to keep his emotions at bay, but something about your current situation was setting him off. Why did they need to stand so close to you? You glanced over to him, taking note of his less than saccharine expression. After a while, the conversation comes to a head and you get back to work. 

Pulling books for a new display was proving to be an unexpected challenge. You stood on your tiptoes, determined to snatch the book from the very top of the shelf. It was just out of reach, but maybe you could leverage some additional height with some creative liberties. And you almost have the book in hand when you feel that gentle presence you’ve come to know all too well behind you. He grabs the book with ease and brings it down to your hands, his stoic demeanor never wavering.  Your hand grazed over his as you took the book into your possession. A hint of a blush peppers over his cheeks at the contact.

“Thanks for helping me out. The stools always seem to disappear right when I need them.”

“You looked like you were struggling.” Nanami tried to hide his smile, not wanting to add any awkwardness. He liked helping you, and it was his own little way of repaying you for everything you had done.

He stuck around for a moment, prompting you to say something. “Anything I can help you out with?” It was toward the end of your shift, but you had an unspoken routine when helping him out.

Nanami remains silent, gathering the courage to ask his question. Fuck it. He couldn’t mess up the opportunity to inquire when you were right in front of him.

“I was just wondering if I could take you out sometime?” His eyes fall from yours to focus on the floor. Nanami might have been tall, but he’d shrivel up in an instant if the interaction went sour.

“I’d say yes, but I’m all booked.” His face dropped at your statement. Your eyes widen as you realize he didn’t pick up on the playful tone in your voice. “Kidding! I’d love to. Just let me know when and I’ll be there.” You pat his shoulder and he swears your touch is electric, sending shock waves throughout himself.

“Is tonight too soon?” He has a newfound confidence in his voice, validated by your interest.

You grab your things and make your way towards the entrance. With a smile, you turn back to him.

“Don’t keep me waiting too long.”

[felipe-v-fanblog]

My Questions:

If you had the chance to meet your favorite historical figure, what is the first thing you would ask them?

What is a trait you share with your favorite historical figure?

Who is Isabel de Farneso? because Idk much about her except the fact that she is ambitious.

im always happy to talk to you :3 makes me happy.

long ass post as usual (this is to be expected when handling with me):

1.IIII i guess people would expect me to say that felipe v is my favourite historical figure, but I dont like him in a historical way, he is just my blorbo. My favourite one is Louis XVIII as he was a really good king, I would say the best France ever had (I would say the only good one they ever had), and I dont have any questions about him because I went down the french rabbit hole. But I have been hyperfixating on Robespierre lately and there is not much known about him in his intimate life and thats something I would really want to know because I am a communist.

2.III with Louis XVIII hehe we are both INTPs 5w6 and gay and pretentious whores. tbh he was a meanie and that was very real from him. he was a very pathetic whore ngl i love him but he would be today a sassy whore. its so funny to talk about him like this when everybody knows him as the soon-to-die king of the bourbonic restoration but eh he has a very wild story behind. he is my favourite part of the marie antoinette story along with his wife. wild stuff. anyway i share more traits with christian vii of denmark. i love him he is my son

3.Ah finally infodumping. I always expect people who like Spain to know her I am sorry if I talked about her as if everybody knows her iii when I think of Spain I think about my best friend who is from there and about the habsburgs and the catholic kings and Isabel de Farnesio (also known as Elizabeth Farnese or Elisabetta Farnese) . Of course she was the second wife of Philip V of Spain and the last princess of Parma and Piacenza from the Farnese family which you may know them as they come from Carlos I and V of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire (the habsburg guy) . I always expect people who likes habsburgs to like all habsburgs at least the classic ones so ! i will guess you already know him and are aware of his life. She is also related to one of the popes from that time, I cant remember which one, and very important italian nobles which I cannot remember right now. From her childhood she was a very kind and smart woman and all her family loved her. Very important character here is cardinal Alberoni which back at the time wasnt a cardinal but worked for the duke of Parma which was the uncle or the father of Isabel (I cannot tell which one was duke at the time Alberoni was there but it was probably her father) . When the spanish war of succession begins Louis-Joseph de Vendôme is sent to work for Spain and his troops are set in Italy to stop the imperial troops from the territories that back at the time were spanish. So the duke of Parma goes to nicely ask him if he could take his troops out of his territory . as to which vendôme shows him his ass ? which is a power-move for me . so he sent alberoni to talk to vendôme because he got upset because vendôme was like XD lmao anyway alberoni and vendôme began a sexual affair from there which ended in louis-joseph taking him to spain and from there alberoni settling on Philip Vs court . when Marie Louise Gabrielle of Savoy dies (first wife of Philip V) he asks for a new wife and, the princess of Ursins, wanting to keep her power over Philip V, which she usually had over his wife as they were friends, eh Alberoni suggests to marry Philip V to Isabel. This is a nasty plot from Alberoni bc he already told Isabel that Philip V would easily let her manipulate him (he is malewife) . so eh the princess of Ursins thought that Isabel would be nice to her as Isabel would never be able to marry a king without her as she was a very not-rich princess. And so it happened and Isabel made Philip V push the princess of Ursins out of the carriage (literally, in the middle of nowhere) . Isabel de Farnesio is known for taking back the italian territories that Spain lost during the war of succession (may not be all of them, but they gained a lot, and she also made a lot of her children reign there) . She was practically the king of Spain during her time there until Ferdinand VIs reign. She loved her children a lot and her favourite was Filippo di Parma and Carlos III. She was hated by the spaniards and her step-sons as she also hated them. She liked to go hunting and knitting. She is also the one who gave the next bourbon-anjous the weird face (check out the names Ferdinando I de las dos Sicilias or Carlos III de España o Carlos IV de españa o infante Don Luis de Borbón-Vallabriga) . Is this everything about her ? I am having doubts but I read a big ass book about her this year so IIII could probably remember something about her later . may send you an ask about mariana de austria or felipe iv later ! with your permission and reassurance. maybe even talk about don juan josé. i would talk about don juan josé all my life.

[nattaphum]

Man Suang timeline

April 13

Mile and Apo added some new interesting info on the movie during this interview:

(this part is only about man suang, i cropped out the rest)

April 16

April 17

A fan found out that the tree in the last story up here is a jujube tree:

The importance of jujube trees in the thai tradition

According to historical records, Jujube trees -- known as pud sa in Thai -- were a favourite of King Naresuan, a great monarch during the Ayutthaya period. Over three centuries ago, King Naresuan ordered them to be planted in the palace area to express his gratitude after an incident where the elephant he was riding stumbled in battle but was prevented from falling by a Jujube tree. Much later, King Rama V also ordered hundreds of these trees to be planted in Ayutthaya, and invited local people to freely pick their fruit to engender a sense of civic pride.

The park has been a Unesco World Heritage Site since 1991.

April 18

During THE HIDDEN CHARACTER event Pond said that Man Suang will be the first thai movie to be premiered simultaneously in many foreign countries 💥!!!!!!!

They chose some countries where they know they have a fanbase thanks to the KinnPorsche World Tour such as Singapore, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, Taipei, Hong Kong but also other countries like Indonesia ,Malaysia, Japan, Australia and so on…

Pond also said that they’re going to finish filming by the middle of may (so apparently not before the woody talk event like they suggested)

Mile and Apo talked about Man Suang during the press conference:

Question to Mile: can you talk about the bruises you got when filming Man Suang?

Mile: it's simply just an accident, there are some scenes that are a little bit too intense and it's normal for an accident to happen. My shoulder once got dislocated during the shooting of kinnporsche, that was the first time. It was something a little bit too intense and made this area (shoulder area) to get easily injured and it hurts a lot but it will recover in 2-3 weeks. Now there’s a little bruise but it's nothing serious. It's normal for an accident to occur

Apo: fans are worried because he's someone who gets bruised easily 😅

Mile: Not on the outside but here (*points to his heart*) 😂 I got to play one joke today 😂 I didn't get to see a doctor. I consulted my brother about it. He's a doc/physician and he has his other doctor friends so he told me to take this med and that med. I also did take care of myself because at that time I was very busy every day… we also went to India during that time. So i didn't have time to go see a doctor. So I was being careful at that time. Yes, it happened but I was happy

Apo: because it's a memory

Mile: Yeah it's a memory (*points at apo and himself*) and I heard people say that if we're careful enough we will still get hurt but if we aren't careful at all, we'd get hurt more than this

April 19

Pond left a comment on IG:

Poor boys :(

April 20

[hernakedmuse]

The Poet's Rusalka

Synopsis: Marina Czerwonka is a young Romani woman from a little village in Poland, after her mother dies her path changes drastically , dreams of ink stained fingers and green eyes, friends with beguiling strangers and an altercation that cements her course at a London tavern. She meets a rogueish lord and eventually wins the heart of not only the rake but a British monarch.

This is a Hal story, some things have been changed and its nothing like The King. This takes place during the restoration era of England in the 17th century, instead of Charles II being king its Hal, but he's Henry X not the V. Historical characters like the rebel poet John Wilmot, Nell Gwynn, and etc. Play huge parts in this story and I don't own them.

Big disclaimer, this is a very mature story and could be offensive.

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Chapter I: A Fish out of Water

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Most Men are Cowards, all Men should be Knaves.

The Difference lies, as far as I can see,

Not in the thing it self, but the Degree.

-John Wilmot

🥀

It's been one year since I left Karpacz, one year since I buried my mother, and one year since my life changed forever.

I arrived in England only knowing Polish and Russian. I hardly had anything with me, and I took what I could of what was important. 

Traveling in November through Eastern Europe to western is no easy feat.

I traveled through horses and carriages, it wasn't easy dodging shifty characters, but I've managed.  My shawl and jewelry easily allowed everyone to know I am Romani, naturally I've been treated like a common whore, a thief, or both. A witch too, constantly but that's been my whole life.

When I made it to Paris, I was lucky enough to run into fellow Romani, Django Delort. He was handsome, tall and lanky and dark with laughing brown eyes, a thin mustache, and long, satin auburn curls he always had tied back with a purple ribbon. I stayed with him and his sister, Penelope, and her kindly husband Antoine. They were newly weds and pregnant with their first child.  The family is very kind and didn't mind sharing their caravan with me and their food, so I made sure to be plenty of help. They taught me French, luckily Django and Penelope are fluent in Russian due to a maternal lineage.

Django was always full of laughter and jokes. He's an actor for the stage and inspired my interest in the theater, seeing such emotion and becoming somebody else was inspiring.

He wanted to marry me though, despite the constant attention he gains from the female population of Paris, and I couldn't have that. One, Django falls in love at least once a week, and I do not love him, and I won't marry for less.

"I don't want you to feel used, Django, you're my dearest friend in the world, a difficult feat in this world. Our bond is strong but unromantic, I am undeserving of your affections." I spoke to him in French as he helped me board the boat to London.

He stroked my cheek with such benign affection, his reddish brown ringlets blowing ardently in the May winds of Northern France. I gazed upon his cognac colored eyes that usually held so much joy and laughter, but now bathed in longing and despair. And I was the cause of that.

"You are more deserving than any prisoner of this realm, mon cherie, I am not good enough for you and that is why Cupid decided not to relinquish your heart to me. I understand this now, although it leaves me bitter. Do you have to leave for dreary old England? With people colder than your Polish winters?" He returned, in his native tongue.

I blinked away tears saltier than the sea, and stroked my friend's Motley colored scarf. "I know it's silly, but I've been dreaming visions of it. As a fellow Romani, you'd understand that can't you?"

"Ah yes, your dreams of long ink stained fingers and hooded green eyes in the shadows…our mother's would rise from the grave if we ignored such dreams." He brushed his fingers through my loose hair. 

"Mon ami, this isn't forever this isn't goodbye, I love Paris. I will return to Paris, I will return to you and Penelope, and Antoine, and their child and children yet to come. "

He shoved me away but it was gentle and he took a large intake of breath, as if he found even something as natural as breathing unbearably difficult to pursue. "I want this to be as undemanding as possible, ma belle. Just go before I demand more than you can give." His voice was heavy with tears and I nodded mutely before boarding.

He didn't leave once I was on, but he didn't look my way either. He just gave me his back to gaze upon as I sailed off and away to the unknown, saying goodbye to the only friend I've ever known.

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Current Day, The Three Crowns, London, 1674

Jane was the first to be kind to me.

She found me struggling to speak English.  I had only known hello and thank you, she could tell I was in search of a position. Although she knew not Polish, Russian, or French, she had pulled me by my arm to a slender, beautiful young man who was sitting on the lap of an intoxicated and pawing excuse of a man. She said something in English and he immediately spoke French to me. A heavy weight was lifted off of my chest, and the fair young man had introduced himself as Jem. We spoke in French and he had explained to me his father was an English navy man who knocked up a French lady of the night, his mother. He had informed me that she died of syphilis when he was only ten. I offered most empathetic condolences, and both of us bonded over the loss of our mother and growing up in the world as bastards.

Growing up as Roma, you learn that you do not have the privilege to judge others, I didn't turn my nose up at prostitutes, it's not always easy finding work. Jem and Jane had spoken to the owner of The Three Crowns on my behalf, and Thom Pugh the owner took one look at me, desperate to make me one of his working girls. Jem had told me my exotic gypsy features and amethyst eyes made the man eager to make a bit of coin off of me. But Jem had assured me Jane persuaded Mr. Pugh to take me on as just a serving wench as well as a laundress for his rooms. I was safe due to the generosity of my newfound friends…for now.

Jem was teaching me English and he and Jane loved when I would read their palms and show them how to tell people's fortunes. It was all about trusting instinct and getting to know the person. I read people well, which is why I know Mr. Pugh isn't a man of his word and I made sure to stay out of sight as often as I could.

It was hard keeping the customers hands and eagerness away but I managed, I wasn't going to be a shaking little doe, like animals, people smell fear.

I helped Jem and Jane how to keep up with their hygiene as well, with that you could really see how beautiful the two are. Jane stands at a petite stature with curves of a noble lady, wide hips and a full bust she always has falling out of her bodice. Her coloring is pretty in a wild exotic way, sun-kissed like my people. Her eyes remind me of a sly cat, and they're a pretty blue-green, her full lips are always painted with Rouge like her cheeks and her jawline is squared off like a member of the gentry, whoever Jane's real parents were, they did her terribly wrong leaving her in the gutter. Her hair is like dark gold and bounces down her back in coils, she's the most sought after girl here for a reason, and not just on beauty alone. She's never in a foul mood, always laughing and bringing sunlight in wherever she goes, jesting and pulling pranks along with Jem. When I felt homesick and longed for my mother who now lived buried deep in the Earth and my father who was a slave to the seas, she made me forget with her warmth and her smiles.

Jem too is so very beautiful for this Saxon underworld, tall and lean like an interpretation of David. Porcelain like the statue too, with freckles beaming like stars across his upturned nose, eyes so blue you swore he was part sea-folk, lips so full and red and pretty for a man, and his hair fell in youthful and boyish raven waves. He has the most enchanting smile, and tempted those who thought their desires relied solely on the softer sex.

He always made sure I ate, and asked me everyday if anyone bothered me, the answer was always no.

In half a year I was speaking English comfortably, although my accent didn't hide that I'm a foreigner and had people assuming that I'm empty-headed, but I minded not.

"Jem, you speak English so well, proper. Better than everyone else here, why is that?"

He was drawing black kohl around his eyes, he reminded me of my people when he did that. I smiled and took the kohl from him to help. "Oh you mean why don't I sound like a common whore?" He asked with humor in his voice. 

"I would never say it like that."

"No of course not, you're too sweet. The only one in this rotten little world God has dealt us with to not look upon my kind with revulsion." He handed me the rouge so I could paint his lips and high cheeks.

"We Romani are treated like mud beneath the wheels of a carriage, and my father is a pirate, I am not wealthy enough to judge."

He smiled. "There's a kindly gentleman, I'm to his liking. He brings me poems and oranges and lessons. I can read now too.''

There was something akin to love in his powder blue eyes, my friend is in love. I opened my mouth to speak on it but Jane burst in, in just a yellow corset with half her laces undone, a hiked up green skirt, exposing her red hosiery. "Jem, we've got someone for yeh." She smiled "oh look at that, pretty as a lady yeh are. Marina yeh so good at making us look more than we're worth somethin'." She took Jem's hand, dragging him out.

I cleaned up behind Jem and washed my hands in the wash bowl, humming an old song my mother would sing to me as a child. 

The door creaked open, it was probably one of the girls asking for something. I have a basket full of nicely folded laundry.

"I'll be right there." I called as I bent over to pick up the basket.  But forceful hands prevented me from doing so.

My heart clenched, my blood froze. I couldn't even breathe, foul breath perfumed my senses. I felt dizzy with illness.  Something hard pressed into my backside. "Not a sound you Slavic whore!" 

He started ripping at my bodice with a knife and I swallowed back tears, oh God this  was really happening. There was nothing I could do about it and no one would care. I attempted still, to wriggle myself free as he pushed up my skirt and he slapped me in the face so hard I tasted blood as he tugged on my hair. "Oi! Stop that–Aye!"

His assault had come to stop when he was torn away from me, I gathered myself trying to hold together my torn bodice and sleeve and my hair that was now loose at my hips.

"My-my lord-"

At that I sharply turned around to face my rescuer. Jane stood beside a tall, slender nobleman. I noticed his handsome beauty as he had an opulent cane raised above my assailant who was now cowering on the floor. With his rags it made my rescuer look all the more every bit of title and income I am positive he has. His jawline is sharper than a knife, his chin and nose proud and his pretty, far set, gray eyes even wore a nasty haughty lidding. But there was disgust that colored his eyes. He wore a long, curly brown wig with the hats of style upon his head, adorn with ostrich feathers. "Are you so pathetic and hideous as well as oafish, so utterly incapable of being loved and I dare say–tolerated, that you feel like your only choice is to force yourself upon this tiny creature?" He laughed and didn't allow my attacker to speak, he waved his cane in the air and hit the drunkard in the nose. There was a sickening Crack and crimson poured like paint from his nose. "I assume you're from a beginning akin to fenced pigs, I assume it is common practice to take someone from behind and force miserable tiny cocks like yours there into any hole. Even if it's a hole in the fence, I daresay you don't care if it splinters your smelly foreskin as long as it's a hole any hole will do, I imagine that's how you got here. Your mother methinks was just any hole, a sweaty unappealing sow being forced into the mud by pungent boars. How many were there during your conception?" The lord sneered. 

My mouth fell open in shock, my insides tickled in amusement, and I took dark delight in how thorough and detailed he insulted this man. Jane was having the time of her life laughing at the lord's cruel and entertaining words.

The lesser man had the audacity to look insulted and opened his mouth to answer, but the cruel and handsome lord didn't allow it. He took his cane and bashed the head into the rotten teeth of the pub crawler. His mouth overflowed with blood. The lord looked positively perturbed at the gory stain on his cane and with an irritated sigh, took out a pale green handkerchief to wipe it off. "I should cut your little porky cock off right now, it's far too small to be rendered useful. And even if your size was comparable to an adequate blade of pleasure and breeding, it'd still be without purpose for you haven't the slightest inkling how to use it." He grinned cruelly as his richly heel pressed down on the rapist's groin. The man wailed so boisterous in bloodcurdling pain that all who were present at the tavern had gathered around to watch the scene displayed. 

It was perverse how people gawked and took great pleasure in watching violence. "It's quite pathetic with how incredibly old you are that you still can't use this little cheese knife correctly. If your ignorant inbred brain understood the meaning of consent, that'd  be a start." He removed his plum velvet heel from the abused crotch.

It was finally the moment when my eyes met the stormy gray pair of my hero. Although taking in his slightly intoxicated eyes, his cruel tongue and where he was, I wondered if hero was the right word.

Mr. Pugh was outraged but at me, yelling at me about causing such trouble. He was ranting about how the only way to possibly recover from causing his establishment such reputation, which caused me to snort since its glorified brothel with a menu. The only way I could make up for it was to become a working girl. I opened my mouth to defend myself but my dark antihero had taken up for me once again. 

"Mr. Pugh, you're so adamant about this woman using her beauty for a bit of coin one might easily imply that you yourself had arranged this…well whatever this was." The lord smirked but it lacked humor.

I had such delicious joy watching my employer fumble with his words as if English wasn't his first language. But I felt sick knowing the attempted thievery of my virtue was a plot, a means to an end. "Mm, well Miss…" His eyes focused on me, he almost looked curious. 

He was asking me my name, I was flustered as I was in delay in answering.  "Czerwonka, Marina Czerwonka. "

His perfectly arched brow rose. "Czerwonka, is that Polish?"

I nodded attempting to pull my tattered bodice back together.

To my surprise, the dark lord took off his velvet cape to wrap around me. "If you would prefer the employment of the spider who trapped you like a fly in his web, over being under my employment with very little play but a warm bed in the country. Then by all means stay behind." With that he turned to the door and kissed Jane's hand. "Another time Jane. " 

She winked. "A pleasure as always Johnny. "

The lord she was so informal with left the room, I sputtered. "J-Jane, who was that?"

She grinned. "That's right, you're still so new…that was the infamous Lord John Wilmot, the 2nd Earl of Rochester."

I had no idea what these English titles meant. "What is he infamous for?"

She grinned and bumped my hip with hers. "The worst things."

"Could you help me pack  before his carriage leaves?"

"Thatta girl." Jane guided me to my room, and I couldn't stop thinking about Lord Rochesters ink stained fingers…

@sufferingstarlight @meetmyothersouls

[simslegacy5083]

NSB (Straud Legacy) Gen 8 Ep. 99: A Warm Reception in New Appaloosa

At the nightclub after the reception the newlyweds had no trouble getting the dance floor all to themselves for their first dance.

Family and friends looked on as the couple joined hands, swaying to the classic country ballad they’d selected to symbolize their love for one another.

🎶 Better than I was, more than I am, and all of this happened by taking your hand… it’s Your Love, Just does something to me, sends a shock right through me, I can’t get enough…🎶 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AJ4i4S_fP8

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Then it was time for everyone to boogey down. Given they were in cowpoke country they had to begin with some classic cowpoke dancing.

For such a large group of casual dancers the music kept them remarkably in sync and everyone had a lot of fun. After a few more songs Jack and Peachy invited some friends to join them at a large table in the back of the club to relax and rest their tired feet.

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As they often did when they met someone new, Peachy and the rest of the “Strangerville Four” couldn’t resist telling Jack’s old friend all about their epic defeat of the alien plant monster known as The Mother.

The group didn’t understand Karwan’s laugh or the meaningful look he exchanged with Jack. Karwan explained that his husband’s family had fought a similar battle centuries ago in their home nation and congratulated the men on their own historic victory. As Peachy excused himself to check on a sad looking Fabian across the room, he reflected that alien plant monsters must be a more widespread threat to the planet than he’d thought!

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At first, Fabian tried to brush Peachy’s inquiries off, not wanting to burden his buddy on his happy day.

Eventually he admitted that he was struggling in his career as a paranormal investigator. He’d worked hard to gain the license but while he loved the investigative side of things, he’d quickly found that the nighttime hours didn’t agree with him and frankly he scared too easily to enjoy most of his assigned cases.

Peachy was sad for his friend, but quickly told him that he was in a perfect position to help out. His current rank at the station came with a certain amount of influence. Peachy was sure with his good word and Fabian’s work history, he’d be able to get him a job on the force starting at a high level.

A grateful Fabian smiled widely and said a change would be fantastic. Peachy promised to set up an interview for him right after his honeymoon.

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As the night wore on the club started to fill up with strangers and unexpected faces from their past.

The first surprise came in the form of another random run-in with Johnny Zest. The immortal comedian recognized Peachy and teased him about having apparently lost his card. Peachy assured him that he would use it one day and rose to the challenge of proving he still had what it took to please a crowd.

Johnny got the manager to pause the music and announce his “special friend” as Peachy strutted up to the open mic and proceeded to improvise a smooth comedy set rooted in the happy memories and silly stories of growing up in a backwoods farm community very much like Chestnut Ridge.

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The next special guest to the party was one of Peachy’s famous ancestors. As the hour grew late a surprising number of ghosts joined the living, and Thorne made an unexpected appearance to congratulate his great grandson on his nuptials.

Settling at the back table Peachy introduced him around and Karwan was happy to explain that Jack and he both hailed from the SimNation across the way which had recently become an ally. The former National Leader grew engrossed in Karwan’s outline of the politics of his homeland as well as his and Elevan’s past and present work with the Supernatural party. As the pair wandered off, still chatting, their seat was taken by a very unwelcome face.

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Nancy Landgraab settled down boldly between the newlyweds, smiling as if they were old friends. Peachy returned her smile nervously, but Jack couldn’t muster up even a fake grin for the dirty actresses who had cost him his home and his job, no matter how well it all had worked out so far.

She congratulated them on the wedding she had not been invited to and made some references to their current positions at S.I.M.S and on the force to show she was keeping an eye on them. As Nancy wandered back to Geoffrey on the other side of the room, they wondered what to make of her visit.

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At the end of the evening Peachy and Jack grabbed some nectar, taking a seat on the back patio and turning the talk to plans for the next day.

August had rented a cabin for the newly married couple, himself, and Paul to go horseback riding the following morning before the newlyweds headed out to their honeymoon cabin at the falls. However, baby Denton’s early arrival left Paul preferring to skip the outing in favor of settling into his new home.

Seeing how well Karwan had gotten along with the brothers, Jack asked if he’d like to take the spare room and join them. Not one to pass up the opportunity for a ride Karwan quickly arranged to do just that and rose with the others to begin the short trek over to their rental cabin up on the bluffs.

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Want To See More? View The Full Story of My Not So Berry Challenge Here

[frodothefair]

@konartiste

Am I the only one though who thought that having your v card taken on a settee or sofa seat seems really uncomfortable? Depends on the settee, I think.

Dankworth-Finch ball was a hoot! Yes, you know, I am so glad that Penelope's sisters, though they were kind of horrible to her, still had good things happen to them, and got husbands who loved them, though they were not stratospheric in their station like the Bridgertons. And my heart also melted at what Penelope did for them with the ball. Mari may or may not have done the same thing in FoM. (The Gollum in me is muttering "they stole it from us," meaning story ideas, though I logically know that's not possible).

Kate and Anthony? Oh, you mean Mr. Nisile's high school friend and my med school friend, lol? (Truly, that association just made me incapable of ever taking Kathony seriously -- I'm sorry). Yeah, that was a little... I don't know, I feel like India is just a ploy to get them out of the picture for next season for whatever reason, because first they were on their honeymoon, then they extended their honeymoon by saying "let Violet run things a little longer," and now they're going to India? It seems like they're trying to postpone being Viscount and Viscountess as long as they can, under every possible pretext. Which I guess is their right. But yeah, traveling with child is no picnic today, and I can't imagine it was particularly pleasant or safe then.

I suspect that Benedict will be the focus of next season. They set it up nicely with him feeling like he needs to be free for a while, which is perfect for True Love (tm) to come along and wreck his best laid plans. Eloise, however, still has a lot to do and to be before she is ready to settle down. Plus, they mentioned a masked ball, and that's where Benedict meets Sophie, no? I also miss Benedict's art -- I recall Anthony paid for him to get into the Academy, and then Benedict got mad at Anthony and presumably did not go... But why did that have make him give up his art? Or maybe he is doing art, he's just not as public about it at the moment because of what happened with Anthony, who knows.

When it comes to Frannie and Eloise's storylines, I think it's anyone's guess now what's going to happen. There have been so many changes already that I now just think of the books as more of an inspiration than a guide for the TV show. Which may be just as well -- I haven't read all the books, but since they were written in the early 2000s some of the behavior by the male leads in the books will probably be seen as toxically masculine by modern viewers.

I am not really looking for historical accuracy in Bridgerton either, but some forms of inaccuracy I can deal with, and some I can't. I mean, even in the books the way the characters speak is riddled with American-isms, and I can deal with that. I also have no problem with Colin's glow in the dark vest, and the Old Hollywood and Art Deco influences in the outfits -- I actually quite like those touches. But when it comes to changing the fundamental beliefs that a person from that era would have imbibed with their mother's milk? That's tougher for me to accept.

Of note, I do like the race-blind casting, and I do consider it to be historically accurate, because there were in fact POC nobles in Europe (not as many as in the show, but there were). On a semi-related note, there was also all kinds of Us and Them wrangling between Catholics and Protestants over the centuries, so the "Great Experiment" with bringing the POCs into the fold in Queen Charlotte could have easily been modeled after some sort of truce between the religious groups, and therefore was believable.

Daphne and Apollo say hi.

Mr. Nisile and I watching Bridgerton: the season 3, part 2 edition

@konartiste

Episode 5:

Mr. Nisile: Kate looks so much like my former classmate, it's uncanny. Me: Yeah, and Anthony looks like my weird friend from med school. Mr. Nisile: and they both had a propensity to share really awkward things with us. Like, didn't (the weird friend from med school) once text you "just had sex"? Me: I don't know. If he did, I probably repressed that.

Mr. Nisile on Anthony, Benedict and Colin talking: Ok, this whole scene is just collars talking to collars.

Daphne the cat is on Mr. Nisile's knee during the mirror scene: Daphne, we must look away for scenes like this. (And then, Daphne actually does look away :P)

Mr. Nisile: You know, this might have been said before, but Penelope probably actually fit the beauty standards of the time far better than most of the people cast in this show. Me: Yes, indeed. There is fatshaming of Penelope even in the book, but in fact, it's quite anachronistic. It was not until the late 19th century that thinness became chic because... *goes off on a tirade that is far too long to document here*

Mr. Nisile: It would've been funnier if Lord Greer had announced his conditions backwards: if he had led with the 4-5 children and Cressida was like, "ok, ok, this I can do," but then only one ball per month, and Cressida is like "shiiiiiiiit" and then the coup de grace is the grey and brown dresses.

Episode 6:

When John Stirling announces his and Francesca's engagement, a few of the chords in the music that follows sound suspiciously like the Fellowship theme from LOTR. Mr. Nisile upon hearing this: NO, NO, NO! YOU CAN'T DO THAT! Me: wha, did I just hear what I think I heard?! Mr. Nisile: You can't SHIRE THE TON! YOU CAN'T FELLOWSHIP THE BRIDGERTONS! Me: what are you talking about, that was excellent! Mr. Nisile: THAT JUST RANKLED ME IN THE RELIGION! Me: Ok, that is one for the Mr. Nisile-isms post, once my nails dry. Mr. Nisile: Ok, fine. But I'll be right back. I need to use the bathroom -- when you get rankled in the religion, it tends to loosen up the bladder.

Mr. Nisile on Cressida Cowper's red dress: That dress looks like a red spinnaker. Me: what's a spinnaker? Mr. Nisile: (looks is up and shows me -- it is a type of sail) Oh. Yeah. Ok.

Me when Cressida Cowper shows up at a ball after she reveals herself as Lady Whistledown: And all the while, Ms. Malhotra is in the background going :D, and that is my favorite thing in this episode so far.

Episode 7:

All of the below are from Mr. Nisile:

You know, Cressida needs some better editing. I could write better than her. I could be Lady Whistledown, that could be my new drag name.

The schism of the ton!

Well, at least this Lady Whistledown is better composed than a crummy tweet.

That outfit is like a Rorschach test for flamingoes.

You know, with how autistic-coded Stirling is, I'm glad the Bridgerton brothers didn't try harder to convince him to "declare himself" by throwing rocks at a window. He might have gone and actually done it.

You know, carriage drivers probably have the best gossip. I wonder why no one thought that Lady Whistledown was a carriage driver.

Ok, you want to talk about anachronisms? Colin's black light vest. It looks like it came from a laser tag studio. (This is in response to me having eagle eyes for any part of a period piece drama that is anachronistic).

Episode 8:

Mr. Nisile on Colin's home decor: Those houses have co-lors.

Mr. Nisile on Colin and Eliose talking: I would be more comfortable wearing what she's wearing than what he's wearing. I mean, he's got like two cravats and three collars, and a woolen coat. I would be sweating like a pig in July.

Mr. Nisile on the introduction of Michaela Stirling: wait, are they (Eliose and Francesca) just in awe of her overwhelming femininity or something? Me: (sitting on my hands and aggressively not saying anything because I have read the books and he has not, and I know what the deal is with Michaela Stirling)

Eventually, I did tell him about Michaela Stirling, and then he felt vindicated because he thought he saw an intimate moment between Francesca and Penelope in the first part of the season, and thought they were trying to code Francesca as queer all along.

[hotforharrysheart]

Crazy Daisy

To say Prague is one of the most beautiful cities you’d visited during the tour would be an extreme understatement. The city features old town, historic charm with a modern progressive character. From Mozart concerts to folklore shows to the Futurum Music Bar known for international music shows featuring a host of musicians of all genres. There are little clubs and historic bars on every corner not to mention the fact that most of the iconic hotels featured nightclubs. It’s a city that comes alive at night and it quickly became one of your favorite places you’ve been.

You and the girls had decided it was time to have a night out on the town to drink, dance and let loose a little. You’d all settled on a beautiful nightclub, Crazy Daizy, that Ny had said had the best mixed drinks and a incredible dance floor where she knew the DJ who would take your requests. The guys had decided to check out the music scene at the F Club. Needless to say, you were all excited for a night out.

You, Ny, Sarah and Elin had holed up in your suite’s dressing room in a classic horde of slinky dresses, heels, make-up and hair. Sexy music played through the room’s speakers, and you were well into the second bottle of champagne, chocolate covered strawberries, and plenty of girl talk filled with sexual innuendo. There was a knock at the door and a beautiful dark-haired woman walked in hugging Ny and kissing both of her cheeks. Ny introduced her as a local friend, Milena, that she’d known for a while now. Milena offered a round of hugs and cheek kisses. She wore a burgundy velvet slip dress that had a deep v-neck and fell just below her bum. She was tall in a pair of matching stilettos. God she was stunning and she smelled like vanilla butter. Her bright green eyes, eyes that reminded you of Harry’s, complimented her dark, slightly wavy hair. She was dusted in sparkling body powder from her head to her endlessly long legs. Her heels clicked on the marble floors as she moved around the room. None of you had put your shoes on yet, so she was easily the tallest one in the room. She made no effort to hide her stare when you bent over looking at your reflection in the mirror to fix your lipstick. When Ny introduced everyone she HAD mentioned you were Harry’s girlfriend…hadn’t she?

You honestly couldn’t remember with all the champagne you had. “You ok?” Sarah asks you.

“Yes!” You walk to the bar and grab the next bottle and bring it back to the girls. “Now who needs a refill?”

Everyone raises their glass and you start filling them. When you get to Milena, she holds out her glass and you give her a shy smile as you fill her glass. “I love your dress, Milena,” you say softly. She smiles her most radiant smile. “Thank you! You are stunning,” she says leaning in very close to your ear.

“Thank you,” you say, smiling shyly.

“Cheers ladies!” Elin says loudly and you all move close together to clink glasses.

After a few clumsy and giggly tries everyone has their shoes on except for you.

“Dammit,” you say, giggling as you try and thread the strap through the hook.

“Those are platforms! You shouldn’t be having this much trouble,” Sarah says, giggling.

Your tongue is at the corner of your mouth and you’re trying to thread the strap through again.

Milena sits down next to you. “Go on downstairs girls. I’ll help her and we’ll join you soon.”

“Bye!” You say, giggling and blowing kisses.

Milena grabs your left leg and pulls it up onto her lap.

You gasp.

You watch as she deftly threads the strap through the buckle and slips it through. She moves to the other side of the couch and does the same thing with your other leg. It’s all very erotic…much more than it should be and you can feel your nipples harden under the silky material of your dress. “Thank you,” you say softly.

“You’re welcome.” She grabs your hand and helps you up from the couch and leads you to downstairs and to the dance floor with everyone else.

When the spiked vodka strawberries come out, you’re all giggling as you grab them and feed them to each other. You’re dancing and having a great time, when you see Milena in front of Ny. She has a piece of chocolate in between her teeth. You watch as Ny takes the chocolate and eats it. Milena moves through each of you one by one with the chocolate and finally she’s in front of you. You watch as she places the chocolate in between her teeth and places her hands on your hips. Then she’s leaning towards you and you take the chocolate from her, your full lips just barely grazing hers. You shiver.

“Eat,” she says softly.

You nod as you chew the chocolate. It’s sweet but also slightly earthy, but you can’t look away from Milena’s green eyes.

It doesn’t take long for the magical chocolate to kick in. You’d know if was safe no matter what because the other’s had taken it and were happily dancing and enjoying the music, not to mention the fact that shortly after you swallowed you asked Ny what it was. Probably not the best idea, but you trusted these girls like family. Ny simply explained it was chocolate infused with "magic mushrooms”.

Soon the music is infused in the air around you. You feel as if every note is being played for your very soul, and every cell in your body is vibrating with the base and treble. Your feet melt into the floor and although rooted to the ground you feel as if you’re floating on a cloud. You feel an intense need to sway to the thrum of the base in the music, even though you can’t really tell if it’s a fast or a slow song. It just feels like notes flowing through the air you breathe in and breath out. You look down because you aren’t sure what that feeling is on your thighs. It’s just the hem of your dress. You decided to wear your favorite little black dress. It features a hem that rests just below your bum, is backless just to the point of obscene and has little rhinestone covered silver chains draping along your back. At the moment, you felt as if the dress was simply an extension of your skin. You smooth your hands down your hips and run your fingers along your thighs below the hem. Has your skin always been this soft? You looked over to Elin who was swaying with her hair wisping along her beautiful face. All the girls in your group looked ethereal under the purple tinted lights of the bar. Soon another song came on that seemed to slow the world down to a sweet spin of mere sensation and breathless moments. You close your eyes and run your hands through your hair and let the strands slowly fall layer by layer. The rhinestones on your back caress your skin and feel like little cool kisses along your spine. As you enjoy the moment you feel a hand run down your arm from behind. You turn your head to see Milena swaying along with you her familiar green eyes holding your stare.

“How do you feel?” she asks her mouth close to your ear.

You’re simply floating with this beautiful woman. “Feel amazing,” you say softly.

“You’re such a beautiful woman, Harry is a lucky man,” she says smoothly.

“Thank you.”

You turn around and stumble slightly, so Milena steadies you with her hands on your hips while you grab her forearms.

“Careful, it can be unnerving at first,” she smiles.

She releases your hips but moves in close to dance with you. She smiles and grabs your hands raising them in the air threading her fingers with yours. You’re swaying your hips back and forth and sharing smiles when she moves her hands back to your hips as you move side to side.

It’s then you look back to the raised bar and there stands Harry, his arms crossed, and he’s staring with a smirk and one eyebrow raised.

You smile what you think is your most seductive smile at him. He looks so beautiful standing there watching you dance. You move your eyes back to your dancing partner. “Wanna put on a show for Harry. You in?”

Milena smiles her dazzling smile and nods her head. “I’ll follow your lead,” she whispers softly.

Everything feels like it’s in slow motion and every touch is amplified. You feel sensual and erotic and wanton. You want to show him a side of you he’s never seen before with someone you find attractive and who finds you attractive. You lift your fingers and slide your hands down Milena’s sparkly arms and turn around so your back is to her. Never taking your eyes from Harry’s, you grab her wrists and place her hands on your breasts. You see his eyebrows go up and him swallow. You lean your head back on her shoulder and sigh as you move her hands over your breasts. You move her hands to your hips and sway seductively, hands moving slowly down your body. You turn around so your back is to him, and he can see the low cut of your dress and Milena’s hands move to your lower back.

“How do you feel?” She asks you.

“Desired. Wanton. Free!”

She smiles. “Good because you are all of those things.”

You’re still swaying your hips, grinding on her. When you look back at her face, she has another piece of chocolate between her teeth. You don’t hesitate before you take it from her as Harry watches on in awe as your lips brush hers.

She waits for you to swallow it and then holds up another piece of chocolate. “Open,” she says and places the chocolate between your teeth. “For Harry.” She can see you’re trying to say something. She opens your clutch and places a chocolate bar inside and snaps it closed. “Thank me later. Go to him now.”

You nod and carefully walk towards him. When you reach him, he gently takes the chocolate from your mouth, and you watch as he chews it. “Miss me?”

“Looks like tha question is… d’ya miss me?” he says eyeing you up and down as he happily wraps his arms around your waist and kisses your lips.

“Mmmm, I did miss you, H.” you say licking your lips tasting the faint flavor of tequila.

“Seems like my baby is feelin’ kinna nice, yeah?” he comments smirking, smiling and nosing your ear.

You nod looking a bit guilty, “Umm…can you excuse me, I’m gonna go powder my nose, I’ll be right back.” You peck his lips and turn toward the ladies room enjoying the way his hand taps your ass on the way.

He turns to keep his eyes on you as you make your way, then turns back around to search for Ny chuckling to himself. Catching her eye, he smiles and crooks his finger to motion her to come to him. She rolls her eyes and but heads toward him.

“Hey Harry,” she says on a giggle.

“Ny…havin’ a nice night?” he asks in a deep, slow voice with a highly amused grin and a kiss to her cheek.

She returns his kiss and strikes a mischievous, churlish grin as he puts his arm around her.

“So, uh-hum,” he clears his throat trying not to laugh, “wha d’ya friend,” he clears his throat again, “give ma girlfriend?”

She burst into laughter and looks behind her where all the girls are looking over, giggling and waving to Harry and blowing kisses at them.

“H, it’s just a little cocoa laced with some shrooms,” she says slightly rolling her eyes.

He cocks his head, “Oh, ‘s tha’…right?” He’s chuckling and shaking his head.

“Oh relax, Harry, she’s a big girl, she’s gonna be fine,” she chastises.

“Yeah, well, ya dinna share wi’ us gents and, hey, wha’ abou’ ya friend there, think she’s got the hots fo’ ma girl,” he states pretending to be jealous.

“Maybe, I dunno?” she says shrugging, “Whatcha gonna do, H, beat her up?” she comments with a smirky smile, “besides looked to me like “your girl” was returning Milena’s interest.”

He cocks his head and give a face to express his amusement with her teasing, “Yeah, I know, right?”

About that time, you return from the ladies room, looking a little wide-eyed and grasping your HS and bee necklace. You stride over and put your arm around Ny’s waist and kiss her cheek. “This has been such a nice night out, Ny, we should do this more often!”

Harry’s chuckling on the inside and immensely enjoying watching your carefree mood.

Ny excuses herself back to the dance floor and you sway up to Harry and press your body to his. “So Harry, you interested in getting me outta here? Cause, I’m interested in getting you…” you lean forward to his ear, “naked.”

He sucks in his lips and shakes his head on a smirk. “Wha’ ‘m I gon’ do wi’ you...” he mumbles wrapping his arms around your waist.

“What aren’t you gonna do to me?” You say breathily in his ear. “You’ve got a very high, very WET willing participant. All you have to do is take her upstairs.”

“Jus’ you though, righ?” He licks his lips. “Don’ have ta share ya, do I?”

“Welll…I mean…I’m sure Milena would be open to it. Let me just ask her,” you say as you pull away from him.

He grabs your hand. “No’ s’fast.” He pulls you flush to him. “I’d like ya all ta myself…if tha’s ok wi’ ya.”

You smile and kiss his lips. “I only have eyes for you, Harry. I enjoyed the attention, but I only want you. Never doubt that.”

He lets out a breath. “Thank god. No’ s’good wi’ sharing.”

You smile. “Me either. Now take me to bed and have your way with me.”

He chuckles. “Ya demanding when your high, know tha’?”

You giggle. “Lemme just say goodbye to the girls.” You walk back to the group and kiss them all goodnight and they tease you about sex on shrooms. Milena gives you kisses on both cheeks and a soft smile. “Call me next time you’re in Prague. My number is on the chocolate bar.”

You promise her you will and she watches as you go back to Harry and hug him. You turn your head and give her a small wave and smile as you walk out of the bar.

You’re both starting to feel the edible effects as you walk in your hotel room. You sit down on the bed and sigh. You slowly unbuckle your shoes and let them thunk to the floor. Harry kicks his shoes off and grabs your hands, pulling you up to him. “Ya look s’sexy. Couldn’t believe it when I saw ya dancing wi’ tha’ girl.”

You wrap your arms around his neck. “Everything feels so good. What’s sex on shrooms feel like?”

He laughs his breathy little laugh. You can feel his breath on your skin and see it in the air.

“S’good. Really, really fucking good.”

You look on in amazement because you can see the words in bubble letters come out of his mouth. You step back and grab the hem of your dress and peel it off. You watch his mouth drop open.

He looks down your body and back up…and he can see bees all around you like you’re a jar of honey. He pulls his shirt off and pushes his pants and boxers down his legs. He moves close to you and kisses you, his hands just barely lighting on your hips. Gotta be careful of the bees, he thinks. His kisses slide down your neck and he picks you up and places you on the edge of the bed, pushing your legs apart. He can see your honey! It’s dripping from your cunt. “S’my honey,” he says before he licks a stripe up your slit, collecting as much as he can.

You’re propped up on your elbows watching him as he keeps licking your slit from hole to clit. You swear you can feel everything ten times more than you normally do and the sounds! You can hear him licking! He’s licking you like a watermelon you think and then you see watermelons by his head. They look so real…

Harry pushes your legs open wider and wraps his hands around your thighs. “Gotta get all tha’ honey,” he mumbles against your pussy and then he presses his mouth to your hole and he’s thrusting his tongue.

Your hands grip the sheets underneath you and you can see the watermelons dancing along with jars of honey. “Ahhhh!!! Ohhhh…” Time slows down as you watch your words leave your mouth and disappear into a fog.

His whole chin is covered in your wetness as he slides his tongue to your clit. It’s wet and swollen and he giggles as a bee lands on your clit. “Bet that tickles,” he says. He smiles as you cry out above him. “Go on, little bee. This is my honey.” He watches as it flies away and he sucks your clit into his mouth and moans and the vibrations cause you to whimper his name.

You can’t take your eyes off him and the watermelons and honey jars. Your hands go to his curls and you watch as his curls dance under your fingers. “I…ohhhh…mmm…pop…cumming! Gonna pop!” Your words float up to the ceiling and pop just at the same time you cum. You’ve never cum like this before…in vivid colors, your entire body pulsing as he works you through it. You drop fully to the bed and smile completely blissed out.

“Baby, d’ya feel them flutt’rin’ ‘round?” he says crawling up to lie next to you. “When you came they were flutt’rin all ‘round ya so fast.”

“Felt something kissing my skin all over and you were licking a watermelon, like your song. Oh Harry, I love you so much. Do you love me?” you babble in response.

He leans over to kiss you deeply, “Swee’heart, I love ya mo’ than anythin’…me an’ tha bees love ya so much an’ I’m dying ta jus’…’m dying ta make love ta ya. Really, really wanna watch ya make love wi’ me…think it’d be so beautiful ta see…”

You sit up and bounce onto your knees next to him, “Oh, I wanna see too! Let’s do it on the floor in that closet by the mirror. Harry, your lips are the color of a watermelon…,” you scrutinize his mouth, “ugh…nevermind. Anyway, come’on we can make a palette in front of that mirror and make love!” you say already moving to grab the pillows from the bed. “Up, Up… need the blankets!”

“Ok, Ok…” he says giggling, “Jesus, woman ‘m so hard.” While you’re rushing to the closet to toss the pillows down, he’s still trying to get up from the bed. “Hope the bees don’t leave,” he says as you leave the room.

You stop and turn around, “Bees? Oh you mean, my necklace, you say touching your neck. Ok!” you say hurriedly as if you have the answers to all things questionable.

Harry just laughs and says, “Yeah, those bees…,” you go back to the closet, she’s lost her mind, she doesn’t know about her bees and honey, but I do, he thinks.

You rush back into the room and you both work to gather the blankets and finish the palette you started in the big walk-in closet. True to his word, your nakedness is fucking incredible in the mirror. “Look babe, ‘s like there are two of us, one here an’ one there,” he says pointing to your reflections.

“Lay down, honey,” you say pointing to the pillow covered floor with the duvet doubled on top.

Harry grins and grabs you around the waist. “I love ya honey…just had some…right here,” he says pointing to his mouth.

He lays down and flops to his back and you stand straddled over his hips. He runs his hands up and down your legs, from your ankles to the backs of your knees. “Ya s’tall an’ sexy, love…an’ I love ya s’much.”

You look down and feel tears well up in your eyes. You squat down and rest on your knees hovering over his waist. “Harry, you do love me…I know it…,” you cover your heart with both hands, “I really feel it and it’s so colorful, you make my world so colorful and I don’t have to have Milena’s special chocolate to feel and see your colors.”

He sits up and brushes through your hair with his fingers. Then pulls your head to his, his lips leaning into yours, “Ya tha one wi’ tha colors, love, ‘m jus’ the lucky bastard tha’ gets ta shine tha light on ‘em.”

He thumbs away your tears and kisses you softly. You respond with your own soft kisses and then work your way to his jaw. “I love this jaw, ‘s so sharp, I used to fantasize about how it would feel, how it would taste,” you continue to kiss to his ear, “you can’t imagine what I used to fantasize about with you…” You gasp lightly when you feel his cock surge up and touch your bum.

“Tell me mo’, babe, wanna hear all abou’ ya fantasies,” he says groaning and running his hands down your back.

You toss your head back and to the side then catch a glimpse of yourselves in the mirror. “Look Harry,” you whisper, “look at our colors…”

“I see them,” he says without taking his eyes off you.

You huff, “You didn’t even look, H!”

“Yeah, I did, I see all our colors…now tell me mo’ abou’ ya fantasies.”

“One-track mind, much?”

“Tell me…he says popping your bum with a light slap.

“That’s one…,” you say with a giggle, “a spank with your big beautiful hands…”

“Wha’ else…? D’ya make y’self cum thinkin’ abou’ me?” he asks looking at your tits and running his hands down your shoulders.

You pop your fingers to your mouth. “Yeah, lots of times…,” you admit.

“I’d get so wet watching you…,” you moan as he cups your breast and leans forward to take your nipple into his mouth. “I would have to rush home to touch myself, you always made me cum, always, Ahh-Ahh!”

“Wha’ did I do ta make ya cum, sweet girl?” he asks eyes back on yours.

“You’d touch me and put these inside me,” you say pulling his fingers to your mouth, you place his middle finger and ring finger in your mouth and suck on them. You pull them out licking them with your tongue. “I could even imagine sucking your cock and make myself cum.”

“Open an’ get ‘em mo’ wet, baby,” he says pushing them back into your mouth. He pushed them deep in and your mouth waters around them.

He pulls them out a string of spit from them to your bottom lip. He shakes his head at the little line as it breaks when he moves them down to your core where he immediately pushes them inside.

He whines and leans his forehead to your chest, “Jesus, babe, dinna need ta get ‘em wet, d’ya.”

You gasp as his fingers enter you and curl up locating your g spot. Everything is shimmery and he’s surrounded by a huge rainbow with hearts around it. “Ohhhhh…” you say softly and watch as the words bounce into his rainbow and get absorbed in the clouds.

You roll your head back and arch your back. "S'it good sweet girl?"

You nod.

“Ya are my sweet girl, yanno? Sweet wi' honey..." he trails kisses down your stretched neck to your chest.

“It’s good. It’s so so good. I…oh god…there’s rainbows everywhere.” He sucks your nipple into his mouth and bites it just the way you like. He looks over to his hand on your other breast and smiles because the bees are back and lighting on your breast. “Mmmm…the bees are back,” he says as he pops off. “Do they tickle?” He asks, the tip of his tongue circling your nipple.

“Yes, tickles!” You say giggling and grinding your clit against his palm.

"Ya skin's s'pink an' these nipples look like like flowers with berries in tha middle," he groans laving your nipple. "Harry, you're talking in lyrics, I can hear the music in my head and I see the words all around," you say rolling your hips. He pulls his fingers from inside you, smears your wetness on your clit and traces circles around the swollen nub. "I wan' this lil berry, babe, love tha way it feels," he says accent thick and his voice almost singing to your ears. "That's not how it goes, H, It's a summer feeling that you want, oh fuck that feels so good...don't stop, please."

“I can’ stop. Can’ stop touching ya berry…it’s s’soft an’ wet. Ya s’soft an’ ya smell s’good. No wonder the bees are after ya. They wan’ ya honey like me.”

I’m in his rainbow paradise, you think to yourself. Your tummy is quivering and the rainbows are starting to sway. Your fingernails dig into his shoulders. “Ungh!!! Harry! Ohgodohgodohgodohgod!” Again, the colors explode in front of your eyes and suddenly you DO see the bees! They’re flying around the rainbows. “Mmm…mmmm…mmm” you chant as he works you through it.

Just like on the dance floor you feel like you’ve melted into the ground, like gravity and nature have pulled you into toward the center of all things that grow from the center of the universe. You giggle at yourself, "That can't happen we're on the tenth floor."

"Hmm, d'ya say somethin' babe?" Harry says pulling back from kissing your neck. He stops to put his fingers in his mouth, "Mmm, honey s'sweet,"

You lean forward and kiss the shell of his ear, "God, Harry, you gotta cum like this! It's so intense and feels so good," you whisper wanting to share the exquisite moment with him.

He groans against your neck. “Wan’ ta. Wanna cum so bad.”

He pulls back to look in your eyes. “Lift up, baby. Put me inside ya. God, love bein’ inside ya.” He kisses you as you lift up slightly and sink down on his cock. He lets out a loud groan. “Fuck! Holy fuck, ya feel s’good!”

You gasp as you feel the delicious pinch of him and then you smile at the feeling of him inside you. Everything has gone pink and cartoony and you realize you’re in the Pleasing ad. “It’s so pretty,” you say breathily.

You look around and catch a glimpse of yourselves in the mirror. "Look Harry, look at us!" you whisper-shout. “Look at all the dancing and...you...Harry look at you, you glow." You lean back just a little, enough to trace the swallows on his collar, fluttering their wings. "Tickles, huh?" you ask.

He perks up, "It does...ya see 'em too!" referring to the bees.

You look confused. Rubbing his collarbone you say, "Yeah, I see them, they're right here," He seems so satisfied even though you’re both talking about different things.

You start moving your hips up and down and it causes your shroom induced fantasy to move too and you feel like you and Harry are merging together…your bodies and your hearts and souls are entwined. It’s surreal and cosmic. It’s just you and him in time and space. One of the Pleasing cat flowers wraps it’s stems around your hand and then around both of your bodies fusing you together and then everything gets even more intense. “Do you feel it, Harry? We’re bound. Together. It’s just you and me. I…, holy shit, you feel good.”

His hands slide up your sides to your breasts but all you see is the petals of the Pleasing flowers caressing your skin and breasts. Your fingers caress the flowers in his curls and you giggle. They’re like pets, you think, giggling some more.

Harry leans back slowly, lying all the way back and his curl flops back off his head. “Don’ go…” you say missing his close contact.

“’M right here, sweet’eart, not leaving ya. I jus’ wanna watch ya, baby, wanna see us make love,” he says with a sigh. He grabs your hips so he can feel grounded with you. You raise your hands and stretch your torso up high, your movements slowing to a deep, circling grind on his hips while he’s deep inside you. He helps you circle, “Holy fuck, baby… yeeeeaahh…” His eyes are fluttering and his neck is stretched.

“Feels so good,” you say looking at yourselves in the mirror. You move your eyes back to Harry who is also looking over to the mirror smiling blissfully.

“So fuckin’ beautiful…it really is jus’ you an’ me….” He returns his stare to your face then reaches up to run his hand down your sternum to your belly, “I love this body so much, wan’ ya on me all tha time.” Looking down to where you’re connected, “Look, love, we really are connected… ‘M inside ya.”

You lean back resting one hand on his knee and run your hand down your tummy to where he’s buried deep. Harry brings his hand up to where yours is so you can both feel the connection.

“Look in the mirror, Harry. Tell me what you see,” you say, your head thrown back as your clit is stimulated on every grind down on him.

He groans, his head turning to the mirror. “They’re bees all around ya, they wan’ ya honey. They’re lightin’ all over ya. An’ ya covered in flowers. The bees are on the flowers. Tell me wha’ ya see.” His eyes move back to look at you and it’s your turn to look in the mirror.

“Mmmm…it looks like your Pleasing ad. It’s so pretty and it moves with us. The flowers are wrapped around us…connecting us. Oh god…I’m close! So close!”

“Cum fo’ me,” he pants out, hands moving your hips over his harder.

“Ahhhhh! Harry… oh my god!” It’s intense and you can feel your high in every cell of your body. Colors explode in front of your eyes as you look down at him below you. “Love you, love you, love you,” you chant as his fingers move over your clit to prolong your orgasm for as long as possible.

You fall forward kissing him, “Harry, it’s your turn to cum, please, I wanna see it.” You rest your hands on either side of his head leaning forward slightly. It causes your tits to sway forward and brush against the hair on his chest. Harry shifts until his legs are bent for leverage and he thrusts up. “Come on, Harry, it feels so good,” you say biting your bottom lip. “I’m yours, Harry, I’m all yours…,” you rest your lips over his chest, “Can feel your heart beat on my lips and in my pussy, come on, baby, cum for me; cum inside me!” He pushes deep inside and pulls you down by the hips to still as he circles his hips grinding up. “Babe, babe, babe…’m cumming, hold on, hold on…” You twist the duvet under your hands, “Harry, I can feel it…I can feel you filling me up!”

“AHHHHH…UNGH! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He pants out. You were right…it feels so good. He can feel it all the way down to his curled toes. His head pushes back into the pillow, neck veins straining as he cums. Colors explode behind his eyes as he empties inside you. “Fuck, I love ya. Ya (pant) were (pant) made (pant) fo’ (pant) me (pant)!”

You kiss his jaw as he comes down, your hands on his cheeks.

“Mmmm…” he says, as his lips find yours. “I mean it… I…Jesus, ya amazin’.”

You press your lips to his again, soft, open-mouthed kisses. His lips feel so good, and you moan into his mouth as his tongue slips into your mouth to tangle with yours.

His hands grip your hips hard as he pulls you closer to him, your breasts flush to his chest. You’re bodies are still thrumming from your orgasms and the effects of the mushrooms.

“Mmmm…” you moan into his mouth.

He pulls back, his lips wet, and smiles the most blissed out smile. You run your hand back through his curls…they still look like they’re swaying gently. “You’re so beautiful baby.”

His cheeks actually turn pink. It’s not often you can make him blush. You can still see the Pleasing cat flowers around your bodies, their stems binding you together, their petals on his shoulders.

“Ya so, so beautiful, love and ya mine. All mine.” He’s still smiling as he sees the bees still lighting all over you. You look like a goddess, glowy and at one with nature.

“Are you tired?”

He nods. “I am, bu’ I don’ wanna go ta sleep yet, do you?”

“No, because everything looks so cool still! I just…can we get in bed and just cuddle until this goes away?”

He nods and leans up to kiss you softly.

“Help me get the bed made?”

“Of course.”

You both scramble up and put your bed back in order, still giggly over all of the things you’re seeing as you look around the room.

You both brush your teeth and you watch amazed as the animals from the Pleasing ad dance in front of you in the mirror.

You crawl in bed and snuggle up together and you’re both giggling, looking around, and kissing. You yawn as you’re coming down…the visions fade and you both fall into a deep sleep.

***** 7:00 a.m. the next morning*****

The sun has just breached the horizon and is shining his golden rays in your hotel suite. Apparently, in your love and mushroom induced haze from the night before neither of you hadn’t remembered to pull the room darkening curtain, so the white sheers allowed Mr. Sunshine to kiss your morning eyelids. You shiver slightly, the duvet kicked to the bottom of the bed leaving you and Harry snuggled in as spoons under the simple white flat sheet. You shift your eyes down to where he has wrapped his arm around you. His skin is such a beautiful tan shade of golden brown, his nails painted a golden yellow and his cross tattoo kinda hidden by your breast. He enjoys sleeping with a hand cupping one of your breasts possessively; and you find it to be erotically romantic that he feels so carefree with your body, treating it as a mere extension of his own. God, those hands of his! He could play an instrument and make beautiful music, and he could play your body like an instrument – one he had a perfected his talent at playing. He certainly knew how to make you sing with those long fingers! You pull his hand up from your breast and kiss the inside of his palm. “I love you,” you whisper with your eyes closed, vowing that he never, ever question that.

“Mmmm, love ya too,” he whispers in return leaning forward to kiss the shell of your ear.

“You’re awake…it’s early… you can sleep a little longer if you want.”

“Beautiful woman’s in ma bed, don’t wanna sleep. How d’ya feel, love?”

Then the memories of last night’s activities came flooding back to your mind. You bury your head into the pillow and giggle, a little embarrassed by your attempts as playing sexy vixen.

“I can’t believe I acted so…,” you start.

“Fuckin’ happy an’ sexy,” Harry finishes.

You laugh out loud at that. “Uhh… yeah, right…I must’ve looked ridiculous!”

It’s Harry’s turn to chuckle, “Umm, I KNOW ya sexy an’…I don’t know, babe, Milena sure seemed ta think ya were sexy.” He’s running his hand down your side and trailing his hands on the side of your breast and then circling your nipple with his middle finger. “This ok?” he asks softly placing kisses behind your ear.

You shiver and simply hum your approval and arch your back into his hard cock nestled against the crease of your bum.

“Oh Milena, she’s quite beautiful,” you say with a moan, “Everything last night was quite beautiful. Oh, and the sex! Harry, it was like our….Ok, this is going to sound crazy, but it’s like our love had color and it surrounded us with colors and living things, and the intensity…and my orgasm! Ahhh!” you stop as he pinches your nipple and sucks on your shoulder.

“I love tha way ya say “orgasm”, so fuckin’ sexy when ya say it like tha’,” Harry says running his hand down your tummy. “Say it again…”

You giggle.

“Please,” he asks again.

“Well, when you ask so nicely… I really liked my orgasm last night,” you whisper saucily.

“Which one?” he teases.

You turn over to your back slightly so you can meet his eyes, “All of them.”

“Ya had quite a bit of tequila last night, I think the best cure fo’ a morning hangover is mo’ orgasms, yeah?” He runs his hand down your mound, just a soft touch.

“I don’t think I have a hangover,” you say with a grin.

“No? No need for an orgasm?” he teases, tweaking your nipple.

“Ahh…Hahh…Oh, I definitely need as many orgasms as you’re willing to give me,” you say running your hand down his chest.

“As many as I can give ya, hmmm? I like a challenge as much as tha next man. Should at least get four outta ya, don’ ya think?” His hand slides from your breast to your pussy, fingers lightly circling your clit.

“Four?” You say, gulping.

“Ya wan’ ta try for mo’ then? Fine, I can try fo’ six.” He says, smirking as he kisses your collarbone.

“Ummm…I dunno about that.”

He laughs his breathy little laugh. “Why don’ we jus’ play it by ear, yeah? Ya feel like ya wanna cum, cum. Ya don’, tha’s ok too.”

You sigh. His voice is so soothing and his fingers feel so good on your clit.

His fingers move to your entrance to collect your wetness and you gasp. He moves back to your clit, still softly circling.

“Mmmm…”

“S’it feel good?”

You nod, licking your lips. His fingers slide to your entrance again, fingertips just barely breaching you and your back arches. He kisses down your neck to your breast, lips latching onto your nipple and sucking hard.

Your hips jerk up.

“Ya gonna cum, baby? God, I wish we were in the pink room. The things I’d do ta ya if we were there,” he says against your nipple.

“Mmmm…yes…I…oh!” Your hips are moving of their own accord. You can feel a slow orgasm simmer in your belly.

He smiles as he looks up at your face from under his lashes, tongue circling your nipple before his teeth close around it and bites down.

“Ahhhh! Ohhhh…mmmm…”

He moves so his lips are right by your ear, breath hot on your neck. “Doin’ s’good fo’ me, baby. Look s’beautiful like this.”

Your fist grips the sheet next to you and you bite your lip as you reach your high. It softly rolls through your body and you sigh as you come down. You open your eyes to find his and you smile.

He never takes his eyes off you as he leans down just to place a barely there kiss to first one nipple and then the other. “Need mo’ of ya.”

You shiver and goosebumps rise all over your body. “Cold, babe?” he asks pulling the sheet over you both

“Just feel so good, H.” you say running your hands through his hair. “Last night these curls were moving on their own. It was so sexy, I love this curl right here,” you say flipping the front curl with your fingers, “when you get caught up in the moment, it hangs down in your eye and it’s so so fuckin’ sexy.”

He smirks, “Like fo’ ya ta grab it and tug.”

“Like this?” You ask threading your fingers through his front and fisting it slightly.

“Fuck, yeah,” he says closing his eyes and rutting his pelvis down into the mattress.

He rests his chin on your tummy, “Listen, wanna taste, but don’ cum, yeah? Wanna watch ya, think ya can hang on a little fo’ me?”

You nod, “Yes, Harry,” you say softly.

He shakes his head and kisses your tummy, “Fuckin’ love hearin’ ma name like tha’,” He works his way down your tummy to your mound where he stops and wraps his arms around your thighs. He places both hands on your hips and uses his thumbs on either side of your slit to open your pussy where your little clit is peaking out from under its hood. He licks his lips and places a gentle kiss there rolling his eyes up your body to meet your stare. “S’wet fo’ me… smell so good… make me s’hard. Ya ready fo’ mo’?”

You thread your fingers through his hair again and give it a gentle tug, “You do this to me, Harry, only you… Mmmm,” he licks a circle around your clit, “I never wanted anyone like I want you, and I realize after last night, that my body only comes alive for you, because I’m yours…was made for you.” You see his bum flex under the white sheet as he presses down to get some pressure on his hard cock.

He pulls one hand around and take his middle and ring fingers into his mouth, sucking and licking them, before sliding them down from clit to entrance where he pushes them in slowly, his eyes never leaving his task, brows furrowed in concentration. As soon as they’re seated deep he looks up your body to see your head roll on the pillow mouth slack with pleasure. “Don’t cum, yet, yeah?”

You nod.

“Words please?”

“I won’t cum until you tell me.”

He starts pumping and curling his fingers, he’s searching for that spongy spot on the upper wall, his spot.

You arch your back, “Right there, right there!” you call out.

His other hand is still on your tummy, his thumb rolling back and forth over the hood of your clit, but not directly on it. It’s a slow stimulation.

He leans to the side and places a kiss on your inner thigh. “Love doin’ this ta ya, ya so fuckin’ sexy when ya all fucked out, jus’ hold it fo’ me, kay?”

You roll your hips on his fingers, “Atta girl, can ya get y’self there on ma fingers?”

“Oh yeah, it’s so good, H. Fingers feel so good,” you mutter while you roll your hips.

He leans forward and pulls your clit into his mouth, popping on and off rapidly.

You roll your head and hold your hand up in a stop motion, “There, Harry, I’m there, go slow, go slow, Mmmmm.” You’re a moaning mess with quivering legs. “No, no, no, slow, slow, slow…”

“Yeah, baby just roll wi’ it, hang there jus’ a little longer, love. Look at me.”

You look down and he’s smiling, “Ya so wet, baby, makin’ a mess…love it s’much. Try not ta think abou’ it, but I do. Think abou’ ya all wet an’ holdin’ on fo’ me.”

“Har-ry, please,” you beg softly.

“Ya right there, huh? That place where ya abou’ ta fall, jus’ a few mo’ seconds fo’ me, doin’ s’good.”

He pulls his fingers out and you whimper. “Shh, I got ya, babe,” he coos.

“Don’t stop, Don’t stop…” you whine.

He crawls up your body and rests his weight on your torso, “I love ya, I wanna feel this wi’ ya.”

Positioning his hard cock at your entrance, he slowly pushes in and you groan and roll your head back digging it into the pillow.

“Ya ready to cum, love?”

“Yes, Harry.”

“Wrap ya legs round me.”

You do as he says and your crossed ankles rest at the base of his spine. You’re wide open for him and a rush of wet arousal runs down your channel.

He begins a slow thrust that feels so intense. “So good….it’s so good!” you sob tears leaking out of your eyes and down to your ears.

“Baby, move wi’ me.”

You are both rolling and rocking together chasing your orgasms. “Wanna cum together,” you say cupping his cheeks.

“I’m so close, H.”

“Me too, I fuckin’ love ya s’much,” he groans with a clenched jaw.

You rest your forehead on his, “Harry, I’m cumming, you feel it?” you squeak in a high-pitched whisper.

You’re clenching hard on him and the wait has built up to a ultimate crescendo of sensations.

Your wetness is flowing and he’s slipping in and out so easily. “Feel s’good, love, Jesus, baby, feels s’tight an’ wet!”

Your legs start squeezing him tight and he’s getting sloppy in his movements. He’s lost in the intensity. “Cumming,” is all he says before thrusting deep and stilling his movements.

“Haaarrryyy…”

“Come on baby, cum fo’ me”

You’re holding each other so tight. It’s a lover’s embrace where you connect into one entity. It’s a moment that’s shared with only each other and the sentiment and the sensation is almost too much to bear.

Your hips roll up to his and then you gasp as you cum, your fingernails digging into his shoulders, toes curling where they’re wrapped around his waist. You chant his name like a mantra as you pulse around him. His head drops to your neck, both of you breathing loud in the quiet of the room. You sigh and hug him to you tighter, tears leaking out of the corners of your eyes. You’re feeling bad about what happened with Milena last night. It feels like you cheated on him in the cold light of the morning. “I’m sorry about last night, Harry,” you whisper. “I let things get out of hand with Milena and I’m sorry if I hurt you.”

He pulls his head up so he can look in your eyes, thumbs moving to wipe your tears. “‘S’ok baby. Ya were jus’ havin’ a good time. I was surprised, sure, bu’ ya didn’t hurt me.” He smiles a soft smile.

“Are you sure? It feels wrong now.”

He chuckles. “Baby, jus’ had some of the best sex of my life last nigh’ an’ jus’ now, promise nothin’s wrong.”

You smile and place your hands on his cheeks. “I love you. I’ve always loved you. It won’t happen again.”

He leans down to press soft kisses to your lips. “Apology accepted. I love ya…mo’ than anythin’. Ya wan’ brekkie?”

You nod and smile. “As long as you’re with me, yeah, I do.”

“I’m all yours.”

[lilietsblog]

so whenever Russian characters crop up in American/English-speaking media theres a very noticable thing where writers v often dont understand patronymics and full names.

Now, there’s two gradations of “full name” that are in use here. There is the “FIO” full name, or SGP perhaps (surname, given name, patronymic), and there is the full given name.

As an example, let’s take Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich.

Ivanov is the surname. You can tell bc of hte -ov suffix at the end. (Not the only one possible but a pretty decent indication something is a surname when it is there)

Ivan is the given name. You can tell bc Russian has a set (an expansive one) of given names and this is one of them, one of the most historically popular at that.

Ivanovich is the patronymic, it can be translated as “son of Ivan”. You can tell bc of the “ovich” suffix. There is also “evich” and for at least one name just “ich”. Colloquially they will also get shortened into just “ych” making the variation “Ivanych”. (”Y” is the letter used for transliteration of a sound that doesn’t exist in English but is considered fairly close to “i’)

To be clear, “Ivanov Ivan Ivanych” is the exact same person as “Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich”, this is hte exact same name, the only thing that changes is how formal the speaker is being about it.

Female suffixes are “evna” and “ovna”. Anna Petrovna, Anna Fadeevna. There is also “ichna” for at least one name and an antiquated “ishna” which is the colloquial alternative in some cases. Anna Fadeevna = Anna Fadeishna. This IS antiquated tho.

Coming back to our Ivanov Ivan Ivanovich, this is the “FIO” form of his name, the way it will be put on formal documents that require one’s full name. The “Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov” form is also acceptable, its just not the order you write on documents in. The patronymic (Ivanovich) always comes after the full given name (Ivan), the surname can be stuck on either side of that.

The traditional respectful address to someone you know is the full given name + patronymic. Ivan Ivanovich! Could you come over here? It’s used with plural/formal “you”. This form is also becoming obsolete in recent years but if you’re writing mid-20th-century or characters of middle age+ Ivan Ivanovich is the name to go.

(Note the difference from the address + surname form in English: Dr. Smith or Mr Smith etc. In Russian this form does not exist except several centuries back or in very very impersonal century back “citizen Ivanov” that like a policeman would use to address you. Not anyone you actually know personally. Schoolchildren will often not know their teachers’ surnames because they are all Ivan Ivanovich to them.)

Now I keep saying “Ivan” is the FULL given name. The short given name from “Ivan” is “Vanya”. This is a set linguistic fact - the set of given names in Russian is factually two linked sets, a set of full given names and a set of short given names. Some short given names can  be short from several full given names, some full given names can have several short names (a person will usually pick one to use). A short given name doesn’t go anywhere on formal documents. It just follows from your full given name naturally, like conjugation. Some full given names (Gleb, Oleg, Diana, Vera) are short enough to be used as short given names too and so don’t realy have assigned short counterparts. In fact Vera can be both a full name on its own - Ivanova Vera Ivanovna - and short for Veronica - Ivanova Veronica Ivanovna.

Short names are formed through a variety of rules. There are basic requirements for the form they take as a result though. Full given names can have “complicated” consonant pairs together: Dmitriy, Aleksandr, Pavla, Anna. Short names are “simple” will almost always go consonant-vowel. Dmitriy -> Dima, Aleksandr -> Sasha, Alik or Shura (don’t ask how that last one happened, it’s a miracle of absurdity, but it’s one of the traditional shortenings), Pavla -> Pasha (well, Pavla is a rare name, you hear Pasha and you usually assume Pavel, the male name), Anna -> Anya. (”y” is not a consonant here, “ya” is a vowel sound English doesnt really have)

(As an exception to the consonant-vowel rule, when there’s a consonant pair the second of which is “l” it’s usually kept together in the short name - it’s just very simple to the Russian ear / tongue. Vladislav - Vlad or Slava, for example)

Often a name will be formed fully from the syllables / consonants of the full name, give or take changing the last vowel to the gender neutral “a”/”ya” (It will either be “a”/”ya” or a consonant). Vladimir -> Vlad, Ruslana -> Lana, Tatiana -> Tanya, Anna -> Anya, Katerina -> Katya, Dmitriy -> Dima or Mitya, Ivan -> Vanya. And then there’s the “sha” suffix tacked on as the second syllable: Pavel -> Pasha, Natalia -> Natasha or Tasha, Daria -> Dasha, Aleksandr -> Sasha, etc.

So long as they conform to these rules, you can kind of make them up. Though considering the whole of history, you’re not super likely to make up something that hasn’t been made up before you. Anna historically speaking turns into Anya, Nyura, Nyusha... -shudders-

So how are short names actually used?

As an implication of familiarity/subordination, that’s how. For the weebs in the audience, you know the ‘-chan’ suffix in Japanese? Kind of exactly like that. Japanese has more nuances, but generally if you wouldn’t call someone -chan, you shouldn’t call them by their short name. (Unless they specifically asked you to, but I think that’s a thing in Japanese too)

Short names are never paired with patronymics. The steps of formality in address are basically “Ivan Ivanovich” => “Ivan” => “Vanya”.

(There’s also formal you, so to be completely clear: “Ivan Ivanovich” (formal you) => “Ivan” (formal you) => “Vanya” (formal you) => “Vanya” (informal you). If someone is getting called their full given name + informal you, it’s either implying antiquity - pre 20th century - or they’re using their full given name as their short given name.)

You call your children and siblings by short names. You call your friends by short names. You MIGHT call your employees, especially if they are sufficiently young, or if you’ve known them for a long time and the “familiarity” part applies, by short names.

SHORT NAMES ARE NOT FORMAL. This is important. Nobody has “Natasha” written in their passport (unless I guess they were making new documents in America or something from scratch and didn’t use any old ones as basis of establishing idenity so could make up whatever. It’s still weird! It’s like having “Johnny-boy” written in your passport!)

SHORT NAMES ARE OFTEN GENDERED BUT YOU CANNOT TELL HOW WITHOUT KNOWING THE CORRESPONDING FULL NAME. “Pasha” and “Misha” are both male names becaus they are short from “Pavel” and “Mikhail”. Of course you could have a Pavla or a Mikhaila, but the former is very rare and the latter is probably a foreign Mykaila Russianified or something. In these cases it’s usually considered normal to assume gender, even if there’s a tiny chance you could be wrong.

PATRONYMICS ARE NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES INTERCHANGEABLE WITH SURNAMES. You have the same surname as your family members, but if you have the same patronymic, either you’re siblings or there are multiple people with the same given name in your immediate family, which is slightly odd. A patronymic is formed from your father’s name by unambiguous and definite rules. Foreign names can be turned into patronymics easily. (Though kids of foreign citizens can get whatever their parents want on their birth certificate - patronymic by the rules of one of the parents’ home country, no patronymic at all, whatever) Surnames are surnames and work the same way they work anywhere else.

PATRONYMICS AND SURNAMES ARE NOT CONNECTED IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. Any surname goes with any patronymic same as it goes with any given name. Except for the obvoius “statistically likely to be from the same culture” part. (Your “Russian” character could have Georgian, Ukrainian, Armenian, Lithuanian, Bielorussian, Kazakh, Tatar descent, descent from any number of indigenous cultures on the territory of Russia that I personally never heard about until I started translating documents in high amounts and stumbling upon them. Russia is an empire!) But even that’s just statistics - you could have a Tsukino Farha Bogdanovna and I’d just go “that’s a fascinating family history right there”.

GOOGLE RUSSIAN GIVEN NAMES, DON’T MAKE THEM UP. And pay attention if something is marked as “diminutive” - that means it’s a short name, and it will not be used on formal documents or in conjunction with a patronymic. Go for the name it’s diminutive for and just have the character ask everyone to use their short name if you want - it’s trendy these days.

There’s all kinds of fuckery going on with name use on the margins - some old people will call their close friends the “patronymic + informal you” construction. (Actually it’s a “Russian babushka” stereotype that actually exists within the culture. And if anyone ever uses the “short name + patronymic” form irl it’s this category of people, though I’d imagine only in third person) Some bosses or even teachers will invite their students to call them by their short name (I am so deeply uncomfortable with this). Age is often the difference between a Vanya and an Ivan Ivanovich in the same situation.

All patronymics and a good share of surnames conjugate by gender! “Ivanov” and “Ivanova” are the exact same surname, but a guy will have the former writen in their documents and a gal would have the latter. If you legally change your gender that letter changes too. (No, there’s no gender neutral form. Some surnames, like those ending in -enko, just don’t do this, but those that do are at all times one or the other) I guess expatriates a couple of generations down could have whatever going on, but if you have an actually-born-in-Russia “Ivanova Ivan Ivanovna” that means “Ivan” is a girl with a male name for some fucking reason. Name gendering is just tradition, patronymic gendering is grammar. (And if you have an “Ivanova Ivan Ivanovich” that’s just someone making a typo) (Maybe our hypothetical Ivanova Ivan Ivanovna transitioned and liked her birth name so much, she decided to not even go for Ivanna or something else plausible, Ivan or bust. Officials would probably just shrug and go with it lmao)

Oh, and in less formal lists and situations, surname + short given name is a classical combination. When I call my grandboss, surname + short given name is how I introduce myself, because I’m much younger and much subordinate so short name it is, but she’s under no obligation to identify me from my given name so surname it is. (To people who I expect to remember my name but who weren’t expecting me to call, just surname is good, but to people who can connect my surname with my identity but probably don’t remember my given name immediately & exactly from that, giving also the form of given name they address me by is the reasonable person thing to do)

If I were introducing myself in the “Hi! I’m Tsukino Usagi!” anime intro format, I’d go for “Short given name + surname”. Short name is usually the one people think of as their personal identity as it’s whatt their close circle will have been calling them for their entire life, and ACTUALLY it’s normal for the surname to come after the given name. In a book citation of “famous doctor X did Y” they will probably be “famous doctor fullgivenname-patronymic-surname”. For a Russian speaker, switching between Japanese name order and English name order is not a difficulty, but we WILL be distressed by not being able to tell which is which and therefore which it is on sight )=

MARVEL COMICS WALL OF SHAME

- Natasha Alianovna Romanova. First, “Romanov” is not a common surname, it’s the surname of the royal family, it’s like a random English guy being called “Tudor”. Well, it’s plausible, it IS formed by the classic “common given name + -ov” rule, but Roman isn’t even that common a name (and not exactly Russian), and... well. It’s just weird. I don’t think there’s good chances for it to have come into existence as such historically WHEN IT WAS THE RULING FAMILY SURNAME. Second! Natasha is a short name! She should be Natalia/Natalya! Third... I mean I will not say Alian is not an existing male name, and I won’t even say it’s not used in any cultures that exist within Russia, but if they were aiming for “common Russian male name” they missed 180 degrees.

- Ilyana Rasputin. First, -in is a suffix that makes this surname adjective-ish, meaning it conjugates by gender, meaning she is RASPUTINA. Her brother is Rasputin. She is Rasputina. Second, again, I have heard of exactly one (1) guy with this surname, and it’s the same guy you’re thinking of right now. It is in no way, shape or form common, or reasonable to give to a character without making it a plot point. Third, Ilyana is not a Russian name that exists. Ilya is a male name, but there’s no female form. FOURTH, I distinctly remember reading a comic where she was calling her brothers “Piotr” and “Mikhail”. That’s their full names! I mean bonus points for actually finding the full names this time, but it’s extremely weird for their LITTLE SIBLING to use them! They should be Petya and Misha as far as her own speech is concerned!

P.S. “All Night Laundry” is a fantastic webcomic, but “Grandimir” is not a real name, “Grand” is not a Russian word root and will not be used in a name this way, you’re looking for “Velimir” or somethng (though that’s, like, a thousand years antiquated). Also while both the uncle and the nephew having the “Petrovich” patronymic is not that odd, Petr is not THAT rare a name and maybe their brother/father was Petr Petrovich... considering we never learn their surname, I seriously suspect the writer just confused a patronymic with a surname. Also, naming their dog the same name crosses the line into slightly weird. Who names a dog after their father? This is actually what prompted this...

[hayleysayshay]

I think I have some issues with the term ‘Romantic’ love and ‘aromanticism’. Not because I don’t think these people who identify this way don’t exist— I use the term myself— but I am not really sure if I buy into this extreme difference between romantic and platonic love. If a person lives with another but they don’t have sex, and the view the person as their everything, and view this person as a romantic partner, that’s fine. But what if there was the same scenario— they live together, do typical ‘couple’ things and then don’t have sex— and view this relationship as ‘queer platonic’ and not romantic.

What is romantic attraction, on its own, without sex? Where does platonic end and romantic love start? Is there a true difference? Like historically platonic just covered everything that wasn’t sexual or sexual attraction between non family members, but now it’s deemed as something unique and entirely separate to romantic love.

Like I call myself aroace but I don’t know anymore. The idea of meeting someone who like me as an aversion to sex but we could do couple things together is appealing, a life partner in an aspect. Is that a QPR or non-sexual romantic love? Is there truly a difference with the day-to-day reality of these relationships?

I’ve had issues with the split attraction model before, the attempt to codify what people’s complicated feelings even are, and the idea that sex and romantic love can easily be separated. Like a woman who says she only finds sex appealing with women but could see herself romantically with a man sounds like someone who’s still trying to figure out their sexuality and the pressures from society about normal couple things.

But I’ve always thought that split attraction made sense for asexuality. You can have sex without romantic feelings, you can have sex with friends. But I don’t know, this whole ‘platonic v romantic’ love aspect is confusing and I am not really sure I buy into it. I used Aro because I’m not sure if I can find the concept of a romantic life partner possible for me, but then again I always found QPR appealing, but what is the difference, and ahhhh.

And I think it just comes down to personal preference on terms and your understanding of theme

So, yes, consider this an invitation to drop thoughts and explanations if you want.

[baeddel]

speaking of trans boys. re: this post: it’s funnily enough been picked up by people i would typically consider my enemies, who tag it with #transandrophobia #transmisandry. you’ll laugh, but perhaps they’re right to tag it that way. if we have to be a theorist of transandrophobia lets at least try and do so seriously.

it’s worth reading the replies to that post from my friends. i may overemphasize the differences between the US and the UK in that post. one of the examples i use, Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage, was actually published in the US and not the UK (by the far-right Regnery Publishing, built on the Regnery fortune one of the heirs to which uses his wealth to fund the activities of the white supremacist National Policy Institute and the Charles Martel Society; how do you like them apples?). but i still think it is the case, correct me if i’m wrong, that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the US pursuing a transmisogynist scaremongering agenda about potential predators, and that TERFs have enjoyed the most success at legal reform in the UK pursuing a #TransgenderTrend moral panic centered around the dangers posed to young cafabs (the two other major areas worth considering apart from legal reform would be medical reform and public attitudes; we wouldn’t be surprised to find the same trend in those areas, but we would also not be surprised to find a different trend).

anyway, the analysis i make about reproductive futurity (where transmascs themselves embody the Child as victims of transgender ideology who must be rescued, their fertility restored) is i think vulnerable to the same criticism made in this post. where sybil says “TERFs view you as a misguided corrupted victim”, and the rest, fig (sybil’s interlocutor) responds that what they are describing “are v much white transmasc experiences” and that black and brown transmascs are instead treated by white women “as threats, due to the intersecting views on manhood/masculinity and race.”

sybil accepts this argument and i accepted it at the time because it makes intuitive sense; this corresponds to how i understand racism to work. but i don’t really like accepting arguments on intuition like this because competing narratives would convince me equally based on the same principles. look at it this way: if we wanted to apply fig’s argument to my post we would say that transmascs of colour cannot embody the Child in this way because white women protray men of colour (even, people of colour quite generally) as dangerous, masculine, predatory, etc. we would bring up a number of examples to prove this, such as the role of ‘masculinity’ in the repressively reconstrued diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia applied to black male radicals in the 60s, the many instances where news writers refer to black 16 year old victims of police shootings as “men”, and so forth. we have a coherent story that people of colour are denied any notion of childhood and are seen to possess a sort of inaliable masculinity.

however, we could also tell the opposite story. there are many discourses where black and brown people figure as Children par excellence. i can’t find it now (frustrating!) but there is a very demonstrative old painting: it has a white woman who is meant to represent Europe nursing several children of colour (one for each ‘race’, as they saw it). this metaphor of mother Europe and her dependant colonies was very common (eg. here {warning: obscenely racist image}; common enough to be mocked in László Moholy-Nagy’s 1925 collage Mother Europe Cares for Her Colonies). further, the notion of the ‘childhood of man’ implicit in discourses about savages and primitives, important to liberal humanist evolutionism, became more than merely a discourse when deployed in eg. the reserve schools of America and Canada and the missionary schools of French Polynesia which sought to save native Children from their own indigineity—this in fact very much resembles our narrative about transmascs and their perverse salvation. in our conversation about this dev reminded me that people conflate “the capacity for self-infantilism and the use of infantilism as a means of social control.” one remembers what Eldridge Cleaver had to say about what he called the emasculation of black men, to such an extent that he analogized black men in America to court eunuchs (this is perhaps the only feature of his thought that stayed with him throughout his transition from black muslim to revolutionary communist to conservative fundamentalist).

you can see how i now have two competing stories that i might find intuitively convincing. both have historical analogues. i don’t want to arbitrarily decide one is the right version over the other without seeing good evidence and hearing good arguments. but even if i did, i should remain mindful that one might predominate in some discourses, might predominate in certain epochs, but may easily become its opposite under different conditions. if it can i’d like to know how, if it can’t i’d like to know why. in any case, it’s significant to me that personally i have never seen TERFs talk about cafabs of colour. of course they aren’t likely to talk about it to me, but this seems to be something that they acknowledge themselves (in a paraliptic way). Shrier confines her discussion to “(mostly white) girls,” by girls meaning trans men, who previously would have “[fallen] prey to anorexia and bulimia or multiple personality disorder“ (citation needed???). i can already imagine the sort of paper you could write about this parenthetical suggestion, (mostly white).

[nanshe-of-nina]

Favorite History Books || The Black Prince: England’s Greatest Medieval Warrior by Michael Jones ★★★☆☆

The Prince’s martial exploits were the stuff of legend even in his own lifetime. On 26 Au- gust 1346, at the age of sixteen, he fought heroically with his father in an army that crushed the French at Crécy. Ten years later, on 19 September 1356, by now a commander in his own right, he turned the tables on his numerically superior opponent, capturing King John II of France in battle at Poitiers, one of the great English victories of the Hundred Years War. In 1362, he became prince of Aquitaine, holding a magnificent court at Bordeaux that mesmerized the brave but unruly Gascon nobility and drew them like moths to the flame of his cause. Five years later, he led a great Anglo-Gascon army across the Pyrenees into Spain (crossing by the mountain pass at Roncesvalles, where Count Roland had fought a valiant rearguard action to save Charlemagne’s army seven centuries earlier), winning a stunning victory against the odds at Nájera that restored to the throne King Pedro of Castile, who had been ousted by his bastard half-brother. Edward’s meteoric military rise captured the imagination of Europe. The chronicler Jean Froissart saw him – at the outset of his career at least – as a model of chivalric virtue.

Edward became known to posterity as the ‘Black Prince’, a soubriquet that was not in existence when the Chandos Herald wrote a long poem (circa 1385) on La Vie et Faites d’Armes d’une très noble Prince de Wales et Aquitaine (The Life and Feats of Arms of the most noble Prince of Wales and Aquitaine), a tribute to a man seen as a paragon of chivalry, and in fact was used only from the sixteenth century. It is found in notes of the antiquary John Leland in the early 1540s and first appeared in print in Richard Grafton’s Chronicle in 1569. More than twenty years later, in William Shakespeare’s Henry V (Act 2, Scene 4) the French ruler Charles VI says that his countrymen fear King Henry because of his ancestry, his ‘heroical seed’... That ‘black name’ is now the standard way of describing the man. Some have suggested that the ‘Black’ is an allusion to the black armour that he wore at his first battle (although the evidence for this is scanty); others, that it is derived from the cruel way he waged war in France. When I inspect the tomb itself, I notice that the heraldic backdrop to his tournament badges is black – the colour forms part of a show of jousting prowess. Whatever the explanation for this knightly soubriquet, it was synonymous with a single-minded dedication to the warrior ethos, and the fighting fraternity of Europe’s elite.

In 1688 the antiquary Joshua Barnes wrote a historical biography of Edward III and his son, the Black Prince, praising the prince’s feats-of-arms; some seventy years later David Hume, in his History of England, also extolled his martial virtues. Indeed, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this ‘Black Prince’ was seen in straightforward, heroic terms. On 16 September 1903 a mounted statue of the Prince was unveiled in City Square, Leeds, proclaiming him as ‘the flower of England’s chivalry’. However, modern scholarship has been more critical of him, criticizing his lack of administrative ability and also his failures of political judgement. He is seen as fixated on his military career, inflexible in his approach to government and limited in his broader abilities. As I gaze on the tomb, I wonder if French manuscript collections, many of them underexploited, can cast fresh light on this fascinating figure.

The chronicler of the abbey of Moissac, Aymeric de Peyrac, for example, showed that the Prince could be engaging, humorous and pleasingly direct. He recalled the Prince asking one of the monks, who was famed for his melodious singing voice, to take Mass. At its end, the Prince greeted the man, thanked him and said: ‘I am sorry so much misfortune has be- fallen you – and that your good friends are no longer with you.’ The monk looked a little surprised and asked him why he had said that. ‘Well,’ the Prince replied, ‘I noticed that in the service you rushed through the Office for the Living but seemed to spend an eternity on the Office for the Dead.’ The monk looked at the Prince for a while, smiled, and then said: ‘I feel that the living can more easily look after themselves; it is those souls trapped in purgatory who really need my assistance.’ This was an age of violence and frequent visitations of the plague, a horror that struck communities rapidly and without warning; an age that demanded the warrior should prepare to face death, at any time or place. For a moment the Black Prince seemed lost in his own thoughts. Then he smiled back, and thanked the monk for his answer. The two men became friends.

The last years of the Prince’s life were blighted by sickness and he was only able to attend his final military engagement, the siege of Limoges, in 1370, carried on a stretcher. According to the chronicler Jean Froissart, the Black Prince – increasingly frustrated by his own debilitating sickness and the deteriorating war situation – sacked the town and put its civilian population to the sword. This striking image of a chivalric hero falling below the standards that had made him admired throughout Europe has lodged itself in the popular imagination, but I find myself wondering whether it really happened in the way that Froissart described it. Whatever the truth of Limoges, there was now a cloud hanging over English fortunes. The Prince relinquished his duchy of Aquitaine due to ill health and spent his last years con- fined to his sickbed. He died on 8 June 1376, aged only forty-five. Nine years later the Black Prince’s magnificent tomb was completed by his son, now ruling the kingdom as Richard II. There was no more appetite for foreign war; the realm was divided by internal dissension and unrest. The Prince’s memorial at Canterbury became a memorial to a bygone era.

[shihalyfie]

Comparing the original Best Partner character song series and the new one, and what that says about the 02 cast

So if you haven’t heard yet, a new series of 02 (it’s actually Kizuna) character songs dropped! Allegedly intended as a slightly delayed 20th anniversary project, the series is a callback to the original “Best Partner” character song album series that released during 02′s actual airing.

If you know anything about the original Best Partner series, it’s one that sets an insanely high bar, even for Digimon standards (and that’s saying something, given the deep associations this franchise has with music). The series of character songs before it, Adventure’s “Character Song + Mini Drama” series, has a…kind of questionable amount of relevance to each character; it’s not like they’re super amazingly out of character, but they don’t really tell you a lot about each character beyond some gloss details (this is probably best demonstrated in how Mimi’s song is blatantly just an AiM single disguised as a Mimi song). Best Partner, on the other hand, very intimately goes into each character’s head and their relationships with their respective partners, even putting in direct words what wasn’t stated explicitly in the series.

So does the new series live up to the high bar its predecessor sets? Answer: on top of some abnormal attention to detail on the covers, it is very obvious that the new series not only has a lot of the depth of the 02 characters in mind, but also is made in direct response to the original series itself. Moreover, putting the original Best Partner series and this one side by side reveals a lot about each of the 02 characters and what they got out of 02′s story, in a surprisingly neat summary.

Let’s go into how!

Since this is something that has a deep relationship with all of these characters in regards to the series, this particular meta would not have been possible without input from multiple people who know these characters better than I could ever hope to by myself. Thank you for all of your help.

A bit of historical context

The original Best Partner series consisted of a set of albums, one representing each pair of partners in 02. Notably, even though nowadays there’s a specific order of the Adventure/02 characters that’s used in modern media, not only does the original series not follow that ordering (as it hadn’t been set in stone at the time), it also leads with the original Adventure characters and not the 02 ones, which is pretty unusual for a series that’s ostensibly supposed to be for 02 (modern lineups will usually favor leading with whichever group the relevant product is branded with).

A lot of this probably makes more sense when you realize that the original Best Partner series was released during the first half of 02’s airing. The final album was released on August 23, 2000, four days before the fateful 02 episode 21 (yes, that means the third track on Ken and Wormmon’s album is actually a spoiler). So in other words, while the original Best Partner series accurately reflects the older Adventure group’s character development and what problems they were able to sufficiently overcome, the 02 group does not have anything about their character development from 02′s second half reflected in it at all.

That’s actually a really huge disparity, when you think about it, especially because a lot happened with the 02 group in that second half – that second half was where the emotional payoff and the results of everything that had been building up over that first half came together. So in comparison to the Adventure group, composed of people confidently talking about what they’ve decided for themselves from now on, you still have the 02 group drenched pretty deeply in insecurity. Watch 02 to the end and listen to those songs again, and you might even think “wait, this is supposed to represent these characters?” So, in essence, the new Best Partner series serves to address that gap, and what the 02 group gained and learned out of 02′s second half.

Best Partner (and its successor series for Tamers, Best Tamers) follows a uniform format: a solo song for the human partner, a solo song for the Digimon partner, and a duet between the two. (Given that, the original Best Partner series was really huge, at a whole 36 songs.) Recalling that, in the Adventure universe, a Digimon partner reflects the human’s inner self and psyche, it’s pretty extensive coverage: what the human has to say about themself, what place their Digimon partner is in relative to that, and what the nature of their relationship is due to that.

Let’s go into each pair of partners in detail!

Daisuke and V-mon

For those who love 02 and love Daisuke in particular, when you ask “what kind of character is Daisuke like?” or “what’s Daisuke’s best quality?”, you’re probably going to get answers like “forward-thinking” or “positive” or “good at uplifting others” – basically everything to do with how Daisuke is an encouraging presence who doesn’t give in easily and has a strong mentality of moving forward in the face of despair. Someone who appreciates and understands others’ best qualities, and loves them for everything they are. So when you look at his original Best Partner solo song, Goggle Boy…

But more than just saving the world I really don’t want to lose, you know

…Uh…

These goggles are my proof Given by a certain someone to me The precious thing he handed over It’s just like his Crest, you know Aren’t they cool?

…Well, that’s nowhere to be found.

This is the kind of song that might make you think “wait, this is supposed to be Daisuke’s representative song?!” (It’s possibly because of this that Daisuke’s song from The Bridge to Dreams, Tomorrow, generally tended to be far more favored among Daisuke fans, although it’s more relevant to 02 as a whole than it is to Daisuke in particular.) if you listen to Goggle Boy knowing about what Daisuke’s best qualities should be, this is almost a little frustrating, because this is the kind of thing he really shouldn’t be pigeonholed as – basically, begging for others’ approval and praise and focusing on idolizing others. Even his most insightful moments in this song come from his appreciation of something that came from someone else (Taichi), not from himself.

Well, the thing is, that was Daisuke’s character for most of the first half of 02. Of course, even in early episodes, there were many times where Daisuke’s potential for positivity and forward-thinkingness were starting to poke through, but most of the time he was rolling over trying to please others and chasing after his seniors. The real period of time he started to grow into his own about this was 02 episode 24 and its aftermath – when his time spent with his friends started to fill the void in his life and his need for validation, and the escalating situation, especially with Ken, led him to have a proper grasp of what was properly important and what needed to be done.

So when we get to his new solo, RUNNING MAN…

I’ll keep on running far ahead Let’s bring everyone along with me, today, too Really, always, thank you, Thank you so much Riding the wind, going past the sky Grasping your hands and flying I’m even starting to see beyond my dreams

Even in only one section, you can get an instant image of the Motomiya Daisuke we all know and love – someone who appreciates his friends’ role in his life, loves their company, and moves positively towards the future. Because, again, after the events of 02, and after being able to bond further with his friends and gaining his own strengths in leading everyone forward, he became able to more properly express his love for everything instead of constantly vying for others’ attention. Even the title reflects the change, from a “boy” who’s flashing the symbol of courage he got from someone else, to a “man” who’s positively running forward on his own merits.

(Interestingly, RUNNING MAN is composed by Ohta Michihiko, a legendary composer who’s made many of some of the most important songs in the franchise, and also composed many of the original Best Partner songs, including Goggle Boy. It’s interesting how RUNNING MAN is the one most like the original songs in atmosphere as a result – possibly representing how Daisuke is a simple-minded person who ostensibly doesn’t change drastically in disposition – yet has lyrical content that’s so starkly different.)

As a result, this is subtly reflected in the other two songs in each album as well – remember that V-mon is one of the partners who most “matches” his own partner in terms of disposition and mentality. So as Daisuke shifted his own priorities, V-mon did too; we go from Go Ahead! being about taking a stand and fighting, whereas Beyond the Future is about a similar forward-thinking mentality to Daisuke’s.

Likewise, the duets have different priorities as well; 2-TOP was composed of Daisuke and V-mon bickering for the most of it, and the most substantial point you could get about it was that despite their bickering, they made it work, whereas HEY-rasshai! has them almost entirely in sync (with one minor moment of deviance). It’s also interesting to see the topics covered in each; 2-TOP is about soccer, which ultimately is revealed to be a fairly incidental hobby for Daisuke, whereas HEY-rasshai! is about ramen making, which, while comical, also has a very strong tie to “Daisuke’s dream for the future, and his willingness to single-mindedly dedicate himself to something when it’s something he truly wants”. In other words, while Daisuke knew what he wanted since elementary school, it says a lot that he’s at a point where he and V-mon are now taking proactive steps to have that dream achieved, now that they’re able.

Ken and Wormmon

Like with his position in 02 itself, Ken’s is probably the easiest to see the contrast without trying too hard, but there’s still quite a lot to unpack!

When you think about it, in the modern era, it’s actually surprisingly hard to find stuff too relevant to Ken’s time as the Kaiser. The reason is, simply, that the series itself discourages this – Ken himself had an obvious aversion to dwelling too much on it, and the entire series itself has a strong theme of “moving on”. It’s not to say that the Kaiser doesn’t have a fanbase (I’m sorry if you’re reading this and find that I might be implying too hard that you don’t exist), but rather that there’s a franchise and fanart tendency to focus more on “Ken-chan” than “the Kaiser” these days, and old merch from the first half of the series will all too often get responses of “it’s really sad Ken-chan can’t be there…” Of course, 02 itself was also about accepting one’s mistakes, not pretending they never happened, so it’d be foolhardy to deny Ken’s dark history entirely, but it’s retroactively interesting to see such a prominent and persistent piece of merch like Ken and Wormmon’s original Best Partner album focus so largely on Ken’s time as the Kaiser when most of the franchise ended up trying to move on.

Starting with Ken’s solo songs, and his first one, ONLY ONE:

I’ve lived without showing my true feelings, wearing this mask

Well, this was easy to tell from the series itself, but the point driven home is that Ken didn’t want to expose his true self to others, putting on a front of “strength” and smashing his true feelings into the corner so that he could become more of the “perfect” person he thought he was supposed to be. There’s also another interesting line that one should pay attention to:

I polished the knife in my heart and put my belief in infinite power

Basically, putting up a defensive front to prevent anything from approaching his weaknesses.

Anyway, moving onto his new song, Never Ending:

If I want to be proud of tomorrow’s version of myself I wonder, what can I do? Never Give-up I’ll keep fighting, even doing someone else’s part No, I won’t be afraid anymore

First of all, the main theme of the song is about putting conscious thought into understanding how to stay true to himself – basically, understanding what it is he really wants to do and become, instead of putting on fronts and hiding it from others. Not only that, we see traces of what exactly he gained over the course of the second half of 02 – because so much of it involved constantly trying to blame himself for everything, this song is about what he came to learn in terms of proactively making it up and actively fighting forward. He’s working hard!

We also have this part:

The knife that’s pointed at someone, or at myself If it’s been let go of

Two things going on here: firstly, we have an explicit reference to the metaphorical “knife” Ken referred to putting up in ONLY ONE, talking about finally letting it go instead of bothering with this kind of front. He also points out that, in a sense, the knife was pointed at himself too, either in the sense of actually having hurt himself through this entire ideal, or in the sense that he constantly was trying to blame and punish himself for everything. None of that should be necessary anymore. Moreover, Never Ending contains a lot of references to “daily life” and the happiness that comes with the simplicity of just being alive – because that was indeed what Ken gained through his experiences, the ability to treasure living life in itself instead of aspiring to an impossible standard.

Another interesting thing about Never Ending is that it’s technically in a similar rock genre to ONLY ONE instead of being “soft”, like Ken’s personality is often thought to be. This was a surprise to a lot of people who commented on how surprisingly “cool” the song was, but this is actually completely in line with Ken arguably being one of the most openly assertive people in this group even after his reformation. Note that it’s very difficult to call this song purely angsty – it’s definitely positive and forward-thinking, and the chorus itself is partially in major key – but it has the vibe of someone who’s fully aware of everything that’s happened, is putting proper thought into it, and is pushing on despite everything. Remember, the intensity the Kaiser had originally came from somewhere; Ichijouji Ken is the same person, in the end.

In regards to Wormmon’s song, the contrast is also obvious: The Future You Dreamed of, the Future I Dreamed Of. is of course about Wormmon’s tormented feelings during the Kaiser’s abusive relationship with him, whereas can change it! is about its aftermath and how they made up (including copious references to the events of 02 episode 23). Even then, there’s a certain “forward-thinking” attitude that marks this song as being representative of being after 02’s events and not during – see the line “The mistake we made that day/is exactly the reason we’ll never let it happen again”, instead of the self-punishment and shame Stingmon expressed in 02 episode 26).

On top of that, the duet song Forever Adolescence also marks a subtle progression from the point they were at from True Strength – remembering that Best Partner 12 was released at a time when True Strength was actually a bit of a spoiler, while Ken and Wormmon obviously had made up by that point, the key line in it is still “everything truly begins from here”. So what, exactly, happened after that? According to Forever Adolescence, the decision made was to keep moving forward, and, moreover, to stay “the way they are”, especially with the nuance that it means it’s okay to not force oneself into the role of an adult and stay “young at heart”. This is really, really important in light of the events of Kizuna, the 02 group’s unusual role in it and its relevance to 02′s themes (more on this below), and how Spring 2003 referred to the pressure placed on Osamu as him being “forced to grow up too quickly” – in essence, Ken and Wormmon have firmly resolved to actively move away from that kind of pressure.

Miyako and Hawkmon

I’ve pointed out several times on this blog that the actual complex Miyako was going through in 02 was that she hated herself more than anyone else in the group would be willing to criticize her – and if you don’t believe me, it’s put in a pretty heavy-handed manner in her original song, Crash and Bingo!:

Fussing about it won’t get anything done But my selfishness and problems and panic keep coming out

…and even more viciously in her own and Hawkmon’s duet, Fly High:

I can’t do anything right, besides playing around with computers

or

Everyone would be still be fine if I weren’t there

If you thought it was subtle in the main series, it certainly isn’t here: Miyako considered herself good for absolutely nothing and unable to be accepted by others for being too useless – in these songs, despite Hawkmon’s attempts to uplift her, she criticizes her own messy tendencies and considers herself a burden. Best Partner is a positive series, so it still has the attitude of “we’ll try anyway”, but it’s clear that Miyako really didn’t have the highest opinion of herself at all. Hence, Fly High also shows off the worst of Hawkmon having to deal with the fallout – with Miyako flailing around in panic and considering herself good for nothing, he’s forced to carry her around.

But come Miyako’s new solo, From Spain with Love!, we see a huge contrast all over the place:

I, who have evolved into an adult make everyone do a double-take at me when I walk by!

Exhibit A: actual confidence in herself and ability to consider herself worth something;

If I can always, always be honest with myself Even if I don’t put together some program, even if I keep screwing up Ah, you understand me

Exhibit B: understanding that she’s worth something to others besides her utility abilities, and knowing that she has friends who’ll support her despite her flaws (which is very true);

When things are feeling hard, the first thing you should do is call me, okay? I’ll take the wings of love and purity, spread them, and get there as fast as I can Ah, I’ll open up any gate I need to

Exhibit C: indulging in her capacity for helping and supporting others;

Al mal tiempo, buena cara We laugh exactly when things are hard

Exhibit D: understanding the strength to get through hard times, instead of emotionally crumbling under the pressure.

Yep, that’s exactly what her character arc in 02 was about; 02 episode 31 was a huge turning point for her because, in the depths of her berating herself for her messiness and expecting Hikari to be secretly judging her the whole time, Hikari revealed that she was outright jealous of Miyako being able to speak her mind, and Miyako shortly after ended up showing her true capacity for reaching others who needed her help and supporting them, a role she ended up growing into for the rest of the series. Note that, other than the casual remark of confidence at the beginning, Miyako hasn’t necessarily become arrogant or anything – it’s just that, by focusing her energies into how much she loves everyone and turning her “nosiness” and “sticking herself into others’ business” tendencies into positive energy to help everyone, she gained more confidence in her ability to be loved and accepted by others.

This is reflected as well in her new duet with Hawkmon, where, instead of Hawkmon dragging her around everywhere, their differences and mismatched personalities are outright celebrated, and while Miyako still has awareness of her messy tendencies, she’s no longer letting it emotionally rip her apart and has confidence that Hawkmon can be by her side to help her through it. Perhaps reflecting that, Hawkmon himself goes from the over-the-top, dramatic, high-strung Knight of Love to the more calm and straightforward Gentle Tornado, perhaps because his own partner isn’t constantly bouncing off the walls recklessly nearly as much anymore.

Incidentally, it’s not like all of this is without nuance, either; even if Miyako’s become more of a confident person, she’s not all put-together. Considering that the entire song has her gushing about how she’d be willing to drop anything to go see her friends (which was pushed forward in Kizuna itself, what with her willingly taking the same request she’d refused to do earlier just because her friends were involved, and even inventing D-3 gate exploitation just to go see them), when you get to the end, and her gushing about her fun in Spain suddenly derails into reminiscing about the events of 02 episode 42, the implication is clear: for as much as she wants to be wholeheartedly enjoying this fun trip abroad for what it is, she can’t help but let her thoughts float back to memories and friends she cares about, and her bonus conversation with Hawkmon drives it in further that, ultimately, she dearly misses them too much.

Iori and Armadimon

Iori also went through some drastic changes in character over the course of 02, so when you look at My Conclusion, it’s basically Iori at his “worst” point of black-and-white morality:

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Evil will not be tolerated Even evil in itself will be defeated by justice That will always be a certainty in the end

I mean, let’s even consider the fact that the song is called “My Conclusion” in the first place. Iori’s slamming this all down like this is the end-all of everything, and you can’t change his mind! He does briefly admit that there are certain things reason itself won’t change, but it’s more like he’s on the verge of having an out, because in the end, really…

Everyone, I will be speaking my conclusion Our enemies are beyond reason Again and again, to the very end They will certainly use cowardly means to come and attack us

Rationality. No feelings involved. Evil is evil, and justice is justice. No takebacks. Life exists by rules, and nothing else.

Message to the Future is possibly one of the most interesting songs in the original Best Partner collection, because it does actually provide hints about where Iori should be going in the future, and also has a lot of things that retroactively hit a lot harder from the meta perspective. The song fully fleshes out Iori’s feelings and concerns about how to grow up into a proper adult (which was hinted to be his real motivation as to why he was so strict with himself in 02), and that, most of all, what he wants is for his “feelings” to never change no matter what happens. Iori expresses concerns about how he might change as an adult to Armadimon, and Armadimon assures him that he’ll still be “Iori”, no matter what.

So, come the new character song collection, Iori’s new solo song is aptly titled “Things That Won’t Change” – because, in the end, despite everything that changed, his feelings did not. He says it himself: the important parts that he really wanted, the desire to do the right thing and to protect others, never changed a bit at all since “back then”. What did change, however, was his way of going about it.

Rather than what someone else has decided I’ve chosen my own future now

and again:

Rather than imitating someone else This is to shout out my own future

The emphasis on this being Iori’s own choice is important because Iori has finally decided not to live by strict rules imposed on him nor by imitating others (remember, part of the reason he kept doing what he did back in 02 was because he had such a strong belief “my father would have done this”). Others had been encouraging him to “make his own decisions” from the get-go – even Hida Chikara himself had told him that he was the one who needed to decide what to do in any moment in 02 episode 5 – and after dealing with a violation of his own morals in having to kill a Digimon in 02 episode 44, one episode later, in discussing with Takeru, Iori has to come to terms with the decision to continue fighting because “this is what I have decided myself”, because it’s not about whether he has an obligation to keep fighting for the sake of justice, but because he, himself, wants to protect others, and will do what it takes to do so. There’s no more of these strict rules of “because it must be this way” or the black-and-white morality that caused him to be so initially hostile towards Ken and Oikawa, but an understanding that these things need to be decided from the heart.

Moreover, unlike My Conclusion, Things That Won’t Change isn’t written like Iori’s turning in some school essay, but rather, more than half the song is in casual-form Japanese (which was associated with Iori when he became more emotional and wasn’t keeping himself in check anymore), and is more of a thoughtful reflection of his own feelings rather than trying to pass itself off as following rules because he must.

Thus, while the duet Choo Choo Tryin’ isn’t as heavy-handed as Message to the Future, Iori and Armadimon acknowledge that they need to be forward-thinking and keep going (generally tied to the message of 02 in itself), and Iori outright discusses the potential pitfalls of becoming too stiff. Furthermore, the song has copious rap portions, which seems rather unfitting for Iori on its face – until you realize that not only was Iori sometimes willing to indulge in more fun even back during 02 (just because he was strict with himself didn’t mean he was a complete killjoy), Iori’s also just a lot more flexible-minded in general, and has a penchant for wanting to do things right when he’s given a task. (His delivery of the rap in the song isn’t monotonous nor overly emotional, but has the nuance of someone who’s trying to recite all of it with caution.)

The part that’s particularly striking from the meta perspective is that Iori and Armadimon are no longer voiced by the same voice actress; Message to the Future was essentially Urawa Megumi talking to herself. So now, Iori has a new voice actor, and in many ways has become very different from Armadimon – but because Armadimon sounds a little like Iori, you could say he’s helping preserve the childish side of Iori that’s more important than ever to hold onto, especially since Iori himself worried about changing too much. And so, Iori’s still willing to indulge in a sort of “fun” song like this, and in the end, despite everything, you understand that they haven’t drifted apart at all in the slightest.

That’s not to say that Armadimon himself hasn’t changed either – in fact, he’s changed himself in response to how much Iori has. His original solo song had a lot of easygoingness to it, and some constant reminders for Iori to please, please chill – but his new one has a much stronger sense of resolve and forward-thinking attitude, reflecting that, while Iori himself technically had to learn to embrace more emotional uncertainty through the events of 02, it was also able to give him much stronger resolve that this was something he was doing because he was emotionally prepared for it, not out of some sense of moral obligation.

Takeru and Patamon

I’ve already covered Takeru’s original Best Partner song Focus and how it’s probably not about shipping as much as the fanbase tends to pin it as, but in any case, the operative part is here:

Before I knew it, I was watching over you Still standing at a skewed angle from behind The focus of your heart I wonder, is it on me, or… No, I can’t ask

Takeru couldn’t bring himself to ask sensitive questions or be straightforward about his emotions – which is basically what was Takeru’s lingering problem over Adventure and 02, that he kept swerving around or even lying about sensitive topics and holding everything inside, until one of his triggers was hit and everything exploded. Therefore, even when an important question about someone else comes up, he “can’t ask”. Moreover, for all Takeru is known as a lighthearted and kind person, Focus is a really turbulent song with a really harsh arrangement, and it’s a pretty accurate view of all the complicated and sometimes even negative emotions that Takeru was (badly) coping with over the course of 02.

This was the whole issue with Takeru and Iori’s Jogress arc in 02 episodes 34-36 – that Iori felt he couldn’t understand nor communicate well with Takeru, and had to eventually take matters into his own hands in order to properly understand his feelings. Takeru’s further interactions with Iori were significantly more straightforward for the rest of the series, and the experience also led to Takeru being able to more openly communicate with Ken as well, since the two had been on awkward speaking terms for most of the third quarter of the series.

So when we get to Step High Step…

You lament, you don’t have confidence in yourself I’m saying this to you as I’ve been watching you You’re amazing at all times

The song features Takeru being fairly straightforward about his feelings and opinions instead of just dodging it and going for an “everything’s okay” keeping-the-peace attitude, and not only that, he’s commenting on someone else, something that he probably would have refrained from in 02 for being intrusive. Of course, Takeru was always a nice person, but he wasn’t exactly straightforward about being nice back then – and yet here we are.

Since Focus is probably about his relationship with Patamon and how he kind of wasn’t exactly straightforward about his worries with him either (see 02 episode 34), it’s also interesting to compare Takeru and Patamon’s duet songs as well. Steppin’ out does portray a progression from Adventure in that they’ve accepted they can “do things over” again after things crash down (presumably referring to Angemon’s death and rebirth), but you’ll notice there isn’t much in the way of actual communciation between the two – something that’s not only present in Le Lien, but also portrays them as outright in-sync to the point of “telepathy”. We’re talking about a pair where the fanbase has historically had doubts about how similar they were back in 02 because of how “mismatched” they seemed!

Which, incidentally, they weren’t actually – you can see Patamon pretending he’s not about to cry in his original Best Partner song Don’t Stop Pata-Pata, much like how Takeru would cover up his own emotions, and gritting his teeth and resolving to fight harder. Meanwhile, while Ring of Smiles ostensibly continues to have Patamon be “sweet and cute”, it contains a lot of important nuances of “appreciating daily life with friends”, even if Patamon himself can’t quite find words for it – in other words, it’s actually some rather insightful and thoughtful sentiments from Patamon about the importance of being with and connecting with others, mirroring what Takeru himself learned in connecting with the others around him, especially Iori.

Hikari and Tailmon

Remember, Hikari has two lines (one in Adventure and one in 02) that basically summarize the main “issue” she was dealing with in both series: she was selfless to unhealthy levels, and would prioritize others’ welfare over herself to the point of self-destruction. So in her original solo Best Partner song, Gentle Rain, she puts it pretty explicitly:

I want to always be wearing nothing but smiles But I can’t be cheerful all of the time

or:

So that I can become a greater version of myself Please give me strength

All things considered, Gentle Rain is full of Hikari’s own insecurities, and her belief that she doesn’t have enough strength to do anything for herself. She makes references to being pulled to the Dark Ocean, mainly because – as she says – she doesn’t want to go there, but she doesn’t have enough strength or willpower to resist it. In fact, Best Partner 11 is full of a lot of angst; Gentle Rain is Hikari angsting about her own weakness and inability to do much for herself, Getting up is Tailmon angsting about her painful past and everything to do with it, and Shining Star is basically a plea for both of them to be able to do anything despite all the pain. It’s all pretty severely heavy content, despite the initial sparkly-looking sentiment of it all.

Considering the circumstances, it’s not really all that surprising. Hikari spent her time in Adventure and the first half of 02 very “emotionally isolated” from the others, to the point very few people could understand what she was thinking, and while she’d never hesitate to put herself out for other people, anything to do with herself, like getting pulled to the Dark Ocean, would result in resignation “it’s over” and “I can’t do anything about it”. Tailmon came from the background of being effectively raised by the abusive Vamdemon, so 02 was really only part of the earliest portion of her moving on with her life and being able to spend happier moments with Hikari. But, of course, the real turning point was 02 episode 31, when Miyako finally managed to break through to her and convince her to not accept the inevitability of things happening to herself, to accept help with the support of others, and to not take things happening to her as a sign she’s doomed.

So when we reach Hikari���s new solo song, Tomorrow’s Blue…

I want to chase after my dreams and hopes, it’s fine even if they’re incomplete I won’t lose, I won’t stop, I’ll do this to stay true to myself

The most striking thing about the song is that it features Hikari assertively talking about her own desires and feelings, when back in 02 she basically tried to kick them out of the picture for the sake of everyone else (and, really, even in Tailmon’s new solo song, Tender tale, she outright calls Hikari out for still prioritizing other people over herself). It’s not demeaning herself, it’s not resigning herself to anything, it may have a slight admission that she’s not super-confident about everything yet, but it’s still her looking forward and choosing to pursue what he wants. It’s a big deal!

And instead of the constant angst that permeated Best Partner 11, the new album is about Hikari and Tailmon talking about their feelings towards each other – something that neither of them really verbalized that well over either Adventure and 02 – and contextualizing their importance to each other over the course of their “story”. Hikari talks about Tailmon’s role of assertiveness in helping her break out of her shell, and Tailmon generally provides an extremely accurate description of Hikari in a nutshell – that she’s a bit mysterious, that she’s emotionally sensitive, that she’s cheerful and lifts others’ spirits. What’s more, Tailmon makes a reference to the same kind of “pain” and “losing things” she referred to in Getting up, but instead of angsting about it, she positively accepts it as something that may happen in the process of protecting others. (Oh, and it and the new duet A Tale of the Light also make reference to Hikari’s photography hobby in 02, contextualizing it as something Hikari did to chronicle their precious memories.)

So in summary, Hikari and Tailmon have both been able to accept 02′s philosophy of becoming forward-thinking, positive, and accepting the help of others in order to move forward. Not bad!

Conclusion and digression

Despite how these songs are almost polar opposite in portraying their before-and-after development of the 02 kids, nobody’s really argued that any of them are out of character! In the end, it’s a pretty succinct depiction of what these kids were dealing with and what they grew into by the end of the series. Seriously, I never, ever want to hear that these kids were underdeveloped nor that they didn’t go through any significant development over the course of 02 ever again. That’s just not true at all, and this simply happens to be one of the many illustrations of how.

Moreover, the songs themselves and the “conversations” that came with the new albums solidify firmly that the 02 group has extremely tight relations with their partners even at this time – with Daisuke actively consulting V-mon for help, Miyako, Takeru, and Hikari actively dragging their partners everywhere with them, Ken having Wormmon be his effective alarm clock, and Iori being so close with Armadimon that his Nagoya dialect is rubbing off on him. Daisuke, Miyako and Hikari have a huge point made that, regardless of the rather easygoing way they’re going at it, they’re very aware of what they want to do from this point out and are following it with gusto (and while it’s not stated in words, Iori carrying a huge textbook, presumably a law one, with note markers all over it drives the point home that this applies to him, too). It’s a really, really huge contrast to what was going on with the directionless Taichi, Yamato, and Sora effectively neglecting their own partners back in Kizuna – and further reinforces the reason the 02 group was in such an unusually favorable position during the movie.