#like I’m very much a fan of Nancy and I get that being thrust into life or death situations with horrors beyond your comprehension means

[xenon-demon]

sails you are once again my favourite person on this webbed site 🙏🤩

what the st writers don't understand is that nancy suddenly wanting steve back now that he's moved on bc she sees him in a different light now is a million times more compelling than steve still being into her after four seasons of her not giving a shit about him

[mercurygray]

A Fine Toledo Blade

A Lavinia Montrose drabble featuring Mr. Daniel Marney...again. A sequel to Teaching the Tigress, one of the Royal Tigress pieces.

Daniel Marney was not a stranger to being summoned. Crooked fingers and come-hither glances and flashing fans were his stock in trade, and he answered each and every one as he was bid. A dog must not bite the hand that feeds him - even if it is tired of being treated like a dog.

But a footman, in livery and with a note in hand - that was worth puzzling over. How out of place he looked, standing at Daniel's door in his good coat with his gold braid. And at such an hour! Seven in the morning if it was a minute past - hardly the usual time for love affairs, unless it was the breaking up and sending home of same. Yet here he was, answering his door for a footman with a note carrying a seal Daniel could not place, and addressed in a hand he did not know. "Your presence is requested at once at the house of Sir James Montrose." A single line.

What use could Sir James make of him at this hour?

Daniel rubbed his eyes, cursed the last of last night's wine, and went to fetch his coat.

There was a carriage, too, to accompany the footman, jolting and bouncing him over the cobbles to Mayfair and Sir James' fine house with its white Palladian columns and gleaming brass doorknocker. They let him in at the front, as though he were a guest of note, and a maid in a cap took his hat before the butler escorted him upstairs, opening the door to one of the bedrooms and ushering him inside.

There was a curious tableau before him, an intimate scene he almost felt he should not see - Sir James sitting on the edge of the bed, half-dressed, without his wig, and talking in close company with his wife, who looked to be in her sleeping gown and not much else, her hair loose. This was not the stern master of finance that Daniel had seen on previous occasions - Sir James' whole attitude was one of comfort, and concern, Lavinia a small and frightened animal hiding behind its mother.

The butler made some officious noise, and Sir James turned, taking in the sight at the door and cracking the smallest of smiles. "I have brought you a surprise, my sweet," he said softly, speaking into the bowed head as if to coax it out of hiding. "For a job well done. Will you not look and see what it is?"

Lavinia looked up, and Daniel felt his face go white - for where ever she had been the night before had not been kind to her. A huge purpling bruise spread across her throat, in snaking lines that suggested that someone had tried very hard to choke her.  Had she been sent to a place where someone wished her dead? Or was the object of her mission last night a man who found pleasure in such games?  Had Sir James known this when he set her lose, and sent her anyway, young and unschooled as she was?

And this was the sorry result.

He tried to hide his feeling, but it was of little use - she knew how she looked, and another witness to her shame was hardly the tonic she needed. "My lady," he said, his mouth dry, wishing he could say something - anything! - that might be of use or ease to her.

"I thought you might enjoy some company," Sir James offered. "The doctor has brought a tonic and a salve, and Mrs. Pierce will have breakfast when you want it." She nodded, trying to be brave, and he smiled and gently kissed her cheek, rising from the bed and crossing the room to where Daniel stood so they might speak in confidence.

"You will stay as long as she likes and do whatever she pleases," he ordered. "I will compensate you as you like." And with that he was gone.

Daniel looked once more at Lavinia, trying valiantly to arrange her hair so that it covered at least some of the bruise, sitting up in bed and sniffling and trying to dry her eyes. He sat down as gently as he could, taking the whole scene in with careful eyes while she continued to fuss and put on an appearance of business that would not let her stay still too long and let him take all of it in.

"You will forgive my appearance, Mr. Marney, I had a ....a misadventure last night," She said, trying to put on her queenly air and her smiles.  

"Who's done this to you?" he asked fiercely.

"No one worth mentioning," she managed, still trying to put her tears away. "Here, we will call for wine and cards, and -" He stilled her hand as she reached for the bell-pull and finally met her eyes. The mask hung in the air a moment before her resolve crumbled and she broke down into sobs. Daniel pulled her close and let her cry, realizing, as he did so, that his touch provoked still more agonies, these now of pain. Glancing over her shoulder, he peered down her back, lifting the neckline of her shift so he might see her back - as purpled and sore as her neck.

"Lavinia." She looked at him, afraid. "I'm not one of your gentlemen that you need put on a face for. Keep me or send me away if you like, but don't feel like you need to pretend. Now who's done this?"

"He doesn't matter."

"He does if Sir James will make you go back for afters." They've used you for a whipping post.

"No, it's...it's finished. I got what...what was wanted." She drew a breath and tried to steady herself. "It isn't always like this, you know."

No, sometimes it's worse, Daniel thought to himself. "Would you like a bath?" he offered. "I know I do, sometimes, when -" When I feel unclean, he wanted to say. When I come home from being Lady Repton's nephew, or Lord Basset's footman, or Mrs. Chalke's farmerboy. "The water will feel nice, and we can put on some of this salve."

She nodded, and began to rise from bed, a little unsteady on her feet, to sit near the tub while Daniel went out into the hallway and called for the maid to bring water. "Shall we brush your hair, while we wait?" he offered, wondering what other comfort he could possibly offer. She nodded and he went to her dressing table, finding the boarshair brush and taking a lock of her hair in one hand so he could gently untangle it. She shivered, at first, and finally relaxed.

"He held me by the hair," she said, after a while. "When he..." she gestured weakly to her throat.

"I'll stop."

"No, don't, it...it feels nice."

So he brushed her hair slowly while they waited for warm bathwater, and she told him of her evening, of the man she'd been sent to seduce and the information Sir James wanted from him, and the game she'd played to get into his room and his writing case, the naive young wife whose husband was too old to appreciate her. The sex had come after, a cover to let her escape. "Did he know?" Daniel asked, after he'd eased her into the water and taken off her chemise, and the extent of the damage was on full view. "Did he know he would do this?"

"I don't think so," she managed, huddling in the water, her arms crossed over her breasts. He was spreading the salve on her back, easing it onto her skin as best he could. "He told me what I should expect, of his...tastes, but he did not think...my throat unnerved him." She glanced up at him. "I passed out, in bed, and was sent home. I didn't have time to make it look...I think that's why he sent for you."

"I wish I could do more."

"Could you...kiss me?"

"I've no wish to hurt you."

"You won't."

He was gentle, so gentle, as his lips touched her cheeks and the corners of her eyes, tasting the tears on her skin. She was worth so much more than this, a fine Spanish blade sent to do the work a common filleting knife could handle, a silk handkerchief doing the office of a spoiled rag, and he wished to God that Sir James knew it. Work like this spoiled girls, maimed and lamed them and spit them out into the streets as tuppenny drabs, unless they were canny and quick about it and kept their wits around them. She would keep hers, Daniel thought, but she was older now then she had been when she'd first seem him, older and wiser in the way of the world. And they both knew this would not be the last time she was used so.

They remained like that a while, she in the tub and he out of it, Daniel wanting to keep the distance between them so she would not force herself to do what she thought he would want. Kisses he could provide, but to offer anything else when she was like this, afraid and vulnerable - unless she asked in specific - seemed the blackest kind of sin.

"The water's cold," she said, finally, standing up so he could wrap her in a towel and let her dry herself off, before slipping back into her chemise. "Would you...lay with me a while? Just to talk."

"I can," he said softly, tucking her into bed before easing himself around her above her covers, protective and warm but still apart. He wanted to protect her, as she should have been - but there was little hope of that. In a few hours she would send him away, and he would be paid, and that would be that. "There's a woman I know, in Covent Garden. Nancy Birch. She'd give you lessons, if you liked." He licked his lips, trying to think of what to say. "There are games you can play - to keep power in your hands. Sometimes a man who likes to beat likes to be beaten."

"Nancy Birch." She repeated the name like she was tasting it. "Could I...meet her?"

Daniel nodded, thinking of Nance's red coat, her sharp glares and cutting tongue, and the fox-haired girl who had played cards at the Cocoa Tree in her diamonds and emeralds, the bright Toledo steel blade that knew how to thrust and parry but not to kill, and as the two images blurred together his mind was decided. "I'll bring you to her," he promised.   I'll take you to Covent Garden, and she'll teach you what I can't, and sharpen you into a fine stiletto - the weapon Sir James wants to slip between his enemies' ribs. "But sleep first."

She agreed mutely, and closed her eyes, burrowing into her pillows. And Daniel slept, too, uneasily, wondering what Nancy Birch would think of Lavinia Montrose.

[alltherestsillusion]

*･☪˙ ˖( john cameron mitchell ) my favorite artist right now is TWENTY-SIX year old, TRANS FEMININE (NON-BINARY), JAMIE HARPER. you know, the ESTABLISHED ARTIST for nova records? she sounds kind of like JOHN CAMERON MITCHELL & NANCY WILSON. i’m pretty sure they’re working on their THIRD album right now. i’m so excited for it. i’m sure you’ve heard THE ORIGIN OF LOVE on the radio. it’s pretty much my favorite song right now. (Hansel, 22, cst, she/her/he/him)

Hello! As it says above, my name is Hansel and much like my character, I am nonbinary. Jamie is trans feminine, which means that she leans towards a more female or feminine presentation and self-view than a male one. The mun (me) is genderqueer, which can mean any variety of things, but in my case means that on some days I feel very femme and other days like a kinda femme boy, but largely I feel more genderless with a leaning towards makeup, punk, and glam rock. I’ve been rping for a little under two and a half years; mostly on indie, mostly as Hedwig Robinson (the role JCM is best known for), and I’ve been wanting to branch out. Hence Jaime. But enough about me.

Jamie Harper was born April 5th, 1991 and was, much to her chagrin, designated male at birth. She knew she wasn’t a boy relatively early on, but she didn’t know exactly what she was outside of ‘not this’ until years later.

She picked the name Jamie because it was a nice balance to her of male and female. She wanted something that was easily scanable to people regardless of how they read her. Initially, she didn’t really have a preference for male or female pronouns as long as it was generally acknowledged that she wasn’t really male or female and that the pronouns were just a shorthand way of referring to her, but growing older and constantly being forced to be ‘male’ has given her a strong preference for she/her pronouns.

She released her first album with Nova Records when she was twenty-two. It was something she had been working on for years piecing it together and working and reworking the songs and lines while sitting on her bedroom floor. It charted at #6 in the US charts which was higher than she could have ever imagined, but it thrust her into fame far faster than she had expected. Twenty-two is still relatively young to have the whole world wanting your attention at any given moment.

Her next, currently untitled, album features a song she’s been working on since she was little called The Origin of Love. Her manager outside of the label is pressuring her to produce a love themed album, incorporating the previous live overture song Eros either as its own song or as a musical theme to tie the album together. Jamie isn’t so sure. Actually she isn’t so sure about the fan reception to the album either way and that makes her nervous. Her second album, Oracle, was released nearly three years ago and while the reception was great, she’s beginning to wonder if she’s been too long out of the spotlight. If she has, how she’ll get it back and if she hasn’t, what if this is the album on which she slips and doesn’t have the success she’s now come to expect?

FACTS!

⚫  —  Jamie’s birth name was William, which she hated. Occasionally, people who knew her from before will call her Will or Wills and she does not respond nicely to either. Once, she punched a paparazzo who called her ‘Will’ when trying to get her attention and trying to get a rise out of her. Her press manager was not happy with this.

⚫  —  People usually shorten her name to either ‘James’ or ‘J’, both of which she likes.

⚫  —  Jamie is trans femmine, but not a trans woman. She’s more comfortable generally in a female presentation, but she doesn’t feel like she’d ever be fully female—not because she couldn’t transition, but because fully transitioning wouldn’t be the right thing for her. She doesn’t want to get bottom surgery despite pressures to conform to one way of being or another.

⚫  —  Jamie’s bisexual, but is more comfortable with men. She knows where she stands with men. Sometimes, being next to cis women makes her feel like she’s not good enough and that she’s a pretender, that she’s lied to her fans about being trans, and is exploiting a current ‘in vogue’ topic to get press that she wouldn’t ordinarily get. Of course, it’s not true, but the doubts are something she’s never quite been good at dispelling. Especially when the pathways for how exactly she’s supposed to be trans feminine without taking the plunge and medically transitioning are ones she’s had to forage on her own.

⚫  —  James is most happy when she’s writing or composing music by herself. When she was younger, this meant in her bedroom. Now, it means either lavish hotel suites or privately booked recording studios.

⚫  —  The closing theme for Jamie’s concerts (usually only heard on the live CDs or DVDs, not so much actually in concert) is Agape.