#she's been playing her role like 60 years now; it's harder for her to be HERSELF than this mask

[invinciblerodent]

Even though I'm barely 5-6 hours into this playthrough so far, playing a character like Iona, who is genuinely cunning and insightful (she has to be, with her 17 cha and her insight- and persuasion proficiency), is already proving to be such a fun way to do the Astarion romance.

I was just reviewing the "stargazing" scene I recorded today, and I felt it in the moment too, but especially in retrospect, it's so clear that her genuine charisma just always keeps him slightly off-balance.

He goes systematically through the routines, the tried and true methods (doing something that's generally considered romantic like stargazing, draping himself onto a bedroll in a casual, but inviting, seductive pose, weirdly negging her about her chin?? which is honestly just funny??, standing just a touch too close, giving her a taste of interest but withdrawing immediately, etc.), only.... none of them seem to stick.

At one point he clearly thinks he has her, when she all but purrs about how they should get to know each other, and he seems to take it at face value, ready to pull back to keep her interest, but then.... she laughs???? And tells him she was joking???? His face, for a split second there, it looks so.... blank. The smirk melts off immediately.

This weird look, there for less than a second, is so telling. Especially with the following line being a hollow laugh and a "Hm? Yes! Of course, me too."

(C'mon, we both know you were not joking. I can see the "....shit" behind your eyes.)

Then he excuses himself immediately, and you can almost hear the "WHAT the absolute FUCK was THAT." rushing through his head.

Like... he sees that she's toying with him, calling his bluff, and yet, she doesn't push back, and does it in such a playful manner, one he might even call.... nice??? Is she being nice to him, for failing to seduce her??? Hells, she finds the empty flattery funny, rather than insulting???

Even early on, it really seems as if he's trying to hold onto his playbook, but with a character like her, whose charisma is natural rather than learned, it just... falls flat, it doesn't work. But it also kind of does, because she seems... entertained? Interested? It's frustrating how he can't seem to get a bead on her, yet there's also a little something about this weird uncertainty that makes the game... almost fun for him too. For the first time in a long time, she's not just a target, but she meets him halfway, if not a step ahead.

Her reactions are actually unpredictable, even this early. He tried and failed to trick her, and instead of being furious, it's as if she's egging him on. Instead of "stop that", she's saying "you can do better".

So far, Iona thinks that the reason for all this flattery and coyness is literally just that he's a man with a slightly over-inflated ego, who finds her attractive and wants to get into her pants, but thinks her simple enough to believe his pretty, practiced words. It wouldn't be the first time, and it wouldn't be the last. And she's willing to entertain his game, because, well, why not, you know? It's not like he's bad to look at, or like she's looking for a relationship (she just got out of a 35 year one by setting her house and husband on fire for gods' sakes), sleeping with another be-tadpoled adventurer would just be a bit of mutually beneficial, convenient fun.

It'll not be until the Shadowlands and the whole mess there that she realizes it wasn't "mutually beneficial" at all. That he told her pretty lies, but not because he wanted her to spread her legs, but because he wanted to be important to her- so that she'll protect him.

Gah, this relationship is going to be so fun to roleplay. I'm already having such a good time with it.

There is a Lous and the Yakuza song, "Masquerade", that I keep thinking about with them. Especially the part where it repeats the line "Before you'd speak to me/take off your mask" in French and Spanish in a kind of back and forth, which I feel really works for them.

[mariacallous]

The U.S. secretary of commerce is recovering from a fractured tailbone, but she doesn’t know how it happened.

“I have no idea!” Gina Raimondo says with an exasperated sigh when I ask, before pointing to the donut pillow that she’s about to sit down on for our interview. She adds, “I’m only telling you because I don’t want you to think I’m weird.”

We meet late on a Friday morning in July in Raimondo’s office on the fifth floor of the Department of Commerce—one of Washington’s largest government buildings, located just off Pennsylvania Avenue and across the street from the White House complex.

For the past three-and-a-half years, the proximity between the two buildings has been more symbolic than ever. The Commerce Department has been thrust to the forefront of what is arguably President Joe Biden’s biggest geopolitical priority: winning the technological race against China and ensuring U.S. economic and military primacy.

That includes cutting off Chinese access to advanced semiconductor chips through ever-expanding export controls while also ensuring that more of those chips are made in the United States and allied countries; spearheading the development and regulation of artificial intelligence; and even looking ahead to the implications of advanced quantum computing through the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

As one individual put it at a recent gathering in Washington conducted under the Chatham House Rule, the Pentagon is probably “jealous” of the Commerce Department’s centrality to U.S. national security.

Raimondo acknowledged her department’s outsized influence but disagreed that the overriding sentiment is that of jealousy. U.S. Defense Secretary “Lloyd Austin has called me his battle buddy,” she said, adding that she sees herself as “connected at the hip” with the military and intelligence communities.

“We’re at the red-hot center of national security and economic competitiveness,” Raimondo said. “Some of that is because technology is in the middle of everything, and some of it, I think, is just the way in which I have managed this place.”

That centrality is why I wanted to sit down with Raimondo. I wanted to know more about how she balances the need to protect national security interests with the department’s mandate to promote U.S. economic growth and competitiveness—and her role in repositioning the department for those shifting priorities.

Raimondo’s familiarity with technology predates her political career. In 2000, she co-founded Point Judith Capital—the first venture capital firm in her native state of Rhode Island. The experience influenced her “a lot,” she told me.

“I like to be with entrepreneurs. I love it. I miss it. That’s what I did,” she said. She then lowered her voice to nearly a whisper, as if she was telling me a secret: “So many people in government just play it safe, worry about their job—you’re not going to get anything done that way. Don’t be afraid to speak up, don’t be afraid to try for something big. Have impact. Judge yourself on impact.”

Raimondo decided to take that approach into politics, being elected as Rhode Island’s treasurer in 2010 before becoming the state’s first woman governor in 2015. She served in that position until Biden named her to his cabinet—making it through the Senate confirmation process despite opposition from some Republicans who accused her of being soft on China.

It would be harder to make that claim now. Raimondo has been the target of Chinese hackers and memelords, who see her as the face of the Biden administration’s anti-China tech policies.

Some of them took that literally, superimposing her images on fake ads for Chinese tech giant Huawei’s new Mate 60 Pro smartphone, which was released during Raimondo’s visit to Beijing last year. The phone is powered by a relatively advanced 7 nanometer chip—designed and made in China—that was previously thought to be beyond Beijing’s capacity to build due to U.S. export controls.

“I was there. I saw the billboards; my face on the billboard with the Huawei phone—my kids sent me the [memes], saying ‘Mom, this is terrible!’ because it’s all over TikTok,” Raimondo said, mentioning another major Chinese tech platform that Washington is trying to ban. “They were not subtle.”

In keeping with Raimondo’s credo of judging oneself by impact, I asked what impact the export controls on China have had, and how successful the Biden administration’s “small yard, high fence” approach to cutting off Beijing’s access to critical technologies has been.

“I’m smiling, because yesterday I had a meeting with my team, and I’m pushing them hard to share data with me on the effectiveness of our export controls, and we have a little study ongoing where I’m trying to collect the data,” she said, “because that’s really the question you’re asking, like, ‘show me, show me.’”

That data is still a work in progress and hasn’t been made public yet, but Raimondo laid out her case for why she believes that the United States remains in the lead: China may have put a 7 nanometer chip in Huawei’s phone (the smaller that number, the more advanced the chip—the iPhone 15 Pro, for example, is powered by a 3 nanometer chip), but there still isn’t evidence that it can produce those chips at scale. And they’re a far cry from the 2 nanometer chips that will soon be made in Arizona by the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company—the global industry leader—thanks to subsidies from another big Commerce Department-led initiative, the CHIPS and Science Act.

U.S. artificial intelligence models are also more advanced than their Chinese rivals, which “wouldn’t be the case” if it weren’t for export controls on the chips needed to train those models, Raimondo said.

“However, I think it’s very dangerous to assume that it’s inevitable that we’ll stay ahead. I think that’s an arrogant viewpoint,” she said. “I feel good about where we are, but literally every single day, we should be on the edge of our seat.”

Determining the size of the yard—how many and what kinds of technologies should be subject to U.S. export controls to China—and the height of the fence—how strong those export controls should be—has been a challenge. It’s a tricky place to be in for a department whose official purpose is to be the “voice of business in the federal government” in a country that prides itself on the openness that fosters technological innovation. China, with more than a billion people, has been a coveted and lucrative market for U.S. companies for years, but it is also now undisputedly the United States’ biggest geopolitical rival.

Nvidia, the California company that designs advanced semiconductors that are essential to training artificial intelligence models, is making new chips that it can continue selling to China without flouting the export controls. And the Semiconductor Industry Association, a leading trade group, has urged the Commerce Department to “reduce burdens” on chip exports even as it praises efforts to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to U.S. shores.

“Excessive and unilateral export restrictions stifle the ability of American companies to compete with foreign competitors that do not bear the same export-related administrative and bureaucratic burdens,” the association writes on its website.

The Commerce Department’s initial export controls on semiconductor sales to China in October 2022 drew a critical line in the sand and set the tone for the Biden administration’s broader China policy. They were further tightened a year later to include a broader swath of chips, and additional restrictions are reportedly in the works.

“I struggle with this. It’s hard to know exactly where to draw the line,” Raimondo said. “I’ve tried hard to bring strategic thinking to the BIS so it’s not whack-a-mole,” she added, referring to the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security, which oversees export controls. “That being said, China’s not standing still and technology’s not standing still, so when we learn that now they can take less sophisticated equipment or less sophisticated chips and maybe use more of them to do bad things, well, then we’re going to change.”

Could there be a point where the yard gets too big, and the fence gets too high? On the latter, it’s a firm no. “There’s not a point where the fence gets too high, because China is constantly trying to get around the fence,” she said. “Yes, the yard could get too big, [but] I don’t think we’re there yet, I really don’t. [Chinese President] Xi Jinping’s civil-military fusion strategy makes it hard, because everything’s militarized. He could walk into any company at every minute and take whatever he wants.”

Raimondo engages frequently with the executives and businesses working on artificial intelligence, chips, and other next-generation technologies—and by many accounts is popular with them—but she said that those conversations have increasingly been less rosy than one might expect. “It’s not easy for me to go to Intel, and Applied Materials, [and] Lam, and tell them I’m going to take away hundreds of millions of revenue,” she said, listing three leading U.S. semiconductor companies. “But sometimes commerce has to take a back seat to national security.”

That industrial policy approach, driven by technology and defined by competition with China, has set Raimondo apart from her predecessors.

“Previous Commerce secretaries have thought of themselves as the voice of business—I don’t think of myself quite as the voice of business; I think of myself as a force for economic competitiveness,” she said. “The dynamism of our economy directly relates to our ability to lead in the world,” she added. “It’s not a huge shift …but it’s enough of a shift to matter.”

Beijing isn’t the only place where Raimondo is the face of the Biden administration’s tech policies. She’s been front and center in building the global partnerships needed to help sustain the fight against China, racking up frequent flyer miles with trips to Southeast Asia, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East.

“I’m very purposeful about my travel—the team doesn’t like it because we don’t do anything fun,” she said. “I’ve been to the UAE [United Arab Emirates] for meetings without staying in a hotel … we fly, we do a lot of work, we get back on the plane.”

She’s also been Washington’s lead representative at new forums such as the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council, aimed at aligning trans-Atlantic approaches to tech regulation, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Forum, which attempts to do the same with a dozen countries in that region. It’s emblematic of another one of the administration’s priorities: shoring up bilateral and “minilateral” relationships.

Raimondo said those relationships are indispensable. “If you’ve got the best idea in the world, really the most brilliant thing in the world, [but] you don’t have buy-in from a broad cross-section of people and you haven’t built coalitions, you will fail,” she said.

Building those coalitions has become easier in some ways and trickier in others. While most of the democratic world is increasingly aligned on the threat posed by China and the need to reorient supply chains away from the world’s second-largest economy, everyone wants those supply chains to run through their soil, and many countries are heavily subsidizing industries such as semiconductors to make it happen.

I asked Raimondo how she deals with concerns about a so-called subsidy race to the bottom.

“Open collaboration and discussion,” she said. “We literally sit down and say, ‘this is how we’re spending our money.’ … I’ve been pleasantly surprised [by] the extent to which other countries have been willing to sit down with us because they don’t want to waste their money, either.”

A shared recognition of the realities of the chip supply chain also helps. More than half of all semiconductors—and more than 90 percent of the most advanced ones—are made in Taiwan, the small island off China’s coast that is an ever-more-precarious geopolitical hotspot. “We as a world are so dangerously dependent on Taiwan that there’s room for duplication,” Raimondo said.

It’s a similar story on artificial intelligence (AI), not just with other countries, but also with the private sector as well. One example is the recent $1.5 billion investment by Microsoft into G42, the UAE’s top AI company, which included an “intergovernmental assurance agreement” that the Commerce Department was heavily involved with on the U.S. side, according to multiple sources who spoke to Foreign Policy on condition of anonymity. That agreement mandated, in part, that G42 remove Chinese technology from its systems, including equipment from companies such as Huawei and Chinese cloud computing firms, the sources said. Microsoft is now reportedly backtracking on parts of that deal due to concerns around G42’s exposure to China. (Microsoft declined to comment, and G42 did not respond to a request for comment.)

Raimondo declined to comment on that deal but pointed to the UAE as an example of the sort of carrot-and-big-stick approach that the U.S. is deploying. “With respect to advanced technology, yes, we want them to pick a side … because the power of this technology in the wrong hands, in the hands of a dictator or autocrat, is too great,” she said. “I don’t twist anyone’s hand—you pick the UAE or wherever—we have the best, we want you with us, you should be with us, but these are the rules if you want to be in our ecosystem.”

Could that lead to the kind of resentment that often accompanies U.S. actions abroad or unilateral efforts to build a consensus, even with allies and partners?

“I would say yes and no. I’m in the thick of this right now with the Japanese and the Dutch,” Raimondo said, referring to the two countries that have a virtual duopoly over the equipment used to make advanced chips. Last year, Washington struck a deal with both countries to restrict the sales of that equipment to Chinese companies, but a proposed further tightening of restrictions will reportedly exempt key allies, including both Japan and the Netherlands.

“When I talk to my counterparts from Korea, Japan, Europe, they are sensitive to denying national champions revenue, and I respect that,” Raimondo said. “But don’t do it because we’re asking you to. Do it to protect the people of your country.”

It’s a message that key allies thus far appear to be on board with. “They have their own national security interests to do it,” she said. “We’re in the same boat. Now, it’s a little easier because America’s economy is bigger, and we have a lot of companies, but still, at the end of the day, it’s country first, profit second.”

It’s been an action-packed three-and-a-half years, and Raimondo has the customary mix of regrets and satisfaction ahead of the Biden administration’s term ending in a few months with the November election. On balance, she feels good and is happy to celebrate some big wins.

“When I started this job, the Commerce Department budget was $9 billion, and because of our work with Congress and the president’s leadership, it’s now like $150 billion,” she said, referring to the total funding for the Commerce Department appropriated by Congress in fiscal 2021 versus the total resources available to the department now. The latter has been bolstered in large part by the $53 billion set aside for semiconductor manufacturing by the CHIPS and Science Act, as well as major investments in broadband access and the creation of nearly three dozen new “tech hubs” around the United States.

Raimondo rattles those off as a checklist that she intends to get through by the end of this year. “The chips team didn’t exist when I got here, and now I have 200 people working for me on chips who are some of the brightest minds in America,” she added. “We’re never done, and I’m not saying it’s perfect, but as I assess we are more secure than we were because of our efforts.”

Her main regret is one that she has repeated several times throughout her tenure, including previously to Foreign Policy: the need for resources and funding commensurate with the department’s vastly expanded purview. The Bureau of Industry and Security still has a budget of around $200 million, which is the “cost of one fighter jet,” she said, repeating an analogy she has used in the past. The bureau’s budget for its core export control functions has “been flat for more than a decade, and we need help—we need more.”

As she continues to work with Congress to get those funds, the bipartisan legislation passed so far and the global alliances that Raimondo has built are what she hopes will prevent a potential second Donald Trump administration from unwinding Commerce’s most impactful policies, she said.

“When you have a statute, that’s more durable than an executive order,” she said. “And then, honestly, the other thing is [that] I’m moving as fast as possible.”

Would she continue to serve in another administration if asked?

“I love this job—it’s been an honor of a lifetime to serve. President Biden is an extraordinary leader, and I would be honored to stay in the job,” she said, “but I won’t work for just any leader. I have to work for someone I believe in and who’s principled.”

Our conversation took place two days before Biden announced that he would not seek reelection, instead endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for the Democratic Party’s nomination. But with rumors of that eventuality already surfacing, I asked if she’d serve another Democratic president.

“Yeah,” she said, matter-of-factly. “I think it’s a fantastic job, and there’s so much more to do.”

But she prefaced all that with a clear response barely a second after I asked my question: “I will not work for President Trump.”

[widowshill]

Top 3 missed opportunities for DS - whether that's wishing a role had been cast differently, a plotline had another resolution, or an arc you wished they'd done/story they'd adapted! Please and thank you!

Sleepover asks.

1. PT Maxim and Mrs. de Winter should have been Lou and Alexandra. this is honestly the ds hill that I will die on, not that I can do anything about it. and it's not that I don't love Louis playing a smartass, wicked Jack Favell – I adore it! PT Roger is a delightful character to watch, and clearly one that Lou is getting a kick out of playing, which makes it even more fun for the audience. but. he would have been an excellent, excellent Maxim, which I base not only on his other performances in ds, but the kind of roles he was getting on the stage. as much as I like Selby, this was egregiously miscast, and frankly, I think, stupid not to put Lou in the role since they had him around. (even if they just had them switch places! Selby would have gone ham playing a part like that, pining over Lara!)

With Alexandra it's a little harder to say, well — it could have happened, since Alex had long left the show at that point and you'd really have to persuade her to come back as Vicki, but I think she might have enjoyed playing her slightly to the left. KLS does ... okay? she's the best choice out of the remaining cast (though — Nancy playing it would have been fun) but to be perfectly honest I don't think KLS does doe-eyed ingenue as well as Alexandra, she shines brightest (imo) in roles like Kitty, or Maggie when she had sharper edges. she'd have made a fucking fantastic Bea to Alexandra's Mrs. de W2. also generally I think Lou and Alex play really well with each other, they have really good stage chemistry. one of the big weaknesses of parallel time is how uncompelling the main couple is compared to everyone else, but having Lou and Alex play the de Winter's in all their shades of romance and jealousy and loneliness and horror would have been. ugh. it upsets me greatly that we didn't get this! plus. victoria winters? c'mon.

2. Continuing the theme of why couldn't we have Alexandra back :( I suppose, I do think a massive missed opportunity is a version of supernatural Vicki. for one thing, AM was eager to play that, and asked specifically to make Vicki a monster or to let her have some more exciting villainous part, and Dan refused, and she never came back, and the people weep, 60 years later. or at least I do.

there's a lot of different directions you could have gone with this, I think the obvious one is a more robust haunting after Vicki's death, which would have been a) less demanding on new-mother-Alexandra than some other variety of supernatural nonsense, and b) extremely devastating for the characters to deal with. because the character of Victoria Winters is so utterly unmoored — there are no oil portraits of her, like there is for Josette. I think we see one small headshot in Jeff's hotel room. she's another stranger to Collinsport who met only tragedy, much like Josette, and like that prophecy went when Vicki first arrived, she's finally taken her place. patron saint of outsiders. and of course she haunts Collinwood: it's the closest thing to home Vicki ever knew. and it would be horrible in the fun way to watch the household deal with that: David finding Vicki among the rotation of his ghost friends — Liz knowing she helped create another ghost of a lonely widow — Roger trying to shield his heart with his skepticism and not acknowledge the scent of lilacs in the room, or hear Vicki's voice in the wails on the cliff.

if not a ghost, then perhaps a vampire — and we already have a variation on this in an au, but I think it has the potential to tie in thematically to Vicki's relentlessly-foiled search for her parents, because being sired by a vampire is a kind of adoptive fatherhood (without Barnabas literally fathering her, which I think is probably one of the silliest semi-canon explanations). that Vicki could have a version of her wishes granted — her search for blood ties with the Collinses — but not in the way she wants. or that Vicki, who has accustomed herself (and accustomed us to seeing her) as polite, good, modest, asking for little, and rarely acknowledging her own desires outside of the social order of marriage, forced violently into hunger, a soft unobtrusive girl suddenly given sharp teeth. which I think then begs the question of what she is to the family when she is not useful and good — when she does not take care of them but instead needs taken care of — when her dependence on them turns into parasitism. and I don't think that question has a simple answer, even if they love Vicki. Dark Shadows never really seems to consider that Julia might cure any other vampires than Barnabas, but that could be an option — certainly more merciful than letting Vicki live if that means living as something she hates.

third option ... something else? a monster that dark shadows has hitherto missed: there's precious little mention of any watermonsters in our seaside eldritch town, and I know I've bandied around the idea of a mermaid or siren Vicki with people before, especially as a form of rebirth after a drowning off the cliff. what feels difficult about putting that in the show itself as opposed to tie-ins (and probably why we never got any particularly watery creatures) is that it feels difficult to shoot, and they're certainly not going to regularly scout location footage of semi-topless AM on a Newport beach. even though, objectively, that'd be pretty great. there is that watery cove set in 1897, though, which I have just remembered, which feels more than do-able. if a little, um. H2O: Just Add Water.

I have a little bit less defined idea about what it would entail, but I do have this persistent association with Vicki being a kind of deer girl — doe-eyed, doe-skinned, beautiful in a faerie sort of way, prone to swerving cars, etc. and making up a kind of deer creature (in the way that Laura is a phoenix without us actually needing to see a bird?) feels in line with what we could do in rural Maine, especially with deer being symbolic of a connection between worlds and other realms and the Other Side. maybe an arc partly inspired by princess transformation folklore, like The White Doe — vampire-ish, certainly, with the element of needing to avoid being touched by sunlight! and fairytale is the other side of the coin of gothic romance. or something Artemis-esque — especially given Vicki's connotations with chastity and protecting young children. what does that look like exactly ... ? Roger accidentally sees Vicki in the bath and gets mauled by the local werewolf population? maybe. I'll have to think more on this!

🚫‼️ SKIP THIS FOR NOW UNTIL WE GET FURTHER INTO LEVIATHANS. TORTIE DO NOT READ !!! DO NOT CLICK READ MORE NOT PASS GO !!! ‼️🚫

3. No one cares about this on the whole entire planet but me, but instead of the werewolf being the ancient enemy of the Leviathans, they should have got Laura to return for the end of the arc. Now. Listen. Just hear me out. In the first place, werewolves being the leviathans' only weakness doesn't make any goddamn sense. and I say this in a show that doesn't care about making sense as a general rule, this dings way higher on the bullshit scale than usual. It's a lazy addition to try to connect Chris' plotline to our main story because we're losing interest in his problems as we get way bigger things on our plate. A noble goal, I guess (if you still care about Chris) but they don't convince me.

it's frankly nonsense that in a world before man there would have been werewolves (because ... they're men who occasionally transform into something else, by definition). it's even more nonsensical that there are werewolves before the universe, when there's only matter and energy. there are no men. there are no wolves. there's not even a moon that's been formed to howl at! this is malarkey, jack. and in no world whatsoever do I buy that a dark shadows werewolf can take on the kind of powers that they show us jeb and the leviathans having; werewolves only have physical strength, which is deadly to an unarmed human but more or less equal to an armed one, and lesser than a human armed with anything silver. the leviathans already dwarf that before jeb comes into power, but jeb especially is not even in the same league as werewolves. they're not even playing the same sport. coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.

now. if we're going to pull a sudden "actually the weakness for the leviathans has been here all along and it's this supernatural creature you've already been introduced to!" it should be the phoenix. the bird vs. snake motif has very strong mythological roots across culture and religion: in the Iliad, you have the omen sent to the Trojans.

“an eagle flew up high from right to left and held the army back. His talons clutched a huge red snake, still breathing and alive,” who had not given up the struggle yet. The snake coiled back and bit the eagle’s breast under his neck. In agony, the eagle let fall the snake upon the ground, among the crowd of men, and with a screeching cry he flew away upon the breath of wind.” (tr. Wilson, 2023)

There's the Mexica legend about the founding of Tenochtitlán, where the sun god Huitzilopochtli sends the image of an eagle devouring a snake on the spot where the city will be built; in China you have the fenghuang paired to the dragon; the Iranian simurgh and the serpent who repeatedly feasts on her eggs; and early Christian writers sometimes showed the struggle of Christ and the devil as between bird and serpent. Most notably: the enemy of the sun god Ra (portrayed as a falcon) is the god Apep, the embodiment of darkness and disorder which takes the form of a massive serpent. And in Hindu and Buddhist mythos the Nagas, the symbol of the Leviathans, are ancient enemies with the Garuda(s) — an eagle-like sun bird deity which spends eternity hunting and killing them.

Reintroducing Laura as the ancient enemy to the Leviathan would have given the story a lot more weight behind it — because the show has already done so much leg work connecting Laura's origins and power to Ra, and establishing the origin myth of the Leviathans as something primordial and semi-divine. They already separately embody the meaning in most of these stories, which is rarely good vs. evil, but warmth, light, rebirth, knowledge vs cold, dark, fertility, chaos. I'd more readily buy into the phoenix as an ancient pre-human enemy in part because the Dark Shadows phoenix is something non-human taking a human form (as opposed to a human afflicted with with lycanthropy); and as myths go, the phoenix is much older than the medieval Christian conception of werewolves (though there are wolf-men elsewhere in mythology).

From an in-universe perspective — Laura is already connected to the werewolves they want to make relevant again. Her immortal ex-boyfriend Quentin is running around, who's got plenty of practice contacting witchy women through fires with his extensive practice in the black arts. She has no reason to help them out of selflessness, she does have reason to act out of a desire not to surrender control of the Collinses to her enemies — especially her son, firmly under the Leviathan thumb, but also her grandchildren(husband), and her great-grandaughter (and reflection of herself), who really has the most to lose. There's a lot you could play with about ... the overlapping themes of Laura's monstrous marriage and motherhood coinciding with what the Leviathans have planned for Carolyn, this notion of a deathly, poisonous womb. And I think it would make a nice parallel to Paul — the Collins spouse thought formerly to be dead, making a strange return — and Roger's also working against the cult, and to save Carolyn, which would put him as unlikely allies with Laura to the same end with opposite motivations. Again. Which would be delightful to watch.

The biggest problem is that it hasn't been all that that long since her death in '67 — but 1897 already threw the rule of the 100 year reincarnation out the window. Things are dire. We've got demons more ancient than the universe running around installing the antichrist and invoking the end of days. Ra can give her a hall pass.

[takaraphoenix]

PJO Episode 1 Thoughts

Spoilers ahead, huh.

Positive things first:

I love that Percy draws, and draws pretty well (for a 12 year old). I don't remember him being an artist in the book series? But the idea of him coping with his strange monster visions by drawing them is a nice addition.

Sally is a treasure, the actress brings such a motherly warmth to the role.

I loved Sally sitting in the rain with that expression on her face, you could feel the yearning for Poseidon. Never really got the "still hung up on Poseidon"-vibes in the books, but I still loved that moment for how well it was conveyed.

I do think that Grover is perfectly cast. That kid embodies the anxious and nervous energy I want from my Grover.

For very obvious personal reasons, I will be cherishing and including the fact that Percy plays Mythomagic from hereon out.

And, on that same note, I wonder what's up with the di Angelo name-drop. Maria is dead, her kids are in a magic casino, so is this just completely unrelated to our di Angelos and a bit of a wink wink nudge nudge, or is this actually going to pay off once we get to the di Angelos...?

I did love the "Why is there half a goat in your pants?" line and enjoyed the whole "getting to camp/expositioning" scene. It had the needed dramatic gravity. And Sally making Grover swear an oath. I liked how it was all played, enacted and written, it bodes well for the dramatic moments in the future.

Also the credits are stunning. The art, the designs. Honestly made me feel a lot of disappointment that we didn't get a cartoon adaptation of PJO, because I do still think that would have been a more fitting medium for this.

Now here's the things that bothered me:

Considering that this was episode one, titled "I Accidentally Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher", the vaporizing was... not very central to be quite frank? She jumps him in broad daylight, one stab later she's gone. A little bit of a chase, more of a confrontation, to make this seem a bit more significant, would have been nice.

Also damn, the gaslighting of a 12 year old hits way harder when it's live action and with actual kids, than when it's written in a book.

My biggest problem so far: I hate, hate, hate what they've done with Gabe. I hate it. They neutered him so hard.

It's been a couple years since I read the first book, but I remember how utterly uncomfortable Gabe made me. I know this man abused Sally, and it was always implied also Percy.

But this man? Is... just a pathetic loser. He lets Percy completely walk all over him, he gets pushed around by Sally. I remember the "I'm borrowing your car"-scene from the book, because it was a tense scene, because it didn't feel like a given, but this...? This was just... pathetic. That's the only word I have for it.

The character of Gabe Ugliano is so formative to Percy pre-series, and the way they changed him to make him look silly and non-threatening is... frustrating.

I honestly had no idea who got cast for Chiron, that one somehow went fully past me. I think the actor is... a little old. He has the warmth that Chiron needs, but with his 76 years he brings it more in a grandpa way than in a mentor way. Chiron should have been in his 50s, if pushing it in his 60s.

And while I did like the dramatic weight of the parting scene, I also do think that... Sally's sacrifice is... less heavy than in the books? Like, they stand there and yap for minutes, while they could have just gone ahead and been safe at camp in that time, and then Sally dies and Percy and Grover still just stand there and watch instead of going to the safety of camp. It felt very avoidable...

[duchessofostergotlands]

Read the quote by Prince Daniel you posted (which was great!) and I think unfortunately it is way more difficult for female royals to find a man willing to walk behind them and play the supporting role. Easy to find a woman willing to do that on the other hand... I hope all the heiresses find someone like Daniel! (Unless they too decide to go with a woman, for some it's now allowed after all ;)

It's certainly been harder historically - although there have been plenty of women who have not been happy to sit in the background either! - but it'll be interesting to see things moving forward. I think Victoria is the only female monarch or heir to marry in the last 55 years - there's been no one since her and I think she was the first since Margrethe in 1967. The 60s were a very different time. So it'll be interesting to see how the future spouses of Ingrid, Elisabeth, Leonor and Amalia respond and whether times have actually changed or if Daniel's just unusually secure in himself lol.

[lestweforget5]

Maybe one of Millie’s kids getting involved in like a Civil rights matter or feminism or maybe dating a POC and someone else having a preconceived idea about Millie’s opinion because army wife + southerner, but Millie being like ‘I fought against racist sexist arseholes! Just because I’m quiet doesn’t mean I am a racist sexist arsehole!’ But in a more Millie way of saying it.

Just Millie biting back at southerner stereotypes in her very Millie way.

Hello, Nonnie! Thank you for the ask! This has given me some very interesting food for thought. And I already know my thoughts are going to be quite lengthy, so I'm adding in the cut.

Given the role that Millie and the other women played during the war, I definitely could see her being interested/involved in, more quietly, some activist roles. And where ill-health/PTSD might stand in the way of Millie at some points, Maggie, who never marries and was even more outspoken than Millie, would also be an influence, I'd expect, on the Brady children.

Re the feminism angle:

Fighting for your country in a front-line role and, especially, being a prisoner of war changes you; you just can't rebound to what you were before the war, even if society at that period tended to itself rebound in the roles it expected of/allowed women during and after a war. I just finished reading a book called A Game of Birds and Wolves, which details the involvement of the WRNS in the development of anti-U-Boat tactics for the Battle of the Atlantic in WW2, and several passages at the end of the book struck me hard, thinking about this sort of context. The quotes are from pages 259-60.

‘The end of the war was a blow in lots of ways,’ said Peggy Hill, a Wren based at Swansea naval base. ‘Everybody felt the same. It was the end of a completely different way of living, like coming back to earth again. The missing went on for years.’ None felt ‘the missing’ more keenly than the women who, via war’s arrival, had been given an unprecedented opportunity to occupy spaces and roles that had been closed off to them. They had entered the war as one thing and exited as quite another. ‘The Wrens have carried out duties once thought to be completely outside the scope of womenkind.’ ... For the Wrens, the arrival of peace meant somehow relinquishing a new-found identity.

... When they arrived home, however, many of the young women found it difficult to reintegrate with former contemporaries. ‘They didn’t know what my life had been,’ said Claire James, a plotter who became a leading Wren. ‘I’d led a totally different life to anybody at home. I’d gone through things people at home hadn’t. I found it very difficult, settling back.’ ... The fresh opportunities that the country had, for a moment, afforded women in war were widely rescinded.

The women of the 100th bled and died and suffered for their country and saw horrors that you can never ever unsee. You cannot just go back to the status quo ante, even if other people want you to. Life doesn't work like that. People don't work like that. And while Millie is not looking for personal recognition, she wants those sacrifices to be acknowledged and honored and for her and the others not to be pushed back into the boxes of other people's preconceived notions of what women of that era should be. Not to say that there's anything wrong with being a stay-at-home mother or a housewife, but war irrevocably changes you, and what you were before isn't the same as what you are now, and as difficult as some male veterans found it reintegrating, I think female veterans in this Integrated AU would have A LOT of problems, too, and those boxes could have made it harder.

Re one of her children dating a POC:

I think this is the area where people's preconceived notions could go the most awry. After being further north long enough, Millie's Arkansas twang might soften a bit, but it is still quite noticeable for her entire life and marks her as someone who was born and grew up in the Deep South. And, sadly, being from the Deep South, especially in that era, can come with preconceived notions/implications about what that person thinks about ... issues of ethnicity, one could say.

But here's where things get interesting. In Sunward I've Climbed, when Macon, Jefferson, and Daniels arrive, Millie doesn't quite know what to think about their presence, if only because

there were so few colored folk in Randolph County, Arkansas, that she had rarely ever interacted with them growing up. At the very least, in the middle of a POW camp in the depth of Hitler’s Reich was the last place where racial issues needed to be causing conflict. They had enough enemies and problems to deal with without causing conflict with fellow Americans.

So, while Murph, who was from Atlanta, as I recall, was quite uncomfortable off the bat, Millie just follows Brady's lead and Buck's, for lack of any other plan initially.

So her first real interactions with POC are with Macon and Jefferson, as they all share a bunk room, and that influences her entire perception of those issues for the rest of her life and how she talked to her children about those issues.

(This is me just spitballing here, too, but given their talents in engineering and math, I could see Millie and Macon having some interesting conversations when they're both laid up in the bunk room, although I'm not knowledgeable enough about either to write a credible scene of such. There's just room for so much character development between August and her sharing her aspirin with Macon, when neither of them basically talk to her at all, to January where she carries with her the special birthday drawing Alex made for her.)

But, all that being said, yeah, Millie would not be very patient with being judged by where she was born. She's her own person with her own experiences, and even if she didn't say anything at first, she would definitely be quietly judging you and probably freezing you out ... in a very polite southern way. And knowing Brady will back her up would definitely help her take a stand on some issues.

[bisluthq]

I think Sean looked older than he was in Bond, which probably helped him get the role, since he wasn’t supposed to play a young guy. Most Bond men are not young like early 30s. They are older. None are my type anyway. I always liked slim, pretty boys like Tom Cruise, but a little taller. I don’t get impressed by many actors anyway. The younger guys of my generation are extremely lacking.

and you’re entitled to your own preferences lol but for curiosity’s sake I went to look at Bond ages. Connery was 32 when he started, Lazenby was 30, Moore was older at 46 (still not an old man age but yeah he’s the oldest one and that’s a big reason he’s many people’s not fave lol), Dalton was 41, Brosnan was 42 and Daniel Craig was 38 when he started. Bond is supposed to be an extremely accomplished spy so it wouldn’t quite make sense for him to be very young or very old and ergo the actors do fit that in between age - not young guys but not old. The Bond girls have mainly (with some exceptions of course) been played by women in their 20s. Again, I don’t really have an issue with that because a guy in his early 40s getting with a woman in her 20s is not at all unrealistic nor especially “creepy” even except that many of the Bond girls are supposed to be as accomplished/experienced as Bond and that’s a bit silly lol and that’s the part I don’t quite like. I wish films stopped pretending women in their 20s and men in their late 30s/40s are roughly the same age. But again, this is a gripe I have with films in general and it’s not specific to Bond. One of the worst offenders to me is Silver Linings Playbook - it’s such a fun and cute movie but I can never get over the fact that Jen is 21 and Bradley is late 30s. The movie straight up acts like she’s in her early to mid 30s - it calls her a young widow and stuff but that’d work (tragically but that’s sorta the point) for early to mid 30s. It’s an objectively uncommon - beyond tragic like genuinely weird - predicament for a 21 year old and should then be a MAJOR plot point and it isn’t because they didn’t cast an age gap movie lol they just acted like Jen and Bradley are roughly the same age when they VISIBLY weren’t and aren’t. Also a bit odd of you to bring Tom Cruise into this because his movies for the last 20 years have tended to do this too and pair him (in his 50s and now 60s) with women in their 20s or if we’re lucky as a special treat in their early 30s. I think what also bothers me about this casting thing is women have to work much harder and usually longer to be at the top of their field and in movies you get a guy who’s a realistic age to be a senior officer/superspy/hardened criminal/whatever the fuck he is and I’m like buying it took him that long to achieve all that shit and then he’s paired with a 22 year old girl who is supposedly nearly as accomplished and it’s like… really? Really really? Also there are some movies where that’s almost part of the joke like There’s Something About Mary where Cameron is obviously too young to have been in high school with Ben Stiller BUT Mary’s meant to be unbelievably and unrealistically hot so it wouldn’t have been better for her to be played by someone a bit older.

[cardentist]

I haven’t been in the star trek fandom for very long (I’ve only just started binging the series in the last couple months), so it’s been pretty surprising to find out just how negative the perception of the reboot movies are.

this isn’t coming from the perspective of someone who grew up with the series, so it hit different for me than it might for people with a different relationship to TOS, but I thought it was genuinely clever and Respectful with how it was handled.

To quote leonard nimoy: “Well the alternative timeline gives them license to escape from canon concerns. I can’t see people saying ‘they shouldn’t do that because…’ or ‘that doesn’t tie in to such and such’ because it is a different time and place. Am I right about that?” [Link]

the entire Premise is that the original series happened as it was presented in TOS, but an event late in Spock’s life caused the creation of a parallel universe in which everyone’s lives were significantly altered through two key changes to the timeline. this gives them the freedom to Both revel in fanservice And explore different facets of the characters and their relationships. 

the destruction of vulcan Vastly impacts the characters and the plot moving forward, and its a detail that a lot of people take issue with. but the emotional impact of sarek admitting Directly to spock that there is value in his humanity, that his feelings Aren’t wrong, that sarek married amanda because he Loved her cannot be understated. you can read all of these things into sarek as he was in the original series, but he Never had an open conversation about these things with spock. this creates a Believable and Rewarding change in their relationship, where we get to see a different facet of them Because of the changes made. and that’s exactly the appeal. showing us pieces of these characters that we never got in TOS that are nevertheless undeniably Them.

everyone is Different yes, but they’re also fundamentally the same people at their core and that matters.

kirk’s personality obviously takes the biggest change, with him experiencing trauma at a young age, losing his father, and having an implied abusive father figure after that point. he has a harsher personality in reaction to harsher conditions, he’s spikier and harder to love. but he’s also still fundamentally a Good person whose willing to risk everything to help people. he still has what made kirk prime a good captain and a good friend.

I’m not gonna say that it’s the most nuanced story in the world, but it explores a version of kirk that was born from even Less fortunate circumstances than kirk prime, exploring a kirk brimming with potential who learned to bite back after he was kicked down. exploring those themes of trauma and loss, of insecurity and growth, and coming to the conclusion that Fundamentally He Is Capable Of Good isn’t a Bad thing. you don’t have to like it, but his growth into a better person is The Point. they deepened his flaws (all of which were present in a less exaggerated form in TOS) To Show That Growth.

and then of course there’s his relationship with spock.

people are totally justified in not liking that they had a rough start to their relationship, I usually don’t like to see that kind of thing in reboots or hollywood adaptations either, but the way people talk about it is just unfair.

Yes kirk and spock and bones have a very strong relationship in TOS, they also already know each other by the time the show starts. to look at them having to learn to get to know and trust each other when they first meet and say that it’s Bad because they were already full on ride or die for each other in the og series is silly. TOS kirk and spock had to meet and fall in love with each other too, it didn’t just happen over night kings.

secondly, the entire point of the first movie is that Even With reality itself being altered to pull them apart they are fundamentally compatible people that are Bound to each other. they meet each other on bad terms because of circumstances outside of their control, and yet they’re still pulled into each other’s orbit and find the other slotting into place next to them as if they always belonged. one of the first things that spock prime says in the movie is “I am and always will be your friend,” spock and jim are Meant for each other and the movie goes out of its way to explain that. which is what makes it so Weird to see people complaining about how they don’t like each other.

it’s a Different relationship, but it’s absolutely no less steeped in yearning or queer subtext. 

speaking of queer subtext ! some people are Very unhappy with spock’s relationship with uhura.

first thing I wanna say is that making the argument that they’re doing anything that the original series hasn’t done is just, completely untrue. kirk has fallen in love with more girls in the og series than he knew what to do with, leonard nimoy was a heartthrob in his time (and he deserves it, awooga) and spock reflects that ! Spock usually turns the women who come onto him down (or when he doesn’t it’s because a plant has literally altered his mind), but there are exceptions to even that. all of three of the main boys have plenty of romance subplots, it happens. if that takes the possibility of them being queer off the table for you (which it shouldn’t, m-spec people exist) then I’m sorry to say that TOS is not exempt.

now, I can understand why Specifically This Relationship could rub people the wrong way or being disappointed that they didn’t outright depict kirk and spock as having a relationship (if not in the first movie then in the following ones after they’ve gotten to know each other), but even in that context the way I’ve seen people talk about it comes off as insensitive.

no, the relationship did not come out of nowhere. they considered having spock and uhura date each other in the original show (and you can see signs of this in the earlier episodes, where uhura very obviously flirts with him and they spend time together in their down time) before they decided against it, and spock was originally going to kiss uhura until shatner insisted that he wanted to do it (because it was the first interracial kiss on tv). [Link 1, Link 2, Link 3]

nichelle nichols was asked about this exact thing (spock and uhura’s relationship in the movie), you can read the interview in full here [Link] but I’d like to highlight this paragraph in particular:

“Now, go back to my participation in Star Trek as Uhura and Leonard (Nimoy) as Spock. There was always a connection between Uhura and Spock. It was the early 60’s, so you couldn’t do what you can do now, but if you will remember, Uhura related to Spock. When she saw the captain lost in space out there in her mirror, it was Spock who consoled her when she went screaming out of her room. When Spock needed an expert to help save the ship, you remember that Uhura put something together and related back to him the famous words, “I don’t know if I can do this. I’m afraid.” And Uhura was the only one who could do a spoof on Spock. Remember the song (in “Charlie X”)? Those were the hints, as far as I’m concerned.”

the film makers looked at the fact there were Hints for uhura and spock, that they were Interested in exploring an interracial couple for the first time (both before and immediately after interracial couples won the right to legally get married) but Couldn’t because of the circumstances of the times and decided to Make that depiction. you don’t have to Like their relationship just because of that fact, but it’s Incredibly reductive to play down it’s significance as just a No Homo cop out. explicitly queer relationships are not the only progressive or culturally important relationships in fiction.

moreover, if you can’t imagine polyamory in the communist utopian future that’s on you.

moreover, this perception that this was a soulless cash grab is just, unfounded.

leonard nimoy returned to the role as spock for the first time in 16 years (since 1991) and this was Entirely because of the respect they had for nimoy, spock as a character, and the franchise as a whole. 

Lets look at some quotes from nimoy in interviews regarding the film:

Leonard Nimoy: When I first read the script (...) I immediately contacted J.J. and said “I think it is terrific…I think you guys have done a wonderful job. There is still work to be done, but it is very clear that you and your writers know what you are doing and you know how to do this movie and know what it should be about….and I am very interested.” Then as time went by we worked things out with Paramount, but the most important things were J.J. and the script. (...) I am very pleased about that and I am very comfortable with where this is going. I think the writers have done a terrific job. They have a real sense of the characters and the heart of Star Trek and what it is really all about.

(...)

TrekMovie.com: Now in the case of the new movie you have been retired from acting for years. What was it about this one that made you want to act again and go through the make up again? What was it that made you say ‘I really want to do this?’

Leonard Nimoy: You are right, this is a special situation. First it is Star Trek and so I have to pay attention. I owe that to Star Trek. Second place is that it is J.J. Abrams who I think very highly of, he is a very talented guy. Then came the script and it was very clear that I could make a contribution here. The Spock character that I am playing, the original Spock character, is essential and important to the script. So on the basis of those three elements it was easy to make the decision. So those three things: Star Trek, J.J. Abrams, and an interesting Spock role.

[Link]

Praising the cast playing younger versions of characters from the original 1960s TV series, he [Leonard Nimoy] said: “Let me take the opportunity to say this. Everybody at this table [the cast] are very, very talented and intelligent people.”

“They found their own way to bring that talent and intelligence to this movie, and I think it shows. (...)  When Karl Urban introduced himself as Leonard McCoy and shook hands with Chris Pine, I burst into tears. That performance of his is so moving, so touching and so powerful as Doctor McCoy, that I think D. Kelley would be smiling, and maybe in tears as well.”

“The makers of this film reawakened the passion in me that I had when we made the original film and series. I was put back in touch with what I cared about and liked about Star Trek, and why I enjoyed being involved with Star Trek. So, it was an easy way to come on home.”

“[In this Star Trek] they said things and showed me things, and demonstrated the sensibility that I felt very comfortable with, and I think that shows in the movie. I like it.”

[Link 1, Link 2]

again, you don’t have to like it just because leonard nimoy did, you don’t have to Agree. but the idea that nobody working on the film Cared is provably false. near everyone working on the project was already a fan of the series or were excited to be involved and did their homework. it’s genuinely a Miracle just how much of a labor of love this was, and in my opinion you can feel that through the movie itself. I’d highly recommend looking into interviews and behind the scenes details about the movies. they had a respect not just for the source material, but for leonard nimoy as a person.

there’s definitely more I Could say about this, but it’s 4 am now so I’m gonna shelve it jklfdsa

that said! it’s Fine to not like the movie, not everything is going to be suited to everyone’s taste, but the specific criticisms I’ve seen feel very off base

[loquaciousquark]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E111 (Sept. 29, 2020)

@eponymous-rose‘s internet is out tonight, so I’m here late and without coffee! Let’s see how many typos we can fit into an hour and a half episode.

Tonight’s guests: Ashley Williams JOHNSON, oops!! & Liam O’Brien!

We open with Brian in light-up vented sunglasses and Henry at his side, as always. Dani is very excited to be back and has fun-buns in her hair tonight. So cute! Everyone talks about how much they’re Zooming these days for work, and Liam mentions he and Matt & Marisha did a digital cocktail night. He and Dani arrange on camera to have a distanced, masked meetup in the park so Dani can see Liam’s dog again.

No announcements! Tonight, we’re discussin’ episodes 110 and 111.

Starting with the end, Brian jumps right to it by asking how they feel that Molly is alive. Liam 100% thought we’d be back to him, but still wasn’t ready when it happened. Caleb doubted he was alive. Both Liam & Ashley marvel at the numerology that keeps cropping up throughout the show. Brian hates not being able to see it at the same time the show happens live; Ashley was biting her tongue not telling him spoilers. (He doesn’t want to hear spoilers unless Yasha dies so he can be there for Ashley if needed.) Brian says he has a little reality trauma from the night Pike died in the pre-stream game; it was the first time he’d realized how much it affected the players.

Ashley’s realized how much she misses unpacking the game with Brian when they get home. She just has to sit with it until everyone else gets to see it. Brian: “Instead she comes home and I have to fill her in on the Real Housewives of Amarillo, Texas.”

Reunion dinner with Trent! Liam talks about how the way things unfolded with Trent is not at all how he imagined it in his pre-game creation; he’d expected more of a fracas, more of an unexpected clash. “Caleb might have been a different person if he’d run into these people earlier in the story. The M9 changed him before [Trent & co] came back and got to him.” He’d imagined Astrid & Eodwulf to be complicated encounters, but says what Matt’s designed has been even harder than that. A fight on a mountain is one thing, but walking into a room with “what Trent dropped, is impossible to cope with.” It also means that if what Trent said is true, anything Caleb does now is effectively of Trent’s design, even killing him.

He doesn’t think Caleb would have gone anywhere near Trent & co without the M9. “The Mighty Nein--it took a long time--but they cracked Caleb open like a walnut.”

He thinks what Matt has done is much more murky than the simplicity of murder, such as the Briarwood arc. He can’t just exact his revenge now.

Liam says that the tempation to tinker with time is no longer as all-consuming as it was. He might still be tempted if Matt dangles a bunch of carrots in front of him, but he thinks that now it might be better to make sure that that kind of thing doesn’t happen anymore for anyone else (!!!). “It’s still a nugget in his brain and it’s still possible he could be tempted by the drug, but what he wanted in the beginning was entirely selfish, but now that the M9 are involved he owes it to them, to the people of the country, even on the Dynasty side--is so complex that if Caleb were to get that carrot and chase it, he would be risking everything.”

Ashley agrees that most of their choices are no longer black and white. Many of the situations feel more like real life. Liam agrees and says he’ll sometimes make decisions that he’s both really happy with and regrets at the same time. They both look forward to what Matt will reveal in Act 3.

Brian feels it’s tough to gauge how deep they are into what Matt’s planned for the campaign. Liam says that thanks to Matt’s skill, he really doesn’t know what Caleb wants right now.

Ashley agrees, and talks about how she created Yasha to have more to overcome than Pike. She loves what Matt’s doing in terms of allowing each of them to overcome more emotional hurdles than physical ones in this campaign.

Going back to Molly’s grave was very exciting for Ashley since she wasn’t able to be there when he died in the game & wanted to do what she could to honor him. Yasha, however, was very hesitant but knew what needed to be done. She’s not very open with her emotions, but both she & Ashley were stressed. They all could feel the energy in the studio & knew Matt was about to do something mind-blowing. Liam: “You could feel all the dust in the air coalescing around Taliesin.”

Brian trips over Eodwulf. Liam tries to help him find some pronunciation shortcuts. Ashley: “You say it so beautifully.” Brian: “Thank you.” Ashley: “Not you.”

Caleb knows how wickedly intelligent & ambitious Astrid is, and was heartened by the wavering he saw in her at the dinner. However, he can’t trust her until he knows why she’s where she is.

He really feels that if they’d had this dinner 60 episodes ago, Caleb might have tilted back along the evil axis and he would have had to retire the character. He had a playlist entirely for if Caleb turned evil and left the party.

The vision of Zuala was a huge deal for Yasha, even along every other instance she’s had of being mind-controlled, etc. “That’s guilt I think she will always carry with her, but at least she’s starting to forgive herself.” Losing the chains, sprouting wings again--Ashley reiterates that she didn’t know that was even a possibility, she just picked the skeletal wings because they were dope--were huge moments in the character development. Ashley’s glad Beau was there at the moment of the first flight; Ashley thinks of the quotation “Happiness is only beautiful when it’s shared,” and because Yasha tends to keep things very much to herself, having someone there to share it made it more impactful. “That was a cool moment. There’s been a lot of healing for Yasha these last episodes.”d

Ashley also says sometimes in that moment, when all eyes are on you in a one-on-one with Matt, everything goes muffled like Saving Private Ryan. “Wub wub wub.”

Dani feels that the only way she could even have the conversation with Zuala was to let her go in the first place.

Liam thinks one of the things that Yasha & Cad share is that still waters run deep. He loves how much Yasha hangs back sometimes, only to then reveal some new moment like the fighting pit. Apparently Ashley also has a knife collection, and uses that metal side of herself when she wants to let that new side of Yasha show.

Cosplay of the Week: Crystal Armstead (@riyuski on twitter) in a Reani cosplay. Beautiful!

How does Liam feel about the return to Rexxentrum? Very, very complicated. Caleb loves magic and lights up when he sees it, which is wrapped in the Soltryce Academy; he brought folks to the dance hall for the same reason, which was wanting the M9 to see the things that he loved about the city.

Yasha felt the same way about visiting the Chantry of the Dawn. It was a memory of a very traumatic moment (almost killing Beau), but given everything that’s happened between then and now it was cathartic to see again. There’s been a lot of healing in the past few weeks. It also felt like a physical representation of Yasha’s growth, the last time she was controlled against her will like that (or at least, until she was mind-controlled by Vokodo. Ashley sighs, aggrieved.)

Brian: “The tower really feels like a love letter from Caleb to his friends.” Liam: “It is, and a love letter from Liam to his friends.” When he looked at Caleb’s spell list, he remembered how amazing the mansion was in Campaign One and how many role-playing moments it led to and knew he wanted to incorporate it. However, he knew it could never be the same as Scanlan’s mansion because Caleb doesn’t have the same improvisational genius as Scanlan does. Liam has been “tinkering with this machine” for over a year, waiting for the moment to reveal it. He loves that he got a chance to see Jester’s room in time to have her tower room reflect reality. He’d discussed the tower extensively with Dani & Matt. Brian: “Hey! What am I, chopped--what’s the saying?” Ashley: “Chopped cabbage?”

Ashley marvels at the design of the dome. Liam talks about how Caleb knowing Caleb has been abused has been slowly getting better, but he also loves now being able to juxtapose that healing with his innate love of magic and how beautiful he finds it, how he loves to use magic as his artistry. The Soltryce Academy wasn’t “Welcome to DEATH SCHOOL,” it was the Sorbonne. It was amazing, everything he wanted. It was only one bad apple within that recruited him and turned it all bad.

Liam also points out how much it means in real life to be able to express his love and care for his friends in person too.

Ashley talks about how much she loves Yasha’s armor in a meta sense because it’s so cool and useful, and great for her armor class, but struggles with what it represents in game. She might not be able to let it go due to its sheer utility, and she may have to find an in-game reason to justify keeping it.

Ashley segues a moment into talking about her velvet top which apparently has a matching velvet scrunchie. She’s asked to demonstrate the scrunchie and ties her hair up in a way that I have never in my life seen someone do with a scrunchie before, and my hair’s been waist-length most of my life. I watch it again in slow motion. How did she DO that??

Caleb’s been looking for the right time to tell Jester about his past for a long time. She’s a good person and makes him feel like he might be capable of becoming a good person at the end, because that’s how she saw him. Liam knew from Laura that Jester wouldn’t condemn him, but Caleb put it off as long as possible. He also wanted to take the time to make sure Caduceus & Yasha knew the whole story too before they went to dinner with Trent.

Liam was also relieved to get it out, because he could never remember who knew and who didn’t, and now he doesn’t have to track it anymore. “Now we can move forward. Now we can heal wounds, maybe.”

Ashley feels Cad picks up a lot, more than most people realize. Yasha was really affected by Cad’s line: “Patience can be good, but it can lead to apathy.” She really feels it opened her eyes, and she appreciated the simplicity of him pointing out her hair’s growing back white again. Having a friend notice “hey, you’re changing for the better” really means a lot. She’s interested in seeing how this means things might change with Beau.

Dani points out that it also reinforced for Yasha that she can want things too--she can be patient and just continue to be with the group, as she’s wanted, but it’s okay to want more than that too. Ashley remembers Veth asking her what her purpose is. There’s a part of her that knows Yasha is still figuring that out, and she’s interested to see how Yasha will continue to change. She’s always spent her life serving somebody--the Sky Spear, Obann--and then even after she joined the M9, it was very centered on “what do you need, what does the group need, how can I help with our next job?” She’s going to have to take some time to figure out what she wants.

Fanart of the Week! Lovely Yasha & Beau flight art by @JMNP7888. The wings look amazing!

Brian: “One of the things we want to talk to you about, Liam, is about the Vokodo fight and the FUCKING disintegrate spell.”

Liam: “That was one of the most insane 60-90 seconds of gameplay that ever existed for the table, and definitely for me, in the entire history of the show. A lot of people think I just went, oh man, just bet it all on black. But what if I told you that...I Larkin’d the first 20 seconds of that fight and then at a quarter to midnight, I forgot that the reflection was a thing? I just forgot it was a thing! I spent that whole battle thinking I’m just here to banish things. I might buff my friends a little bit, maybe I’ll counterspell, but I’m just here to banish. And it didn’t work and it didn’t work and then it did! Finally it did and Jester made it work and then he was GONE. And then everyone got greedy and it was done but we brought him BACK. And it was a quarter to midnight and I’m not an animatronic D&D lesson machine, I’m just a guy playing D&D at 11:45 at night, and he came back and everyone started Goodfellas circling him and kicking him, and Beau & Yasha are gonna kill him, and then it’s my turn? Disintegrate! And then the room was quiet, and then time passed, and Matt asked, you really cast Disintegrate? And I said yes, of course, and Matt started rolling dice, and in the back of my head I started wondering why he asked if I was rolling Disintegrate. Oh no. In the back of my brain, I was like, well, just tell him that’s not what you did. Tell him you didn’t remember the reflection thing. But he’s already rolling dice! You can’t take it back now. Hold on a second. I’m going to take you on the journey I went through. I was thinking: you have a spell save of 17. This thing wasn’t that fast. +1, +2, maybe? Anything under 14 is okay. That’s 70%. 70%. That’s okay, right? And still no one said anything to tip me off that I was in ELDRITCH MADNESS at that point, no one said anything about the reflection! And then I realize it can reflect back on us, and I realize this is...disintegrate. And then I started becoming morbidly, macabre-ly fascinated at the puppet dance of death I had created. Well, this is a mess. I have made a mess. Let’s just sit in it. And somehow, nonsensically, spectacularly, it worked out in my favor. I went home that night and I got in bed next to my wife, who was fast asleep, and I stared at the ceiling going, dude. Duuuuuuuude. Duuuuuuuuuude.”

He apparently also told his therapist about this and how terrible it was and how close he “danced myself to the precipice like a crazy person!” Marisha (as told by Liam): “Epic roll, though.”

Matt told Liam that night that if it had been reflected, it would have gone back on him. “If a player throws an M80 in the middle of a room, it would reflect on that player who threw it.”

Ashley talks about how interesting that Yasha is not performative, and yet has been doing these public performances with the harp. It’s a great experiment for Ashley--Yasha doesn’t like the attention, but feels like she is making something beautiful for the world.” She’s trying to change something about how she views herself & her place in the world. She was raised to be a weapon for the Sky Spear, but she’s also extremely gentle and loves flowers & beautiful music, and the further away she’s gotten from the tribe, she’s falling in love with gentle, beautiful things. 

Liam also points out it easy (real, but simplistic) to make an entire character centered around a single personality trait: “I’m angry all the time. I’m sad all the time.” He thinks it’s more realistic to see nuance in personality.

Liam can see some paths for Caleb to find peace & do good. He doesn’t know if Caleb is conscious of those. He thinks it’s a huge step forward to admit he was molded in this direction at all and that it wasn’t all his choice, but doesn’t know if this is the same possibility as redemption.

He also mentions Essek in this answer: there was/is attraction there, both intellectual and physical--the forehead kiss was a big marker of that--and he’s interested in seeing where that goes because he’s invested in Essek’s redemption arc on its own, but Essek is not as high on the list as other things Caleb/the M9 need to work on. He loved the “high spy times” of the Essek arc and the tangled-up-ness of feelings getting involved at the same time as intense commitment to duty.

Liam always felt Matt would bring Molly back in some aspect, even though Caleb always demurred because he doesn’t believe in fate. Dani and Brian agree that this is the start of a new act.

Ashley cried at the Vilya reunion. She thought that was an incredible moment and was so glad to see Keyleth. Liam: “Keyleth as part of our story is everything to me. That story is really important to me, so getting just a glimpse of her again was so important to me.” They could all see how that affected Marisha & how special it was to her. Liam: “It was such a great note in her song or color in her painting. She achieved magnificent things and was powerful and great, but had a very heartbreaking and sad ending, so to have this sliver of joy go back in is so complex and beautiful and masterfully done.”

Aaaaaaand that’s all for tonight! Remember, no Critical Role this week. Talks will be back in two weeks. As always, don’t forget to love each other. <3

[scotianostra]

Happy Birthday Elaine Constance Smith was born on August 2nd 1958 in Baillieston.

At the age of 16 Elaine auditioned at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and enrolled on a course to become a drama teacher. As a student Elaine discovered life beyond the Argyle street department stores her mother brought her to as a child. In the smoky pubs Elaine earned a crust tending bar and singing in club bands. She credits this experience for introducing her to the Glasgow patter and helping her acquire a thick skin.

Elaine moved to Edinburgh to complete her teacher training but it was her love of theatre that would call her back to her adopted home. Wild Cat Theatre Company was established by former members of 7:84 theatre group and it focused on political subjects with musical features. It was a perfect match for Elaine, famed for her vocal prowess and never one to shy away from a political statement or two.

When Tony Roper handed Elaine his script for a play that had been rejected elsewhere, Elaine took it to the Wild Cat Theatre Company. Tony’s play The Steamie, became a great success, and still well loved today. It also gave Elaine the chance to show off her acting chops as she was cast as Dolly alongside Dorothy Paul and Katy Murphy.

Since then, Elaine has found success in the comedy scene in seminal Scottish comedy shows such as Naked Video, City Lights and Rab C Nesbitt as well as a stage career that’s taken her around the world, the most famous of which is her portrayal of fellow Scot Susan Boyle in I Dreamed A Dream, a musical about the Bathgate singers life.

I really enjoyed Elaine in her own travel series, Burdz Eye View, where she visited Scotland’s holiday destinations including the East Neuk of Fife, Ayr, Nairn, Largs and Millport, Aviemore and the island of Arran, learning about the area’s history, local delicacies and way of life. More recently she has been starring in the sitcom Two Doors Down.

Last year she said in an interview she always sees herself playing the typical Glesga woman. She said

“I play these women because they ARE real. These are roles that resonate. I know women like them, and I want to tell their stories and get their voices out there .The best compliment I ever got was years ago, in a shop on Buchanan Street, when a woman recognised me and asked if I was ‘that lassie that played Mary Nesbitt. ’When I said yes, she grabbed me arm and said, hen, naebody does a Glasgow wummin like you.”

She also said she doesn’t see herself in a period drama like Outlander or Downton Abbey,  stating “  I’d be the cook. Or the nurse. There was talk of an Outlander episode at one point, I think, but probably ‘hag-up-a-hillside’ or the like….”

Elaine is always a lady for supporting charities and social causes, she recently talked about the cost of living crisis,  she says;

“The cost of living is going through the roof and thing are getting harder for people. We all need to create more of a stooshie about homelessness, and more needs to be done but this event gives a bit of light and hope and will raise money for desperately needed projects.”

She will be taking part in a charity cycle event,  Social Bite’s Break the Cycle challenge to help raise £1m to fund vital projects. She has agreed to do the “Wee” one, a three mile segment with her Granddaughter. The event 

The full event is a 60-mile cycle from the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome in Glasgow to Edinburgh's Murrayfield and takes place on Sunday September 4th, full details on the link below. 

Elaine now resides in the East End of Glasgow, where she still answers to an affectionate “ho! Mary doll!”

https://www.breakthecycle.co.uk/

[im-just-a-random-fandom-girl]

You know what I want?

Domestic Stucky. In Westview. Hear me out.

(First of all, Endg*me can go fuck itself. Steve’s whole thing? Never happened. Forget about it. Wipe if from your mind. We’re rewriting that shit.)

(Also, this isn’t a fic even though I know it starts out looking like one lol. This is just stream of consciousness thoughts. I would put way more effort into actual writing)

The weeks after the final snap were hard. 

Bucky was back, and it felt like every weight that had been dragging Steve down for the past 5 years was lifted. He was mentally and physically exhausted, but his soulmate, his best friend, was at his side again, pulling him into a warm hug, tight and breathtaking. 

It was still hard; Steve was a very different man than he had been 5 years ago, but Bucky was calm and understanding. There was still much to mourn for, too. Tony and Nat were gone. Any sense of stability that had been established during those 5 years was immediately destroyed, and Steve was sure it would take many more years to try to fix the damage.

And Wanda. When Wanda was snapped back into existence, her grief was palpable. What had been 5 terrible years for him had been 5 minutes of bliss for her, relief that she wouldn’t have to try to live in a world without Vision. Steve knew the feeling. Even though he didn’t quite understand Wanda and Vision’s relationship (he was a robot?), he can’t really judge because he’s been pining after his childhood best friend for the better part of a century and still hasn’t managed to do anything about it.

To be brought back to life was the worst trick you could play on Wanda. Her sense of peace was snatched away from her and she was throttled back into a world that had nothing in it for her. Everyone she loved was dead. Her powers still deemed her a threat, even if she had played a crucial role in the fight against Thanos.

Steve wanted to be selfish and just run away with Bucky, but he couldn’t leave Wanda, who had become the little sister he never had.

He worried about her. Even as those who had been snapped away started to come to terms with the fact that 5 years had passed, Wanda wandered around, just a shell of her former self. Sometimes she fell into fits of rage and despair, using her powers to smash everything in her room at the compound or snapping at anyone who tried to distract her. Most of the time she was just blank.

Just a month after the return from the blip, Wanda strolls into the kitchen and announces that she’s going to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. Steve’s head snaps up. Her eyes are hard and determined, and Steve belatedly realizes that every muscle in her body is tense as she readies herself to fight anyone who tries to stop her. Sam is the first to speak up.

“Okay, kid,” he breathes out nonchalantly, “you need anyone to go with you?” Sam is good like that. Always knowing what to say to make someone feel comfortable and cared about, but not coddled.

“No,” Wanda grits out. A breath, and then, softer, “thank you.”

Glancing around to see if anyone else had any objections, Wanda walks out of the compound.

Steve lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was still holding, but the room is still tense. He whips around to Bucky, eyes wide with concern.

Before he can even say anything, Bucky reaches out and puts a hand on his shoulder, “Don’t worry. Come on, we’ll watch out for her.”

So, with a tight smile, Steve stands up and lets Bucky lead the two of them out.

It’s not until they are halfway down the street in an inconspicuous car, trailing a little ways behind Wanda’s red sedan that it occurs to Steve to ask what they’re doing.

“We’re just going to follow her to make sure she’s alright, pal. S.W.O.R.D. has Vision’s body, and it’s not a good idea for her to be alone, even if she thinks it’s best.”

“She’ll be mad if she realizes what we’re doing.”

“Good thing one of us is a reformed Russian spy,” he smirks.

Steve’s heart skips a beat at that familiar face, one that he hadn’t thought he’d ever see again, and blushes, ducking his head. If Bucky notices, he doesn’t say. They carry on in a comfortable silence.

As they pull into the S.W.O.R.D. parking lot, Steve watches Wanda march into the headquarters. He turns to Bucky, "Are we going to follow her in?"

"You can't, that's for sure." Steve scowls. "It's not entirely your fault, pal, but you're don't exactly blend in easily. But I'll go in to keep an eye on her if you want me to."

Steve considers the offer for the moment. As much as he wanted to watch out for Wanda, he knew that if she found out, it would hurt her more. She would think that he didn't trust her, and that he was following her to make sure that she didn't lose control of her powers and hurt people. He didn't want to make her feel more ostracized than she already was.

"No, we'll just wait," he says, shaking his head. His eyes never leave the entrance to S.W.O.R.D. headquarters. 

The wait for Wanda feels excruciatingly long. Steve doesn't trust that S.W.O.R.D. is any better than S.H.I.E.L.D., and he honestly has no idea what they've been doing with Vision's body for the last 5 years. A renewed sense of guilt washes over him.  If he had tried to fight S.W.O.R.D. harder for Vision's body, Wanda wouldn't be here, fighting through her grief to see him one last time. After the snap, Steve didn't feel like he could waste his dwindling energy scrutinizing S.W.O.R.D's every move, but he now wishes he had. He could have spared her this pain. 

Sensing the anxiety bubbling up within him, Bucky reaches out, pulling Steve's hand into his own. "It's not your fault, Steve," he reminds him gently. Steve squeezes his hand in response.

Wanda walks out of S.W.O.R.D. headquarters 20 minutes later. She seems drained and tired, but her expression reveals nothing. They wait again before following her out of the lot.

When she turns right, away from the direction of the compound where he assumed she would return, Steve frowns. "Where is she going? The compound's the other way."

Bucky shrugs. "I guess we'll see."

Steve has no idea where they are until he sees a sign declaring "Welcome to New Jersey!" not far down the highway.

"What the hell is she going to Jersey for?" Bucky gasps, pulling a loud laugh from Steve's chest. It's absurd and ridiculous, but it reminds Steve of when they were kids in Brooklyn, shitting on the Yankees and the state's annoying accent, among the plethora of other abhorrent traits about New Jersey. Bucky starts laughing with him, shaking his head. 

They finally arrive in a small, run-down town called Westview. Steve can't imagine why Wanda would come here.

Her red sedan comes to a stop in front of an empty plot of land, and she steps out, clutching a folded piece of paper to her chest.

"Oh, Christ... Shit," Bucky mutters. Steve is about to ask what he's thinking when he finally sees Wanda's walls crumble. 

Her shoulders shake with the force of her sobs, and she falls to her knees with a cry of desperation. A red orb of her twists around her body and Steve shoves the door to the car open, desperate to get to Wanda. 

"Steve!" he hears Bucky cry out behind him, and it's the last thing he hears before Wanda's powers implode around her, and his vision is blotted with red.

Remember! Wanda made all of her characters in the hex as similar to their actual lives as possible to ease her control of them! SO, it's only natural that her powers would pick up on the fact that Steve and Bucky are very obviously pining for each other and put them in a loving relationship while they are in the hex. Since they are both under Wanda's control, their storyline would happen mostly independently from what we see in WandaVision. I wouldn't have there be any smut (since I'm not talented enough or comfortable writing it myself) so there wouldn't be any non-con or any serious dub-con while they are in the hex. The idea is that both of them want everything that they are made to do (be partners, hold hands, kiss, do other couple-y stuff), but they are concerned because they think the other would feel disgusted and not want it.

There unfortunately were not any gay characters on TV in the 50s and 60s, so I would write these two "episodes" with loose ties to other sitcoms from those decades and do some research into how gay couples lived during these time periods. Basically, reimagine my own 50s and 60s sitcoms with realistic portrayals of a gay couple.

For the other decades, I would then base their relationship off of those actually depicted in sitcoms from that time. 

It should be noted that, while I have actually watch a lot of old sitcoms, I haven't watched many of the ones I mention. If I every decide to write this, I would do a lot more research on these shows (and watch some episodes!)

70's - I would likely draw from Barney Miller, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, and Soap.

80's - Roseanne is pretty iconic, but I would be a little hesitant to write it after all of the controversy a couple years ago. Love, Sidney may also work, but I don't know enough about the show.

90's - Will & Grace, of course! I don't know anything about Northern Exposure, but the little bit of research I've done suggests that also may be a source of inspiration.

2000 through early 2010s - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Modern Family. (I loved The War At Home, but it doesn't really fit)

When Wanda releases everyone from the hex, Bucky and Steve had some serious miscommunication issues and angst. Both feeling exceedingly guilty about their actions, despite the fact that they had no control over them. They got a taste for what domestic life would be like together, and they are frustrated that they enjoyed it since they believe the other one did not. When Wanda explains that her powers gave everyone jobs, relationships and roles in society that were equally comparable to those they had in real life, Bucky and Steve both realize that the hex would not have put them in a relationship if it wasn't what the other also wanted. Yay! They make-up (and make-out, lol).

I seriously want to write this, but I really don't have the confidence that I will be able to execute it as I imagine it. If someone wants to work on it with me (be it we both write it or you just want to offer some brainstorming help/story guidance), I would be thrilled! Just so long as there isn't any pressure to get it done in a time crunch. I just want this writing experience to be fun! Also, if you are interested, I swear I’m a better writer than what was just exhibited, but I really only spent an hour or so on it, so it’s obviously not my best work.

Anyway, if you have any thoughts, suggestions, advice etc or just want to scream about WandaVision and/or Stucky, please feel free to PM me or stop by my inbox. It would make my day :) 

[gayenerd]

This 2009 interview with Billie is from something called Urban Male Magazine (lol) which is apparently a defunct “men’s interest” magazine in Canada.

In this interview Billie Joe Armstrong talks about his new album ‘21st Century Breakdown’, about the band and his family; how his boys keep him young, and how he’s living his dream.

Here, in the middle of a dilapidated looking industrial zone, only separated from San Francisco by the Bay Bridge, singer/guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist Mike Dirnt and drummer Tré Cool have established their headquarters, composed of countless rooms for living, working and playing, protected by an automatic gate and barbed wire.  As we enter the 37 year-old Billie Joe's room to talk to him about the new album '21st Century Breakdown', he is sitting at the piano, now black haired following a brief blonde phase, playing 'Last Night on Earth', one of the new songs.

Billie Joe, we have never heard you so romantic. In this piece you sing “You are the moonlight of my life”, and “I'm sending all my love to you”. How touched is your wife Adrienne in light of this declaration of love?

Billie Joe Armstrong: She should be moved by this song, which she is.

Who do you spend more time with? With your wife or the band?

BJA: With my wife. Without a doubt. I mean, I sleep with her. I don't sleep with Tré and Mike.

You have been together for over 15 years.

BJA: A hell of a long time, I know. Adrienne is my closest ally. She is also a very good barometer in respect of my songs. She has a different kind of distance, a different way of approaching our music. She is always pretty objective and honest about what she thinks of our songs.

Your sons Joseph and Jacob are 14 and 10. How do the two of them sharpen your understanding for youth culture?

BJA: At the moment I find it incredibly exciting how my oldest son is negotiating his way through puberty. I think that being a young person today is more stressful and complicated than it was in my day twenty years ago. The Internet has won so much control over the way kids live their lives, it's almost frightening.

You yourself were quite a tear away, a head through the wall type, am I right?

BJA: Right. But my boys are not like that, they are somehow…brighter and more hard-boiled than I was at their age. Their world is significantly larger than my world was back then.

You look 15 years younger than you are. How do you do that?

BJA: When we aren't touring I go to bed at the same time as my sons. Rarely later than midnight.

People, and presumably your children too, now prefer to download their music from the Youtubes and Itunes of this world. And now you come along and release '21st Century Breakdown', a monumental, approximately 70 minute long concept album consisting of 18 songs and encompassing every imaginable style of music. Have you lost your mind?

BJA: I write songs as if my life depended on it. The last album 'American Idiot' provided us with an opportunity, the opportunity to record another really powerful and ambitious album. We didn't want to miss the chance this time around. We had to overcome our uncertainties and really pull out all the stops to complete this album. But that was what motivated us. We weren't interested in shying away from success again, as we did with our albums at the end of the nineties. Now I can understand it when people say that we started pulling our punches after 'Dookie' (the 1994 breakthrough album with 'Basket Case'). We are proud of what we have made out of Green Day.

In 'Horseshoes and Handgrenades', you sing “I am gonna drink, fight, f**k and push my luck”. As one of the biggest rock stars on the planet, do you still have time to rip it up?

BJA: One should always make time for a bit of excess. However, I have become more cautious. A sense of responsibility towards myself and my family.

When was the last time you were drunk?

BJA: The day before yesterday (laughs).

It has taken you three years to write this album and record it with the help of the Nirvana and Garbage producer Butch Vig. Was completing the follow-up to 'American Idiot' something of a Herculean task?

BJA: Yes, it was. '21st Century Breakdown' demanded much more from us, was far harder to realise than 'American Idiot'. Originally we had the idea of shooting an animated film with us as the main figures, and then write the soundtrack to it.  In the end we didn't do this. Instead, we set off to climb new creative heights and to write the best fucking songs we could.

The songs have turned out very musical and melodic. Much of it is reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen, the Beatles, and even Meat Loaf.

BJA: We acknowledge all our influences and really enjoy painting with a broad palette of colours. John Lennon, Bob Marley, U2, The Clash and many more. Songs are the result of patience and concentration. You never know when a song will gently tap you on the shoulder or hit you on the back of the head with a lump of wood. I get my ideas for songs everywhere - when playing the guitar, in the shower, on the toilet or when going for a walk.

The central line in the title song '21st Century breakdown', says: “My generation is zero. I never made it as a working class hero”. Isn't that a damned pessimistic view on life?

BJA: You should view it a little more discriminatingly. The song is about the American Dream, which says that you can make it if you really want to, if you push yourself. Society is increasingly trivializing this dream of our forefathers. Today it is only about winning the next Lotto jackpot and becoming stinking rich. That is not enough for me. What I miss is people striving to be better, to perfect themselves, this sense of hunger.

Have you realised your dream then?

BJA: One hundred percent. I am the happiest boy in the world. I love my band and my work. If there wasn't Green Day, then I would be washing plates.

Is society, especially in light of the current economic downturn, too materialistic?

BJA: No, I don't think it is. I don't have anything against prosperity. This pursuit of money regularly lands our country in trouble. But it also helps us to pull ourselves out of trouble again. America is very inventive when it comes to generating wealth. However prosperity should only be one aspect, a society built exclusively on money will break down. But I'm not pessimistic. We now have our first Afro-American president, which is a tremendous thing. And in the long run this means that the voice and the desires of the people will not be ignored.

What will Obama achieve? Save the world?

BJA: He won't save the world, especially not on his own. But this is the best thing that has happened to America in a very long time. There is a new crisis every week, a new catastrophe. However at the end of the day the central statement of the album is: There is light at the end of the tunnel.

Is Billie Joe Armstrong in 2009, what Bruce Springsteen was in the 80's or Bob Dylan in the 60's?

BJA: I can't deal with that. I don't want to be the voice of a generation. I wouldn't feel comfortable with a label like that. I want to speak for myself. However, if people discover something in my songs for themselves, then I have succeeded in what I set out to do.

Are you secretly thankful to George W. Bush? Ultimately he inspired 'American Idiot' and played a considerable role in its success?

BJA: That may be true, but no! Not at all. Thank Bush? That would be really beneath me.

[fuckyeahharryhart]

THE ART OF SEDUCTION  PART 2 Harry Hart Fan Fic

KINGSMAN III: REDACTED (Main Fic)

HARRY HART/ ORIGINAL CHARACTER M/F

WARNINGS: Mature, lust, light D/s, sex. Very explicit, but tasteful.

Words: 16800 (it’s very long)

SUMMARY After their initial encounter in the manor lounge, Kingsman quarterly reviews find Harry Hart and Gwendolyn alone together again. This time in Harry's office. What starts out innocently enough turns into a challenge of wills, tradecraft, trust and surrender.

NOTES: This is part of my main series for KINGSMAN 3, but since this is the erotic part that many of us enjoy the most, I decided to also separate it so it's easy to find and read on it's own. If you're looking for the whole story, check out my other fics. Still in progress though.

-----

Harry Hart was a man not easily distracted. If a task required his focus, there was little of the outside world that could pull him away. There was even less temptation in his internal world, where he was the master of his thoughts and emotions. But recently, the image of Gwendolyn, watching her as he pleasured her with only his eyes and the suggestion of his hands, squeezed its way to the forefront of his mind, even with all the walls he put up against it. She made him question the identity he had inhabited for so long he didn’t know if he had the capacity to be anything or anyone else. Was he be a man who could be with a woman half his age? Who happened to be the daughter of his closet colleague? One who had sacrificed himself to save Harry’s life. The thought was unsettling.

An obvious rationale against getting involved was the age difference. He was almost exactly twice her age. Which wouldn’t be inconvenient in all circumstances. But recently, the thought of Gwendolyn watching him when she was younger had him feeling disconcerted. She apparently had spied on him, along with her own father for years. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or disturbed. How old was she when she hacked the Kingsman network? A lot of information, sensitive information had been transmitted through those comms over the years. If she had access to his files, she would know more about him than anyone else on earth. Had she gone through his files? She had never brought up any of its contents. That didn’t mean she hadn’t seen it. The possibility was discomforting.

She had mentioned she young when she started learning computer technology. But she had also mentioned that she wasn’t able to spy on Merlin until she was a teenager. Tracing though her father’s computer network helped her survive her teens. Age difference had less significance when one was almost 60 and thirty. Though some may not find it appropriate, it was essentially, the business between two fully mature adults.

But a thirteen year old girl spying on a 26 year old man? He had never known her at that age. He didn’t even know she existed. But what kind of observations of him had she made at that impressionable age? It was not just a difference in age. It was a difference in maturity and mindset. Gwendolyn mentioned that she had taken a particular interest in Harry because he was her father’s closest colleague. Had she placed him in some kind of surrogate father role? Or was she hanging on to what was no more than a teenage infatuation?

Though by all appearances, Gwendolyn seemed perfectly stable, mentally sound. No evidence of PTSD, no emotional scarring that hindered her personal performance as an agent. She was more taciturn and reserved than most, but same could be said of Harry. She was surprisingly well adjusted for having such a harrowing past.  Was anyone able to adapt that well after that kind of tragedy?

Mostly he feared that she was attracted to him because of displaced feelings for her father. Not that she saw him as a father figure, but perhaps she was filling an emotional void that was left when her father died, using the person who reminded her of her father the most. She certainly didn’t treat him as she would a father. She often seemed to suggest she was interested in Harry beyond a professional relationship. He was finding it harder to resist and at the same time more troubled at the the thought.

He was certain that she was attracted to him. All the signals were there. The subtle touches and physical contact she made. Her hand on his forearm to politely ask for his attention. Fixing his tie if it was crooked or smoothing stray hairs that got caught in the wind. The pleased smile that she always gave him when he appeared. The way she would end up by his side with this tea the way he always prepared it.

Then doubt would creep in. A lack of confidence that he rarely had to contend with. Was she the one initiating contact, or was it he? He couldn’t recall her actually actively seeking him out. He always was the one to come into her space, whether it be running into her on the shooting range, or joining a briefing, or finding her in the sitting room for afternoon tea. She was always the one who was there first. There was no way she could have possibly predicted his location for all of those times. She was an excellent spy, but that was mind reading level. Perhaps he was the one that was making himself available to her.

He knew she was fond of him, respected him, and at times admired him and equally found him exasperating. She was a little bit of a flirt when the mood struck her, but so was Eggsy and he was married. Had she actually made any overt moves that suggested she was interested in him as more than a mentor and a friend? Anything more than the harmless flirtation all the Kingsman engaged in? One would think the agents were ALL sleeping together at times, overhearing some of their conversations. On the rare occasions that she participated in these sessions, he discovered she could throw down as well as the best of them. She had never been that suggestive with him directly.

He prided himself on being a man without internal conflict. A man who did not doubt his words or actions. Then Gwendolyn had appeared, carrying doubt in one hand, conflict in the other, and handed him both.

——

It was late evening at Kingsman HQ. Harry leaned back in his office chair, interlaced his hand behind his head, stretched out his shoulders, unfolded his legs and let himself ease into a slightly less decorous position. It was quarterly review season for Kingsman agents and support staff. That meant long days for everyone, but most of all for him now that he was, in addition to Galahad Sr., part time Arthur as well.  Most everyone had already completed their reviews. The expected issues reared up. The standard responses were given to placate.

How long was Harry going to be playing two roles, Galahad Sr., and Arthur? Weren’t they going to do something about the two Galahad situation? Would agents be assigned new titles since most of table was empty?  Some of the agents had put in request for different names. Would new recruits have to go through the standard process or were they foregoing that tradition because of the dire need for new blood? They had questions about the new faces currently filing spots on the Kingsman’s roster. How long was the cowboy going to stay? It wasn’t going to be permanent, was it? How much sense did it make to have an Agent Tequila at their table of Knights. Shouldn’t he be required to take a new moniker as long as he represented Kingsman? And where did Gwendolyn fit in the scheme of things? Was she the new Merlin? She definitely could be. In time, she could almost be as good as her father. But she was also indispensable in the field as well. Would a new role be created for her? Would they just keep calling her Gwendolyn? Was she a permanent addition? Was she going to be assigned a code name?  The kingsman agents worked best with a grounded foundation. Which had a place for everything and everything had its place. Including all the agents and support staff. An organisation based on decades of tradition, customs and heritage was understandably thrown off when unknown variables suddenly appeared without established roles, boundaries, and expectations.

Harry had his own similar questions as well. He wasn’t sure what to do about Gwendolyn. The last time he had broached the subject of what she was looking for at Kingsman and what her future plans were, he suddenly found himself talking about the details of her next mission he had set up in Portugal. She could skilfully divert almost any conversation in the direction of her choice. It was both charming and exasperating. He was charmed at her skill and exasperated that even he could not resist swerving the conversation in her direction.

She seemed to be wary of any thing that committed her to the future. Not with her work. As an agent, her best work was in planning. But, rather in her personal life. On the occasions that it had come up in conversation, she elegantly avoided talking about her future, what she had planned, what she wanted, or if she had goals for the following years. Most Kingsman were upwardly mobile, looking for advancement. They were ambitious and had designs, targets, aspirations. Whereas Gwendolyn seemed to have little concern for what lay in her future besides the next mission. Harry didn’t know if it was so much living in the present or avoiding future disappointment.

His mind began to wander outside the borders of propriety. The way she looked on the evening they shared in the Kingsman’s lounge took residence in his head. Innocent and seductive simultaneously. Naive yet lustful. It seemed to take up physical space. Moving thoughts aside to make room to stay in the forefront. He desired her. Intensely. She was a study in contradictions. At first glance she seemed like a sweet, lovely young lady. But as he knew first hand she was a skilled operative, an expert in weaponry and tactics, marksmanship, with the ability to think on her feet and engage in even the most unlikely scenarios. Her ability to disengage her emotions in the field would be a stark contrast to her thoughtfulness and kindness in her everyday interactions. Usually reserved and reticent, she could be so direct at times, so forward, that it was unnerving.

He often recalled that night during the times he could not will his arousal away. Rather than satisfying him physically, it seemed to stoke his need for more. Would it ever happen again? Or was it simply a curiosity, an amusing thrill for her that was now satisfied.

He was sitting in his office, long after the other Kingsman agents had gone home, contemplating just that, when she appeared in his doorway.

------

“I was just finishing up.” She help up her last field report. “I emailed you the file. But here’s a printed copy in case you need it.”

Harry held out his hand. Gwendolyn walked across the rug, her heels slightly sinking into the nape and passed the papers across his desk. She wasn’t wearing a Kingsman suit, but she looked very Kingsman nonetheless. The hem of a dark blue and green tartan kilt brushed her legs, the pleats ending just above her knees.  She had matched this with a navy velvet blazer with grosgrain trim, a ruffled white blouse and black court shoes. A navy ribbon was tied around her neck in a small bow, the long ends falling along the front of her blouse. And matching black knee high stockings that he chose to ignore. Her long black hair was done in waves, gathered and pinned at the nape of her neck. Her makeup was, as usual, undetectable, except for a wash of color on her lips. A soft rose red.

He reached for the papers and felt a moment of friction when their fingers grazed. Had she felt the same? He thanked her and set them aside on top of the ever growing stack of reports on the edge of his desk that had found  residence there ever since he had taken over as a temporary Arthur.

He gestured toward the comfortable deep chestnut leather upholstered arm chairs in front of his desk.

“Please, take a seat.”

She walked around to the chair on her right, tucked her kilt under her as not to wrinkle it and sat properly, but comfortably. She smoothed down the front of her blazer. Knees together and slanted to one side, simultaneously elegant and demure.  Her hands were folded lightly over her thighs. She sat up straight with her shoulders back and a firm set to her chin. It reminded him of how she looked that first night, when she was recounting her story.

She looked at him with another one of her inscrutable expressions. Of no significance or consequence. Her face was pleasant, attentive, but revealed absolutely nothing. She could be in her head committing murder or rescuing kittens. She had it down to an art form. She was waiting for him to speak first.

He sighed inwardly. Now that she was here and he had her attention, she had no legitimate reason to leave as this meeting was scheduled in advance and she had nowhere else to be.

“How are you feeling?”

He kept the question purposely vague. Left it open for her to interpret as she would like. He was curious to see what direction she was going to take her answer. All of a sudden, the sight of her, prim and proper in her kilt and blouse, aroused him. He felt himself stir and he adjusted his position accordingly.

“How so?” she asked.

Harry gestured with his hand, palm up and swept it toward her. The floor is yours.

——

She sighed to herself. She was pleased to be seeing him this evening. She had even dressed specifically in the demure, ladylike, but still alluring style that she knew he preferred. Especially with the other agents mostly gone, she would have him without interruption. Often, during meetings in his office, a knock on the door would interrupt them and distract her from whatever part of Harry she decided to concentrate on for that meeting. Whether it be his hands, his eyes, or even the dimples that would appear when he did his half smile of pressing his lips together with amusement. She had once even spent a full hour staring at his forearms, and imagining she could feel them under the wool of his suit. She had purposely scheduled her review for the end of the day, hoping they could have some time without her concentration being broken every five minutes. Maybe even share a drink. Though she hadn’t had a drink with him since the night she tried to play a game of eye contact with him and he played with her, an entirely different game altogether.

Everyone seemed to want to know what she wanted for the future. She would prefer in the future that they stop asking her this question. Plans were an indulgence she had no patience for. She had absolutely no desire to voice a want or a need that she had no control over. Why did everyone seem to insist that she define everything in her life? Define her role, her place in Kingsman. Was she here indefinitely? Define her work. Was she a field agent or was she tech support? Why didn’t she have to wear the Kingsman suit if she didn’t want to. Define her past. And an evening in which she had hoped would include some harmless flirting and maybe staring at his mouth, was now turning into a discussion about her feelings.

Why couldn’t she just do her work and let it be that? She was an exceptional agent and handler. She took after her father when it came to tech support. She had the skills to perform many roles. They couldn’t accept that she had no plans.  She had but one goal, one mission, and she completed it. To get to Kingsman London and take her father’s place. Well, two, if she was being honest. Second, to meet her father’s friend and colleague, Harry Hart. That made two things that she planned and had accomplished.

She was mostly content ensconced in the daily grind that was life as a Kingsman agent. And she had Harry Hart when she wanted someone to share company with. If she was feeling a little more amorous, she was more than satisfied imagining being with him, but only when she was alone in the privacy of her own bed. After he had watched her pretty much imagine herself to climax while he played with his scotch glass like it was her, anything more than the most harmless flirtation, threw her off kilter.

She wasn’t quite sure if this evening would qualify as flirting. It seemed to feature a lot of talking. Perhaps this was Harry’s way of flirting. It was quite exasperating. He was really the only person she would even tolerate, anyway, aside from maybe Eggsy. She didn’t want things to be awkward with him. That other evening definitely fell into the awkward territory. Apparently, her father had also been the same, Not with the awkwardness, the “able to tolerate” part. Otherwise, she was more than happy to let fate lead her where ever it wanted to.

In the meantime, she was satisfied with her work. Now even Harry was asking her to define her feelings. Under the guise of a review. But she knew that he wouldn’t ask an open ended question during a meeting with an agent. Not when he had five more agents waiting in line for their turn. Questions that could be interpreted in many ways were inefficient. She had the feeling he was asking her on a personal, “I’m concerned about you,” Harry level. Not an Arthur, “so let’s get this over with,” supervisor level. She decided to skirt around the subject until she could guide the conversation to a more comfortable place. Preferably over a drink.

“You don’t have to worry about me, sir.”  She equivocated.

“I know that.” He replied. He felt himself stir again when she addressed him as sir . “However, you didn’t answer my question.”

Because your question is stupid, she thought. Instead she said.

“I feel like a drink.” That was easy, she thought. She neatly stood up and walked over to his small bar with the crystal decanter of scotch.

“May I pour you one?”

“I appreciate you offering me my own scotch.” He said with slight sigh. “And that was a very weak diversionary tactic.”

“First of all, I asked whether I could “pour” you a scotch. There is a difference.”

Without a reply from him, she splashed a finger’s worth in a second glass. Walking over toward him, she passed it over the desk as well. Her agitation at being questioned when all she wanted to do was listen to him talk so she could stare at his mouth was making her bristle.

“Second of all,” She clinked her glass against his and then raised her drink. “It worked. It got the job done. Here’s to feeling like a drink.” She took a sip.

“This would be the actual diversionary tactic.” She sat against the arm of one of the chairs. Lightly perched on top she said,

“The last time we shared a scotch was when you were schooling me on the finer points of the art of seduction.”

She felt awkward about the whole episode and she dealt with awkwardness by trying to make the situation more awkward for the offending party. Or in tradecraft terms, Detecting Threats and Preemptively Engaging Attacks.

“How did that make you feel?”

Hmmmm. Harry thought. She was walking a fine line, hoping that if he followed, she could throw him off balance and then direct the conversation toward a topic of her choosing.  A good way hide one’s emotions was by making one’s opponent experience stronger ones. If she believed this train of thought would derail him, then it most likely had her flustered as well. So apparently, it had been on her mind, too.

Harry seemed to be deciding something in his mind. She could see him turning something over, pausing, and turning it over agin. She took another sip of her drink and waited for him to speak.

She admitted that she was being unnecessarily difficult. He probably had a long day after the back to back reviews. He was simply showing concern. She enjoyed spending time with him and would usually look forward to meetings where she could be alone with him. Maybe she was frustrated. She didn’t want to say anything that would jeopardise their relationship, friendship, or whatever he wanted to call it. She just saw them as two people who enjoyed each other’s company in whatever way they wanted to.

His eyes narrowed the tiniest bit, a micro expression that said he was looking at something he had been trying to make sense of and finally had. The look added on a firm set to his jaw.

“It would be in our best interest if you locked the door.”

It was a statement. Not posed as a question. She wasn’t sure what to make of this voice. Firm, decisive, a little demanding, a little authoritative. It sounded vaguely familiar. Under different circumstances, she would have automatically asked “Why?” But this evening was filled with little pockets of uncertainty. He was changing her game again. He was seeing her diversionary tactic and raising it, but to what?

For a spy, a room with even just one other person turned it into a potential event. An event was a scenario in which the occurrences could be manipulated or influenced for the agent’s own agenda. This was suddenly feeling like an event. The question was, should she engage? She had been trying to divert him so she wouldn’t have to discuss her feelings or why she didn’t have anything planned for her future. Now he was countering her diversion, but in an unknown direction.

If he just wanted to circle back to the review, it would have been an exasperated, “For goodness sake, Gwendolyn. You have your tipple. Now sit your arse down and answer my bloody questions.”

Whenever she was caught off guard, she always reverted back, remember your training.

-----

“Reading a room” in the spy world was deliberately observing a room to understand the overall emotions and thoughts of the persons in it, i.e. herself and Harry. Her assessment would help her calculate the best method of engagement of the situation in said room, i.e. what was turning into a bizarre agent review session. The art of awareness was the understanding group dynamics in small, confined spaces, i.e. Harry’s office, which was actually quite roomy and well appointed. On-the-fly situational judgments and character assessments from mere moments of observation and interaction. The goal to obtain actionable intel. He was just trying to prove that his diversionary tactic was much more effective than hers. It worked. Now she just felt awkward and uncomfortable.

The problem of using strategy to read the room? It was only Harry Hart. And Harry Hart was impossible to read.

Avoid engagement in unknown situations, she thought. The energy of the room had shifted and she didn’t know what to make of it yet. She pushed off her chair and walked over to the large wooden door. She would play along. She didn’t want to disturb the air by stirring it with further misdirection.

The door was like an anchor, a tether that kept her grounded. A single point of focus she could concentrate on rather than speculating on all the reasons why Harry would ask her to lock the door. Why didn’t he just lock it. Why did he want it locked in the first place. Why did he phrase it “in our best interest”? She need to stop with all the questions, and just act until she had a clearer idea of what Harry was up to.

It was frustrating. She could analyze a life and death situation, narrow down the problem, decide on a course of action, engage with the enemy all under direct threat and then act without hesitation. When she tried that with Harry, aside from the first night they met, she kept on slipping down the rabbit hole of “what if’s”.

Just focus on the door, she thought. The door was carved with an intricate design along the edges. Hmmm. She had never noticed it all the times passing in and out of Harry’s office.  Taking much longer than any spy needs to lock a door, she turned the brass knob above the handle to the right. It made a little click as the locking mechanism fell into place. The tiny sound seemed to echo through the quiet air. Without knowing why, she slid the bolt into place as well.

Could it be possible he was actually upset that she kept disregarding his concern? The last thing she wanted to do was upset Harry. She had always been able to veer around answering his questions if she didn’t feel like the question was a necessity. He had been so tolerant with her episodes of obstinacy. Had she pushed his patience too far? Was he going to scold her in private? Disappointed Harry was worse than upset Harry.

After Harry heard the bolt lock into place, he continued.

“Come over here. Please.”

Though the words were polite, the tone indicated that it was not a request. He spoke with a new inflection. His words carried a note that others most likely would miss. But she had been getting better at discerning the different shades of his voice.

She pressed her lips together. Before she turned around, she wanted to find the right expression. None of them fit. She composed herself the best she could, took a few deep breaths and relaxed her shoulders. She relieved Harry the trouble and scolded herself lightly. They went through so much classified information in this office, she was surprised it wasn’t a vault. Harry was just going to go over sensitive information and needed privacy with no risk of interruption. Whatever she was feeling was just her, not Harry.

Or most likely, she was going to turn around after spending all this time analysing the situation, he was going to smile and say.

Now that is what I would call an effective diversionary tactic.

That would be such a classic Harry Hart thing to do. Believing herself to be more presentable, she turned around and what she saw startled her to the extent that she dropped the small handful of confidence she was able to collect.

-----

Harry was in his white dress shirt and was in the process of rolling up his sleeves. His jacket, set aside on a hanger so as not to wrinkle, hung from a hook on the wall behind him. He was just in the middle of removing his set of gold cufflinks. One of his sleeves was already open at the wrist. The link was sitting on the desk in front of him. After he freed the second link, he picked up the first one and placed them both in a small silver tray. Whose only purpose might be, she thought, to make sure his cufflinks were safe and never separated.

Now this was unexpected. Don’t disturb the air. Determine the before you engage. She talked herself through the walk from the door toward his desk. She paused at the two chairs with a question. He tilted his head in his direction. All the way, it said. He was rolling up one sleeve as she walked.

As she stepped around, he rose from his chair. She met him on his side of the desk. She realised she’d never been in this proximity to Harry in his office. In this space. His space. He was always behind the desk. Agents sat in a chair. Without fail it was business. Always Kingsman.

She stood in front of him as he rolled up his other sleeve. This was as relaxed, “unclothed” as she had ever seen him on Kingsman property. The most relaxed anyone saw him was without his suit coat.  Oh, for fucks sake. He still had his leather shoulder holster on. With a gun in the sheath.

She was slightly unsure, hesitant, watchful. It was rare that she stood so close to him without a legitimate reason, like reaching behind him for more ammunition on Kingsman’s shooting range. Or trying to tip toe for a book at the HQ library, only to have him appear at her side to reach it for her. Personal space didn’t exist in the field when not being seen was a life or death scenario. More than once had they been squeezed together in extremely tight spots. But there has always been a reason. A legitimate and proper reason.

Here, he was just looking at her. She didn’t try to hold his gaze this time, but she didn’t shy away from making eye contact.  I know what that leads to, she thought. Damn her for bringing it up. She let her eyes move where ever they felt like. And they ran up and down the length of Harry Hart.  All of a sudden, she didn’t know what to do with her hands.

“I would like…” he took an undefinable pause. He was deciding on something. Contemplating an idea. He was making a choice. It was as if he needed to complete the thought in his head before he spoke out loud.

He started again, with assurance.

“I would like to bend you over my desk.”

——

She almost choked. 

If she had been drinking, she most definitely would have choked. She almost choked anyway.

What the fuck? Of all of the words that could have come out of his mouth, “I would like to bend you over my desk” had to top the very top of the least likely list. She was completely and utterly caught off guard. A rare sensation for her. She had no trained reaction she could fall back on in this scenario. Her resting heart rate started to rise. A heated flush rushed up to her cheeks. She suddenly doubted herself. Was that really what he said? Or did she just hear him wrong. Did he forget to finish his sentence?

Didn’t he really say, “I would like to bend you over my desk so I can use your body as a unit of measurement to determine the distance from one edge of my desk to the other?

It would have been no less bizarre a request.

Yes, of course she had imagined what it would be like to be with him. What he would do to her, what would he feel like. How he would take her. How could any woman not? He was Harry Hart. But as she knew, shooting under live enemy fire was much different than practice shooting at the range. While she wasn’t under any danger, her body’s response was the same as when she was on her first real mission. It was her fight or flight response. Her automatic physical response to a perceived threat that activated her sympathetic nervous system and triggered an acute stress response that prepared her to fight or flee.

She knew exactly how the fight or flight response worked on a physical level. In this case, Harry was the perceived threat, the catalyst. Upon hearing his command, a sudden rush of hormones began a chain reaction causing the release of adrenaline, which increased her heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. It was also however, very similar what the physical body experienced when sexually aroused. At the present moment, she wasn’t sure if she could tell the difference. Not that it mattered. It had the same effect in the end.

She wanted to add a third response, fight, flight, or freeze. She was trained to fight anytime her fight or flight response was activated without hesitation. She knew how to engage with an enemy, depending on the circumstances of the fight. Was it hand to hand combat, a fire fight, urban warfare? She could handle that.  She did not have any training scenario that instructed her on how to engage with Harry Hart when he asked, no, scratch that, when he commanded that she bend over his desk. None whatsoever. Absolutely nothing. She was out on a limb, swinging on all the tiny branches.

The dots were refusing to connect. She was having a very hard time linking the statement she just heard, to the man who said it, to the action it led to. And she was shivering all over. She tried to stop it, but couldn’t and she was very, very anxious about it. Now she knew why earlier she thought that his tone sounded familiar. It was the voice of the man that had sat across from her one evening in the club. Playing what she thought was a silly game of wills. He had a glass of scotch in his hand then, too. He hadn’t said a word during that episode, but if he had, she knew that this is what it he would’ve sounded like. It was Harry’s voice, deep, smooth, powerful, but with an added layer and additional edge.  It was the voice of a man who was going to have sex with her. Statement.

THIS. She remembered. THIS was how he felt that night. He was Harry, but more. Harder, more intense, demanding. And completely assured. And aroused. She was feeling dizzy and trembly as well as anxious now.

Fuck. Scratch that. Holy fucking fuck. Fuck. She added a final one for emphasis. Fuck.

The image, let alone the thought, of her bent over Harry Hart’s desk, him behind her, being taken by Harry Hart, completely rearranged her mind. Nothing was connecting. She, who could control nearly every emotion and resulting physical reaction out on the field, was helpless in his presence. Her imagination could only get as far as being bent over Harry’s desk and then her mind would short circuit.

His mouth was moving. Oh, God, she thought. What is he saying now?

She tried very hard to concentrate on his words, but she was vibrating and didn’t know if his words would land.

“But first,” He said, “I am going to kiss you.” He was looking down at her, curious and amused. “That is, unless you object.”

Her head shook from side to side without any direction from her.  Why would she object? He was only the most perfect, charming gentleman spy and the hottest mentor that she had ever had who was equal parts devastatingly handsome and achingly sexy.

“I can’t hear that.”

What? She thought. Her head shook again before she had the wherewithal to speak out loud.

“I don’t object.” she returned with much more confidence than she felt.

Ohmygod, I am going to be kissed by Harry Hart. The phrase repeated on a quick loop in her head.

No, she thought again, there was nothing that could have prepared her for this as she short circuited again.

——

Harry Hart could tell that nervousness was not usual for her and ascribed her anxiety to both the surprise of the situation and the way it was presented.

He knew that he was to blame for all of that. He had arranged it purposely to do so. His intent was to catch her off guard. Not only off guard, but completely unexpected and totally unprepared. Having your mentor request that you bend over his desk, in his office, in his place of work, was not high on the list of things you expect to happen during an employee review. Especially if your relationship up to that point had been exclusively mentor and colleague. Her bewilderment would prevent her analytical mind from automatically activating and analysing the situation.

She was a secret agent, with work and life experience that could overwhelm a hundred people, let alone one. Her background was steeped in risk, loss, danger, and uncertainty. She had the grit to handle all that life had delivered and come out on the other side. She had the physical control to reduce the effects of shock. It was part her natural resilience, her capacity to adapt, and her training, that conditioned her to act under the most unlikely scenarios.

Part of the exhilaration, frisson, and the charge of being intimate with a new partner was the aspect of the unknown. And if that unknown was unexpected or even slightly shocking, it could elevate the experience. He was certain that a fine dinner and a return back to his flat for an evening of lovemaking would be lovely. But he didn’t want lovely for this evening. There was plenty of time for lovely. One had only a single chance for an unforgettable first time.

He did not know how sexually experienced she was, but from observation he suspected that her experience was not very extensive. First of all, she didn’t seem like the type of person who sought esteem or worth through being sexually desirable or one who found validation through sex. She also didn’t seem like a woman who would find pleasure in sleeping with random people to fulfil a purely physical desire.

All agents could take care of themselves if they found themselves needing physical release for one reason or another. For male agents, he knew that it was an excellent way to fall asleep quickly in the field where every second wasted may be the difference between a successful mission and a failed one. She would have to find her partner interesting and attractive and desirable in some way, or else she would not find the experience pleasurable. Judging from how many people she kept company with, or how little, her standards were very high.

One-night stands were possible. Agents also had a way of charming a person for only a night or an evening. If the chemistry was strong enough, agents most definitely could organise encounters on the side. In his experience, a one night stand was fairly similar to the one before it and the one after it. It didn’t give one enough time to delve into the desires of the other person. Most often, it was a way to find some temporary pleasure and company, if company was even desired. One night stand sex was fairly predictable, making sure whatever technique, position, location had the greatest chance of pleasing both parties, which often were the most standard.

Rarely, if ever, did an agent find someone who they connected with so strongly, intensely and quickly that they could trust them to explore more intimate sexual pleasures.

He found it amusing. Most of Kingsman would be shocked if they knew of his, at times, unconventional views on sex. Gwendolyn obviously was. He enjoyed exploring outside the box in life and in work. Sex was no exception. If both parties were not only in agreement, but in tune and in a space of trust, there was a freedom to be experienced in sex, and there was little he would be opposed to trying with the right partner. But one did not build that brand of trust in a single encounter. It took knowing the other individual on an extremely personal, extremely intimate level.

No agent wanted to seem or feel vulnerable, but to Harry, that was the exhilaration of good sex. It was the only place he would allow himself to feel vulnerable. Vulnerable meant being exposed, open and sensitive. And if that didn’t describe sex, he didn’t know what did. If you knew the fears and desires of a person who was capable of being vulnerable, then the pleasure you could provide them would be unlimited. The most important factor was trust. Something that spies were notoriously bad at. Both at gaining and giving.

He was very attracted to her, sexually and personally. She was equal parts alluring, and seductive, but without effort. She fascinated him. People rarely did. But most of all, as a man who valued his private time and personal space, he found that he sought out her company whenever he had an opportunity. That behaviour was telling. He could picture her in his space, without it feeling like an intrusion. Typically, whenever he had company, no matter how much he may be enjoying himself, there would always be that moment in the evening where he wished his space was his own again.

It felt like she could just be. Be in his space and he would not be bothered by it. Not that she could easily be ignored. The point wasn’t to feel like she wasn’t there at all. It was recognising her presence and not having to feel any kind of demand or expectation for him to do something different or be someone different. Basically, that he could be himself. He could imagine sitting in his favourite chair in his flat, a fine old leather piece, well made, that had held up for years and still had many more years left. He would be reading a book or a newspaper. She would be quite relaxed on the floor with a pile of pillows as that was how she preferred to rest, but near his chair. Close enough where she could bracelet his ankle with her hand, the other hand holding her own book or more likely her smart phone. Close enough where if he let his hand fall over the side of his chair, that he could touch her hair, or cheek and perhaps find her hand brushing against his. Simple touches, not requesting more, not requiring more than just acknowledging the existence of the other person. Companionship. Something he never had truly experienced before.

He sensed this was possible the evening of her little battle of the wills. Well, prior the seduction portion of the evening. She was perfectly comfortable and natural being seated together in silence. He was fairly sure that she had not even spoken a word, though she had communicated much during the time they had shared.

Which was another reason he determined that she had limited sexual experience, but was very sexually open in the right circumstance. That evening helped him decide how he would approach her, how to initiate their engagement, so to speak.

Her surprise when he lifted the challenge up to its proper level suggested that she was fairly new to the game of seduction, or at least in the actual physical practice of the game. He was quite sure she was attracted to him. But most of all, was her willingness to be controlled and allowing him the freedom to control her. That said trust to him. Her reaction betrayed her surprise, but also her desire and her enthusiasm, if not eagerness for the experience. And also, the evidence of her enjoyment that merely the idea of being controlled by Harry, aroused her.

He suspected that she had some slight D/s tendencies, even if she did not consciously recognise it. D/s could be misinterpreted, and often was, but dominance and submission was not exclusively about inflicting or enjoying pain. It was not akin to degradation or humiliation. But it did revolve around humility, or being humble, which was a different affair all together. It was centred on being pleasing ,and thus, giving pleasure and receiving pleasure. If that included pain, well then, it was a mutual understanding. If a man treated a woman well, with respect, if he honoured her and treasured her, there would be little she wouldn’t do to please him. What many people didn’t realise is that the man didn’t choose the woman in D/s relationships, the woman chose the man based on his worthiness.

That encounter led him to believe, as little experience as she may have had, her willingness to stay with the challenge, which some may, feeling embarrassed, would have halted, that she was extreme in ways that she might not recognise. She was certainly extreme in most other aspects of her life. And also, that she had enjoyed herself immensely when faced with an unexpected scenario that surprised her and she was unprepared for. He thought that may have even heightened her response.

The key was, if she was vulnerable, she would be open to receive all of the pleasure he knew he could give her. And seeing her pleasure would be pleasing to him as well.

She may find the situation that he arranged for their first time together extreme and unorthodox, unusual. Her preconceived notions of sex may tell her that this was improper or strange or inappropriate, but he knew, ultimately, that if she allowed him, he could pleasure her in ways that she didn’t even know existed. Just the thought of it aroused him.

He only need to catch her before she was able to put her guard up and behave and react in the way she thought she should, not the way she wanted to. He wanted her to react on a purely instinctual, visceral level. This was one scenario where analysis would work against her, not for her.

He placed his hands to the sides of her face, ever so gently, barely touching, passing smoothly over her features. He could sense the slightest tremor through her entire body. She was still responding on a physical level, not an intellectual one. He didn’t want to give her a chance to think herself out of this situation, so he leaned down and kissed her in the way he wanted to, and in a way he knew she would enjoy.

——

Your knees really do go weak, she thought. With one small step, Harry entered her space. Sexy and commanding in his shirt and shoulder holster. He seemed larger than she remembered. He positively towered over her. Her eyes could not meet his gaze but she knew that he was looking down at her.  He lifted his hands to her face. Each palm cupped the curve of her jaw, lightly, tenderly, almost touching her, but not quite. The warmth of his hands and the heat from her cheeks closed the distance between them. Her skin burned and tingled in anticipation.

Her eyes fluttered closed and she held back a sound that was part sigh, part moan when she felt Harry’s gentle yet firm hands caress her face. His palms, fingertips, knuckles, the back of his hands, traveled every curve and hollow as if memorising her features through touch. He explored her lips, very slowly brushing across her cupids bow with his thumb, barely touching. Gwendolyn couldn't help herself. She parted her lips, her tongue instinctively trying to making contact, before he lightly glided over the soft skin of her cheek.

The wait was excruciating. Harry Hart was going to kiss her. She was going to be kissed Harry Hart. That was her last thought as he bent down and brushed her lips with his own in the most tender of kisses. The contact was soft and warm.

That slightest touch made a shudder run through her body. His hands still gently braced the sides of her face. His hold was exquisite. The anticipation was devastating. His lips parted and his tongue began to press against her with a soft but firm insistence and her mouth opened to him. The woodsy, smokey, slightly sweet taste of scotch still lingered as he kissed more deeply, slowly swirling his tongue around hers. He knew, very well, what he was doing.

Sensation flowed through her entire body, pulses of pleasure reaching every inch of her, prickling her skin. Thousands of synapses were sending messages from Harry’s mouth to hers. They traveled to her brain, which translated her desire in a language her physical body could understand and shot the directive to every last nerve ending.  Hundreds of thousands of electrical connections manifested as lust, as longing, as need. She felt her muscles twitch involuntarily. For this man, she thought, and this man alone. For Harry Hart.

He only had his mouth on hers, his hands on her face and she felt consumed by him. Overwhelmed by him. One of his hands traveled to the nape of her neck and nested his fingers within the twist of hair that was gathered and pinned there. His other hand traveled down her side and pressed into the curve of her waist. Her neck was gently but insistently bent backward. Gwendolyn’s breath caught in her throat. Harry demanded more and she yielded to him, letting his mouth claim hers. His grip tightened, her scalp prickled, but it wasn’t painful. It was just persistent. The room seemed to be spinning in slow motion. She felt herself begin to melt into him.  A shudder ran through her body.

Gwendolyn’s resolve was demolished as his lips crushed hers. She relinquished herself over to him. With a single heady kiss, her self-control was washed away in a flood of passion.

When at last the kiss ended, Gwendolyn’s breath was heavy, her head light, her body trembling. Opening her eyes, time stood still. Gwendolyn saw the corners of his mouth slowly turn into a smile.

She realised their faces were just inches apart. Harry’s golden brown eyes reflected the dim light of his office.  They journeyed along the curves and angles of her face and stopped until she dared to look up and meet him. The warm intensity of his gaze made her heart pound in her chest. Pulsating anxiety mixed with devastating pleasure.

Seconds, minutes, passed as time meant nothing to her. She still didn’t know what to do with her hands. Her hands had hung by her side as if her brain was too occupied with what was happening to her mouth, it didn’t have the capacity to consider what any other part of her should be doing.  She was still afraid to touch him, as if the slightest contact might sear her like dry kindling ready to go up in flames.

As he pulled his face away, his hands were still in place.

“I believe it’s your turn.”

He took her wrists, raised her hands to his face and laid them gently on his skin. “I’ll keep my eyes closed.”

Gwendolyn’s heart was pounding in her chest as she caressed his face as gently as she could. She trailed her trembling fingertips along his strong jaw, down his neck, feeling the beat of his pulse. He was warm. And masculine. Hard muscle under smooth skin. Back up she traversed, tracing his cheekbones, his brow and the wide planes of his forehead. She lowered her hands to his chest, with only her fingertips touching his shirt.

He opened his eyes, staring at her and smiling softly. He reached up and took her hands in both of his. She swallowed again but it was no use. Her mouth was completely dry. She couldn't have spoken even if she knew what to say.

“Now, you may think that door is locked,” he nodded in its direction, “to keep you from leaving. It is not. It’s merely for privacy. You are not bound here by me, nor by anyone else. I want you to be here, because you want to be here. I may have initiated this meeting, but it’s both of us that are needed, consciously, and voluntarily for it to be worthwhile.

“You may stay, or you may leave. I cannot say that I won’t be disappointed, but that is only because you are flawless, and I want you. But my physical needs are not of your concern if you leave. I have stated as clearly as I can, what this evening will entail. There are no repercussions if you chose to leave. There may be another opportunity at a different time. But do not let the future influence what you decide at this moment” his gaze softened in understanding. “Is that not what you believe?”

One of his hands released hers. He reached up to touch her face again. Simultaneously, there was a hardness and a softness in his eyes that was riveting. Arresting. It took her breath away. And when he spoke, his words were all that mattered. His voice dropped, low and intense.

"There is much I want to show you, to tell you, and to be for you. And there is much I want you to be for me.  But that is not up to me. For you, there will always be a choice. So I will ask you now. Would you like to leave? Or would you like to stay.” He added, “And be with me.”

To Gwendolyn, there was no question. This man, always smart in his suit and tie, freshly shaven, …always a gentleman.  His thoughtfulness, his patience and his nature, a kindness that was at the same time gentle and firm... His face, his eyes, his hands strong and capable. His intelligence, dedication, his passion...

It all added up. The answer was obvious.

“I would like to stay. And be with you.”

She felt the strength of his arms, arms that had already been around her for so many different reasons, envelop her now for only one reason. Allowing herself to finally be close to him, she eased herself against him, laying her cheek against his chest. She closed her eyes. She could hear and feel the beating of his heart. It relieved her when it sounded almost as quick as hers. He was affected, too.  He leaned down a little, brushing his cheek lightly against her forehead. Her inhalations carried the scent of his cologne, blended with whatever was essentially him and it was intoxicating. She wrapped her own arms around his torso and she could feel his strength through his familiar white dress shirt.

Harry never failed to amaze and surprise her. She knew that there was more to Harry Hart than the Agent Galahad he presented to the world. She simply hadn't expected the intensity of all of who he was. There was always an undercurrent of harmless flirting. As it was, the Kingsman agents were already uncomfortably close and personal with each other, a little too much for her tastes at times. Other than the evening that she attempted to challenge him to a staring contest, which turned into something quite different, nothing of her experience with him could have prepared her for the Harry Hart she was witnessing this evening.

He was always considerate, proper, polite. A true gentleman. But he was still being a gentleman, she thought, even under these unusual circumstances. Just an extremely forward and sexy one.  She could only judge his actions according to how it made her feel. And so far, everything that he had said and done hadn’t made her want to run out of the room. His words and his actions caused a surge of electricity that flooded her senses, waking every urge, every need, every desire within her.

He was still Harry Hart. He was still a man of integrity. He was just more. But it was so much more he was almost completely different. While Agent Galahad made her feel protected and safe, this Harry made her feel exhilarated in a way that was both thrilling and dangerous. But looking up at him, the familiar benevolence was still there. She could see it in the brown eyes that were staring back at her. Strangely, in spite of the torrent of passion brewing, Gwendolyn felt secure with him. He would look after her. Like he always did. She would let him take the lead.

Harry continued talking to her almost the entire time, explain things so she wouldn’t have to guess. Telling her how he felt and what he thought. In her delirious state she listened to him as if she were in in a waking dream. Aware of everything going on around her, but not being able to react.

He took her hands again and guided her over to the desk. Her heart began to race.  She knew he could feel the shaking in her fingertips. He led her over and first slightly lifted her so she was sitting on the desk, facing him so she could see him as he spoke.

“Regarding the desk. Not as conventional, I must admit, especially for our first time together. But I determined this to be the position that you would enjoy the most and receive the most pleasure. Not that other positions aren’t pleasurable, but I chose this purposefully for you.”

She looked confused.

“I should explain. Please be assured that I will no doubt, find all the ways we will be together, as thrilling as this. Though one must admit, the view, from my perspective lends a certain charm.  Perhaps you think it’s a little impersonal. Not being face to face. I do realise that eye contact adds a bit of intensity to the act. Not to worry.”

He tipped his chin toward the far side of the room.

She turned her head. Fuck. She had forgotten about the mirror next to the door. As exacting that the Kingsman suits were, there was a full length mirror placed next to every door of every office so every agent could make sure he or she was presentable before representing their organisation.

She turned back to face him.

“I will be able to see you, darling. As you will be able to see me. You will also be able to see yourself. And you will also be able to see me watching you. The possibilities are quite endless. I have the suspicion that this is something you will take pleasure in.”

Now this was just too much, she thought. When Harry Hart did something, she had to admit, he sure made it memorable.

Every time she thought that the standard had been set and the situation could not possibly become more intense, something would happen and Harry would level up. She wasn’t sure if she could go up that high. Harry seemed to breathe rare air. He must be breathing something else up where he stood.

He called for her attention.

“This evening should be less talking and more doing. But I want to emphasise that we will be communicating the entire time. I will be watching you, making sure you are ok, that you are enjoying yourself and also looking for ways to pleasure you even more.”

“Do not hide your reactions for fear of judgement or pretend to feel something that you don’t because of expectations you may think I have or that you have for yourself. If you find that you hate what I do with you, you will know right away, and I will know right away.”

He placed her hands on top of her lap and placed his palms on the backs of her hands. He was caressing them reassuringly.

“Now I didn’t select this by random. After observing you for many months, watching your behaviour, listening to you speak, the way you approach your work. And our little encounter in the lounge told me that you would respond more intensely, more physically, more emotionally to a situation that pushed you, that challenged you, that was unexpected. If I was able to catch you unawares, you would be more willing to let yourself explore your own needs and desires.”

Harry was very frank and honest with her.

“Do not fake, do not pretend. You will not be hurting my feelings or offending my manhood or abilities as a lover. I am more than secure in that regard. For some women, no matter how much they may enjoy being taken in this position, they are not able to climax.  If we find that to be the case, I will be able to tell and  I’ll move you in ways you will find more satisfying. If it so happens that release isn’t in the cards this evening... I am also aware that the female orgasm is much more complex than ours. But I am sure we will both enjoy trying and perhaps allow me to opportunity to enhance my repertoire.”

She highly doubted that would be the case, but she was impressed that he was comfortable and at ease enough to bring up a topic that would make most men cringe.

“Also, as I female agent, I understand you are on birth control.”

She nodded. The last thing a female agent needed to be surprised with on the field was her period.

“Being that all Kingsman’s reviews are preceded by a complete physical, I know that I pose no risk to you. Are you the same?”

She nodded again.

“Lastly, that doesn’t mean that you want to be unprotected. I have means here available. I will let it be your choice. A man should be pleased, either way, that it is happening at all. Do you require additional protection?”

She smiled and this time, shook her head.

“This is not me, having you in the way that I want. It is us, being together in a way that enhances the experience, for both of us. One doesn’t work without the other.”

“Do you have any questions that I haven’t addressed? I understand that these are not the most romantic of topics, but I’ve found that if all areas of doubt or uncertainty are handled beforehand, one has that much more freedom to enjoy the experience.”

She shook her head again.

“I want you to relax, trust yourself, and let me help you. Trust me. Trust me to guide you. Would I ever lead you wrong?” His voice was sure. Steady. Firm.

He didn’t just look at her. He saw her. He saw into her and he knew how much he could be for her. And what she could be for him.

“Is this still something you want?”

She nodded. Her nervousness and anxiety eased into something that felt less uncertain, much more natural and just as intense.  All of a sudden, in her head, everything seemed completely normal. He had addressed all her concerns without even needing to be asked. He made it seem like such a reasonable request to ask her to bend over so he could take her over his desk.

“Yes.” She replied.

There was no man that she trusted, nor respected more than Harry Hart. This was just another part of the same man. And Harry Hart was the sum of all his parts

Anxious with excitement, she was less apprehensive and more eager. She had spent the majority of her life avoiding intense emotions, being in control, thinking rather than feeling and it had served her well as an agent, and she thought, in the rest of her life. But here he was, telling her to let go, to feel, to be vulnerable, everything that she had been trained to resist. Even just the idea of being with Harry set her heart pounding, let alone over his desk. It felt thrilling and dangerous and foreign, but she had to admit she had imagined similar scenarios in her head. But she thought them to be fantasy. He was right though. She really had no defence. When she was stripped away of all her uncertainties, as Harry had done, this was what she wanted. He was what she wanted.

All her misgivings were becoming undone, the knot of doubt and uncertainty in her core, slowly coming untied. Its grip loosened by Harry’s considerate words, his understanding gaze, his warm touch, the press of his lips, his strong hands, by his entire being.

She would follow his lead.

—-

He sensed that she was gathering her thoughts. When she looked up at him, she took a deep breath in and a long breath out. Her energy, though still prickling with anticipation was more settled, less scattered. It hold him she was fully present and she was ready. She was looking to him for guidance.

He would take things slowly, with ease and patience. Always aware of his responsibility, not only as a mentor, outside of this space, but as a protector, here, together. He was asking her to expose all that she was, both physically and emotionally. He needed to keep her safe so she had the freedom to let herself, not lose control, but to realise and release all that she was. And the confidence in him to keep her guarded and secure.

He placed the palms of his hands under her own and helped her slide off the desk and onto her feet. With her hands still in his, he bent down and kissed her forehead, letting his lips linger along her hairline breathing in the clean scent of her shampoo and the more complex notes of her perfume and that which was her. The smell was feminine, but not girlish. It was elegant and sophisticated, just as she was. With one last brush of his lips against her own, he kissed her. Pressing his cheek against her hair, he let go of her hands and placed is own about her waist, gently, but deliberately turned her to face his desk. He helped her with her jacket and hung it from a hook behind him. Then just as gently, just as firmly, with one palm between her shoulder blades and the other resting at the small of her back, pressed down on her until she bent over, first from the waist and then hinging from her hips until her entire upper body was lying on the smooth, clean surface of his polished wooden desk. She turned her head to the left, letting her right cheek rest on the wood. She let out a soft sigh.

Never one for rushing, Harry took his time. Making sure there was no hesitation. That the only tension she felt was from anticipation, from desire, and not from doubt or uncertainty.

Also, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing properly. He stepped in behind her, just barely leaning the weight of his hips into her own. He massaged away her misgivings, helping her relax and he rubbed slow circles on her lower back with the palm of his hand. His other hand reached up her spine, searched through her hair for whatever was holding it up. His fingers landed on a pin and he smoothly pulled it out, letting her hair waterfall down around her shoulders. He swept it to one side so he could see her face. Her eyes were closed, her breathing, though still deep, began to slow down to match the motion of his hand.

He was going to move at her pace, only moving forward until her face, her body, her movements told him, not only that she was ready for more, but that she wanted more. His other hand remained at the nape of her neck, massaging the base of her skull more firmly, with consistent pressure, like waves rolling in and out of the sea. She began to roll her neck slightly to one side, he concentrated his movements there. When she turned her head in the opposite direction, turning her head to the right, resting on her left cheek, he worked on the other side.

The hand on her lower back moved in continuous circles, with slightly more pressure. As he was doing this, he continuously leaned a little bit more weight into her. Only by fractions. So slight she may not even be able to tell. Definitely not having her bear the full weight of his body. Simply allowing her to feel his presence behind her, but not actively pressing into her, or be close enough that she could feel his arousal. He was a patient man and he was enjoying himself thoroughly.

He would have been satisfied, well perhaps not physically, with simply massaging her all evening. Then he began to see the signs he had been waiting for. Just the slightest arch of her lower back. It moved her chest into the desk and tilted her hips toward him. He kept his movements the same. Slow and sensuous. Rhythmic. She began to roll her neck out more, gazing straight down with her forehead resting on the desk, before rolling again to the other side. Still he waited. He heard another sigh as he continued to move his hands over her. Her breath began to quicken once more. Then she gave him what he wanted from her. She pushed her hips back, just the smallest bit toward his pelvis, until she was arching and lifting into him, completing their contact. And her hands. When they first began, she rested her arms shoulder height, bent at the elbows, like one does when sleeping face down. Her hands were soft and relaxed. As she leaned back into him, she made little fists and drew her arms under her, so she could bear weight on her forearms, helping to push her back. And still he remained with his smooth firm circles. He wasn’t waiting for her to want him. He was waiting for her to need him.

When she actively began to seek contact by moving her hips toward him with the same circles that he was making on her lower back, he stopped and pulled away from her. But kept his palm on her back, not moving, just a firm downward pressure. Stay still. She started to lift her head and turn back, but he shushed her, murmuring words to sooth her and keep her relaxed. Her body eased back onto the desk and she stilled, though her breath remained fast and heavy.

Once she had done as she was told, he unbuttoned her kilt. Reaching underneath her, he felt for the buttons that secured her tweed kingsman tartan skirt. He felt her tense at this new progression so he spoke low and softly, how beautiful she was, how lovely she looked, to see her on his desk, that seeing her need aroused him. That she was perfect. As he spoke, he unbuttoned the two that secured the waistband. The last one that secured the overlap and lastly, unclasped the large pin that kept the kilt from blowing open. He had worn them before and was very familiar with their placement.

Not until she relaxed again, did he continue to unwrap the skirt from around her body.

“Lift your hips.”

She did so and he pulled the kilt from underneath her. She was lovely. Even more so just half unclothed was extremely arousing. Having her top half clothed only accentuated the bareness of her bottom half. He hardened at the sight of her, over his desk, half naked, simply waiting for him, allowing him to pleasure her and needing that pleasure.

His chair was already pulled out. He grabbed it by the handle and rolled it in front of her, well, behind her.

She lifted her head slightly, turning back at the sound of movement, when she saw that he meant to take a seat. Her eyes widened. He gave her a small half smile, half smirk like she gave him the night of the scotch glass. He spun his finger in a circle. Turn around. She did so, closing her eyes and resting her cheek to one side. Understanding that was she simply to wait, she held still and quiet. There was no doubt or uncertainty on her face by this time. Only desire, only need.

He walked away for a moment to reach the rest of his scotch when he looked back toward her. The sight of her with her eyes closed, her little fists and arms still tucked toward her chest was both breathtaking in its sensuality and heartbreaking in its vulnerability and trust. Taking a swallow of his drink, he set down his glass on the desk to her side, far enough away that it wouldn’t get knocked over if things got a little too heated, but close enough for him to still reach.

She was still covered with a black lace thong, minimal but still covered and her stockings, which he no longer had to ignore. Placing one hand on her hip, he pulled the chair closer underneath him and relaxed into it. He could feel the tremor of her excitement trembling along her thighs. The tiniest shiver continuously ran up and down the length of her legs.

He was confident in his skills as a lover. Years of practice honed his technique, just as it did with the rest of his training. But he sensed that he was going to get just as much pleasure from this as she was going to receive from him.

The smooth palm of his hands ran lightly down from the tops of her hips, over her bottom and down her legs. His fingers traced a line up the inside of her legs and thighs, almost touching her center, barely, like a pulse of air, floating up the line of her backside to the top of her hips. He repeated this movement, with unlimited variations, pausing in certain areas to linger, rubbing soft circles with his thumb, palming her flesh with his entire hand. He would purposefully hover over her core, almost touching every time, but moving on before she could close the space by shifting her hips. He was pleased to find that she was more than wet. Her need left her almost dripping and pulsing as she further open her legs for him. Muscles twitching and contracting involuntary when he skimmed over a sensitive area. She was responding the way he had hoped and expected and he was pleased.

He saw that her desire for contact rise through the almost constant leaning into his touch, his hand, his fingers. He continued to layer sensation upon sensation upon sensation. He rested the side of his face against the back of her thigh. She tensed suddenly at this unexpected change, but again, he just continued to touch and caress and stroke as if nothing had changed and felt her relax back onto the desk. He felt her start again when he added his mouth, his lips, his tongue, but then immediately her surprise transformed into yet again, pulses of desire. Her small moans and sighs were coming at a regular frequency, little cries that told him she was ready for more.

He decided it was time to intensify. Grazing at her opening with the back of his knuckles, wet through the mesh of her thong, he continued to use his mouth just to the side of his hand. Concentrating the sensation to this smaller area, but not specifically giving her the contact that she ultimately desired. He kissed and tongued and sucked the flesh around her, all over, everywhere but there.

Part of the pleasure of sex was the feeling of wanting, the process of asking, begging and the anticipation of waiting, ultimately knowing that gratification will come, but the tension of not knowing when and how, enhanced the wait.

He slid his fingers under the thin waistband of her thong and with aching slowness began to pull them down her hips, over her bottom and half way down her legs, to the top of her stockings. All of her trepidation, hesitation was gone. All that was left was her desire for him. For him to have her in all the ways he wanted and imagined. She let out a stronger moan of anticipation. Her thighs pulled the tiny slip of material tight across the distance between her legs, her need to continue to spread herself wider for him kept them from falling down.

Without the whisper of fabric between them now, he began the brush her lips with his knuckles, circle her with his thumb. At the direct contact, she cried out loudly. The sound of her continued to arouse him, but as he did before, he set his own arousal to the side, not ignoring it, but ignoring the desire to do something with it, to act on it, which would be to take her here and now and simply thrust into her until he came. Rather, he used that power and channeled it into every inch of her that he could possibly reach. His own desire, knowing it would not yet be sated, hummed in the background. He continued to pleasure her with his hands, just as she imagined he had with a glass of scotch in his hand. By her movements and her throaty whine told him that she recognised the movements, she was now literally feeling him with her own body, not just imagining him. When he finally slid a finger inside her, he felt her tense around him. He could feel her wetness grow.

But this time, he added his mouth.

——

Something inside of her had taken over, not only was Harry controlling the waves of heated pleasure crashing over her with increasing intensity, she was responding with a freedom and a willingness to surrender to his expert touch. Not holding back her need for more, to be touched more, to feel more of him. She was fully turned on and if he wanted to take her while she was in a panda suit, she would ask him where she could change. She was open to him and did not hesitate to express what she felt in response to what he was doing to her.

When she realised that he was using his hands, his fingers just like he was the night in the lounge, she was afraid that just the idea of it happening for real, might push her over the edge. Her mind kept flashing back to that evening, and even as she felt his fingers around her, touching her, circling her and then, oh God, finally, slipping into her, she could see his knowing stare, his cockiness at seeing her pleasure. But to see him in her mind and then feeling him behind her was intoxicating. She felt tipsy, like she had too much of Harry Hart, but she still wanted more.

She moved against his hand. She squeezed his finger as he moved it in tiny pulses deep within her. She was crying out with every breath now. Small whimpers of need, moans of pleasure, at times almost screaming with it. She couldn’t help it.

And then she felt something change. Not quite change. She felt something more. Something soft and hot as wet like she was. It was his mouth and she almost died when she realised it. If he didn’t stop what he was doing back there, she was going to come. She could feel it growing like a garden he was tending to with his lips wrapping around her own erect little bud. His velvet tongue sliding into her body, using his mouth, tasting her, devouring her. He was everywhere now. Though his hands, his mouth, his lips and tongue were concentrated on her most sensitive areas, she felt him with every surface of her body, with the tip of every nerve. With the same continuous movements, over and over he continued to suck, rub, circle and pulse, until her body started to tremble and tense and release and tense even more.

Even as her orgasm grew momentum like a wave moving to shore, Harry pulled away before it could crash until he saw that the wave had retreated back into the sea. But he maintained contact with her. He cupped her between her legs with his palm. Not moving, not sexually, but almost like he was hugging her or holding her until she settled. She didn’t have enough time to find it odd before she began to enjoy the pressure and the heat in an almost soothing, calming way. It was a touch that told her he was there.  Just in a very personal way, in a very intimate area.

If she had been standing now and he told her to bend over his desk, she would have hit the wood so hard and fast that she might have knocked herself out. As it was now, her entire being was waiting for it. Asking for it. Begging for it.

She felt him rise from his chair. His hand was still cupping her gently.

“How are you feeling?” He asked. There was a smile in his voice.

If she had the voice to call him a cocky bastard, she would have. Since she didn’t think she could actually form words, she replied with a sigh that turned into a moan.

“Good.” He paused. “Are you prepared to receive me?

Oh, god fuck, why did he have to say it like that?

Just the way he said it made her clench involuntarily. She nodded her head. She hoped he wouldn’t ask her to speak because her throat was so dry she couldn’t make out any words. Luckily, this time, he took her lack of words, more as speechlessness in the moment, rather than reticence about the near future.

There was another whisper of a zipper being pulled down, a rustle of movement.

“So you’re not surprised.” He said.

She was confused for a split second. Surprised by what?

He reached for one of her hands and guided it toward him. She lifted up onto one elbow so she could brace herself. He placed her hand on his erection and then wrapped his hand over hers.

Fuck. She was screaming internally now. I’m touching it! He just put my hand on it. He’s in my hand. I’m holding him! Calling it “it” like she couldn’t even think that she had her palm around that part of him. She wrapped her fingers around as much as she could. Holding him felt like holding an iron bar wrapped in something smooth, pliant and warm. Not just warm. Hot. Her hand was burning. She wasn’t just surprised, she was slightly shocked. He was big. He was more than big. Thick and heavy. Has he been walking around with this the whole time? She had never had something that size inside of her before. Holy shit.

All the adrenaline surged again into her blood stream, her heart beat quickened and her blood poured into her core. What was left flooded her cheeks. Apparently, her body had no doubt she could accommodate a man of his size. Her hips were moving back to take him inside of her. One hand halted the move of her hips.

“Be still.” He said. “Allow me”. It was his way of telling her he was in control.

She stopped, but as she tried to spread her legs even further apart, thinking of the sheer size of him. He didn’t say I couldn’t move this way.

——

Harry didn’t want her moving back onto him. He would penetrate her properly, at the right pace and speed, with the right adjustments so his entry wasn’t painful for her. Women, in their haste, in their desire to please, and their eagerness for more, or excitement at his size, would often try to take him all at once, faster than they were ready for, making the experience unpleasant. It would burn and they would accept it as something to bear through, with the pain still lingering even as most of it subsided. Or men, focused on only their own need, would force themselves into their partner without finesse or technique. It was not that he was huge, he was just larger than average. He felt bigger to them because he knew how to use his properly.

She had shifted her legs wider. He had told her to be still, but he would let that slide since he did want her spread as wide as possible. She was definitely wet enough for both of them. More than enough for him to cover all of him. She cried out very loudly, when she felt him slide, not into her, but along the length of her as he coated himself. He could see that she was trying not to press into him.

Good girl, he thought.

He took his time, finally enjoying her slick hot wetness, the velvety the feel of her against his entire length. His own desire threatened to take over. How quick and simple it would be now. One quick, hard thrust and he would be fully into her. He twitched at the thought, but held fast, thinking, if a man treats a woman properly, he will have all the pleasure he can desire and more.

A gentleman, even during slightly kinky sex, Harry continued to pace himself. After he was just as slick as she was, using one hand to guide himself, the other hand pulled her bottom on one side, pulling her flesh away from her opening, and then the same to the other side. Holding his head firmly against her center, just the slightest pressure making her whimper and moan. He twitched again at the sound. Using his other hand to keep her pulled open, he slowly pressed into her, with a slight downward movement. He didn’t want to surprise her by slipping into the wrong hole. Once he made a little movement, he pulled out and repeated, making sure her skin wasn’t caught and dragged with him. He repeated this movement over and over, making sure she was sufficiently wet the entire time. On one of these pulses, his head slipped fully inside of her and locked into place. He stopped and let her simply feel him inside of her. She writhed before him, obviously stretched wide. He was most likely a size she had never taken before. She was very tight, extremely tight and even still squeezing him even harder, causing him to involuntary move inside of her as well. While he was still, while she was getting used to him inside of her, he took the time to just enjoy her in this space, in this position, being with her like this and being able to witness her surrender. It was truly an exquisite sight. He let his eyes travel over the soft skin of her back, the inward curve of her waist, the swell of her bottom. And the sight of him entering her, seeing her spread wide as she took him inside of her.

When her body began to relax and soften, making sure she was wet, using his hand to pull her open wider until he could push himself farther into her. Stopping when she again, cried out, this time louder, with more arousal, more pleasure, more intensity in her voice. Her spasms were more intense and this time he had to concentrate not to let her push him over his own edge. He kept himself in check, not thinking of something else, not distracting himself, but letting his own desire hum in the background. She had taken most of him. The only furrow in her brow was from pleasure that was close to pain, but not pain itself. He didn’t sense her tense or brace at all.

He glanced forward at the mirror and saw himself taking her. All men should be able to experience a woman like this, be with her in this way. But unfortunately, most men were only concerned with their own needs, never knowing the pleasure that one can receive, the possibilities that exist when a man properly attends to his woman. He always heard complaints about men’s wives or girlfriends, that they didn’t desire sex, or were frigid. He assumed that most men didn��t know how to satisfy a woman, and therefore, left without the opportunity for a true intimate physical relationship.

Simply attuning to the needs of a woman, no matter how reticent or hesitant, if they were assured, listened to, both their words and their actions, felt safe and protected and respected in a man’s company. Like Gwendolyn, could give and receive pleasure most men and women only fantasise about.

When her body told him she was ready, he made his final push into her. She received him like she was a wave on the ocean, her body fluid and relaxed and responsive with no resistance.

Perfect, he thought.

“Gwendolyn.” His own voice was now deep and rough and low. “Look in the mirror.”

When she looked up, he felt her spasm around him. At first she simply gazed at herself like she was an entirely new creature that she had never seen before, unrelated to her. So he pulsed a little within her and as he did so, she watched herself react in pleasure. He did it again. She responded.

He would have continued to move, but he held still with his entire length inside of her. He simply let her experience the intensity of purely having him inside her. Still. Motionless. While she had him inside of her, still looking in the mirror, she looked up at him, seeing everything. The way he stood close behind her, the flex of his forearms as his hands gripped the sides of her hips, his shirt, tie removed, unbuttoned down the front. The way his blood pulsed in the side of his neck, and then up to his face. To his eyes. And this time she caught his gaze and held it. Now her experience was heightened by this additional contact.

Sex wasn’t always about thrusting, hard and fast. Granted there are times when that movement takes precedence, but if that is all a man has under his belt, so to speak, he is denying himself and his partner a whole other world of pleasure. As he expected, just the stillness of him inside her, allowed her to experience him in a way she had never felt anyone else before him. For, through this kind of pairing, for the receiving partner, there is no other sensation that is akin to taking someone inside of them, of being opened and of being filled.

Their eyes were still locked. When she started to subtly roll her hips into him, he spread her one more time, from her bottom and from underneath, between her legs, pushing in so he was in contact with her little bud. Every inch of skin that had the possibly of touching him was firmly connected against him. There was plenty of her wetness to spread all around these areas that touched. With this contact in place, he placed his palms on her outer thighs and closed her legs around him as he pressed into her, his legs now behind and bracing hers. She would be in a better position to instinctively squeeze her knees and thighs together during climax, and have more contact with the front of his body.

Not quite so much thrusting, as it was rocking with her, he pushed against her without pulling out her, never losing the skin to skin contact between the front of his hips and the backs of hers.

She was calling out freely. He was glad it was late and there was no one to hear her except him because she sounded as beautiful as he thought she would. She held his gaze until finally, the pleasure was too much for her that she had to close her eyes. He kept his pace steady, only changing the angle of his movement inside of her, or rotating his hips into her in a circular motion, just as he did with his thumb, but this time with his entire pelvis.

---

Oh my dear god. She thought. Or did she scream it? She couldn’t tell. She was positively panting now. Oh, fuck. Oh, god. She felt as any control over her mind or her body was given over to Harry. She was completely helpless do to anything other than let her entire body tremble as waves of pleasure crashed over her. This time, rather stopping, he rode the waves to intensify them, until her the whole of her began to tense, her grip on to him tighter and her pleasure bore down on her. With one firm and final motion that now she pushed back on to fully, grinding her hips against him. Her orgasm began as she helplessly cried out his name over and over. Tears flowed from the corners of her eyes and dampened her cheeks. She shuddered and arched back against him as she was overcome by a pleasure so intense it was almost painful, almost too much for her to bear. How could she ever have considered walking away from this? From this feeling, from this man. It was unthinkable. She spasmed against him longer and harder than she ever had before. More than she thought was physically possible. And, oh my god, still, it kept coming. She kept coming.

It was Harry. She had no doubt that no other man could have brought her to this level of pleasure, this state of existence, as Harry Hart. Not only because of the things he was doing to her physically, but because of who he was. Because of the man he was. Because it was him she was giving herself to. He was still fully inside of her, pushed up against her as deep as possible. She trembled around his entire length as she writhed in ecstasy. Over, and over and over. She was still crying out his name even as the last swell of unimaginable sensations crashed into her.

-----

When he felt her begin to climax, he thrust fully into her and held himself against her, but he released her hips so she could now move as freely as she wanted to. While she was overcome, he concentrated on her pleasure, how she looked how she moved. How his name sounded on her lips as she screamed because her experience was so intense it needed even another way to find release. The look of pain on her face, that was not from pain, but her desire finally realised fully and completely and thoroughly. He felt her pleasure just as deeply, but he didn’t let himself physically release, not yet. Not until the last spasm wracked through her. Not until she was done. It was a pleasure that was pain for him as well. Even though he wanted to close his eyes against it coursing through him, he kept watch on her, memorising every angle, very curve of her body, every expression on her face.

As she slowed and her body calmed, still inside of her, he folded his body over her own. His chest against her back. His face next to hers. He kissed the side of her face, her cheek, the line of her jaw. He smoothed her hair away from her forehead and rested his mouth there. Her skin was flushed and hot against his lips. He felt the wetness of her tears. Tears that she had never let herself cry in sadness or vulnerability, not in his presence, now dampened her cheeks when she let her self be overcome by him. He rested against her like this for as long as he was able after she had relaxed.

Her eyes remained closed. He brushed the side of her face with the back of his hand. With the intent to move with her permission, he asked.

“And my dear, how are you feeling, now?”

She responded simply, with such emotion, such feeling, the vulnerability and with notes of tenderness that he had never heard from her or ever heard in her voice.  With no defence she simply whispered his name with as much feeling and warmth as a thousand fires.

“Oh, Harry…”

It was all she said. But the sound of his name from her lips, in all of her vulnerability. That it would be his name that she would say first, touched him in a way that he had never been touched. In a place he had never been touched. It said to him, he was here in this moment with her. That, as he knew this experience was not about him, she recognised that her experience was not only her’s alone. That it was also his. And he knew this was the kind of connection that he was always searching for in relationships and in sex, but never felt at this level.

All of this manifested in his body as pleasure. For a man, one of the times he is most vulnerable is during sex. Most men will guard themselves and never achieve the full state of arousal that vulnerability will invite. However, if he is able to express that vulnerability, it will be the purest, most pleasurable sex with the most intense climax he will ever achieve. For Harry, that time was now. The experience was his. Every single fibre of his being, not just his length inside of her began to move both with her and within her again. Her cry only fanned the flame of his desire.

He wanted to feel her skin against his. He reached underneath her to unbutton her blouse. Realising what he wanted she lifted her chest to help him. Harry continued to unbutton the rest of his shirt and flung it to the side as he never did. The same time, Gwendolyn’s blouse slipped over the side of the desk. He leaned completely over her, feeling her nakedness as much with his entire body as he drank it in though his eyes. He slid one arm underneath her, his forearm around her chest, holding her even tighter into him as he pressed his himself into her bare back and shoulders. It was as if the closest he could get was still not close enough. His need was immense and the feel of her, being inside of her overcame him. He let himself thrust into her, giving into her and giving himself to her.

——

This was different, she thought. Harry was different. Even more different, if that was possible. It seemed like the more time she spent with him, the more of him was revealed and every time it was a revelation. He wasn’t simply finishing. This was much more. The feel of him was huge. Not only the part that was inside of her. Whatever he was feeling was huge, for him. When he was giving her pleasure, he remained in complete control. Impressively, so. Not that he wasn’t in control now, but there was a new element, a sensitivity, a receptivity. It was a willingness to receive as well as give. She knew that he enjoyed every moment with her, but this was different from enjoyment. Even more than lust or passion, though those were the physical elements. It felt like devotion. If cherishing someone could take on a physical expression, it would feel like this. She was moved by this even more than when he had his full attention on her physically and mentally. Before, he was making sure she had a wonderful, memorable experience. Now, he just wanted to experience her. Was it that she was losing herself to him? And him in her?

This was being together, she thought, before his movements, the feel of him, the heat of his skin against hers both inside of her and out, both pressing their entire length in to her an against her, carried her off with him. He rocked into her with a brutal passion, making her cries sound from the base of her throat.  His own jaw clenched in silence as she found herself responding just as fiercely, insisting, demanding more from him as she pushed her hips to meet his.

——

His other hand was everywhere. He wanted to feel her beneath his palm, her hair, her neck, her back, her side, her legs, her bottom. And the more he felt, the more he ached for her. The space between them was stormy, tumultuous, both experiencing from each other a pleasure that was so powerful it was almost violent. It wasn’t simply pleasure. A sensation so forceful, so overwhelming, it was at the cusp of unbearable. It was otherworldly. When he pushed her over the edge once more into her climax, as she convulsed helplessly against him, she cried out his name again and again with total abandon, just as fervently as before. The sound of his name from her lips, the way she pulsed around him and against him as she cried out, made him call out his own desire for her. It drove him far, far outside what he thought was his edge and crashed into heights of pleasure that was close to death. Together, they rose up and rode each swell and they came together. Over and over and over far beyond the realm of what they thought possible.

As it was, on that evening, two of the most guarded, reluctant and isolated hearts at Kingsman, lost, and then ultimately found themselves in each other.

----

I pretty much wrote all of my fanfic so I could justify writing this part about Harry Hart taking Gwendolyn over his desk :) Hope you enjoyed! Comments are always soooo appreciated. Especially for a newbie writer. Was it too long? Would it have been better in chapters? Cheers!

[bobbinbugs]

hi my name is bobbinbugs, I mostly reblog art & make meta + headcanon posts, with a side of the most deranged niche aus ever. I love hornet & lace beyond all mortal measure

MY META (needs redoing! 🌟 are my favorites):

Bed of roses lacenet fight analysis 🌟

Wedding symbolism in silksong 🌟

HK and atonement with the father 🌟

Musical motifs meta

Tram above dirtmouth 🌟

Hornet backstory (headcanon)

Hornet + Antigonick 🌟

Quirrel was not suicidal

Lifeblood thoughts

Why we need lacenet sweep for silksong 🌟

various minimetas and thoughts in my #bobbinbugs originals tag

I love love love asks, send em my way if you've gottem!

Old about me/abandoned au info:

Hiiii! She/her and fae/faer pronouns for me. I’m your local lesbian who loves music (music major in college!), textile arts, and spiders! So yes, silksong was special made to tailor to me and me specifically. I am so excited for silksong. I could be on my deathbed 60 years from now and I’d still be so pumped for silksong. This used to be an au based blog, but now it’s mostly general hk stuff. I draw sometimes but the focus is meta, analysis, and art/funny reblogs. I’m a fierce defender of lacenet. those bugs have subtext for real. 

I call this au ‘silentstrings,’ occasionally ‘Queen of Spindles.’ After Dream No More, Hornet, aimless and grief-stricken, remembers an old weaver legend Herrah told her; sacred lifeblood cloth that could break any enchantment, mend any family torn out at the seams, and - in the rarest of rare cases - give the dead new form. The catch? The garments must be made out of stinging thorns and constructed in complete silence. (With her mother’s body and her father’s blood, so it goes.) The Void, not as dead as it hoped to be, still craves the family taken from it. Hornet, seeking a new purpose, binds her tongue and makes her choice.

Things get a little harder when she gets kidnapped and transported to Pharloom, but Hornet, as always, takes it in stride.

Inspired by the story of the 7 swans, my own knowledge of textile arts, and my handy hard-weather friend the drop spindle, this story would have covered a part of hornet’s psyche I don’t often see acknowledged; what’s it like to be daughter of three mothers and sister to ten thousand and still end the game with no family?

Oh, and it would have been lacenet with lace playing the role of the prince, haha. But mostly it was about grieving, devotion, & art as refuge - but as it stands, I'll wait for silksong to come out.

[dorevenge]

where ignorance is bliss - chapter 10: snow will follow

SUMMARY: Maria is expecting, and the pregnancy is rough on her and Howard. [AO3 LINK]

CHAPTERS: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [10] 11 12 13 14 15 ☆

May 22, 1970 – Manhattan, New York, Stark Manor

“Howard!” I scream, halfway down the staircase to the first floor, hands clenching to the railing. “It’s happening!” I’m nine months pregnant, and it feels like a pit has opened up behind my stomach, squeezing the life out of me at the same time, my knuckles going white from the pressure.

Howard runs over to me, one of the quickest 53-year-olds I’ve met, pushing up his sleeve to count the seconds on his wrist, whispering the time to himself. He guides me down the stairs, arm around my waist and shoulder supporting my armpit.

“Have Edwin bring the car around,” I saw. Tears stream from my eyes, my knees wobble from the pain, and Howard says the same thing he always does.

“They’re just Braxton Hicks, doll. The contractions aren’t close enough together.” He sets me down on the couch and wipes my face dry.

“They feel real,” I snap at him without meaning to.

“I know, I’m sorry. Let’s get you something to drink, settle your stomach.”

Edwin runs off to the kitchen, “I’ll put the kettle on.”

“You have to stay hydrated, and lay on your left side,” Howard continues. He brushes my hair out of the way and guides me to a horizontal position.

“I don’t want to lay on my left side, I want my body back,” I whine, adjusting the pillows underneath me to support the bowling ball sticking out of me. The pain behind my abdomen rages on like a wildfire. “Can you put the movie on?”

“Are we feeling West Side Story or Singing in the Rain today?” Howard prides himself on our home video library, collecting almost every film we would go out to see at the cinema. Our home theatre was impressive, given he had tried to make his own film production company at one point. It was his only unsuccessful venture, so we don’t talk about that aspect of it very often, but he keeps up with the technology and is obsessed with recreating the feeling of going to see a talkie at home.

“West Side Story.”

He puts the tape in, and the familiar opening plays out. Watching it reminds me of the first Academy Awards Show I accompanied Howard to, where we watched West Side Story sweep the competition, when Rita Moreno won in that stunning dress. It was only eight years ago, but it feels like a lifetime now, like many lifetimes have passed during Howard’s and my relationship. And now I’m cramping and swollen and bloated, as far as I can be from walking down a red carpet.

I’m asleep before “Something’s Coming” plays.

“Can you chew any louder?”

“Maria, we’re having soup. There’s no chewing involved.”

“It’s making me sick,” I say.

“I’ll go in the pantry,” Howard offers without complaint, used to this by now, kissing the top of my head and taking his bowl of soup with him into the pantry, shutting the door behind him.

Edwin and Ana look up cautiously from their bowls. “Shall we leave you as well, Mrs. Stark?” Ana asks.

“Why would you? You’re completely fine.”

I wake from a dead sleep at two in the morning, after a long day of getting mad at Howard for things that he couldn’t help, and I know I’m going into labor. This time, it isn’t Braxton Hicks, I know it. I rustle Howard’s shoulder. Then I shake it harder. “Howard, wake up,” I whisper harshly. He slowly blinks his eyes open. “We need to go to the hospital.”

“Let me get my watch,” he reaches over to flick on his bedside lamp.

“It’s for real this time.” I know it. I don’t want him to question it, I can feel it in my gut; today is the day we meet our child for the first time.

“If we go in again for more practice contractions, I don’t think the hospital will let ever let us come back.”

I pause before replying.

“My water broke.”

I’ve never seen Howard get out of bed and get dressed so quickly before. He throws my already packed bag at Edwin to have him bring the car around, asks Ana to change the bedsheets, and helps me dress myself, ushering me out the door. For the first time in the last nine months, I’m the calmest person in the Stark household, focusing on my breathing and answering the nurses’ questions as Howard stammers, trying to take care of everything at once. They confirm I am indeed in labor, run their preliminary tests, and show us to the suite we had reserved.

I didn’t realize the suite would be so luxurious; it was nicer than some hotels I’ve stayed at. A jacuzzi and a pool table are tucked away in the corner, along with a full-sized refrigerator and a private bathroom. We’re given a run-down of the amenities, including an on-call masseuse and chef, but as we settle in, I just want Edwin’s cooking and fanciful retellings of his days spent running around Los Angeles with the SSR. The way he tells it, he makes Peggy sound more heroic than Captain America.

“Don’t get mad at me, but you’re as beautiful now as you were the day I met you back in Monaco.” Howard dabs my forehead with a cool cloth.

“I have half a child sticking out of me!” I yell from gritted teeth between contractions. “And you’re flirting with me right now?” Rivets of sweat trickle down my brow between my breasts, chest heaving with effort. The pain from the contractions pulses through me. We’re almost 14 hours into the labor now, and I’ve never been more tired in my life. I want to sleep, but every fiber of every muscle in my body is engaged and trying to get through this.

“Jesus, doll, I said don’t get mad at me.” I take his hand and squeeze it hard enough he winces, like I’m siphoning the pain out of me and into him. He whispers words of encouragement into my ear, watering me and obeying every order from the doctor, not straying from my side - until we hear the peal of cries and the magical words –

“It’s a boy.”

Anthony Howard Stark was born May 29, 1970, a healthy 6 pounds and 10 ounces, with ten fingers, ten toes, and two powerful lungs that never stopped crying. And I do mean never. Baby Tony had no respect for what time of day it was, who was visiting, or how tired his parents were. Although we hadn’t discussed names at all before that day, it came together perfectly; a beautiful name for our beautiful boy.

Howard returned to work within the week Tony was born, taking Edwin with him every day to try to make up for the lost time at S.H.I.E.LD. base at Camp Lehigh. At dinner after his first day back, Howard had nothing about complaints about the way things had been run in his absence. “One of the security guards said the Tesseract went missing for five minutes and showed right back up in its containment unit. I think we have a breach, but everyone swears they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary,” he says over a plate of chicken and asparagus.

“When was this?”

“Back in April. We need to up our security.”

When I announce I am ready to retire and go to bed, everyone at the table stands to help. While I appreciate the attention and assistance, I’m looking forward to being able to get up on my own. The delivery has had an immense toll on my body, wiping me out completely with the emergency Cesarian. I can’t stand on my own for more than thirty seconds at a time, and Ana has been instrumental in my recovery. She takes care of Tony when I can’t, and when Howard is kept late at the office. She changes every diaper, cleans every dish, and I cannot thank her enough times. I think she took to the role quite well, and I don’t look forward to the day it’s taken from her again.

“Master Tony, you are quite the tornado,” I hear Edwin say down the hall as I fold laundry in the living room. Tony has just turned two, and his favorite word currently is “no.” Edwin does his best to toe the line between butler and substitute father-figure, but Tony needs a firm hand – the opposite of what he gets from Howard when he’s either stuck in the lab or nursing a gin and tonic.

“Tony Tornado! Tony Tornado!” Tony sprints down the hall, giggling, spilling his cup of Cheerios and leaving a trail behind him.

“Master Tony!” Edwin takes off after him. He is almost 60 by now, and, somehow, he still keeps up with the toddler. The two of them were practically inseparable. We lost Ana last year to a long battle with cancer, and it’s almost like Tony made it his personal mission to keep Edwin entertained and distracted enough to forget about the tragedy. I often find them playing make-believe with flying robots or watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, cross-legged on the carpet in the den.

I spend my first two years of motherhood caressing egos, trying to be the entertainer and people-pleaser, but I find myself just wanting all four of us to be together at home, instead of stuck late in offices or meetings or dinner parties that no one wants to attend in the first place. I miss my husband because even when he’s at home, he’s really back at the Stark Industries headquarters, still thinking about that damn arc reactor.

[carewyncromwell]

Welcome to the next part of the POTC AU, and with it the start of a new Act!

If Act One was largely based on The Curse of the Black Pearl, Act Two starting now is largely based around Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, perhaps with a smattering of other things from the other films too like I did in the first half. Now that our chess pieces have nearly all been placed on the board in their proper places, it’s time for things to get serious. Will Carewyn and Orion ever be able to be together? Will Bill, Jules @cursebreakerfarrier, and Charlie be considered criminals and thus separated from Carewyn and Percy forever? Will Jacob find a way to protect Carewyn from Davy Jones/Finn McGarry @theguythatdraws? And what role will our newest arrival -- Cutler Beckett -- and his business associate, privateer-turned-pirate-turned-pirate-hunter Patricia Rakepick (pictured above) play in this unfolding drama?

A few notes about Rakepick’s design super quick before we start -- her outfit is largely based on an 18th century woman’s riding habit, which was a kind of uniform exclusively used when women went horseback riding, one of the very few “physical” activities European ladies were allowed to participate in back then. Considering that breeches were banned in lot of Europe during that period, this is the closest thing most upper-class women got to wearing something comfortable in public. The pendant on Rakepick’s collar is an Eye of Horus, like the pin she wears on her cloak in the game. As for the thing in her left hand at her side...I’m sure a lot of you fans of the original Pirates films can guess what it is, but one fun aspect is that the design is not entirely like the one from the movies. Instead there are some salutes to Finn’s character in there, including the moon’s phases around the heart-shaped keyhole and stylized flames on the sides. (There are even two “Pisces” signs etched into two of the tentacles on top.)

Previous part of the AU is here -- whole tag is here -- and I hope you enjoy!

x~x~x~x

While Carewyn was getting settled back into life on Port Royal, at the same time, very far away, the Tower Raven came up on a deserted island that likely hadn’t seen a man in years.

According to the calculations Jacob had done based on the intelligence he’d gleaned from old court records from Ireland and a witch from Tortuga, this was the spot that Finn McGarry -- now known as Davy Jones -- said goodbye to the goddess Calypso so many years ago. And if the legends were to be believed, this location therefore was where the infamous Dead Man’s Chest -- the chest containing Jones’s still beating heart -- was hidden.

Jacob truthfully wasn’t thrilled about this plan. He’d done plenty of research on Jones so as to make sure he knew as much as he could before trying to double-cross him, but blackmailing someone like Davy Jones was something no one should want to do for very long. As Ashe had pointed out, the second Jones had the upper hand over Jacob, he would likely retaliate ten-fold.

But now...now Jacob had no choice. He had to have and keep the upper-hand with Jones, if he had any chance of keeping Carewyn off the Flying Dutchman. It was his fault that she was now in this position, and he couldn’t live with himself if he lost her again due to his own foolishness.

As they approached the island, Ashe abruptly seized Jacob’s arm.

“Jack -- look.”

There was a large dark shape positioned in the water on the far side of the beach. Jacob immediately brought up his telescope to get a closer look -- when he did, his jaw clenched.

“Looks like we got ourselves a Naval Man o’ War,” he snarled. “The HMS Lion.”

The rest of the crew exchanged nervous looks. The Navy hadn’t sent out Man o’ Wars since the war against the Spanish -- they were the powerhouse of the British crown, capable of sinking even the best-armed galleons.

“How many guns?” Ashe asked under his breath, as he rested his chin on Jacob’s shoulder and looked out at the horizon himself.

“...Looks to be 60 altogether.”

There was muttering among the crew now.

“What should we do, Captain?” one of the pirates couldn’t help but ask anxiously.

“Not get blown up, to start with,” said Jacob rather bluntly.

He lowered his telescope. His eyes drifted away, off toward the sky as he considered the matter.

“The Navy must have figured out this place’s significance,” he murmured. “I don’t know how, but no matter how they found out, I have no intention of letting them get to the Chest first.”

“Stealth might be our best option,” said Ashe lowly.

Jacob nodded. “I agree.”

He turned to the rest of the crew with a fierce expression.

“I need three volunteers to go ashore with me to fetch the Chest. The rest of you will remain here with Ashe, to prepare for a quick escape. Ashe,” he said, looking at his First Mate seriously, “best to be keeping out of sight on the Northern tip of the island, facing due west. The current is stronger there, which could give you a head’s start, should you need to retreat -- ”

“I won’t be retreating without you, Jack,” Ashe cut him off harshly. “don’t be thinking I will.”

“You will if you’re ordered to do so,” Jacob said sharply.

“Like Hell.”

“Ashe, I need my First Mate to look after the ship and the crew.”

“And I’ll do so, but I am not going to have you die a martyr, Jack.”

Ashe moved in a bit, taking hold of Jacob’s collar and pulling his face up closer to his so that their lips were mere inches apart.

“Don’t forget that it’s not just me you’d be hurting, if you didn’t return,” he said softly. “You promised your sister that you would see her again, when this thing was through. If you don’t keep your promise to her, after how long I had to listen to you go on all these years about how much you love and miss her, I will never forgive you.”

Something pained flickered in the back of Jacob’s skull-like blue eyes. He considered Ashe for a moment, his expression faintly wounded despite the grimness of his face -- then he pulled Ashe in for a short, rough kiss before releasing him.

“I will return,” he said very quietly. “I promise.”

Jacob and his three crew members stowed onto the island in a jollyboat a good mile or so away from where the Man o’ War was positioned, so as to stay out of sight. When they approached the beach, they found an entire battalion of Naval soldiers digging. Clearly they’d been told to search the entire island for the Chest, but were starting with the area closest to the water, since Jones was not much one to walk on dry land. It was a logical choice, thought Jacob -- and once he’d visually combed the island’s surroundings, it didn’t take long for him to come up with a plan.

Given how outnumbered they were, Jacob knew the best way to handle the situation was to wait for one of the Navy recruits to find the Chest first. Sure enough, within a half-hour, someone started shouting for their superior officers to come quick.

The rest of the battalion swarmed around like interested seagulls around the Dead Man’s Chest as the soldier pulled it up and out of the sand. They were so focused on trying to get a peek that none of them saw the detached watermill wheel coming toward them until it was almost on top of them. With help from his crewmates, Jacob had dislodged the wheel from an abandoned mill just up the hill and rolled it right down the beach into the horde of soldiers. In the melee, Jacob was then able to dispatch the soldier who’d found the Chest and snatch it away from him, before he and the rest of his crew members abandoned the wheel and hightailed it back into the brush. The soldiers all fired indiscriminately as the wheel hightailed away, but somehow miraculously the pirates just barely avoided any fatal wounds -- Jacob guessed that a lot of those soldiers were new recruits, and so likely had had their eyes shut while firing.

Trying to get back to the Tower Raven was much harder. Their only hope to get there was the jollyboat -- and, of course, that they could get back fast enough that the Raven could set sail before the HMS Lion came around. Unfortunately whatever luck had been on Jacob’s side up until that point seemed to be drying up. The pirates had a bit more cover in the trees than they’d had on the beach, but not much, and although a lot of the soldiers were clearly inexperienced, there were still a lot of them -- far more than even Jacob had predicted. Soon there were a good hundred soldiers surrounding the four pirates, trying to cut them off from the shoreline. Jacob lost his first crewmate in the first five minutes -- then his second, not long after. Jacob and the last pirate just barely managed to get back to the jollyboat and cast off, but within moments, the HMS Lion had come around the edge of the island, heading straight for the jollyboat.

Thinking quickly, Jacob pushed the jollyboat as far out into the open water as he could. The Navy wanted the Chest too, so the deeper the water they were in, the less likely they’d fire their cannons at them, for fear they’d lose the Chest in the process. He then set about pulling off the mad-genius maneuver of making himself look incompetent.

After securing the Chest securely to the bottom of the boat, he then instigated a fight with his crew member. The two rocked the jollyboat so badly that within minutes, the entire boat had flipped over. Jacob then used the opportunity to -- with his crewmate’s help -- swim with the boat into the strongest North-leaning current and let it coast them closer to the Tower Raven. The Navy ship did, in fact, hesitate just long enough out of confusion that it lost some of its closeness to the jollyboat before catching sight of the Tower Raven in the distance and putting together that it had been a trick.

Jacob peeked out from under the jollyboat briefly, delighted at the sight of his ship and of Ashe standing at the railing. He was already fetching a rope ladder for them to climb up when all of a sudden --

BAM.

Out of nowhere, another ship -- a much smaller sloop called the Sickle -- had started attacking the Tower Raven. The Raven’s crew all immediately tried to bring the ship about to counterattack, but the distraction had completely thrown the Raven off their guard and given the Lion the time necessary to come within firing distance. Within moments, Jacob was forced to dive under the water as his beloved ship -- the Tower Raven -- was blasted apart from both sides.

When he and his fellow pirate reemerged from the water, Jacob’s face was as white as a sheet as he stared at the flaming wreckage.

“ASHE!” Jacob bellowed. “ASHE!”

He cast his eyes around frantically. Where was he?! He had to be there -- he --

“ASHE!” he screamed louder, but once again, there was no answer.

His entire body was shaking. The light had left his eyes as he paddled through the water, ignoring the anxious cries from his crewmate as he shoved fragments of wood and sail aside.

“AAAAASHE!”

Within moments, the sloop called the Sickle had descended upon the overturned jollyboat. The jollyboat was quickly seized and yanked up onto the deck with grappling hooks, even as Jacob and the other pirate did their best to fight them off. Unfortunately flintlock pistols like the ones they carried were not conducive to fighting in the water -- they needed a proper spark in order to fire properly, and the gunpowder was just too wet to ignite. And so Jacob and his crewmate were stuck crawling over and balancing on top of the overturned jollyboat as it was hoisted up onto the deck, fighting a losing battle against the large number of soldiers with their cutlasses.

When the jollyboat finally was pulled up onto the deck, Jacob and his last crewmate were completely surrounded in seconds. But Jacob had long since stopped fighting to win -- his eyes were so hollow and mad with pain and rage they were more like a raging animal than a man’s, and so even as his crewmate fearfully started to slow as he realized all hope was lost, Jacob never stopped hacking away at every soldier that approached him. He only stopped when a gunshot whizzed right past his ear, swiping through his curly hair before lodging into the head of his crewmate, who immediately collapsed in a heap on the deck.

Out of the fold came a red-haired woman dressed in a black tricorn hat, a black jacket over a high-necked white shirt and a long red skirt, and a pair of black boots. Her collar was fastened with a pin shaped like the eye of Horus, and the pistol in her hand was still smoking as she smirked at Jacob.

“Well, well,” she said coolly, “if it isn’t ‘Black Jack Roberts.’”

Jacob’s teeth bared in a snarl. “Rakepick.”

“I’m surprised you managed to survive this long,” said Patricia Rakepick idly. “Then again, you did somehow survive being shot and thrown overboard -- I guess I shouldn’t be surprised a sea rat like you was able to claw your way up on deck somehow...”

With a furious roar, Jacob charged at Rakepick. She fired again with her pistol, but Jacob somehow managed to deflect the shot with the broad side of his cutlass and lashed out at her with ferocity, forcing her to dodge and retreat somewhat.

“Seize him,” she said sharply.

In an instant, the soldiers all rushed at Jacob. He managed to cut down a good five of them before their comrades were able to surround and contain him. It took a good ten men, but they managed to pin him down to the deck and disarm him.

Rakepick watched Jacob rage like a mad animal against her soldiers’ hold for a moment, her gaze oddly grim.

“You know...I wondered a few times if I should’ve been more lenient on you, back then,” she said. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t have stolen my ship, and I wouldn’t have had to blow it up, just to keep you from escaping. But it seems you truly are too dangerous to be left alive. Cutler Beckett knows it just as well as I.”

The pupils in Jacob’s skull-like eyes were insane blue slits as Rakepick kicked the jollyboat over, to reveal the Dead Man’s Chest still securely tied to the bottom. In a moment, she’d cut it loose with a knife and picked it up by one of the handles on its side.

“You -- !”

Jacob pushed and shoved against the sailors holding him with all of his might, but he couldn’t break free. Rakepick pointed her pistol right at him as she carried the Chest at her side.

“I must thank you for busting into that court of records, though,” she said with a small smirk. “I wouldn’t have even thought to try to look up Finn McGarry’s old shipping routes if you hadn’t made the connection between him and Jones...”

She handed the Chest off to another officer, who carted it away below deck and out of sight. Jacob angrily tried to get up again, only for one of the soldiers to roughly push his head into the deck with his foot.

“Shame you won’t be able to use the Chest as a bargaining chip for whatever deal you had with Jones,” said Rakepick. “I wonder -- is that how you survived, last time? You made a deal that brought you back from the grave? I must wonder what on Earth you must have promised him, to make you seek out his heart now rather than give it up...”

Her taunting only served to make Jacob lash out more violently. Eventually it got to the point where Rakepick rolled her eyes impatiently.

“Like talking to a mangy street dog,” she muttered to herself. “To think this is the boy who became Captain of my ship...”

Her dark blue eyes hardening, she clicked her pistol and aimed it right at Jacob’s head. Just as she was about to fire, however, out of nowhere, a voice echoed on the wind up onto the deck.

“Upon one summer's morning, I carefully did stray

Down by the Walls of Wapping, where I met a sailor gay

Conversing with a young lass, who seemed to be in pain,

Saying, ‘William, when you go, I fear you will ne’er return again.’”

The resonant bass tone was hypnotizing and eerie, making all of the soldiers freeze up. They all looked at each other, clearly moved by how hauntingly beautiful it was, but also confused -- was it a mermaid? It sounded like a man...and yet, it was just as enticing and wonderful. Even Jacob had frozen up from his spot on the deck, though not for the same reason.

Some light returned to his eyes. He knew that voice...

“My heart is pierced by Cupid -- I disdain all glittering gold --

There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold...”

Rakepick was likewise taken aback, but she kept her head more than her compatriots. In a moment, she’d peered over the side with her pistol at the ready, looking for the source of the voice.

She saw nothing but bubbles at first -- then, all of a sudden, something launched itself out of the water at her with an inhuman screech, its sharp fangs bared.

“AUGH!”

Rakepick was thrown backwards onto the deck. The thing in question sort of resembled a man at first glance, but due to the ocean water still clinging to his body, his skin was rippled with shimmering scales, his eyes were completely brown with no trace of white, his fingers were long, narrow, clawed, and webbed, and everything from the waist down resembled a large, slender fish tail.

Jacob’s blue eyes widened in shock and disbelief.

“...Ashe?” he whispered.

Rakepick recovered rather quickly -- she fired at Ashe, forcing the merman to lunge out of the way. Knowing he didn’t have much time before the other soldiers recovered too, Ashe threw himself across the deck toward Jacob. Quite a few of the soldiers withdrew subconsciously seeing the bizarre, hissing, fish-tailed and fanged man coming at them and it was just enough for Jacob to, in one more inhuman show of strength, throw the rest of the soldiers off of him.

Ashe quickly seized onto Jacob’s coat in his clawed, webbed hands, hoisting himself up into a quasi-kneeling position on the deck.

“Jump into the water with me,” Ashe said quickly.

“No -- ” said Jacob frantically, “not without the Chest -- !”

“Open fire!” bellowed Rakepick.

The soldiers, still stunned by the monster that had flopped up on deck, all hurried to try to load their weapons.

“We can’t get the Chest back if we’re dead!” Ashe reminded Jacob harshly, his sclera-less brown eyes narrowing.

He could feel his legs slowly returning as his scales dried out. Hoisting himself to his returning feet as best as he was able, he pulled Jacob along behind him back toward the ship’s railing, and -- just as the firing squad set loose a hail of bullets -- yanked Jacob overboard after him. As they fell, Ashe covered Jacob’s mouth fully with his own, before they landed in the water below with a loud SPLASH.

Black Jack Roberts and his First Mate Duncan Ashe just barely managed to escape Patricia Rakepick and the British Navy that day -- but that was a small victory, in the face of what their enemies had won.