#the first might conceivably be fake?

[loving-n0t-heyting]

It’s the “For Kids” bit that really makes it

[beeing1alive]

Could you play the Tokyo Revengers characters with a really pretty girlfriend?

Note: Of course and I had a lot of fun writing this

f.t.: Mikey (Manjirō Sanō); Draken (Ken Ryūgūji); Mitsuya (Takashi Mitsuya); Chifuyu (Chifuyu Matsuno); Baji (Keisuke Baji); Takemichi (Takemichi Hanagaki); Angry (Souya Kawata), Smiley (Nahoya Kawata); Hakkai (Hakkai Shiba); Kazutora (Kazutora Hanemija), Koko (Hajime Kokonoi); Inupi (Inui Seishu); Hanma (Shuji Hanma)

Mikey is not at all shy about telling you how perfect and really perfect you look in every conceivable situation. You go for a walk? He tells you he's never seen anything prettier. You're in the shower? He's practically glued to it and won't stop telling you how wonderful you look.

Draken almost always looks at you. At least whenever he can. For some reason, his eyes are always around you, no matter what you're wearing. He might go crazy if you're wearing a short skirt or a tight shirt because he can't help but stare at your accentuated body parts and blush every time you move even slightly. We won't go into that any further.

Mitsuya always gets extreme love attacks when you wear clothes that he has made. He always adjusts every seam and every fabric to your perfect body, so that all the wonderful parts are highlighted. Every time you walk around in front of him in one of these pieces of clothing, he forgets how to breathe and has to turn away to hide his blushing face.

Chifuyu thought at the beginning of your relationship that you were only with him because you wanted to get closer to one of his friends. Not a single girl has ever looked at him the way his friends are looked at, so he wondered why such a beautiful person fell in love with him. But after your first kiss, he realised that love can't be faked so well.

Baji got a nosebleed when he saw you for the first time. You just walked into the classroom in your school uniform and as soon as he caught a glimpse of your pretty face, it happened. Of course he was terribly uncomfortable and that wasn't the first impression he wanted to make on you, but at least now you can tease him every time he stares at you.

Takemichi wonders every day why someone like you, who could get anyone with his beauty, would want to be with him. You just look so pretty with that sweet grin painted on your perfect face. He thinks that you are a work of art. Of course, he's not just with you because you're pretty, but honestly, he loves your body.

Angry adores your body and he just can't keep his hands off you. Not just in the kinky sense, but much more in general. He's very shy, but even so, his little finger is given away with yours as soon as he walks or stands next to you. There is simply no prettier creature for him than you.

Smiley really does show you off a lot. To be honest, he always stands behind you so that you come into your own in front of him. It's just his thing to stand behind you, one arm around your waist, like: I know, she's a masterpiece, isn't she? Well, unfortunately it's already mine. I don't know why, but his grin always gets a little more mischievous when he sees that another boy staring at you and then realises who is standing behind you.

Hakkai is, just to be clear, extremely shy around pretty much any girl. You're certainly no exception. But we're only talking about in public here. Behind closed doors, he can hardly keep his hands or eyes away from you. He likes it best when you only wear short and comfortable clothes so that he can see a lot of your skin.

Kazutora hasn't seen you for a long time and honestly? He almost fainted when he saw what a beautiful young woman you had become. He quickly got used to it though and made a habit of admiring and loving every inch of your perfect body. He just can't help himself.

Koko loves your body and every inch of it. Sometimes you're just lying on your sofa scrolling through social media and he lies on top of you and draws circles and lines on your body. He loves these moments, especially because he can really relax, as he usually works so much and hardly gets any rest. And he has a clear view of your body…

Inupi stares at you from a distance and when you notice it, he looks away and blushes so much that you know he was staring has been staring. Your body is simply too hypnotising for him and he doesn't know what to do about it. Every single movement looks perfect and every part of your body is wonderful.

Hanma rarely tells you how great you look, but he definitely shows it. Not intentionally, but he shows it. Sometimes you notice how he stares at you with extraordinary affection or how he absently strokes your body and hums softly. He actually wonders why you're with him. With your beauty, you could have anyone. Oh God, he just loves you too much.

Attention: The characters and the gif do not belong to me. All credits go to the actual owners. If you want anything to be changed or removed, please write to me.

[thagomizersshow]

Ranting about how JP is not a good critique of capitalism made me want to talk about a sci-fi monster movie that is an excellent AND highly relevant exploration of anticapitalistic themes: Alien (1979).

First I want to say that if you haven’t seen Alien, please do so before I spoil it for you. It’s not just one of my all time favourites, but also one of the greatest pieces of science fiction ever created. For real, please go watch it.

The biological aspects of Alien are often the most talked about themes in the movie, which is fair, because they’re simultaneously very interesting and in-your-face. Most viewers remember the movie for the gory sexual imagery, not for an authentic depiction of class struggle. I actually wrote a video essay a while back that I never made about how our innate disgust and resulting fear of parasites/parasitoids is the primary driver behind the xenomorph’s ongoing popularity. I’m not immune to this aspect of Alien’s eternal intrigue, that’s for sure.

However, there’s one narrative element that makes Alien ripe for class analysis, especially today, and that is the film’s portrayal of artificial intelligence.

AI in Alien is consistently shown to be hostile to the crew, but not because of a glitch, like HAL in 2001: Space Odyssey, or because they decide to rise up against their oppressors, like in Terminator. No, what makes Ash, the android, and MOTHER, the ship’s AI, so threatening is that they are doing exactly what they were programmed to do — whatever it takes to ensure corporate interests. In this case, they are programmed to ensure the survival of an extraterrestrial monster at the cost of the crew.

The audience isn’t privy to all the things that Ash does to meet this goal, but at the very least he breaks quarantine protocols, does a shitty job of watching the facehugger, lets Kane join the rest of the crew for a meal (when they still don’t know what it did to him!), plays dumb once the xenomorph is on the loose, and attempts to murder Ripley when she discovers his mandate. If it weren’t for Ripley being a determined badass, Ash might’ve gone unnoticed until the whole crew was dead and the Weyland-Yutani Corporation had their mitts on the alien so they can cause another catastrophe.

This horror, that you will encounter AI whose programming doesn’t care if you live or die, is what makes Alien’s take on the subject so relevant. Dipshits like Elon Musk or some shitty tech journalist might try and convince us that ChatGBT scary because it can fake being human, as if Skynet is right around the corner.

No, the real horror of AI is that the people in power (our bosses, our politicians, etc.) are going to use it to exploit us, just like how they use everything else.

In the end, it takes being skeptical of things that seem trustworthy for Ripley to defeat Ash. The audience finds out from the Nostromo’s captain, Dallas, that Ash was a last minute addition to the crew, as chief science officer. This is a role that inherently engenders trustworthiness in the face of the unknown, especially for a crew that is basically a bunch of working joes. It’s not unbelievable to conceive this was purposeful by Weyland-Yutani to make Ash above suspicion. That, combined with literally naming the ship’s AI MOTHER, of all things, shows that the company is deliberately weaponizing aesthetics to foster a positive relationship between the crew and their AI agents.

Alien serves as a reminder to be vigilant as we enter the AI boom, because these programs will be used to exploit us, and corporations WILL try to cloak this purpose behind relatability, convenience, and trust. The AI we encounter is more likely to be Ash or MOTHER than it is to be Data or Skynet.

[blossom-hwa]

a very fine line, indeed [1] | c.bg

pairing: Beomgyu x fem!reader genre:  fluff, angst, enemies to lovers, regency era!au, nobility!au warnings: attempted assault, mentions of abuse, cursing, period typical misogyny word count: 6.3k notes:  — updates every M/W/F at 8pm EST until the series finishes — assault/abuse scenes are not graphic, but please heed the warnings and let me know if any of it is romanticized or just written in poor taste--I assure you I did not mean it, and I will fix anything needed. — inspiration taken from an amalgamation of different bridgerton stories - let me know what easter eggs you find! — story takes place in the same universe as my duke!yeonjun and earl!taehyun fics - check out the link to the series below for some more easter eggs :) In a society where it only takes a year for a young woman in search of a husband to be considered out of season, it is no wonder that by your third year out, you are desperate to marry. Known as one of the beauties of the ton, such a task should not be difficult for you—but with an absent father, no dowry, and a reputation centered around your inability to keep your mouth shut around one certain Beomgyu Choi, your prospects are more limited than you’d like. While you cannot recover your family or your wealth, however, the one thing you can try to control is your reputation. So when the third season rolls around, you resolve to keep your distance from Beomgyu Choi, your childhood enemy, and the man you hate most in the world. Enter Beomgyu Choi, second son of the Kensington Viscountcy, one of the most eligible bachelors in the ton. His older brother, cousin, and good friend have all recently married, leaving the mamas to salivate at his doorstep for the chance of marrying one of their daughters to him. When Beomgyu walks in on a particularly traumatizing moment between you and one of the most unsavory men in the ton and learns of your desperation to marry, despite your history of enmity, he proposes you a devious deal—to pretend to court you. It seems like a winning situation for both of you—more gentlemen will take notice of you, enhancing your prospects, and he will have the ton’s mamas off his back—and so, despite your misgivings, you agree. With you hell bent on marriage and Beomgyu completely indifferent to the concept, even independent of your hatred for each other, it seems unlikely that any sort of true affection will bloom. But as you begrudgingly put aside your differences to spend more and more time in one another’s company, and as you grow to know each other beyond your ill-conceived preconceptions from childhood, you begin to realize that perhaps you two have more in common than you had once thought. And as your faked acquaintanceship becomes more truth than fiction, a friendship beginning to bloom most unexpectedly— Perhaps you no longer need to convince the ton of the veracity of your courtship, because anyone with eyes can see that it is true.  Part 1 >> Part 2

Series Masterlist | TXT Masterlist

By the end of the night, you think you might murder someone.

It’s not the party’s fault. Lady Arina Park always hosts the first ball of the season, and in the three years you’ve attended them, not once has it ever been a disappointment. Her taste in decoration always sets the tone for the months to follow, and she is the most wonderful hostess—crotchety, kind, and always brimming with wisdom to impart. 

She might be one of your favorite people in the ton. 

Unfortunately, you cannot only talk to one person the entire night, and given your own reputation, you’re not sure you even have the social right to speak to her this season. See, it was never the party that was the problem. 

It is the fact that you have attended now three times in three different years, each without a husband. 

This is a fact that seems to dog you everywhere you go. Beautiful, sharp-tongued Miss L/N is going yet another season without a man on her arm—or at least a serious man on her arm. Never mind that you have had two proposals, both of which you turned down quietly and did not announce out of sympathy for the man’s reputation. You might be on your third season and desperate, but you rather think you’d prefer to become a spinster than marry either of those who asked for your hand. 

Lord Kierston was nice enough, if absentminded. You genuinely might have said yes to him if not for two things—his rotten breath (you have no idea what he could be eating to have such horrid breath all the time), and the fact that he is over the age of forty. 

You are barely one and twenty. And while there have been married couples with greater age gaps than that, you wonder if it is truly too much to hope to find someone nearer your age.

As for Mr. Thompson…he wasn’t even nice. He was rude, and arrogant, and during his proposal blatantly said that you would have to accept him as with your lack of dowry and snide personality, you had no choices elsewhere. All facts for certain—your dowry is nonexistent, your character is not one that endears many to you, and at the time, no other men were seriously courting you so it was true you had no other options. But you could still be a spinster, you let him know. And you would far rather be old and unmarried than tied to a man such as he. 

He looked almost murderous when you said that, which was why you’d excused yourself quickly after. You may consider yourself cleverer than most, but you are no fool. You thank your few lucky stars that your family left for the country just a few days later at the end of the season and you haven’t seen him since. 

But now you are back in town, with a fresh new crop of debutantes to outshine your wilting, rotten personality, a father trying to drum up business abroad, an evil stepmother breathing down your neck, and possibly a Mr. Thompson to run into. Not to mention Lady Whistledown with her peacock feather pen and watchful monocled eye, carefully waiting to elaborate on your futile prospects with her sharp-tongued words. 

Not that you know if she uses a peacock feather pen or a monocle. As far as your knowledge stretches, no one in the entire ton save the writer herself knows who she is. But you’ve always imagined her with such things. Ridiculous to the max. It makes it much easier not to strangle someone after you read her words about you. 

God, you’d care so much less about her gossip column if she wasn’t so damn good at writing it. 

You wish you were still in the country. Lady Whistledown wouldn’t see you there, and her gossip column would never reach your home. In fact, the only reason you’re certain she isn’t part of your sparse circle is that your spat with the younger Lord Choi at the garden party last year took at least two weeks to be broadcast in London after you came back for the season. Someone had to feed her the information before she could issue it, including your now infamous quote about how you’d like to slit his throat with his own letter opener. 

Your stepmother yelled at you for hours over it. You were sentenced to a week of nonstop chores and none of the few servants still in your family’s employ were allowed to help. Yet at the end of the day, Lord Choi the Younger is a menace to you and to society, and so you privately still stand by your comment. 

Lord Choi the Younger. Mr. Choi, when his brother is in the room. Annoyance. Menace. The devil in disguise. All apt nicknames by which to call Beomgyu Choi, one of the most annoying people you’ve ever met. Which, unfortunately, brings it all back to here and now, because apparently he is in attendance at tonight’s party. 

And hence why by the end of the evening, you might be locked up in jail for murder. 

Last season after the horrible garden party, you took very, very great care not to end up in the same room as the younger Lord Choi. For the most part, you succeeded. You couldn’t always avoid him—the ton is only so large—but the few times you had to come face to face with him you managed at least one minute of civil conversation before it turned into thinly-veiled verbal sparring that you thankfully had the self-control to bow out of sooner rather than later. But apparently people found your little spats amusing. A source of entertainment. And Lady Whistledown has remarked more than once since then that it would certainly liven up the endless parade of balls and parties to see a showdown between you and Mr. Choi once more. 

You’ve been at this ball for hardly two hours and already almost everyone who’s spoken to you tonight—even Lady Arina Park!—has found some sly way to allude to a possible catfight between you and Mr. Choi to bring down the house. And unfortunately, experience tells you that in the heat of the moment, you care about getting the last word in with Mr. Choi far more than you care about your precarious reputation. 

You do so hate to disappoint the ton, about as much as you love it when your grievances are aired in public via the Whistledown gossip column. And it does so truly break your heart not to be the sole source of entertainment at Lady Park’s annual ball. But this is your third season out and you need to be married soon, so when you see the man himself wearing that annoyingly bright smile and surrounded by an annoying number of young girls and their mothers, you make the first excuse you can to duck out of the ballroom and make a beeline for the gardens, where you find yourself in sudden silence. 

Sudden, but not altogether unwelcome. The night air feels comforting on your face, wind breezing softly against your skin. You hadn’t realized how hot the ballroom was until you came out here. You settle on one of the benches in the garden and fan yourself with a hand, letting the cool air bring you back to the moment. No one else is out here as far as you can tell. You can relax, if only for a moment.

For a few minutes you just sit in the moonlight, your face tilted to the sky, letting the cool air kiss your cheeks. It would be lovely to just stay out here all night, you think. Away from the people, away from the stares, away from the crushing anxiety that no one will ever want to marry you and you’ll have to live at home with your horrible stepmother forever—

A branch snaps. Your eyes fly open. And all of the anxiety returns, with a healthy dose of fear, when you see Mr. Thompson looking at you from the other side of the garden. 

For a long moment you just stand there. Looking at each other. All of the night’s beauty has been forgotten, its comforting silence turned threatening in light of the knowledge that you are a young, unmarried woman alone with a man in a garden. 

Scandals have been made out of less. 

“Mr. Thompson,” you say in as flat a tone as possible. “I apologize. I was just leaving.”

“Now don’t leave on my account, Miss L/N.” His mouth twists in what looks more like a sneer than a smile and he takes a step toward you. You take a step back. “It is lovely to see you after a summer away. Your beauty hasn’t diminished a bit with your age.”

You almost snort. Exactly how much does a person change in one summer? “Apologies if I don’t quite take your compliment, Mr. Thompson. I was not under the impression we were on speaking terms after last season.”

“We never spoke again because you left for the country.” That sneer-smile grows wide and you start calculating how much of a head start you’d need to flee into the ballroom before he caught you. “If it were up to me, I would have proposed again, after you had had the time to consider it.”

This time, you do snort. “With all due respect, sir, after an entire summer to think about it, my answer remains the same.” You still your features into a cold mask and pray, even with the sinking feeling of dread in your chest, that he will go away. “I will never marry you, Mr. Thompson. As I aptly put during your first proposal, I would rather become a spinster than entertain the thought.”

His eyebrows draw in. You’d think the sight was comical if his eyes didn’t glint with menace under the moon. “Do you really think yourself better than me?” he snarls. “You should be thanking me now, for offering you this second chance.”

You laugh incredulously. “Thanking you? For what?”

“I’m your last hope.” He advances so quickly you almost trip on the hem of your dress as you stumble backward. You try to hide the panic rising in your throat as you glance at the house—still full of light, still full of gaiety while you’re trapped outside by the night and this man. “No one wants you, Miss L/N.” He lunges forward and you gasp, his hands uncomfortably tight around your wrists. “Not a single one.”

“Let go of me,” you snarl. “Let go of me—get off me—”

“Not—” He grunts as you stomp on his foot, but doesn’t let go. “Not until I have what I want—”

You manage to free an arm and before you can think, your fist careens through the air straight into his face. 

For a long moment you just stand there, barely able to breathe, the thump of Mr. Thompson’s body falling to the ground playing over and over in your mind. Your heart is pounding and your breath is coming out in short gasps and your fist throbs with pain. A sort of buzzing sound fills your ears. The world starts blurring before you and vaguely you wonder if it’s just the night, or if you’re about to fall. 

“Miss L/N. Miss L/N!”

The sound of your name from a familiar voice breaks through the buzz and you blink, coming back to earth. It takes a moment for you to reassess the situation. 

Mr. Thompson is still on the ground. 

It does not look like he will be getting up soon. 

You are still physically unhurt. 

And there is a new third person in the garden with you. 

Oh, God. You resist the urge to bury your face in your throbbing hands. Not only did Mr. Thompson try to assault you, you also knocked him out with your own fist, and someone caught the two of you in the garden just after it happened. Or maybe even before. Maybe they saw it, saw everything—how much did they see? How badly will your reputation be ruined beyond what is already in tatters?

A hysterical laugh builds in your chest. All that comes out is a strangled whimper. You’ll never be married once Whistledown gets her hands on this. No matter that Mr. Thompson didn’t succeed in whatever he planned to do with you. All that matters is that you were alone with him in a garden at the first damn ball of the season and someone saw you.

Things couldn’t get any worse than this. 

“Miss L/N.” The familiar voice says your name again, this time accompanied by a cautious hand on your shoulder. You flinch viscerally but it doesn’t leave. “Miss L/N,” it repeats, considerably lower than before. 

You shut your eyes hard. Open them. You try to take a breath and only just manage to stifle a strangled half-gasp before it leaves your throat. You’ll have to face your fate at some point when you beg for this person not to immediately spread this juicy piece of gossip to every person in the ballroom. With heaven’s mercy, they’ll take pity on your situation and leave some details out of the story. Or at least not embellish what they already saw. Praying silently to the hopefully-merciful heavens, you slowly turn around. 

And then you curse out loud. 

“What in God’s��bloody name—”

You were wrong when you thought things couldn’t get any worse, because the man standing before you is Beomgyu Choi. 

The heavens must be having a good damn laugh at you right now. 

. . . . .

After what just happened, Beomgyu is honestly surprised that the first thing to come out of your mouth upon seeing him is a curse. Maybe he should be thankful, though. This probably means that you’ll come out of this all right. 

“Goodness,” he says as genially as he can, given your outburst. “I would have asked if you were all right, but based on your reaction to seeing me, I suppose you are just fine.”

“Mr. Choi.” You look and sound vaguely sick. Beomgyu gathers that you would rather be anywhere than here. “Apologies. I did not realize it was you.”

“I gathered about as much.” Now that he knows you’re fine, or at least standing upright, he steps forward to check on Mr. Thompson. Thankfully and regrettably, the man still has a pulse. Beomgyu wouldn’t purposely wish death on anyone, but if he had to choose one person in the entire ton he wouldn’t mind not seeing for the rest of his life, Mr. Thompson would certainly be one of the top contenders for the position. He looks back up at you. “Pray tell, Miss L/N, what is your first made of? Pure steel? You’ve knocked the poor man out.”

You look to be grinding your teeth even as you speak. “I had no intention—”

“I am not chastising you, my lady.” He smirks. “In fact, I must say I’m quite impressed.” Then he squints. “You’re not about to swoon, are you?”

A long silence hangs in the air before you mete out a very measured reply. “I am not going to swoon, Mr. Choi. And the next time you decide to say something just as inane, take very good care, or you might find yourself in the grass next to Mr. Thompson as well.”

He lifts his hands in surrender with a laugh. God, he might hate you and you might hate him, but it really is so much fun to spar with you like this. “A jest, my lady. I thought simply to lighten the air.”

You open your mouth to reply, then close it. Beomgyu watches in amusement as you close your eyes for a good few seconds—ten, if he’s counting correctly—before taking a deep breath. Good God, you really are making some strong effort to rein yourself in this season. “With all due respect, my lord, what are you doing out here?” you finally ask. 

Beomgyu raises an eyebrow. “I might ask you the same question.”

“You were the one who walked in on a private disagreement,” you snap. “If anyone should be asking questions, it should be me.”

“It didn’t look like a private disagreement as much as an entire physical altercation,” Beomgyu retorts. 

He expects a rapid-fire reply from you just as he always has, but instead you blanch. Your lips suddenly look too pale, entirely drained of color, and your eyes are fixed on Mr. Thompson’s prone body. He stands up. “Miss L/N?” he says quietly, slowly stepping toward you. “Are you all right?”

“I—” You turn to him but it doesn’t look like you see him. “Don’t tell anybody,” you whisper. Your breaths have grown shorter, more rapid, and he bites back a curse. You look like you’re going into shock again. “Please. I can’t—if Whistledown—if people know what he did—what he tried to do—”

What he tried to do?

Well, clearly now is not the right time to ask, and it isn’t that difficult to put the pieces together anyway from what little he saw—Mr. Thompson grabbing you, you punching him, your current shock. If Mr. Thompson was awake he might yet punch him again but he isn’t, so Beomgyu focuses on you.

“Miss L/N.” He gently puts his hands on your shoulders. Something in your eyes seems to focus and internally, he sighs with relief. “I will not tell anyone what I saw today in the garden. Not a soul.” He takes one hand off your shoulder to place it over his heart. “On my honor, I swear it.”

Something in his words must have rung clear. Your breaths begin to slow, and you manage to nod. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” It’s somewhat strange, comforting his sworn enemy since childhood, but oddly enough he isn’t too conflicted. Even if you spend most of your time annoying Beomgyu out of his boots, you’re a person too, and clearly Mr. Thompson wasn’t doing anything good in this garden. If anything, Beomgyu is a man, and he knows what the other entitled men of the ton sometimes do. No woman—no person—deserves to be subject to their horrific plans. Not a single one. He keeps his voice as gentle as he can as he leads you to a nearby bench. “Will you tell me what happened?”

He stays quiet as you mumble out a vague summary of the altercation. That Mr. Thompson had proposed last season and acted an absolute arse about it, that you thought you’d seen the last of him but he showed up in the garden when you left the ballroom for some air (Beomgyu saw you leaving just as he entered so he gathers he had something to do with your quest for air, but he bites his tongue just this once). That he had proposed—if it could even be called that—a second time, and when you repeated your original sentiments, he grabbed you by the arms and told you to be grateful. 

And then you punched him. 

Beomgyu nods slowly at the conclusion of your story. “First of all, I must apologize. Being the recipient of a proposal from Mr. Thompson could be nothing short of traumatic.”

For the first time that evening, the ghost of a smile flutters across your lips. It’s a very nice smile. You have always been beautiful—even Beomgyu will admit that—but you’ve never directed a smile at him like this. Likely because you’re always scowling at him instead. Which, given your history, is fair enough, but that doesn’t mean this still isn’t nice. 

“There is a reason I turned him down,” you mutter. “I may need to be married, but I still have my pride.” 

He raises an eyebrow. “You need to be married?”

You fix him with a dead stare. “Mr. Choi, I am not exaggerating when I say that if I don’t marry this season, I will go insane.”

Beomgyu blinks. “…Not even a little bit?”

You look away with a loud sigh, muttering something under your breath. Beomgyu doesn’t hear all of it but he does catch something about three seasons and hopeless and men.

He chooses to focus on the first bit, because he gets the feeling that the last two wouldn’t end up being particularly complimentary to him or his kind. “Three seasons?”

You give him possibly the worst stink eye of anyone he’s ever met. “Yes, Mr. Choi. This is my third season out. If I am not married by the end of it I may as well be a spinster, and to be a spinster in my stepmother’s home is not a fate I wish upon anyone.” You look down, fiddling with the dance card around your wrist. “I need to get married,” you say again, though more to yourself than him this time. 

“You need it this badly, then,” he says, half amused, half surprised. “So much so that you would exit the ballroom the moment I entered for fear of confrontation.”

Annoyance flickers back into your eyes. It’s a much more familiar expression than the one you were just wearing, and thus infinitely more comfortable to deal with. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Mr. Choi, every time we come into contact in public, the resulting altercation makes its way into Whistledown and, as such, everyone else’s lives. Forgive me if I am only trying to pick up the remnants of my already shattered reputation.”

Beomgyu snorts. “You seem to think it my fault that your societal standing has plummeted so. Have you ever considered it a matter of your personality, instead?”

Low blow. He sees it in your face, in the way your eyes shutter as soon as the words leave his mouth. Immediately he wants to slap himself. He should apologize, but before he can open his mouth to do so, you’re replying through very obviously gritted teeth. “I have, actually.” You fix him with a hard stare that reminds him why half of the ton finds you terrifying. “I would be a poor judge of my own character if I did not realize that I am at least as responsible for our disagreements as you are.” A bitter laugh escapes your lips and curdles in the air. “And it is not as if the ton hasn’t been gossiping about my temperament for years.”

Beomgyu stays quiet. 

You let out a sigh. “I have answered quite enough of your questions, Mr. Choi, so I beg you now to answer mine. Why are you here?”

“Avoiding people.” He eyes the bright lights still coming from the ballroom. Distaste curl his lip. “Mamas, mostly. I suppose they are people.”

You don’t smile, but at least the tension in the air seems to lessen somewhat. 

“They seem to have gotten it into their minds that I intend to marry this season.” He shakes his head. “Just because all of my other friends are married doesn’t mean I intend to so soon as well.”

“I wasn’t aware that Mr. Huening was married.”

“Oh, so you do pay attention to me?” Beomgyu snickers at your outraged expression but continues before you can retort. “He has returned to his home country and won’t be back for the season. Ergo, I get attention I don’t necessarily covet.”

You snort. “I wasn’t aware there was any sort of attention you did not covet.”

Beomgyu sneers. “Couldn’t I say the same for you?”

“You—I can’t do this.” You stand up and Beomgyu can practically see the anger shimmering off you in waves. “I shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be here, and I don’t want to be here when Mr. Thompson wakes and decides to take a pass at me again. It’s bad enough that the two of us are alone—” Your eyes widen in horror. “The two of us are alone.”

Beomgyu stands too. “I guarantee you,” he says lowly, “not a word of this will pass my lips to anyone in the ton.”

“Thank you, but that hardly matters.” You take a large step away from him. “You walked in on Mr. Thompson. Someone else could just as easily walk in on the two of us.” Your voice turns sardonic. “And I’m sure you have no wish to be married to the likes of me for the sake of propriety. Good night.”

Well, that’s certainly true. Just the thought of it makes Beomgyu shudder. If your current relationship is anything to go by, the two of you would never stop talking, never stop arguing…

Hm. 

Beomgyu’s eyes narrow as he watches your back disappear from the gardens. He would never want to marry you, it’s true. But if you’re having trouble attracting suitors, and he has too many women on his tail…

“Miss L/N.”

You turn around with a huff. “What is it now?”

Beomgyu grins. He might just be a genius. “I have a proposition for you.”

. . . . .

“This is a very, very bad idea,” you mutter. Then you look around sharply, because it wouldn’t do for anyone to think that you see hallucinations on top of all of your other less-than-choice characteristics. Even though you made sure to stray far from prying ears in this garden, it seems Lady Whistledown’s eyes are everywhere. 

An issue came out just this morning. You were relieved beyond belief that not a word about your and Mr. Choi’s accidental tryst in the garden was mentioned, though she did mention a terrible black eye and a murderous expression on Mr. Thompson when he reentered the ballroom. 

Mr. Choi had assured you a man such as he would never admit that a woman had bested him in a fight. You weren’t sure you believed him until you got the paper and Whistledown could only speculate about what had caused such a spectacular black eye—apparently Mr. Thompson had remained tight-lipped and snarly to anyone who dared ask. And as he hasn’t come banging on the door of your home demanding retribution, you can only conclude that he doesn’t plan to.

All the better for you. 

Fortunately, beyond some other vague mutterings about the other debutantes and who danced with who and who hogged all the lemonade, that was all that was said about Lady Park’s ball. Not a word about you. Not a word about Mr. Choi. 

Not a word about the idiotic deal he proposed as you were trying to leave the garden, and not a word about how you were idiotic enough to agree. 

You never quite believed yourself stupid. If you had anything to your name besides your beauty, you would say it is your wit (quite separate from your sharp tongue, which is not even close to a blessing). But when you woke up the morning after the ball, you really re-thought all of your previous conceptions of yourself, because what on earth possessed you to agree to the insane proposal Mr. Choi presented you that night?

Unfortunately, you know the answer to that too. 

Desperation. 

He’d presented his idea so reasonably. “You are searching for a husband. I want the attention of the ton’s mamas off of me,” he’d said, his tone so calm as words of madness left his tongue. “If I pretended to court you, men would take more heed of you, and the mamas would be discouraged from chasing after me.” He spread his arms in a show of his apparent genius. “Thus, the two of us might find some success in each of our respective endeavors.”

You could only gape harder the wider he smiled.

To your credit, you refused at first. “That is madness,” you had scoffed, turning back around. “Who in this ton would believe that the two of us are courting? Our arguments have become their source of entertainment. No one is going to buy that we now like each other enough to be civil in one another’s presence, let alone court.”

He was still undeterred, for whatever damn reason. So convinced it would work out by his own sheer force of will, like most men. “So we will come up with a believable cover story,” he’d replied easily, still with that unflappable smile on his lips. “Listen, Miss L/N. You are desperate, and I need an out. What do either of us have to lose from at least trying?”

Try as you might, you couldn’t cobble together an answer. Because he was right. You were desperate. You still are. If you have to live another year in your stepmother’s home, cleaning and gardening and playing maid while still maintaining appearances for the ton, you will go mad. Not mad enough to accept Mr. Thompson’s suit, but mad all the same. 

So you had agreed, and in the process lost a healthy chunk of your own self-respect. But you refused to spend another moment in the garden alone with him that night for fear of others seeing, so you two decided to meet at the outdoor musicale at the park a few days later to discuss the…logistics of this plan. There would be plenty of time for refreshment before and after the performance—plenty of time for the two of you to sneak away and find each other. 

So here you are, standing in the sunshine without the cover of night to hide all of your bad decisions. The longer you stand here, the more you’re beginning to believe this is all a major mistake.

But like Beomgyu has said multiple times, you’re desperate. You’ve tried being yourself for one season. You’ve tried reining in your sharp tongue for another. Neither worked. What’s the worst that can happen? You not being married for a third season in a row? Sick as the thought leaves you, it’s not as if you haven’t pondered the possibility many times already. 

Anyway, if your stepmother drives you too far up the wall, you’ll just have to run away. Find work as a governess somewhere, or a maid. Nothing could possibly be worse than her shrill voice ordering you to do this or that while she sits on her arse all day without contribution, your father still gone on some business call hundreds of miles away. Easier said than done, but a bad plan is better than no plan. Or so you hope.

In fairy tales, this is when the handsome prince is supposed to swoop in with a charming smile to come and save you, the poor damsel, from her distress. Unfortunately, you are not in a fairy tale, and all you have to save you is Mr. Choi and this ridiculous deal. 

What a world you live in.

“Miss L/N.”

You jerk your head around to see Mr. Choi pushing through some bushes a few feet away. A quick glance behind him confirms that no one has followed him here. “Mr. Choi,” you greet, already feeling your stomach roll. This is a terrible idea. “I wonder if it isn’t too much to hope that you have re-thought your ridiculous plan and intend to call it off now?”

He snorts. “Of course not. You should be on the floor, praising my genius.” Before you can reply with something scathing about his big head and nonexistent intellect, he continues. “Besides, no matter how ridiculous you think my idea is, you’re still here.”

How you wish you were here to just call it all off. Unfortunately, you are just as desperate as you were several days ago. “Unfortunately, my desperation is greater than my self-respect at the moment.” You look up at where he’s still standing in the grass. “Do you plan to sit?”

He sits on the green next to you, that stupid unflappable smile still on his face. You want to slap it off. “We need a cover story,” he begins. “You were right on that front. Which means at some point, one of us must have apologized first for the cake and dirt incidents from when we were children.”

“You apologized,” you say immediately. “You knocked my cake over first, ruined my new shoes, and it was my birthday.”

Mr. Choi scowls. “You threw dirt at me—”

You raise your voice over his. “It was my birthday, and you didn’t even apologize then—”

“I had dirt in my hair!”

“And my new shoes were ruined! Forever!”

The two of you glare at each other for a long, long moment. Then you stand abruptly. “Forget it,” you mutter, ready to head back to the party. “If we can’t even agree on this—”

“Neither of us apologized,” Mr. Choi snaps. “We just agreed to put it behind us.”

You turn around slowly. “…Fine.”

He gestures impatiently to the grass. You sit down again, resolutely not looking at him. Silence passes over the two of you for a long time before you force yourself to speak. “So how exactly did that happen?” you ask, voice rough. 

Slowly, the two of you hash out the details, though not without your fair share of sniping back and forth. After the last season, the two of you met at a gathering in the country. Having seen how badly Whistledown had written of you two, you agreed to put your old resentments behind you. You began exchanging tentative letters through the off-season and those letters increased in volume as time went on and you became friendlier. It was very surprising when Mr. Choi asked if he might court you at this season’s first ball, but you did not say no, and that brings you up to now. 

None of it is verifiable. That’s the only thing that makes you think this plan has even a shot at working. You two were at some gatherings in the country together, and ironically, because you did your absolute best to avoid him by hiding in different places, there are definitely some moments where the two of you could feasibly have been alone together and talked things out. As for the letters, they don’t actually exist, but no well-bred person would dare ask to see private correspondence. Hopefully. 

You work out a schedule for the next few months. He must call on you at some point, and you both agree you’ll need to be seen in public at least several times. At least one promenade every couple of weeks, and you will dance together at least once at each of the balls you both plan to attend. One call a week and if he cannot make it, he must send flowers. “A large bouquet,” you say, internally smirking at his expression. “You must act serious about it so that the other men will know they must outdo you.”

By the time you’ve argued and compromised and sniped it all out, the sun is almost directly overhead, and you need to return in time for the musicale to start. Mr. Choi stands and you don’t refuse his hand to help you up, a new grudging respect in your chest for him. If anything, he’s a good negotiator, not to mention a gentleman. “Shall we return to the musicale together, then?” he asks, offering his arm. 

You stare at him. “Already?”

He peers at you, eyes twinkling obnoxiously. “There’s no time like the present, hmm?”

While you were talking and snapping and quipping, you were able to ignore the voice in the back of your mind screaming that this is a terrible idea. But now as you look at his proffered arm, it suddenly seems to be all you can hear. 

Everything is going to go wrong. You’re going to make a gaffe because for all you can act nice and pretty around pleasant people, you cannot hold your tongue in front of people you dislike, Mr. Choi obviously included. Which means someone is going to get suspicious because of your mistakes. Which means people are going to start talking and eventually the truth is going to come out and you will be humiliated publicly more than ever before—because what idiot pretends to court their enemy in an effort to gain suitors—and bloody fucking hell, this was a mistake and you might as well run away right now—

“We don’t have to if you don’t want to yet.” Mr. Choi’s voice cuts through your spiraling thoughts, his words gentler than before as he lowers the arm. You hate that he can do that—can be going back and forth with you for hours without pause, then put it all on hold to respect you as a woman and a human being. It makes it really hard to hate him as much as you want to, and ironically makes you hate him even more. “I only thought it would at least explain our combined absence, in case anyone noticed.”

You swallow hard. “No, you’re right,” you mumble. “We should—we should start now. Sorry.”

Mr. Choi raises an eyebrow. “I think that’s the first time you’ve ever apologized to me.”

And there it is. You scowl. “Don’t get used to it.”

He laughs aloud, a sound that would be quite pleasing if you didn’t want to punch him in the face so badly. “I am sure I won’t,” he replies, a bite beneath his genial tone that ironically soothes your anxiety. Yes, even if you two go through with this, nothing will actually change between the two of you. You’ll always be annoyances to one another. “Now, are you ready?”

You take his arm gingerly. “It doesn’t quite seem like I have another choice.”

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

[nicromancytarot]

YOUR FIRST PREGNANCY

This is a general reading based on a collective of people. Take what resonates and leave what doesn’t. If you don’t feel the pile resonates with you, don’t be scared to try another, if it still doesn’t feel right, that’s ok! Maybe our energies aren’t as connected and my readings are not for you.

I do these strictly for fun and educational purposes. I do not charge for these readings, and I do not fake readings. I would tell you the cards I get for the readings, but I pull like 20-30 cards each reading and that is just slightly a strenuous task to write them all down lmao.

PICK A CARD TAROT READING

I asked my spirit guides what you needed to know about your first pregnancy, pick a card to find out what they had to say!

Pile 1 ———> Pile 2

PILE 1

DURING THE PREGNANCY

Pile 1, you guys will feel very heard and listened to, you may have a lot of family or friends around you who will be willing to help you out with this pregnancy to make sure you are feeling your best this entire time. You may have a name that you picked out at a young age and are super excited to call your baby by. You could talk to your baby a lot, some of you may sing to them or put your headphones on them so they can listen to your music. I feel you will be already very connected to your baby during your pregnancy, however you may be a little hesitant at first before getting super close during the last few months.

HOW THE BABY WAS CONCEIVED

I see a lot of you, if not all of you will end up having this being the result of a one night stand or even possibly a hookup with your ex. I don’t feel a strong masculine figure being present in the baby’s life afterwards. I feel as though this will be an accident, or happy mistake, due to you feeling willing to step out of your comfort zone and try something new - leading to your pregnancy.

ITS A…. 🎀 GIRL 🎀

AFTER THE BABY IS BORN

My lovely pile 1, I think you guys are going to struggle a bit after your baby’s birth, you may find it’s harder than you thought it would be - and I do feel like you have a fair amount of family around, you could still express feelings of isolation and aloneness, make sure to prioritise yourself during this time. For some of you, I believe your baby may begin their life off sick, like a possible Colic or uncomfortable condition which will lead them to cry a lot and it could be very irritating for you. Take a moment, and a breather. Never feel evil for having to lock yourself in a room to calm yourself down before tending to your baby.

ABOUT YOUR BABY

Your baby is going to bring a lot of money into your life when they grow up, you may have not been able to give your baby everything you wanted to, but don’t worry because they understand it and they are willing to give it to themself. They may end up doing something which is seen as taboo or unexpected, like working with dead people, (funeral arranging/directing/embalming) spirituality - just something very unexpected for their upbringing.

They’re going to be a summer baby - I straight up got Gemini, Cancer and Leo (3rd house, 4th house and 5th house. May-August) born within the 2nd to 3rd week or the month.

This will be your only child.

PILE 2

DURING THE PREGNANCY

You guys are going to have heavy emotional energy during this pregnancy, if someone says one thing, it’s enough to set you off. You’re going to be very protective over your baby, like if someone says your baby’s ultrasound looks like an alien, you may honestly flip out on them for being rude about your child. During the pregnancy you guy might be too focused on work to give it up, there’s heavy energy on wanting to continue to work to either distract yourself or make money so you’re prepared for when your baby arrives.

HOW THE BABY WAS CONCEIVED

I think you and your partner were actively trying for this baby, as I do see a theme of scheduling or planning when the perfect time would be to try. This will be at a time when your relationship is the most strong and you have prepared yourself for this new chapter in your life. I feel as though you may have had to make a lot of changes to be ready for this, you and your partner were very excited and eager when you were actually ready.

IT’S A… 🎀 GIRL 🎀

AFTER THE BABY IS BORN

You may have had a very spiritual experience during the birth, and this has made you see things differently, or be more open to things you weren’t so open minded towards prior. You’re going to be very protective of your baby, you may wake them up every hour to make sure they’re ok, or lay by their crib to check up on them. You could be slightly hostile towards people who want to hold or look after your baby. You also need a rest, this will cause you to be very restless and in need of a good sleep, so trust your partner to look after the baby while to take a nap.

ABOUT YOUR BABY

Your baby is going to look up to your relationship with your partner, they may see you two as the model for what they want in their life when they are older. They are very hardworking and will help you see the world in ways you didn’t before. They have the mindset of “if life gives you lemons, make lemonade” and our very optimistic. They will always assume a leadership position, so you may see them as quite bossy or in control.

Born during spring or winter, possibly right in between. Scorpio or Aries could be a significant sign for them. October-November, March-April.

This will be your only child.

[pucksandpower]

Hi! you might see multiple requests from me in the future. Anyway can I request a IG AU for carlos Sainz and reader where her best friend took a photo of her holding multiple positive pregnancy tests and is in shock and posted it to the readers story so everyone is in shock thinking that the reader is pregnant, carlos + other drivers think she’s pregnant too. But it just turns out the bestie is pregnant and the reader and her bestie unfollowed the besties husband so the friends can know about the pregnancy and surprise the besties husband. Im so sorry if that did not make sense it was long. Ignore this if you want❤️

if you’re also able to tag me if you do post this it would be amazing?❤️ have a wonderful week

Carlos Sainz x wife!Reader - Social Media AU

y/nsainz posted a story

*y/nsainz’s story is no longer available*

y/nsainz

Liked by carlossainz55, f1wagupdates, and 372,865 others

y/nsainz surprise! i’m not pregnant. while i want to thank everyone for the well wishes, those pregnancy tests belonged to a friend and i have no idea how they even ended up on my story. carlos and i hope to extend our family in the future but a baby sainz has not yet been conceived. that being said, the outpouring of support that we and our hypothetical child received makes us more certain than ever that any child we bring into this world will be surrounded by love ❤️

View all 2,194 comments

carlossainz55 fingers crossed i find out about our baby before instagram does next time

y/nsainz you can’t hold that over me because there is no baby to find out about in the first place

carlossainz55 we can change that 😏

f1wagupdates the rollercoaster of emotions i just experienced 😵‍💫

carlossainz55 you and me both

y/nsainz

Liked by carlossainz55, landonorris, and 425,938 others

y/nsainz baby sainz coming soon (for real this time)

View all 2,867 comments

landonorris are you sure?

charles_leclerc maybe you should double check just in case, we don’t want a repeat of babygate

y/nsainz i’m pretty certain that the little feet kicking my organs every two seconds very much belong to the very real baby currently growing in me

f1wagupdates oh my god it’s really happening! we’re getting a baby sainz 😭

tifositalking i’m almost waiting for someone to jump out and yell “punked”

feralferrari right? i have trust issues after what happened the first time 🫣

carlossainz55

Liked by y/nsainz, scuderiaferrari, and 964,273 others

carlossainz55 fake baby sainz may have caused mass chaos but it also made us realize how much we want an actual baby sainz

View all 3,815 comments

scuderiaferrari congratulations to you both! maybe we should have kept the baby clothes for a little longer

landonorris my godchild 🧡

y/nsainz says who?

landonorris please, i already got them a miniature version of my race suit

charles_leclerc congrats mate! uncle charles reporting for duty 🫡

carlossainz55 thank you, lord perceval! we will make sure to remember that when it’s time to change diapers

[nanaskitten]

A little help

minors do not interact! Don't like dont read!

pairing: pervy doctor!jaemin x innocent clueless!reader

warnings: inappropriate medical terminology, non-con, non consensual impregnation, unprofessional medical officer, cameras, non consensual filming and photography

smut under the cut

You had always wanted a baby. It had been you and your husband's dream befire even getting married. However, even though you tried hard, conceiving proved to be a difficult matter. That's why you were sitting here in Na Jaemin's waiting room.

Jaemin was the best gynecologist in the entire country. He had an amazing reputation. He had helped countless patients with conception. Naturally, embarrassing as it were for you, as you grew up conservative, you had no choice but to seek help from the man.

His office was charmingly welcoming. The warm interior was filled with beautifully green, fake plants and gorgeous paintings. You watched pretty little koi fish swim in the large glass fish tank in front of you that seemingly doubled as a coffee table.

You were relaxed. Normally you would've come to this appointment with your husband, however due to being unbelievably busy with work, you were here alone.

It wasnt long before a young man came out of the little room you could only assume to be Na Jaemin's office.

"y/n?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"That would be me." You nervously spoke. It couldn't have been anyone else, Jaemin knew. He had no other appointments that day and you were the only one there. "Please", he smiled, "come right this way." He smiled as He led you through the door.

For a clinic, it was strangely empty. You had expected to meet many assistants however, apart from the receptionist downstairs and the man himself, there didn't seem to be another worker.

His office was cozy and pretty small. There was the typical doctor's desk and chair, along with the parient's chair and another chair for guardians in one corner. Tucked away in the other corner was a little bed, half of it covered with a curtain. There was a little wash basin and some gloves and other equipment close by. You felt nervous, but at the same time, the man's natural charm and friendly demeanor helped you feel a little bit more at ease.

"So, what can I do for you today y/n?" He asked with the smile you had begun to believe was a signature part of his personality.

"I'm trying to get..." You blushed. You were not used to talking about these types of topics. Fortunately you didn't have to finish your sentence as Jaemin completed it for you. "...a baby?" He asked. You returned a nod.

"Ah yes." His words rang as if it was the most natural thing. "It's common to face difficulties while trying to have a baby." He leaned back.

"There are many different causes", His eyes were glued to your face, never leaving, "sometimes from the man, sometimes from the woman."

He now leaned forward, clasping his hands together and gently propping himself up on his elbows. "In order to treat your infertility, wr must first find out if it's caused by your body. To do that, we can conduct a physical assessment on yours right now. That is, if you consent to it of course." He was speaking professionally. If he had any thoughts of fucking your little cunt full with his cum, you had no clue. You gave him a nod. He was a doctor, he wouldn't do anything weird, right? Wrong, but then again, what you don't know won't hurt you.

"Alright then. I need you to lift up your little skirt and just take off your panties for me okay? Then go lie down on the bed over there", he said, motioning to the bed, "you may cover your upper body with the curtain, if it makes you feel more comfortable." You already felt a little uncomfortable. You were beginning to question your desicions but then decided that you might as well try to treat your infertility, if any, since you were already here. You laid down as he said, using the curtain to cover your chest area as well as face to still protect any decency you had. To be fair, you hadn't much- granted your pussy was on full display on the other side.

You heard the sound of the lock and rubber gloves.

Na Jaemin watched through the discrete screen as you slowly closed your eyes as an attempt to relax. "First I'm going to gently stimulate your vagina and clitoris using a world class medical tool." He smiled to himself as he saw how his voice made you jump a little. You watched how you pressed your legs together as you bit your lips befire you squeaked out a small "okay". He found it so adorable. He just loved when innocent girls like you found themselves alone, without a guardian in his clinic. The moment you made your appointment he could tell you would be a fun one to tease, and maybe even impregnate, if he got lucky.

He gently pressed a glove finger through your folds. You were already so wet. He deducted that you must be in your fertile window. He let his mind drift to how red and plump your lips had been and how wide your eyes were, emphasized by the fact your eyelashes had been so long, dark and curled. 'Oh she's definitely ovulating he thought to himself.

He slowly inserted his finger inside you. He watched your face through the hidden screen as he slowly curled it inside you, while also using his other thumb to rub directly on your clitoris. You left out a soft moan. You were extremely embarrassed to have let yourself do that. This was a physical assessment and here you were moaning on your doctor's bed. You were so ashamed and red, and jaemin just got all the more turned on. "That's alright. Please feel free to enjoy yourself. The next stage of the assessment will begin shortly." You could practically hear his pearly white smile.

The man quietly zipped down his pants. He took his finger out of you to take out his cock and spread lube all over it. He continued to thrust his finger inside of you, in quicker motions as he simulation stroked himself hard and fast. You were so close to coming undone. So close to feeling relief befire he removed his finger. You mewled. The loss of contact with the 'medical tool' leaving you hungry for more.

"I will insert a new, more sophisticated tool now", he told you, breath almost hitched. You hummed.

He thought you looked so adorable. Completely fucked out from just his hand. He entered into you, pushing his raw cock and bottoming out completely, not waiting for you to adjust to his size. He trusted his long hard cock into you slowly several times before picking up his pace. You were close, he could tell. Your legs were shaking and your pussy was leaking. You had no idea what feeling you were experiencing. You felt your body tense up, you wanted more, and more, until suddenly you felt so good. so overwhelmingly good that you closed your eyes, almost falling asleep. You felt The 'device' stop moving as well. You felt something sticky squirter out. It covered your walls from inside, you could tell.

Jaemin had timed himself perfectly to cum with you, at the same time. "You will feel a liquid inside. Don't worry, it's just for stimulation. I will now remove the device and seal your vagina, alright?" It was less of a question than a statement. He worked quickly to insert a plug inside you and wiped himself. He tucked his cock back into his pants before you heard his instructions again. "You may remove the plug after 5 hours. In the meantime, get some bed rest. You may leave."

When you got up, you felt a little embarrassed but you couldn't reason why. You put on your clothes and greeted the doctor on the other side of the curtains.

He looked as professional as ever as he gave you his signature charming smile and handed over a report to you. "The physical assessment was a success. You may have intercourse with your husband. The test shows there's no problem with your body so if problems persist your husband would have to see a doctor."

[mins-fins]

don't call me again — [00z — 엔시티. ]

i.e one of isa's random nct wips conceived with no real thought | now playing ꕤ

it's just the slightest bit claustrophobic in here.

well actually it isn't; you're lying to yourself to try to feel better about your circumstances. the air of the room shoves against you, crawling up your chest and seizing your throat in an unyielding grip. you might die from just the squeezing sensation of the room as a whole, even if there isn't even a crowd around you.

"yooooo y/n!" you snap out midway through your daze, the clawing hand formerly clutching your throat now sliding downward, completely disappearing. "dude! i can't believe you made it!"

a strained smile is all you offer, a small squeak leaving your lips as mark pulls you into an abrupt embrace, practically crushing your ribs with his vice grip. "traffic was shitty, but i kept my promise".

mark finally lets go of you, his crushing grip still painting your shoulders even after his hands remove themselves from your shoulders. "good for you, dude! jaem almost thought you wouldn't show".

you pause. jaemin is here. of course jaemin is here. you really are an idiot.

maybe you can make up an excuse. you have a family thing going on! no, too obvious, you can't lie on your mother's behalf without feeling bile crawl up your throat. your cat is sick? you could never lie about something like that. maybe you should just do a fake out and pretend that you're about to vomit—

"yooooo y/n is that you? it's been forever man!"

johnny suh has clearly had one too many drinks, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. the taller is quick to snort at the expression on your face, poking your cheek. you only offer a small wave, not exactly trusting your voice at the current moment. "how's life been treating you?"

you respond with a small shrug as he throws an arm around your shoulder, being nudged forward by the planned movement. you almost want to stop and slip from his grip, but you retain such urges. "semi well".

"semi?"

"i consider me being alive to be an indication of that.." you mutter with pure indignation in your tone, but you assume the alcohol has rendered johnny clueless towards the conveyance you attempt to make clear. his corresponding chuckle makes it clear to you that he thought you were joking, so you refrain from explaining yourself further.

"maybe you should lay low on all that studying! medical school probably hurts someone's brain!"

"it's fine i've learned how to handle it" you place a theatric smile on your lips as you catch a standard look of worry from mark in your peripheral vision.

"hey! tonight you have a break so just.." johnny trails off and you grunt, pushed onto the soft cushions of a couch. "relax".

"y/n has never really been good at doing that".

well speak of the devil, na jaemin nestles himself right beside you, satisfactory smile playing on his lips as he sees your momentary look of irritation. you ruffle your own hair and suck a breath between your teeth, it shouldn't be such a problem to face him now. "hi jaemin".

"it's been almost two years! didn't you miss me?"

in your fucking dreams, would be your usual response if you had no composure and didn't care about causing a scene, but for the sake of your own peace, you let the words die down in your throat. "was too wrapped up in surgery to even really think about it.."

a small scowl is almost let out, but jaemin instead smiles, hand gracing your shoulder in a gentle enough fashion it isn't suspicious. "well you're here now, i heard jeno missed you dearly".

yeah he told me that you idiot.

again, you bite your tongue.

"assuming he didn't tell you.."

jaemin lets out a laugh so performed he may as well open curtains to reveal your on a stage, he pinches the connection between your shoulder and neck, yet another performative smile gracing his features. "you are so funny!"

he might murder you tonight,

assuming you don't get to him first, of course.

the one thing people always forget to mention about reunions is that you cannot have any privacy, no matter how many times you pretend you have to use the bathroom.

you haven't even drank any of the stuff they have lying around, yet you feel as if you're one poke away from puking your guts out on the floor. it would be a funny feat to imagine if it wasn't a result of your very clear anxiety.

"hey how come you haven't had a drink yet?"

the inquiry is posed out of the purity of guanheng's heart. god bless him, even if he is oblivious to most situations. the shake of your head is so erratic your afraid you'll snap your own neck in the process. "i'm driving myself home, can't drink".

the sigh he releases in response is full of disappointment. "that fucking sucks! you bury yourself in all this work and can't even get drunk?"

you decide shrugging is the best course response. "i don't even really want to drink anyway".

you are on a roll with these lies! no you are not sweating! or panicking! or can slowly feel your stomach twisting in very clear anxiety! your lips press into a thin line, a small hum being your next action.

"y/n! y/n!"

now here comes your worst nightmare personified.

that can't even be said with assurance, because liu yangyang's lips stretch up into a euphoric smile. he's happy to see you, and in a sense, you are too, you're also just the slightest bit terrified. "hi yangyang".

he narrows his eyes, as if looking through you, but his smile returns to it's usual manner in a split second. absolutely no animosity behind it at all.

so you're going crazy! alright! that's amazing!

he doesn't say anything more, instead grabs onto you and pulls you into yet another bone crushing hug (that has to be the theme with everyone here), but instead of the usual fear you thought you'd fear when one of them hugged you, you feel warmth, much more than you anticipated.

maybe all isn't that bad, yangyang is still one squeeze away from choking you to death but does that really matter when the hug is like sleeping on the worlds softest pillow?

"i missed you".

you almost miss the hint of irritation that laces his tone, just a small eye twitch being your indication that no, it all is that bad. god maybe you should've said a family thing came up, it'd be easier to deal with a scolding from your mother than this.

"i missed you too" you clear your throat as you mutter the phrase, just barely able to keep your composure as you watch him smile again, eyes closing in a manner that clearly displays his displeasure.

"jaemin told me you were feeling better compared to what happened last year".

you smile so hard you swear you're going to begin bleeding. "i didn't talk to jaemin last year".

yangyang feigns surprise at the revelation. he knows exactly what he's talking about. liar. he then pretends to think it over, snapping his fingers. "oh no! injunie told me!"

your smile quickly fades. renjun. he might be your only saving grace in this mess, considering you don't run into the other two first. you might puke right now. "renjun, right".

"he said he's been dying to see you, maybe you should go find him".

maybe. what a jerk. it's like he can sense your anxiety with the way he squeezes your hand. (though if there's a heat that spreads across your cheeks, you'd rather not admit that).

"well actually—"

"hey! let's go look for him together!" yangyang doesn't allow for you to finish, a small tug of your hand rendering you speechless. you mutter unintelligible curses under your breath as you again feel a squeeze against your hand, his warm fingers clashing against your cold ones.

together. how fun. you manage to keep up smiles as you greet your other friends, friends who had many questions, but didn't exactly ask. maybe you should've declined mark's offer, it would've been better to rot in your apartment compared to facing this.

"do you know where he is?"

"i'm just guessing".

you hate that it does, but the words earn a small smile from you.

sometimes you forget, even after all of this, their still your friends. friends just get weird on occasions, friends just.. have disagreements on occasions, this is on par for frien—

"well what do we have going on here?"

you grit your teeth as soon as you hear the voice, and a small chuckle reverberates from your other.. friend. "y/n! it's been a while!"

you're just barely able to place a smile on your face, glancing at, again.. your worst nightmare in human form. lee donghyuck only stifles a small giggle at the expression which graces your features, his arms crossed above his chest, grin full of teeth. "yeah.. hi hyu— donghyuck".

you catch yourself just in time, and donghyuck bites his tongue, insult heavy on his mind. he again presents a smile, finger beginning to map out the side of your face in a slow motion. "almost two years! it's nice to see you haven't changed".

what a bitch.

you manage to refrain such thoughts from escaping your lips, the last thing you need to do is start a fight with the one person you've already shared fists with. "were looking for renjun".

"oh! a search? can i join you two?" his hands clasp behind his back, smile seemingly permanent.

you almost open your mouth to respond, but you clamp it shut, so yangyang takes the liberty of responding. "sure!"

oh curse you for being so you yangyang.

donghyuck hums happily, seizing your other free hand as he intertwined your fingers. you freeze, shoulders tensing, now stuck between the two people you were not currently feeling fond of at the moment. donghyuck's hands are rough, sometimes you feel as if he forgets about lotion, but yangyang's are soft, uncharacteristically so.

you again feel bile begin crawling up your throat, anxiety practically written in bold letters across your forehead as you again mutter greetings to your friends who haven't seen you in a while, all completely oblivious to the inner turmoil you faced.

you almost feel your eyes begin watering, but donghyuck decides to cut in.

"how's surgery going?"

you have half a mind to punch him in the face, oh fuck him.

"it's fine.. i've gotten used to seeing people's brains".

donghyuck's lips turn up.

"ohhhh, surgery is what you're doing! seems like a very you thing".

"right? even with how queasy he gets".

you manage to hold in your glare, rolling your eyes. donghyuck again squeezes your hand, nudging your shoulder. "it's been a while, should i give you my new number?"

you again feel bile crawling up your throat. "no it's fine i'll just get it from—"

"don't be silly! let me give it to you!"

donghyuck stops, keeping a vice grip on your hand as he puts his number into your phone. you aren't going to text him, even if his glares ask you to.

you wiggle your way away from him, quickly taking your phone with you. "that's nice! you know i just remembered i have a.. thing! a thing going on!"

smooth going, y/n.

"a thing?"

you nod so rapidly it makes yangyang step back. "yeah i have a.. something else to d—"

lord maybe you should watch where you're going, because you bump into someone as you walk backward the other way. just your fucking luck.

"woah, at least don't trip y/n".

and at this point, should you even be surprised by whose standing behind you?

staring your ex kissing buddy face to face would be nice if huang renjun wasn't also behind him, waving gleefully at the sight of you. if this were any other time, almost fainting at the sight of lee jeno would be amusing, but you fear you might genuinely pass out any time now.

"you alright y/n?"

you force another smile. "of course, i'm great!"

you are not great, you might actually die any moment now.

you really shouldn't have accepted mark's stupid invite.

[professoruber]

Incorrect Quotes: Bruce giving money to the Bat-Family | Part 2

Previous Part: Link | Next Part: Link

Stephanie: You're trying to give me... money?

Bruce: Yes. With your growing responsibilities, I've decided you should receive a fund to help support your vigilante activities.

Stephanie: ...Is this because you're finally feeling guilt for all the times you've treated me unfairly?

Bruce: What? Name one time I hav-

Stephanie: Ahem. <Clears throats and takes out a long lost which rolls out to the edge of the room, title; 'All the times Batman has wrongfully wronged the amazing Stephanie Brown'>

Stephanie: It all began long ago when we first met, and you sicked your unreasonably handsome sidekick onto my innocent self.

Bruce: <;Tired sigh> Is this really necessary Steph?

Stephanie: Absolutely. In every conceivable way. Now where was I? Oh right, all the times you've wronged me.

Bruce: How long is this going to take?

Stephanie: At least all day, might have to come back tomorrow though.

Bruce: ...I'm leaving.

Alfred: Now, now, Master Bruce. It's little Miss Stephanie has put quite a bit of effort into her itinerary of grievances against you. The two of you have had an undoubtedly rather turbulent working relationship, perhaps granting her some catharise will do her some good.

Bruce: Ugh...

Stephanie: Thanks Alfred! Now back to the list... oh right, the first of many times you tried to order me to quit like you're the Bat-God of Vigilantes.

Bruce: If I double your budget will you just skip to the end?

Stephanie: No way, Bruce. This is long overdue.

<4 Hours Later>

Stephanie: Do you know how weird it was dating a dude I didn't even know the name of because you didn't let him? FYI Alvin Draper is almost as bad as Drake when it comes to Tim's aliases. I mean Draper? Way to be on the nose that it's a fake identity. The Alvin wasn't the best way to disguise his rich kid status either.

<Another 14 Hours Later>

Stephanie: Seriously! I was like the only Robin until Damian who had actual prior experience you %(#$@!

<Another 10 Hours Later>

Stephanie: ...and last but definitely not least, you dissed my favourite jacket. Uncool dude.

Bruce: Are you finally done?

Stephanie: ...

Stephanie: I guess I am. Man, that felt good to get that off my chest.

Bruce: While most of those were clearly just petty complaints you added solely for the purpose of making the list longer for dramatic effect, I do admit you have some... legitimate grievances.

Stephanie: Wait? You're... actually admitting that?

Bruce: Yes. And that's all I'll say today.

Stephanie: Works for me! I'll let you go brood on your totally unfair treatment of me... I'm still getting the funds right, by the way?

Bruce: ...

Stephanie: ...Bruce?

Bruce: Fine. But only because Alfred will stare at me disapprovingly if I back out now.

Stephanie: Yes! <Heads off to get suited up for her patrol>

Bruce: And Steph?

Stephanie: Hm?

Bruce: Keep giving them hell out there.

Stephanie: Don't need to remind me twice!

———————

Honestly this kinda went on for a bit longer than I intended. Was neat just going with the flow. Still am getting into comics and stuff so my apologies if I'm not too good yet with their dynamic.

[strangesmallbard]

in yellowjackets s2 i hope we see more moments of reconciliation between shauna and callie like their scene in the club…i know the audience is supposed to be irritated with callie like shauna is, but i can’t help but sympathize with her. it’s such a fascinating choice to give shauna a teenage daughter. her lack of connection to callie may have started when she was a baby (we don’t know what happened to her first child, as callie isn’t old enough to be the kid she conceived before the crash,) but i think callie turning 16/17 likely exacerbated that wedge of distance.

callie is such a normal teenager from shauna’s pov—aka the white american suburbia version of “normal.” she’s constantly on her phone. she talks back to her parents and tries to establish independence. she sneaks out and doesn’t like having dinner at home. she wears makeup and likes boys and has many friends. when she wears jackie’s cheerleader outfit, the show makes this direct parallel: callie is more similar to jackie than shauna ever was and ever could be, especially after forming a cannibalism cult in the canadian wilderness. shauna already lives a life she always borrowed and callie is just more proof.

furthermore: callie won’t ever get trapped in the canadian wilderness for 20 months. to shauna, she will always inhabit a world apart that feels fake, stifling, too neat. of course she resents her and can’t connect with her. jackie is an open wound for shauna and callie’s heel just digs in there without a care in the world. why would she care? shauna never talks about jackie. jeff never talks about jackie. callie grew up with a ghost in every room that constantly tried to edge her out. of course she got away from there whenever she could. the vibes in the shipman-sadecki household were probably literally so rancid.

and more about callie: god, she is normal. but we all know normal is a construct! and we’ve already seen signs of callie’s depth, the complexity the world refuses her as a teenage girl. even shauna boxes her up neatly, just like her meticulous diary entries in the closet. but callie does try to reach out. she clearly yearns for a connection with her parents, especially shauna. how many times has she googled her own mother, trying to slot all the pieces together? how many times has she imagined herself in that same position, wondered what she would do?

like what do you do when your mom might have cannibalized her own teammates in the canadian wilderness and DEFINITELY just killed the guy she had an affair with! how do you cope with that when you’re 16 and just hang out with your friends. anyway i hope callie becomes involved in the new family business this season (covering up murders and forest cults).

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1969-71 Continental Mark III

Iacocca’s Lincoln: The Inside Story of the 1969-71 Continental Mark III

Lee Iacocca is remembered as the father of the Ford Mustang and the Chrysler Minivan, but there was another Iacocca vehicle that changed the Motor City: the Lincoln Continental Mark III. 

In auto industry lore, the design studio guys hate it when the people from upper management start fooling around with their work. Nothing good can come from that, or so the story goes. But there’s at least one instance that cuts against the grain of that familiar Motor City tale. It was Ford senior executive Lee Iacocca who originated the two signature styling features of the Lincoln Continental Mark III: the classic stand-up grille and the faux tire bustle in the deck lid.

It’s no exaggeration to note that these visual features created a design theme and defined the Lincoln Mark Series brand for decades. Years later, lead designer L. David Ash would recall that neither he nor Styling VP Gene Bordinat had conceived these two now-famous design gadgets; no, in fact it was all Iacocca. “Neither one of us would have done it on our own, I’m sure,” Ash remembered. “I have to give Lee credit for that.”

As vice president of the Ford Motor Company’s car and truck group—top product boss, among other duties—Lido Anthony “Lee” Iacocca had at least two problems on his plate in the autumn of 1965. First, sales of the Ford Thunderbird had flattened out after a promising start years earlier. Meanwhile, Ford’s flagship Lincoln division wasn’t setting the world on fire, either. While the Elwood Engel-designed 1961 Lincoln was a style maker of the decade, it was nearing the end of its product cycle. Actually, Lincoln was a perennial problem for Ford senior management. According to Bordinat, it had never turned an actual profit since Henry and Edsel Ford acquired the company from the Lelands in 1922.

So a plan was hatched to build a new, small Lincoln on the same platform as the Thunderbird, which was switching to body-on-frame construction for 1967 (in part due to limited production volume). This would help the Thunderbird fill out production capacity at the Wixom, Michigan plant, and it would give Lincoln an entry in the rapidly expanding personal-luxury category, joining the Buick Riviera, Cadillac Eldorado, Olds Toronado, et alia.

The original body design by Ash and his staff, at one point named the Lancelot, was clean and elegant but lacked visual punch, one could argue. Iacocca’s fake-Rolls grille shell and spare-tire bump fixed that, creating a distinctive and memorable look. It was said that the chrome grille shell was the most expensive such piece in the industry, with a unit cost nearing $200. Ash and crew completed the theme by hiking up the rear quarters and deck lid two inches, scrunching the roof down into the body for a classic ’30s profile.

From its exterior appearance, you might never know that the finished design shared its greenhouse with the Thunderbird coupe, or its floorpan, black metal, and 117.2-inch wheelbase with the T-Bird four-door. When Henry Ford II saw the clay model in the studio, he reportedly said, “I’d like to drive that home.” With the Ford family’s seal of approval secured, the new car was christened the Continental Mark III, establishing its lineage with Edsel Ford’s original 1939 Continental and the Continental Mark II of 1956-57. At that point the previous Mark III, IV and V models of 1958-60 were conveniently forgotten—today it would be called a reboot.

Introduced in April 1968 as a 1969 model, technically (Lincoln division downplayed model year designations, trying to present the car as “timeless”) the Mark III was panned by the critics but embraced by the car-buying public. “The buffs may not like it but the people with money will,” Bordinat wisely predicted. The Mark wasn’t big for an American luxury car at just over 216 inches long and 4,800 lbs, but it was big enough, with solid road manners and a comfortable ride. Interior specialist Herman Brunn covered the seats with rich, pre-creased leather, like the easy chairs in a men’s club. Noteworthy technical features included an all-new 460 CID V8 and Sure-Track, an early form of antilock braking developed by Kelsey-Hayes.

With a base price of $6,758 compared to $4,807 for its Thunderbird cousin, the Mark III was quite a moneymaker for the Motor Company, spawning an even more popular and profitable successor, the Mark IV (shown with Iacocca below). The Mark series, which comfortably outsold the Eldorado and effectively doubled the Lincoln division’s volume at times, continued on all the way to 1998 and the Mark VIII, and Iacocca would to on to further glories, including the Chrysler Minivan.

[perspectivestarters]

Perspective's Sentence Starters; The Tortured Poets Department by Taylor Swift (Part III)

THE BLACK DOG

You forgot to turn it off.

I just don't understand how you don't miss me.

She's too young to know this song.

Old habits die screaming.

I move through the world with a heart broken.

I may never open up thе way I did for you.

You said I needed a bravе man.

Do you hate me?

Was it hazing for a cruel fraternity?

I pledged, and I still mean it.

Six weeks of breathing clean air, I still miss the smoke.

Were you making fun of me?

Now I wanna sell my house.

I hope you hear it.

I hope it's shitty in The Black Dog

This tail between your legs, you're leaving.

I still can't believe it.

IMGONNAGETYOUBACK

The one that fits me like skin.

You knew the price going in.

I can tell when somebody still wants me.

Once you fix your face, I'm going in.

Whether I'm gonna be your wife, or gonna smash up your bike, I haven't decided yet.

I'm gonna get you back.

Whether I'm gonna curse you out, or take you back to my house, I haven't decidеd yet.

You'll find that you were never not mine.

You're mine.

Small talk, big walk, act like I don't care what you did.

I'm an Aston Martin that you steered straight into the ditch.

I can take the upper hand and touch your body.

I might just love you 'til the end.

Whether I'm gonna flip you off, or pull you into the closet, I haven't decided yet.

I can feel it coming, honey, in the way you move.

We're becoming something new.

Say you got somebody else.

I got someone too

Even if it's handcuffed, I'm leaving here with you.

Bygones will be bygone.

Pick your poison, babe, I'm poison either way.

THE ALBATROSS

Wild winds are death to the candle.

A rose by any other name is a scandal.

They tried to warn him about her.

Cross your thoughtless heart.

She's the albatross.

She is here to destroy you.

One bad seed kills the garden.

One less temptress, one less dagger to sharpen.

Locked me up in towers, but I'd visit in your dreams.

They tried to warn you about me.

Devils that you know raise worse hell than a stranger.

She's the death you chose.

You're in terrible danger.

I've been there too, and that none of it matters

Wise men once read fake news and they believed it.

You couldn't conceive it.

You were sleeping soundly when they dragged you from your bed.

I tried to warn you about them.

I'm the albatross.

I swept in at the rescue.

The devil that you know looks now more like an angel.

I'm the life you chose.

CHLOE OR SAM OR SOPHIA OR MARCUS

I just watched it happen

Seemed like he would've bullied you in school.

You just watched it happen.

I loved you the way that you were.

If you want to tear my world apart, just say you've always wondered.

You said some things that I can't unabsorb.

You turned me into an idea of sorts.

You needed me, but you needed drugs more.

I couldn't watch it happen.

I changed into goddesses, villains, and fools.

Changed plans and lovers and outfits and rules all to outrun my desertion of you.

Too impaired by my youth to know what to do.

Will that make your memory fade from this scarlet maroon?

Could it be enough to just float in your orbit?

Can we watch our phantoms like watching wild horses?

Cooler in theory, but not if you force it.

HOW DID IT END?

We hereby conduct this post-mortem.

He was a hot house flower to my outdoorsmen.

We could not cure them.

A touch that was my birth right became foreign.

It's happening again.

We'll tell no-one.

We must know, how did it end?

We were blind to unforeseen circumstances.

We learn the right steps to diffеrent dances.

Lost the game of chance, what are the chances?

Guess who we ran into at the shops?

Didn't you hear? They called it all off.

How did it end?

The deflation of our dreaming leaving me bereft and reeling.

But I still don't know, how did it end?

SO HIGH SCHOOL

I feel so high school every time I look at you.

I wanna find you in a crowd just to hide from you.

Tell me 'bout the first time you saw me.

I'll drink what you think.

I'm high from smoking your jokes all damn night.

Your friends are around, so be quiet.

I'm trying to stifle my sighs.

I feel so high school every time I look at you.

Are you gonna marry, kiss, or kill me?

It's just a game, but really.

I'm bettin' on all three for us two.

No one's evеr had me, not like you.

Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto.

It's true, swear, scouts honor.

You knew what you wanted, and, boy, you got her.

You already know, babe.

I'm hearing voices like a madman.

I HATE IT HERE

Tell me something awful.

You are a poet trapped inside the body of a finance guy.

Tell me all your secrets.

All you'll ever be is my eternal consolation prize.

I was a debutant in another life, but now I seem to be scared to go outside.

If comfort is a construct, I don't believe in good luck.

Now that I know what's what.

I hate it here.

People need a key to get to.

The only one is mine.

I read about it in a book when I was a precocious child.

I'm there most of the year.

My friends used to play a game where we would pick a decade we wished we could live in instead of this.

Everyone would look down 'cause it wasn't fun now.

Seems like it was never even fun back then.

Nostalgia is a mind's trick.

If I'd been there, I'd hate it.

It was freezing in the palace.

They found a better planet.

Only the gentle survived.

I dreamed about it in the dark.

I felt like I might die.

I'm lonely, but I'm good.

I'm bitter, but I swear I'm fine.

I'll save all my romanticism for my inner life and I'll get lost on purpose.

This place made me feel worthless.

In my fantasies, I rise above it.

Way up there, I actually love it.

THANK YOU AIMEE

There's a bronze spray-tanned statue of you.

It was always the same searing pain.

All that time you were throwin' punches, I was buildin' somethin'.

I can't forgive the way you made me feel.

I can't forget the way you made me heal.

It wasn't a fair fight, or a clean kill.

She wrote hеadlines in the local paper, laughing at each baby step I'd take.

Everyone knows that my mother is a saintly woman, but she used to say she wished that you were dead.

Your words are still just ringing in my head.

When I count the scars, there's a moment of truth, that there wouldn't be this, if there hadn't been you.

Maybe you've reframed it.

In your mind, you never beat my spirit black and blue.

I don't think you've changed much.

I changed your name, and any real defining clues.

One day, your kid comes home singin' a song that only us two is gonna know is about you.

All that time you were throwin' punches, it was all for nothin'.

Our town, it looks so small, from way up here.

[devastatinglygreen]

Butterfly Ball Baby Boom anon here! I saw a tweet this weekend where a number of fans have joined my cause that Pen didn’t know about her pregnancy so I, in my constant graciousness, will allow some speculation as to when Baby Baron Featherington was conceived. That graciousness is revoked however if the only reason to have them create the baby their first time is to introduce more angst… I am a smut/fluff girl in a Part 2 angst fandom world.

Anyway this is as take that I haven’t seen discussed anywhere else but I thought you might enjoy it! One of the members of the Regency Rake Gang, Lord Cho, gets married roughly the same time as Pen and Colin. He was in the scene where Colin mentions wanting sex to be more meaningful, but is not part of the group that Colin pushes away to get to cuckblocking disrupting Pen and Debling’s dance. I like to think that maybe Colin’s words got through to him, as he looks rather pleased with his fiancé. Colin “Sensitive Boy” Bridgerton dismantling toxic masculinity one fuckboy at a time.

a fair take!

(pls excuse typos, my cat is being so dramatic right now i'm about to rename him colin)

like is that why i think jess would infer it? no idea. but if they had truly decided it, there's no way they wouldn't use it for angst so it sort of feels like something they didn't think too seriously about.

but there's no way that man was ever going to pull out. if they were doing ovulation charts back in the 1800s, colin would be tracking the moon for penelope on a map somewhere in his efforts to knock her up.

and on the second half, you know what? i'll allow it. colin said, hey douche-lords, sex should probably mean something and lord cho took his fake ass stories and said you know what? that's right. and then went and found himself a pretty lady to delightfully compromise then marry.

colin bridgerton, truly a man of the times.

[blossom-hwa]

a very fine line, indeed [2] | c.bg

pairing: Beomgyu x fem!reader genre:  fluff, angst, enemies to lovers, regency era!au, nobility!au warnings: cursing, period typical misogyny word count: 9.3k notes:  — updates every M/W/F at 8pm EST until the series finishes — inspiration taken from an amalgamation of different bridgerton stories - let me know what easter eggs you find! — story takes place in the same universe as my duke!yeonjun and earl!taehyun fics - check out the link to the series below for some more easter eggs :) In a society where it only takes a year for a young woman in search of a husband to be considered out of season, it is no wonder that by your third year out, you are desperate to marry. Known as one of the beauties of the ton, such a task should not be difficult for you—but with an absent father, no dowry, and a reputation centered around your inability to keep your mouth shut around one certain Beomgyu Choi, your prospects are more limited than you’d like. While you cannot recover your family or your wealth, however, the one thing you can try to control is your reputation. So when the third season rolls around, you resolve to keep your distance from Beomgyu Choi, your childhood enemy, and the man you hate most in the world. Enter Beomgyu Choi, second son of the Kensington Viscountcy, one of the most eligible bachelors in the ton. His older brother, cousin, and good friend have all recently married, leaving the mamas to salivate at his doorstep for the chance of marrying one of their daughters to him. When Beomgyu walks in on a particularly traumatizing moment between you and one of the most unsavory men in the ton and learns of your desperation to marry, despite your history of enmity, he proposes you a devious deal—to pretend to court you. It seems like a winning situation for both of you—more gentlemen will take notice of you, enhancing your prospects, and he will have the ton’s mamas off his back—and so, despite your misgivings, you agree. With you hell bent on marriage and Beomgyu completely indifferent to the concept, even independent of your hatred for each other, it seems unlikely that any sort of true affection will bloom. But as you begrudgingly put aside your differences to spend more and more time in one another’s company, and as you grow to know each other beyond your ill-conceived preconceptions from childhood, you begin to realize that perhaps you two have more in common than you had once thought. And as your faked acquaintanceship becomes more truth than fiction, a friendship beginning to bloom most unexpectedly— Perhaps you no longer need to convince the ton of the veracity of your courtship, because anyone with eyes can see that it is true.  Part 1 >> Part 2 >> Part 3

Series Masterlist | TXT Masterlist

Beomgyu might have to go down in history as one of the great geniuses of the century, because it is no exaggeration to say that his plan is working splendidly. This isn’t to say there haven’t been a few hiccups—you’ve had to get used to telling your cover story to different people, not to mention having to learn to tolerate one other’s presences for hours at a time, which was no small feat for either of you. For the first few days there were more people than ever trying to get your and his attention because apparently the sight of you two together was just too bizarre to comprehend. Whistledown herself expressed her astonishment for two entire paragraphs in her gossip column, which did give him a good laugh. Overall, though, especially now that those first hellish days are over, Beomgyu feels that the results now far outweigh the initial complications. 

And results there are, even after just a week of pretending to court you. Mostly for him—at the last ball, after the news of this new relationship had spread, only perhaps a third of the mamas from before kept trying to hog his attention. With some luck, in a couple of weeks, even those will disappear too. 

Though there have been results for you too. At that very same ball, after dancing with you not once but twice (following the proper protocol of ninety minutes between each dance, of course), Beomgyu could point out no less than three of his gentleman peers eyeing you in a different light. And for all of your skepticism, when he pointed it out, you had to admit he was right.

Ha. When this is over, Beomgyu will just have to rub this success in your face every time you meet, just to see your teeth grind in that amusing way of yours.

The two of you are promenading in the park today. It is not the sunniest of afternoons, with several grey clouds drifting slowly across the sky, but there is a nice breeze in the air and Beomgyu likes the way it feels against his skin, cool and refreshing compared to the crowded ballrooms. This is nicer than he thought it would be, really. Not just the weather, but you on his arm as well. When you decide to be civil, you can be a strangely pleasant presence.

He would die before admitting this, of course.

On Beomgyu’s arm, you’re also looking at the sky. “This is strange,” you say. 

He blinks. “Strange how?”

“It’s a nice day and I’m promenading in the park with a gentleman and that gentleman is you,” you state plainly. “I never really thought this would happen.”

Beomgyu frowns. “You’ve never gone promenading before?”

“With my family, many times. With suitors, perhaps once or twice. Maybe three times.” You shrug. “My family doesn’t have much money, Mr. Choi. I know it can be difficult to look past my radiant exterior, but once they remember my background and lack of dowry, it is a bit harder to forget.”

Radiant exterior. Beomgyu wants to roll his eyes. Sure, you are beautiful and it’s not something anyone would deny, but you could stand to maintain a humbler image, even if it isn’t quite truthful. “Men are very easily blinded by pretty things, though,” he says, snickering when you roll your own eyes. “I really do find it hard to believe that you have not had a proposal from anyone better than Mr. Thompson.”

“Oh, so you think that I’m pretty?”

Beomgyu gives you the stink eye in response to your mocking grin. “Your beauty is well known throughout the ton, Miss L/N,” he deadpans. “I would be in extremely poor taste if I did not acknowledge it.”

“That is true,” you say, adopting a supercilious expression that Beomgyu almost wants to laugh at. “But...well, I have had one other proposal. It was much less offensive than Mr. Thompson’s. I would rather go insane than marry him,” you add, and this time Beomgyu does give in to the urge to laugh. “Don’t spread the word, for he is now happily married and I do not wish to embarrass him but…Lord Kierston.” You sigh and your gaze turns a little regretful. “Maybe I should have said yes.”

Beomgyu stares. “…The man is at least twice your age. And his breath smells rotten.”

“That is true.” A flicker of a smile shows on your lips, just like the night of that first ball, but before Beomgyu can really catch it, it disappears immediately. “But for all his rotten breath, at least he wouldn’t assault me.”

Beomgyu instantly feels like a jackass. “I apologize. That was insensitive of me.”

“Don’t apologize.” You look at him with half a smile on your face. “If I were in your place I probably would have said the same thing, and then had the exact same reaction.” 

The two of you walk in silence for a few moments. “Maybe that’s why we have never gotten along,” Beomgyu finally muses aloud. 

You look at him, an eyebrow raised. “Why?”

“We’re too much alike,” he replies, smirking. “And because we are the type to butt heads at the slightest invitation, we butt heads with each other far too often.”

“Never compare me to you again.” You shudder. “But I can concede that there might be some truth to your statement.”

“Don’t make that face, you should be honored to be compared to me.” Beomgyu snickers as you roll your eyes again. “But no, in all seriousness, you might not want to make that face. There is a group of men observing you beyond those trees.”

Beomgyu marvels at how quickly you rearrange your features into a pleasant mask, placid and pretty and bland, nothing like the scowls he usually finds himself on the receiving end of. If he didn’t know you he’d say you were the picture of a perfect debutante. You look up at him with a lovely little smile, batting your eyelids just so as your fan flutters gently in your hand, and for just a moment Beomgyu finds himself at a loss for words. 

“What say you?” you whisper, oblivious to his current predicament. “Do I look like I’m actually enjoying your presence?”

He coughs. “Unfortunately, yes,” he says, because he can currently form only two coherent words without needing to choke. He clears his throat slightly. “Christ, where did you learn to playact so well?”

You look around with that same little genuine-but-not smile. It is so unsettling to see that on your face. “Well, when the people around you don’t care much for your wit or sarcasm in favor of your beauty, you find ways to lean into it.” You turn back to him with a meaningful expression. “Only I’m not quite so adept at holding up the façade when it comes to things I dislike.”

Beomgyu squints, affronted. “Did you just refer to me as a thing?”

“Apologies, my lord. Even I couldn’t be so demeaning.” You flash him a brighter, far more sarcastic smile that looks so much more genuine than before, and that he finds much easier to stomach. “Allow me to correct myself. I’m not quite so adept at holding up facades when it comes to things and people I dislike.”

“Well, you’re doing quite an admirable job now,” Beomgyu mutters, casting a wary glance at the group of men. “They seem quite interested in you.” He peers at you, narrowing his eyes just a touch too much to be sincere. “Where did you learn to bat your eyes like that? You almost look normal.”

You glare at him for a split second before returning to your previous serene expression. “It’s a skill all ladies eventually acquire,” you snip back. “You men are very simple. Very weak to perceived beauty.” As if to accentuate your point, you flutter your fan ever so gracefully to coquettishly hide your face. 

Beomgyu raises an amused eyebrow. “Are we truly so simple as that?”

“Of course you are. You said so yourself, earlier.” You snort, then cast a glance over the small group naturally, so naturally. “Lord Fife, is it not?” you say out of the corner of your mouth, giving them a little wave. To Beomgyu’s disgust, one of them actually looks a little starstruck. “And his usual group of friends.”

“I believe so.” He looks away from the scene. They are not the best group of people in the ton, but a far sight better than the likes of Mr. Thompson. “One of them looks quite entranced by you.”

A small snort puffs out of your nose. Against his will, Beomgyu almost finds it endearing. “He might be starstruck, but his mother gave me the cut direct once when she found out I had no dowry.” You roll your eyes, but your smile has dimmed. “I won’t say it is hopeless, but his mother isn’t the type to allow her son to marry someone like me. At least not without a fight.”

“Then he should grow a spine and stand up to her, if he really wanted you,” Beomgyu mutters. You look at him sharply, eyes narrowed, but before he can try to decipher your expression his eye catches on a familiar couple in the distance and he blanches. “Oh, God.”

You follow his gaze and react equally as badly. “Why did you not tell me they’d be here?” you hiss. 

“Does it look like I knew they would?” he hisses back. 

Fast approaching the two of you are Soobin and his wife. Unfortunately for Beomgyu, Soobin is his damn brother and his wife is, if he remembers correctly, one of your good friends. Soobin decided to stay in the country for a couple weeks longer than Beomgyu did so he hasn’t been around to ask questions, but apparently that respite is gone now too. “Just remember the cover story,” he mutters. 

“You remember the cover story,” you snipe back. “I know it just fine.”

He wants to retort but Soobin is waving, which means Beomgyu has to acknowledge his brother’s presence. He pastes a smile onto his face, making it as phony as possible. “Good afternoon,” he says with false cheerfulness, shooting his brother a look. “Soobin, I didn’t know you would be back today.”

“We only returned a few hours ago,” Soobin replies, smiling brightly at Beomgyu’s nonplussed expression. “My wife and I wanted some fresh air after so long spent in the carriage, so we came out for a walk. And what good fortune—” his gaze slides to you somewhat warily— “to see the two of you here.”

“It is lovely to see you,” you say prettily, bobbing a little curtsy. “Especially you, Lady Choi.” The two of you smile brightly at each other, and Beomgyu is once again privy to a side of you that has never appeared before him. “How was the country?”

“Most refreshing, though I suppose it is good to be back in town,” Lady Choi answers for the two of them. Beomgyu fakes a gag at Soobin’s doe-eyed expression of bliss when he turns to his wife, which earns him a pinch from you. “Might I ask…” Her eyes turn curious as she gestures to the two of you. “When did this happen? Certainly we have not missed so much in just a few weeks.”

“You did miss quite a bit, unfortunately,” you reply. Your face betrays no fear but Beomgyu feels your grip tighten on his arm. With his own heart beating a little faster than usual, he honestly welcomes it. “Quite a few things happen in the span of weeks.”

Lady Choi looks at you, nonplussed. “With all due respect to you both, this—” she waves a hand at the two of you again—“is not something that could have happened in just a week or two.”

If only you knew. 

Judging by the tightness of your arm in his, your thoughts are the same, but when you look up at him with a pleasant smile, Beomgyu is certain he would never be able to tell by looking at your face alone. “Well, you are correct. This didn’t happen overnight.” You laugh so naturally, with just the right hint of shyness and embarrassment that one would expect from your enemies to courtship situation. “Last summer, we agreed that our…ongoing feud was too childish to continue. So we decided to finally put it behind us.”

“Yes,” Beomgyu jumps in. As well as you are handling the situation, he can’t exactly leave you to do everything alone. “We began exchanging letters shortly after.” Thank God he’d gotten into the habit of writing regular correspondence with Kai and Taehyun over the past year, or else Soobin would smell a rat immediately. “And when the season came…well, we decided to see how a courtship would work between the two of us.”

“I see,” Soobin says slowly, looking between the two of you. “And how exactly is it working?”

You shrug with the perfect amount of levity. Again, Beomgyu is in unfortunate awe at how well you act. Maybe it is a good thing you can’t hold yourself back when it comes to dislike or aggravation—otherwise, you would be unsettlingly perfect. “Well enough.”

“Well, it is good to see my good friend and brother in law finally getting along.” Lady Choi claps her hands together, smile bright, hopefully oblivious to Beomgyu privately wanting to gag. “We shall have to have the two of you over sometime, shouldn’t we, Soobin?”

“Of course we should,” Soobin agrees with a little too much enthusiasm. Beomgyu’s heart spasms unsteadily as his brother smiles at him cryptically. “I suppose our teasing last season about you finding your lady love in your own sworn enemy did have some level of truth to it?”

You look at him curiously, something mischievously dangerous glinting in your eyes. Beomgyu does not look back at you. “I suppose it did,” he replies through mildly gritted teeth. 

“Well, we will not keep you any longer,” Lady Choi says with a smile that leaves Beomgyu—and you, if your expression is anything to go by—a little warier than before. “Soobin, let’s leave the young couple to their promenade. Us married folks can’t relate to them, nowadays.” Ignoring your sputters of “you are hardly three years older than me!”, she tucks her arm merrily into Soobin’s and leads him away, though Soobin sends Beomgyu one last meaningful glance before he allows himself to be dragged off. 

You and Beomgyu travel on sedately for a few steps before Beomgyu casts a glance backward and says, “We’re safe.”

Immediately you let out a massive sigh, and your grip on his arm loosens significantly. Christ, he hadn’t realized you were holding onto him so tightly until you let go. “That was not in my hand of cards for today,” you mutter. “Though perhaps it is better we got that out of the way sooner rather than later.” You look at him. “Do you think they believed us?”

“If they don’t, it will have not been any fault of yours,” he answers frankly. He’s loath to admit it, but it’s true. “You acted very well.”

Your mouth opens in surprise. “Well, thank you,” you reply slowly, like you’re not quite sure what to make of his words. Beomgyu privately feels the same way, but he also feels the need to give credit where credit is due, so he shoves the strangeness of the feeling away to process later. Maybe never. “I could say the same for you.”

“Thank you,” he says, still feeling slightly off-kilter for whatever reason. It’s probably just the conversation with Soobin. Then he groans. “Did she say they’d invite us to dinner?”

You sigh. “Unfortunately, I think she did.” You mutter something under your breath in addition that Beomgyu doesn’t really hear. He catches something that sounds like evil friends, though, and decides that he probably agrees with your sentiment. “Anyway, what did Lord Choi say about last season? Something about teasing you about your worst enemy?” You narrow your eyes, evil amusement glinting in your eyes. “I am assuming he spoke of me.”

“Oh, that.” Beomgyu silently curses his brother for being the annoyance that he is. “If you must know, my friends decided to take our disagreements out of context and thought that because I had never paid more attention to a woman in my life, I must actually be in love with you, otherwise I’d never have held on to this grudge for as long as I have.”

For a moment, you remain silent. Then you burst into hysterical laughter. 

Beomgyu watches, bemused, as you hide behind your fan, still trembling with giggles as he continues to lead you forward. “I didn’t think it was that funny,” he mutters when you eventually start to calm down.

“Oh, but it is hilarious.” You wipe a tear from your eye, the last few rounds of laughter still shaking your chest. “You, being in love with me because we disagree so often? Tell me, are your friends quite all right in the head? Perhaps I should ask Lady Choi to get her husband checked.” 

“Well, I would agree with you on that front.” Beomgyu gives in to your amusement and cracks a smile. “But in their defense, I am almost certain they were joking.”

“Almost certain.” You snort, looking up at him with a sardonic half-smile that looks so much more natural than the pretty, placid expression you had on earlier. “Well, good thing their delusion isn’t true, because that would be simply absurd.”

Despite himself, Beomgyu returns your conspiratorial smile. How ironic it is that he feels much closer to you in this moment, sharing this secret and laughing at his friends, than any other time before. “You’re right,” he agrees, snickering. “It would be absolutely absurd.”

. . . . .

Dry the linens, scrub pots, clean the kitchen… You hurry down the corridors of your home, listing your tasks over and over so you won’t forget. Last time you missed something, your stepmother slapped you hard across the face. She’s been doing that more often lately—frustrated at your lack of marriage prospects, you think, even though you’d think that having to heal from her bruising you black and blue would only hurt your chances even more. It’s a small miracle that the scratch mark from her ring healed enough for you to hide before the next ball you were set to attend. 

“Here, let me help with that, Miss L/N.” A familiar voice sounds by your ear, and then your load lightens as a pair of hands takes half the linens out of your tub. “Drying, right?”

You shoot Soyoung a very grateful smile. “Yes. And how many times have I told you to call me by my name?” you scold. “It’s awfully stuffy to hear you call me that—we can be casual together.”

“Even though your stepmother may not treat you like it, you are still a lady of the house,” Soyoung retorts. The two of you exit the house into the fresh air of the garden. “I will not disrespect you or myself by behaving otherwise.”

“Come now, Soyoung,” you beseech as the two of you pull one of the linens out of the tubs. Each holding one end, you begin twisting to get as much of the water out as possible. “You must admit that it’s a bit awkward for me to call you by your name when you won’t do the same for me.” Which is true, and which is why you’ve brought the topic up time and time again even though Soyoung—and the other servants’—response is always the same. 

You’ve managed to squeeze most of the water out of the sheet by now, so you toss it over one of the drying lines hanging outside. Soyoung helps you pull it flat on both sides until it hangs properly, then looks at you with more solemnity than you’ve ever seen on her face. “My lady, I and the staff respect you,” she says seriously. “Not because we are required to, like with your stepmother, but because you have always been good and kind to us even before she started ordering you around like one of us. Thus, I must show you the respect we would give the lady of the house.” She huffs. “You shouldn’t even have to do any of this, yet you handle everything without complaint on top of all your own embroidery and mending—”

You clap a hand over her mouth. Then you wince, because your hands are still wet. “Shh,” you hiss, searching the garden. No sign of your stepmother, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t near. “Not too loudly.”

Soyoung gulps when you release her. “Of course. I apologize.”

“It’s all right.” You smile. “And I must apologize for pushing you so hard on the matter of my name. If you truly feel this way, I shall not try to move you any further.”

She smiles back, and the two of you begin on another one of the sheets. “Thank you, my lady.”

Water drips on the grass, dotting the hem of your dress and seeping into the cracks on your hands. You keep a smile on your face as Soyoung chatters on about some gossip she heard from other servants in town, but inside you can’t help but feel a little more alone. It is true you have friends, both in the noble sphere and among your fellow servants, but with your in-between status as half a lady, half a servant, you can’t help but wonder where you stand. Your noble friends do not know of your home situation. Your servant friends do, but while they laugh and joke around you more easily than most, there is still a status difference.

You sigh. If it wouldn’t bring the worst of your family’s financial troubles to light, you might tell Lady Choi. But being worked as a servant would bring even worse ridicule to yourself than your lack of a dowry—not to mention there's not a single man in the ton who would deign to marry a servant, even half a servant like you. If you want to leave this house, you need to marry, so no one can know your situation...but it doesn’t mean you don’t feel alone. 

“Oh!” Soyoung’s exclamation jolts you out of your brief wallow in self-pity. “I heard something about you, my lady.” Suddenly her face is in front of yours, her dark eyes wide with curiosity and mischief. “Is it true that Mr. Choi is courting you?”

“What—” You choke on air and start coughing.

“My lady?” Soyoung pats your back, but she’s far too gentle for it to actually do anything. “Are you all right?”

“Quite,” you manage, holding out a hand. You wheeze out a few more coughs before you can finally look at her. “What did you ask me, again?”

She looks at you with wide, eager eyes. “Is it true that Mr. Choi is courting you?”

Good God. Well, you should have expected it. If the nobles are talking about it, the servants most definitely are. They hear far more than anyone ever expects—many times you’ve learned things about society that you never wanted to know from Soyoung and the others. You sigh. “It’s not quite true,” you hedge. Not the truth, but not a lie either. “We patched our relationship, somewhat. And so we decided to see what would come of a courtship. Do not misunderstand things,” you warn when Soyoung’s smile grows too bright. “I don’t know what will come of it. Neither of us does.”

Soyoung’s shoulders slump. “Oh. I see.” She looks up at you. “Forgive me, my lady. I was only…I was so happy when I heard he might have an interest in you. I know you have had your disagreements in the past, but whenever I have seen him he has always been a kind man. I thought the two of you could be quite happy together.”

Damn. Now you feel like you’ve kicked a puppy. Even though Soyoung’s interpretation of the situation is almost laughable—how could you and Mr. Choi be happy together? Even now you still have to keep yourself from hissing obscenities at him every time you see him—but she’s still your friend and only wants your happiness. “I mean, we don’t know how things will proceed,” you say, hanging up the second sheet. “Anything could happen.“ A gust of wind blows the still damp cloth onto your face. “Ugh—”

“Miss L/N!”

You flail around for a moment before you manage to tug the wet sheet off your face. “Huh? Brighton?”

Your family butler always looks put together, but for the first time ever, you detect a hint of panic in his eyes. “My lady,” he says. “Mr. Choi has come to call on you.”

. . .

You never thought you could get cleaned and dressed so quickly. 

In all honesty, you’re not sure what happened over the past twenty minutes. It was a whirlwind of activity—Soyoung nearly choked, Brighton said something about telling Mr. Choi you were out, and then Soyoung was dragging you back into the house via the kitchen all the while hissing something like you said he wasn’t really courting you! Then somehow you were smuggled to your room and Soyoung had pulled out a dress and Sabine popped out of nowhere to pick out your accessories and then you were being dragged out of the house again through the servants’ quarters to make it look like you just arrived back from town—

And now you are in your own drawing room, still processing the events of the past half hour with Mr. Choi standing in front of you, flowers in hand. 

“Miss L/N,” he says, bowing slightly as he extends the flowers to you. “A pleasure to see you today.”

You take the bouquet with numb fingers. “And a pleasure to see you as well.” Thankfully, the practiced words roll off your tongue easily even in your frazzled state. “Thank you for the flowers. I hope I didn’t leave you waiting too long.”

“Not long at all,” he replies smoothly. “I understand you were in town?”

“Oh, yes. I was trying to find some…” You rack your mind for something to say that might be believable, painfully aware of the growing silence. “Gloves,” you finally blurt out, looking down at the thin cloth covering your hands. You just mended them yesterday, and thank God for that. “Please, do sit down,” you say, wincing internally at Mr. Choi’s lingering glance on your hands, and the slightly raised eyebrow he shows you as he sits on the couch. “I’m not quite sure where my stepmother is, but Brighton should serve as an adequate chaperone until—”

“Y/N.” Your stepmother’s voice rings sharply from the corridor and in your surprise, you flinch. Mr. Choi looks at you sharply, a strange expression on his face—concern? Strange indeed, coming from him—but you’ve already schooled your features into what you hope is a bland, pleasant façade. Her footsteps echo ominously on the floor as her voice grows louder. “Why do I hear you in the drawing room? I thought I told you to—”

“My lady.” Brighton cuts in, saving you from a near panic attack. “A Mr. Choi has come to call.”

“A caller?” Her voice suddenly switches from its previous cold tones to the much silkier, smoother voice she uses in society. You look down to see your hands clutching your gown far too tightly and force yourself to release them. The footsteps get faster. “For my Y/N?”

My Y/N. You barely manage not to gag. Though apparently you don’t quite hide it well enough, because Mr. Choi looks at you even more closely. “Miss L/N,” he murmurs, and you can see that there is real concern in his eyes. “Are you all right?”

Fortunately—or unfortunately, really—you’re saved from having to give him a coherent response when your mother sweeps into the room. You’ve always marveled at how she is able to keep her snooty, evil countenance at bay whenever she is in the presence of company. You’re no blood relation of hers, but the sickening thought occurs to you that you may have learned a thing or two about switching faces from her. “Mr. Choi,” she says warmly, like she didn’t yell at you for hours earlier this morning about not having the drawing room dusted quickly enough. “I apologize for not being here to welcome you in.”

The two of you stand. “Do not worry at all, my lady.” Mr. Choi bows slightly, the smile returned to his face. “Your daughter did the job admirably.”

“Of course she did.” She spares you the briefest of glances—good, because you wouldn’t be able to continue smiling if she decided to look right at you—and gestures for you to sit down again. “Please, do not stand on my account. I will have someone bring in biscuits. Y/N, how could you have forgotten to give our guest some refreshment?” And with that parting jab, she whisks out of the room, leaving you feeling murderous and somewhat lightheaded all at once. 

Mr. Choi looks after her a moment, then turns to you. “Your stepmother,” he says, looking vaguely bemused. He clearly doesn’t know what to say. If you weren’t still struggling to breathe normally, you’d laugh at him. 

Unfortunately, your conversational skills seem to have been swept away by your stepmother’s arrival, so all you can do is echo his words. “Yes,” you say. “My stepmother.”

You lapse into awkward silence that you don’t know how to break. Even yelling would be better than this dead quiet, but you don’t know how to break it. Eventually Beomgyu clears his throat. “Miss L/N, are you sure this is a good time?” he asks quietly. “I can call another day if it would suit you better.”

You glance at the clock. It has hardly been five minutes since you entered the room, and for all you dislike him, you feel bad turning him away this early, especially after he waited for so long. Also, your stepmother might yell at you for chasing away yet another suitor who might take you off her hands. But keeping him longer means less time that you have for finishing your chores, not to mention that you’re starting to get a headache…

Well, if your stepmother is displeased with you, she’ll end up giving you more chores and maybe a slap to boot. You can stomach Mr. Choi for a short while longer. Besides, it will at least keep up your pretense of courtship. Aware of all the servants’ eyes in the room, and aware that they truly believe you and Mr. Choi to be courting, you manage to paste a small smile on your lips. “No, don’t leave so soon.” You force the smile a little wider. “My stepmother has already gone to find you some refreshment—you must not leave without having tried them first.” You lean closer, lowering your voice as though to tell him a secret. “Our cook’s butter biscuits are the best.” 

Mr. Choi scrutinizes you for a long moment, during which you try your best to decipher what his expression means to no avail. “Very well,” he says finally with a soft smile to mirror your own and even though you know he dislikes you, in this moment, he seems very genuine. For some idiotic reason this threatens to bring tears to your eyes but you manage to push them back. “For the butter biscuits, I will stay.”

You manage to make some small talk until there’s a commotion in the hall. Your stepmother appears in the doorway, looking harried and vaguely annoyed, and you see the reason when your little sister blinks her mischievous eyes behind her mother. “Delia, no,” she hisses, as a servant maneuvers a tray of biscuits around the two of them. “It is not proper!”

“But I want to see Y/N and her suitor!” Delia cries. Despite the situation, you smile. “You said I could be there when I was older, it’s not fair—”

“Please don’t have her leave on my account,” Mr. Choi interrupts. You look at him in surprise, but he’s already smiling warmly at your younger sister. “Delia, is it?” he asks, holding out his hands. 

For all her previous bravado, Delia shuffles forward somewhat shyly, shrinking away slightly when Mr. Choi takes her little hands. “Hello,” she mumbles. 

You pat her head gently. “Mr. Choi, please meet my younger sister, Delia.” You smile at her. “Introduce yourself, Delia.”

Not for the first time, you have to hide how adorable you find your little sister as she looks up at Mr. Choi with her big, soft eyes. “My name is Delia,” she whispers. 

“A pleasure to meet you. That is a lovely name,” Mr. Choi says, and he sounds perfectly sincere. For a moment you hold as still as you can just to take in the picture of his soft smile directed right at your sister, his large hands holding her small ones, her wide eyes blinking trustingly into his. It’s a strange portrait, but a surprisingly lovely one. “How old are you, Delia?”

“Ten,” she whispers. 

“Almost eleven,” you add. “Her birthday will be in a few months.”

“A very good age to be.” Mr. Choi nods approvingly. 

Delia blinks, her face solemn. “Are you going to marry my sister?” she asks. 

You choke. So does Mr. Choi. Someone hands the two of you some water and your stepmother steps in, her lips pinched in disapproval as she makes apologies and tries to take Delia away, but Mr. Choi waves her off. “Well, nothing is set in stone yet,” he says conversationally, though you still detect some redness in his cheeks. “But if all goes well, it is possible.”

Your sister nods solemnly. “I see.”

“I apologize, Mr. Choi, but this really isn’t proper.” Your stepmother takes Delia by the hand and tugs her away. “Delia, come back to the nursery. You can play with your brother there.”

You have to stifle a laugh when Delia starts complaining that Henry is annoying, that he’s boring and only ever wants to play with his toy soldiers, and when you look to Mr. Choi, he seems to be having trouble suppressing his smile, too. “She’s adorable,” he says when they’ve left the room. 

“Very much so,” you agree. One of the few bright spots about your stepmother marrying your father. “You’re very good with children.”

“It depends on the child,” he says, and you almost snort. He gives you a half smile that doesn’t even look forced. “I jest. They are very interesting creatures, and see the world so differently from us jaded elders. They are very adorable, and I like them very much.”

This time, you can’t hold back your laugh. It’s a strange feeling, holding polite, natural conversation with Mr. Choi without it devolving into some argument, but you can’t say you don’t find it pleasant. You know that if he provoked you at this moment, you’d still rise to the bait in a second, but right now you can’t help but let your feelings toward him soften ever so slightly. “I do agree with you,” you say, smiling. 

He looks at the clock, then, and turns back to you, looking vaguely put out. “I apologize, but I must go now,” he says, standing up. You follow suit. “I have an appointment with my family’s solicitor. But it was very good to see you, Miss L/N, and to meet your family.” He glances at the biscuits and smiles. “The butter biscuits were wonderful as well.”

You make your goodbyes, and then your stepmother comes in just in time to catch Mr. Choi before he’s fully out the door so she fusses over him some more. When he leaves, you try to sneak out of the room before she can start questioning you, but to no avail. “Y/N.”

You sigh, then turn around. “Yes?”

“Mr. Choi?” she states. Her eyes are narrow, flinty, sharp. “I was under the impression you disliked him.”

You hold yourself as still as possible. “Things change, Stepmother.”

For a long moment, you hold her gaze, saying nothing. She finally breaks the silence with a sharp tch. “Well, as long as he takes you off my hands, I don’t care what your relations with him are,” she says. “Take care not to sour them.” She sneers at you. “Now get back to your chores. You should be finished before our supper with the Haynesworths.”

Supper with the Haynesworths. As if the day could get any worse. You grit your teeth and nod, giving her a brief curtsy. If murder were legal… “Of course, Stepmother.”

. . . . .

If murder were legal, Beomgyu isn’t certain his brother would still be the heir. In his defense, Soobin would deserve it—no one so evil as to force his poor younger brother to attend the annual Smythe-Smith musicale with him is suited for the family title. 

Unfortunately, murder isn’t legal, and honestly, Soobin’s own attendance at the dreaded musicale might be punishment enough for his crimes against Beomgyu. Why people still show up, Beomgyu has no idea—he suspects it has something to do with politeness—but one has to wonder how the Smythe-Smith family has gone generations without hearing a single comment about how truly little talent their daughters have. If the Smythe-Smiths weren’t so influential and kind, surely someone would have said something already. 

They are just—terrible. Beomgyu himself is no musician but he can at least carry a tune. The Smythe-Smith girls don’t seem to even know what a tune is. According to Taehyun, who by unfortunate chance happened to be in town last year when the musicale took place, no one should be able to play a string instrument like that, all screechy and squeaky and off-tune. And yet, apparently, the tradition of Smythe-Smith daughters performing an annual quartet has continued for several generations. 

They actually think that they are good. 

All of which is to say that because Yeonjun has oh-so-regretfully cited baby related concerns as his reason not to attend this year, Soobin is forcing Beomgyu to go. And when Beomgyu pointed out that Taehyun was also attending, Taehyun immediately stated that because Kai wasn’t going to be there, Beomgyu would have to take his place. To share in the misery, or something like that. 

(Beomgyu feels very bad for Taehyun’s wife. She’s never been to one of the musicales before and keeps asking how bad it really could be. Unfortunately for her ears, she is a world-renowned pianist, and Beomgyu isn’t certain she will come out of the musicale alive.)

Which is why on this fine evening, Beomgyu finds himself being dragged kicking and screaming to the Smythe-Smith’s grand London home. Soobin is extremely adamant in his philosophy of “if I have to suffer, so do you,” and his wife just likes to see the world burn—Beomgyu’s world, specifically. “I’m going to get you both back for this,” he mutters under his breath as they join the crowd thronging into the Smythe-Smith’s home. 

“Did you say something, Beomgyu?” his sister in law asks sweetly, glancing back at him with a sickly smile. 

Beomgyu returns the smile with equal sincerity. “Nothing at all, sister.”

They enter the reception room, where they find Taehyun and his wife standing morosely in a corner. “—can’t be that bad,” Beomgyu hears as they approach. “Not if they’ve been holding performances for generations.”

“Oh, they are that bad. Possibly worse,” Soobin mutters. 

Lady Kang still looks unconvinced. Bless her musician heart.

“The musicale hasn’t started yet,” Beomgyu says hopefully. “There is still time to fake a horrific headache or the plague and make it back home safely.”

“And exactly how would the five of us manage to get away with that?” Taehyun says, raising an eyebrow. He tosses back the rest of his drink like his life depends on it, which it very well might. “No,” he declares with grim certainty. “If one of us has to be here, all of us have to be.”

Beomgyu groans, but deep inside he knows it really is too late to run anyway, so he just picks up a drink and prays that it will get him through what is to come. Lady Choi leads Lady Kang off to a group of their friends, so Beomgyu makes idle chatter with Taehyun and his brother until a familiar face catches his eye. 

Your expression is so blank when you meet his gaze that Beomgyu almost laughs. He’s never seen a person more resigned to their fate than you in this moment, plodding along just behind your stepmother with about as much will to live as Beomgyu feels right now. Even without asking, he knows you’ve been to one of the musicales before, and he knows you’ve been dragged along this time too. 

“Is that Miss L/N?” Soobin asks, squinting. “Poor woman.”

Poor woman, indeed. For all the ill will between the two of you, Beomgyu wouldn’t wish the Smythe-Smith musicale on anyone, not even you. 

By now you’ve caught Beomgyu’s eye as well. A tiny smirk lifts the corners of your mouth, and without hesitation, you begin wading your way through the mess of people over towards his little group. “Lord Choi, Mr. Choi. Lord Kang.” You make a short, pretty curtsy. “Allow me to convey my deepest apologies for seeing you here this evening. Not because I don’t particularly wish to see any of you, but because if you are here, you might be carted out on a hospital wagon within the next hour or so.”

Beomgyu chokes into his drink. Next to him, Taehyun looks to be biting back some sort of chuckle, and Soobin just laughs. “A pleasure to see you too, Miss L/N,” he says, smiling warmly. “I take it you’ve been to one of these before.”

“Two years ago.” You shudder, and it doesn’t even look exaggerated. “I am no accomplished musician, but I am almost certain the piano is not meant to be played the way I saw.” Your expression turns mischievous. “I’m afraid I found myself ill the next year.”

“Not ill this year, then?” Beomgyu asks. 

You look at him, and to Beomgyu’s surprise, a moment of genuine amusement passes between you two. “My illness was unfortunately not believed.”

Soobin bursts into laughter. “Miss L/N, I’m so glad you are on better terms with my brother now,” he snickers, hopefully not seeing the sidelong glance you and Beomgyu share. “Your wit was always the best part of our gatherings when we were younger.”

You shoot Beomgyu a triumphant glance that makes him want to grind his teeth. “I am honored to hear that you hold me in such high regard,” you say sweetly, so sweetly Beomgyu thinks he’s going to have a headache. He’d certainly fake it and leave if he wasn’t supposed to be courting you. Unfortunately, though, the crowd is starting to shift towards the hall, so even if he tried to escape Soobin or Taehyun would definitely catch him. “It looks like the music is starting soon,” Beomgyu says, hoping you catch the hint.

Fortunately, you do. “I will leave you for the musicale, then,” you say, searching the crowd for someone. “I must find my stepmother.” 

Unfortunately, Soobin does not catch any hints whatsoever, so he interrupts. “Sit with us,” he invites, oblivious to Beomgyu screaming at him with his mind. “You can bring your stepmother, I’m sure no one would mind.”

If Beomgyu hadn’t been looking at you, he would have missed the slight shadow that passes over your eyes, the miniscule wince that pinches the corner of your mouth at the mention of your stepmother. Your features turn pleasant so fast that he almost wonders if he was imagining things, but even as you agree and go to wave your stepmother over, a feeling of unease settles at the back of his mind. You look the same, act the same even as you follow your stepmother into the hall, but only when you settle into seats next to each other does something finally twig for Beomgyu.

You sat together like this in your drawing room when he called on you last week. When you hurried in, having just come back from town on a search for gloves, when your stepmother walked in and you froze for a moment. Beomgyu looks at you sideways, sitting placidly on your chair, hands folded neatly in your lap. Is it just his imagination, or do your fingers look more clenched than usual?

And aren’t those the same gloves you were wearing last week? In fact, the same gloves you almost always wear? He frowns. Last week you just said you went shopping for a new pair—did you not buy any?

The sound of muted applause temporarily distracts him as the musicians step onto the stage. He dutifully joins in, but as the crowd begins to settle, Beomgyu allows his mind to wander back to you and your small miscellany of strange actions he’s seen this evening. It might be disrespectful not to listen to the music—good God, even their tuning sounds terrible—but Beomgyu is already being respectful enough by showing up. The only other requirement for respect as far as he’s concerned is to just get through the program, and everyone knows the best way to get through a Smythe-Smith musicale is to focus on anything other than the music. 

A cacophony of screeching starts sounding from the stage. Beomgyu peeks over at Lady Kang and almost cackles out loud. Horror, disgust, and regret war on her features while Taehyun looks quietly miserable next to her. On their other side, Soobin has already spaced out and is staring blankly into the distance, and Lady Choi seems to be fighting back tears. 

Beomgyu looks sideways at you. You look even more resigned than before if that is even possible, your features arranged in an expression of silent pain and suffering. Your hands have changed position in your lap from their previous polite fold to clenched fists. Beomgyu agrees with that sentiment. But your clenched fingers remind him of the day he called, when your butler called your mother in and he looked down to see your hands balled in your gown, very similar to how they are now. 

He glances at your stepmother. Her face always seems to be pinched—pinched right now, pinched when she took Delia out of the drawing room, pinched even when she smiled to greet him that day. He’s never really heard anything about her—she married your father when Beomgyu was going off to boarding school, and anyway your families never really became close after it became abundantly clear that you and Beomgyu couldn’t be in the same room without trying to fight. She doesn’t walk in the same circles as he, and she doesn’t appear much in Whistledown. Come to think of it, in your family, the only one who keeps managing to make a fuss in society is you. 

All of this just means Beomgyu doesn’t know much about your stepmother, and thus based off of prior information, he can’t form much of an opinion on her. But there’s something about her continual sour countenance that rubs him the wrong way. And…

The day he called, before she knew Beomgyu was in the drawing room, your stepmother called for you. Instead of the screeching music piercing his ears from onstage, he hears her cold voice asking why you were in the drawing room, why you weren’t doing whatever it is she wanted you to do before the butler interrupted. As soon as he announced Beomgyu’s presence, her tone changed. 

Right. He remembers the sudden shift jarring him, then seeing your expression grow strange in a way he couldn’t describe—something like discomfort, but worse. 

Beomgyu glances over at you again. Well, you look uncomfortable now, but that could very well be because of the tragedy occurring onstage. He himself has half a mind to explode his eardrums right here and now.

No matter. Beomgyu thinks back to the other day. He asked if you were all right, and you said…well, you said nothing. Your stepmother interrupted with her welcome. And then there was the headache of having to hold small talk with you, then the flurry of meeting your absolutely adorable younger sister before he actually had to leave, and between all the legal discussion that followed at the solicitor’s and the drinks at Mondrich’s after, he didn’t think much of the day after that. 

Well, he’s thinking about it now. And now that he has actually applied his brain to your situation, Beomgyu finds himself coming to the conclusion that you don’t get along with your stepmother. At all. And not in the usual way that children fight with their parents every so often—this dislike seems to be deeply rooted somewhere else. 

Maybe that isn’t so surprising, given that your stepmother is not your birth mother. Beomgyu can understand how that might start conflict in a family. But he looks at your clenched hands and remembers how your fingers balled into your gown in something like…anxiety. Maybe even fear. 

Do you fear your stepmother?

No. That must be going too far. Beomgyu shakes his head slightly. How could you, a veritable spitfire, be frightened of anyone? Besides, all of this is based just off of speculation from one day. While he’s fairly certain you and your stepmother are not on good terms, to assume anything else would be pure conjecture, and he isn’t ready to go that far. 

Applause breaks out throughout the hall and Beomgyu nearly jumps. He hadn’t realized the program was over, but he’s so grateful that he joins in on the clapping with enthusiastic verve. As everyone begins filing out back into the previous reception room, he hears Lady Kang tell her husband they need to go home immediately. Smart woman. It would have been smarter to not have come at all, though. 

Next to him, you heave out an audible sigh of relief. “Oh my God,” you mutter. “It was so much worse than I remembered.”

“It always is,” Beomgyu mumbles back. “Oh, look—refreshments.” He jerks his head to a table laden with drinks and small trays. “Shall we?”

You glance back at your stepmother, and maybe it is just his imagination, but you seem slightly more relieved when you realize the refreshments table will be taking you far away from her. “That would be lovely.”

The two of you make your way through the crowd in time for Beomgyu to snag two of the last glasses of lemonade from the table. He hands one to you, then raises his. “To our everlasting health,” he says, “and the preservation of our eardrums.”

You laugh out loud. It’s a lovely, bright sound that almost takes Beomgyu aback for a moment—surely he could not have made something so genuinely happy leave your lips like this. But you only raise your glass with an accompanying smile, and Beomgyu can’t help but smile back when you echo his sentiments, then take a sip of your drink. “I will be honest, I found myself praying my eardrums would explode halfway through,” you admit under your breath. 

“Me too,” Beomgyu agrees. “I thought the performance would never end.” He snickers, a memory returning to him. “Did you see Lady Kang’s face?”

You laugh again, bright and genuine. “It was one of the first things I looked for,” you say, mischief entering your eyes. “And it was absolutely priceless.”

And that’s it. That’s how easy it is, apparently, to hold a conversation with you that isn’t full of barbs and taunts and teeth gritted between every retort. Beomgyu doesn’t know if you find this as strange as he does, but for all its strangeness, he likes it more than he probably should. So he says nothing of it, and neither do you, and as your glasses are slowly emptied, the only barbs you share are those Beomgyu would say are of…friends. 

Friends. He never thought he’d use that word in conjunction with you. But right here, with lemonade in hand and the screeching strains of a violin fading in his ears, it doesn’t seem so out of place. 

Too soon, you finish off your glasses. Beomgyu turns to the refilled table to pick up two more, but before he can extend another one to you, someone else’s hand appears in front of you. 

Beomgyu blinks. You blink. Both of you turn to meet eyes with Lord Kim, and a few other gentlemen standing behind him. 

“Mr. Choi. Miss L/N.” Lord Kim gives Beomgyu a brief nod before turning back to you. “Might I offer you a glass of lemonade?” 

You look at Lord Kim and his group, then at Beomgyu. Slowly, you reach out to take the glass from Lord Kim’s hand. “Thank you, my lord,” you say quietly. 

Beomgyu watches the exchange, feeling oddly detached from the scene. His brain is doing something strange in his head. Why is it that he resents Lord Kim for interrupting the two of you, and why is it that he seems to want to continue his conversation with you?

“Might I take the opportunity to speak with you, Miss L/N?” Lord Kim asks. “I don’t believe we have had the pleasure of being formally introduced, and I’d like to take the chance to do so.” He gives Beomgyu a little smile that seems to lack any fondness whatsoever. “It seems Mr. Choi has been keeping a rare jewel hidden from the rest of the ton.”

Inwardly, Beomgyu bristles. He never kept you hidden, and anyway, if Lord Kim thought you were such a jewel, why didn’t he pursue you during either of your previous seasons? Instead, though, he forces himself to smile back. After all, this is what he is here for. To help you find a husband. You’ve already done your part of driving away determined mamas and delusional admirers. It’s time for him to uphold his part of the bargain, and this is the first time a man has showed such direct interest in you. He has no right to refuse you the opportunity. “Could you blame me for wanting to keep such a gem to my own self?” he retorts with an easy grace honed only by years spent in society. “But should you like to speak with Miss L/N, I will not refuse you the chance to be in her presence.”

You give him a little smile before you leave, something like gratitude glinting softly in your eyes as you let Lord Kim lead you away. Beomgyu tells himself he’s happy, that he has you out of his hair and out of his realm of responsibility, that he no longer has to feign pleasantry he doesn’t actually feel around you. He can’t quite explain away the bitter feeling on his tongue as you leave, though.

Reblogs and comments are deeply appreciated! Hope you enjoyed this, and have a lovely day :)

[wishcamper]

Gone Baby Gone: birth control and the ethics of risky sex

CW: abortion, sexual violence.

Creds: licensed counselor with expertise in addiction, trauma, and gay stuff. Experience with tx exclusively for pregnant people and young parents with addictions.

Okay class! Today we’ll be talking about abortion oh my god don’t run away I’ll make it worth your while I promise.

Firstly, a disclaimer: I’m not interested in debating whether abortion should be legal/allowed/is moral or immoral. The research bears out, unequivocally, that access to comprehensive reproductive and family planning options improves everyone’s lives (1). And again, not actively anti-SJM or any characters, just exploring themes and what they say about us.

It’s so funny to me that NO one liked the pregnancy plot line in ACOSF, whether they love or hate or are indifferent (me) to Rhysand. And I think that’s because we, the largely femme audience engaging with the material, recognize the strings of violence weaved into it, possibly not even consciously but on a deep, bodily, instinctual level.

The 2007 crime drama Gone Baby Gone centers on a conversation about motherhood, parenting fitness, and what society owes to children. Beneath that though, and I believe unintentionally, is another story about pregnancy-capable people’s autonomy and the cycle of oppression around reproductive rights.

I’m going to spoil the movie for you - I don’t want you to watch it because Casey Affleck is a creep, and it’s not that good anyway. There’s a whole mystery plot, but the basics are: drug addict Helene’s daughter Amanda is kidnapped, then later thought to be killed but they never find her body. Casey Affleck, Boy Detective uncovers a scheme by two rogue cops to fake Amanda’s death and kidnap her because they think Helene isn’t a good mom. And they’re kind of right; once Amanda comes home, Helene is an incredibly neglectful mother, and the movie wants you to go woahhh, maybe those murdering unethical cops were right after all!

Sure, Jan.

The movie ends with the lead character wondering if Helene, for whom he’s literally killed people to bring her child back, is even fit to raise Amanda in the first place, even interested. And here’s where I feel complicated, because on one hand - yes, this is your child, and she’s completely innocent in all this and doesn’t deserve abuse and neglect. AND what were this women’s other options? Does anyone ask? Living in deeply Catholic working class Boston, did she have access to birth control? Could she have gotten an abortion? Would her culture (and her internalization of it) even allow her to entertain that option? Could she perhaps be using substances because of the circumstances of her life over which she has no control? (See Nesta, Interrupted for more on that.)

So I ask myself: what does it mean in our culture, as a person who can become pregnant, to have sex with someone who can impregnate you? What happens when your body becomes the battlefield on which larger conflicts are played out?

I’ve been thinking on these question a lot recently because my IUD is about to expire and my doctor recommended a back up method while I wait to get a new one. This has prompted my husband and me go farther into the kids conversation and consider not just what it would mean for me to get pregnant on purpose or accidentally, but what it would mean for me to get pregnant here. Where we live, abortion is technically legal but functionally impossible to find. Even for a wanted pregnancy, if it became life-threatening I might have extremely limited options.

This makes any sex inherently risky for me. IUDs failure rates range from 0.3% to 2.3%, but that still means as few as 3 in 1000 and as many as 2-3 in 100 users still get pregnant. And IUDs significantly raise the likelihood of medically dangerous pregnancies if a fetus is conceived (2). The long odds are somewhat comforting, but if I were to have an ectopic or other life-threatening pregnancy complication, I can’t trust that my local doctors would be able to save my life, legally. 

And we have talked about how we both feel strongly: it’s my life first. My husband says he would rather have me, and he would rather any children of ours have me, too. And there’s this sort of sick sense of gratitude I feel, because that is, to me, the only answer, but it feels like such a kindness nonetheless.

So we get to ACOSF (you forgot this was about ACOTAR, right? Me too.). When they decided to start trying to get pregnant, Rhys had to know the risk was there. My boy, you are half Illyrian. Even without Feyre being Mystique, get out your punnet square and do the math. Your baby always had a 25% chance of having wings. Conception was always risky. I refuse to believe he didn’t know that, and it was irresponsible of him to not inform her, a person who only entered his world like two years ago.

Then they conceive a baby with wings that, as far as they know, she has no way of safely delivering. If that’s true, why couldn’t Feyre have an abortion? I’m serious. They found out very early the baby had wings. It’s not unlike an ectopic pregnancy, or even a very small person becoming pregnant. Adolescent mothers (age 10-19) (god it feels gross to type that) are at much higher risk for conditions like eclampsia, endometritis, and systemic infections, not to mention fetal complications (3). Regardless of the details, Feyre’s body is not equipped to handle this pregnancy, and yet they never seem to explore the option of terminating it.

Which begs the question: did Feyre even know abortion was an option? Is it an option in Prythian?

In my opinion, probably. If the fae have contraception (let’s not even get into STDs and the ’they have magical healing’ BS), they must have abortion. The first record of an induced abortion was on an Egyption Papyrus around 1600BC, though the practice likely well predates that. The Ancient Greeks drove a plant to extinction for its abortifacient properties (4). And even when banned, people find ways, because they have to. Reproductive health has long been of importance to pregnancy-capable people for reasons of safety, resources, and survival. 

At the end of the day, Feyre is allowed to carry a pregnancy to term that she knows will kill her. That’s her right to bodily autonomy being exercised freely, and I will never begrudge her that. But imagine if abortion were an open option for her, and she knew the birth would kill her, and then Rhys. Knowing that, what do you think she’d choose? To die, bringing her mate along with her, and leave her child parentless, if they even survive? I really struggle to see that. Feyre loves hard, and knows what it’s like to grow up with extreme neglect. I cannot imagine her condemning a child to the same circumstance she found so damaging. But Rhys doesn’t tell her, forbids anyone else to, and possibly robs her of the ability to terminate the pregnancy. And also Madja, I don’t forgive her either for glossing over it. Girl needs to retake her boards.

In the beginning of my career, I worked at an inpatient substance use treatment center that was specifically for pregnant people and mothers with young children. They were allowed to bring two kids under the age of 5. I could write a million words about the flaws in that place, but it was at least something. In working with these people, the same themes came up over and over:

They wanted to get jobs but couldn’t afford childcare. 

Caring for children kept them isolated from support networks and financially strapped.

The daily maintenance and self-focus of sobriety felt at odds with being responsible for children. Ironically, that neglect of self often created the perfect conditions for relapse.

Children kept them tethered, legally and/or personally to abusive partners.

They received extreme judgment, even while seeking help, for “doing this to their children”.

They did not have adequate access to reproductive autonomy, whether financially, from religious beliefs, or otherwise.

This evidence is purely anecdotal, but I do think it speaks to the larger cycle of covert violence and policing of women and pregnancy-capable people’s bodies. It is well-documented that lack of reproductive freedom has a direct negative effect on mental health and wellbeing of people of child -bearing age (5). There is also a much larger intersection to this conversation when it comes to race, class, and the systemic oppression of people of color via reproductive restriction, but Feyre is privileged in the ACOTAR world for the most part so this doesn’t touch her. She doesn’t have to wonder if she can afford a baby, or if her husband is going to be racially profiled and taken to jail or just straight up murdered by law enforcement. (and this is not to downplay the experiences Rhysand have, that Sarah doesn’t give us, being a mixed race man, more so that he is in an extreme position of power.)

I think it’s a shame we didn’t get to explore this in ACOSF with Cassian and Nesta. They jump in the sack even after learning Nesta’s body could not handle an Illyrian baby. No amount of ‘the monthly aid’ justifies not having an honest and thorough conversation about what having sex means before they sleep together. Cassian must feel real confident in the birth control options of Prythian to be spreading his soldiers around so willy nilly. And I just hope, for all their sakes, that he’s right.

Ibis Reproductive Health and Center for Reproductive Rights, “Evaluating Priorities: Measuring Women’s and Children’s Health and Well-being against Abortion Restrictions in the States,” (2017).

Kim SK, Romero R, Kusanovic JP, Erez O, Vaisbuch E, Mazaki-Tovi S, Gotsch F, Mittal P, Chaiworapongsa T, Pacora P, Oggé G, Gomez R, Yoon BH, Yeo L, Lamont RF, Hassan SS. The prognosis of pregnancy conceived despite the presence of an intrauterine device (IUD). J Perinat Med. 2010;38(1):45-53. doi: 10.1515/jpm.2009.133. PMID: 19650756; PMCID: PMC3418877.

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[evita-shelby]

Always

Gif by @crackshipandcrap

Eva comforts and gets Tommy to relax after John’s funeral (fake funeral as set in Between the Shadow and the Soul)

Cw: hand tremors, Tommy’s ptsd, Arthur's ptsd, mentions of domestic abuse

Based on this request

He is shaken after John’s fake funeral. He tries not to show it but his hand shakes even as he downs another whiskey to quell it.

Death never came easy to him, especially when he began to truly heal from the scars war left on him.

This coupled with fears of Changretta realizing he was duped and finish what he started, had him at the knife's edge.

Eva knew what to do, at Arrow House they just walked into the woods, hitched the vardo to their horses and disappeared for a while, just them and Charlie.

They did, or they used to before Tommy had realized he could lose them and chose to pretty much kick her out of his gang and relegate her to being his wife. This had put a strain on their marriage and for a better part of the year, he’d been thrown out of their room and eventually banished to his hotel suite in London.

They were doing better, the Italians had pushed them back to each other’s lives and the baby conceived the last time --- and only time they fucked since their anniversary in June--- they were intimate had forced them to see they cannot just end things like this.

“We can’t just leave, Evie.” He reminds her as she drags him out to Charlie’s Yard and take two of the horses.

She’d lied and said being cooped up had her feeling sick, blamed it on the baby and he, fearing she might not come back came with her.

“Do you trust me?” the witch asks, holding his face in her hands like they used to. He sighs and his beautiful blue eyes give into her.

“Always.” It felt like before, when everything was perfect and neither had tasted true mortality since they’d met. “You’re the first person I see and the last I talk to at night, love.”

He rests his head against hers and if she hadn’t made other plans for them she would’ve recreated that time they’d done it in the straw like animals.

“Then what are you waiting for, Tom, let’s get lost like we used to.”

“Do you remember that place I showed you once?” He even tries to smile as he helps her onto the gentler of the two horses.

“Hm, might need you to refresh my mind, amor.”

The tremble in his hand is gone as they ride through places he knew like the back of his hand, along the Cut, through some woods and a tree he once broke his arm falling from.

He goes slow, keeps a steady and soft pace because he knows this pregnancy isn’t like the ones before it. Even Diane hadn’t caused this much trouble.

They’ve done this before, when they still lived here, when they pretended they were just friends only to marry less than a month after she gave him a chance to prove his love for her. He was a different Tommy here, relaxed, not burdened with a glorious purpose she was now a part of.

They stop at a place underneath the bridge. He used to come here when he was a young man in love with his pretty Italian girl.

It didn’t bother her to know that, he had loved Greta and she had been a part of him before they ever met just like Antonia had been for Eva.

“We came here once, didn’t we?” she asks sitting on some old crates forgotten here. He is almost back to himself, the worry in his face an echo of what it was earlier.

“Not this far, I wanted to, but I wasn’t ready to.” He admits fishing out his cigarette holder from his pocket. He did this thing she found rather cute, this rubbing the cigarette on his lower lip before taking it into his mouth.

She’d made him fluster by telling him and the way he looks away from her as he did it, told her he remembered it as well. Tommy could handle being objectified, he couldn’t handle being considered ‘cute’ or ‘adorable’ as he had thought that him died with Greta.

“John and his family will be fine. They won’t ever know he’s alive.” Eva reminded him as he stated at the murky water as he smoked.

“It’s not that. I trust you, remember.” His worry stemmed from never knowing how Arthur will take something.

His brother had never been well, violence and abuse have always been as natural to him as breathing and the war and the drugs and the alcohol had ebbed away his self control.

He'd murdered a boy because he couldn’t stop, Linda covered up bruises and flinched away from his touch and Tommy blames himself because he knows he fucked him up worse by not letting him leave and heal.

It was why Arthur couldn’t kill Luca.

This last kill would destroy what remains of his goodness, they both know it. This last kill will continue to make a victim of Linda and sweet little Billy.

“You can blame me for hiring someone to kill Luca. Florence is in England, for a good price I can hire her.” Eva suggests.

Arthur knows better than to try anything with her, he’d take out his anger on Tommy, blame her for meddling in their family and could around eventually. He’s already gonna be angry at her for telling Linda about her trick to making Tommy late to meetings she wants him to miss.

“John and Esme already hired Aberama, he will be angry when they learn John isn’t dead, that the mam he cried for, who’s pyre he lit was a man John killed.” He shook his head.

This was the real thing worrying him.

His family already hated him for what Section D did, now they’d think their suspicion of him not trusting them was true.

“They will understand why we did it, they know what matters is that John is alive that it was John’s wish they didn’t know.” Eva left her crate and ran her hands up his back and hugged him from behind. Their similar heights allowed her to comfort him so well. “We will win, we always win.”

“I know, death fucking fears you.” He admits with a hint of a smile on his lips.

“No, sweetheart, death fears us.”