#this whole scene was on another level of romance | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

Tumblr.com is the 103rd most visited website in the world.

#this whole scene was on another level of romance

tikvin · 3 days

Text

While y'all waiting on your sketches and Eshra's "in game" dialogues lemme talk about Vice for a sec, because I love them with my whole being and unhealthily obsessed.

BG3 SPOILERS AHEAD

VICE (he/they/it)

Mechanically, spore druid, flavouring him as just some disgusting necromancing swamp devil, not actually tying him to any circles or balance obsessed folk.

Vice is quite emotionless and blunt, some would say even cruel. "When you out of my sight — you don't exist" type of person. So far, the only durge who flat out made conscious decision to kill Karlach, as he couldn't care less that she's just a tiefling, if that what Wyll's mission is, then he better do it and quit whining (tbf if Vice met Karlach first then Wyll would be the one dying, I just forgot that was a possibility lol.) Vice just doesn't care much for negotiations in these confrontations. They have a passive attitude when it comes to confrontations with his companions, he's more amused than anything, when he's being threatened, suddenly feeling strangely confident and patronizing, as if intentionally provoking to bigger conflict. It probably would get better in act 3, but right now he's quite an asshole.

I wouldn't say he isn't capable of understanding emotions and moral dilemmas, but he's driven mostly by his own whims and wants. He recognizes when he killed without any good reason, but he doesn't necessarily feel bad about his kills. He might do or not do something just because he feels like it, even if he knows it might hurt someone, he doesn't care, unless it's someone deeply close to him or someone he is very curious about, which is hard to achieve.

He haven't got there yet with him, but considering how his relationships with Shadowheart look rn — she's in quite dangerous area with the whole nightsong deal, as Vice couldn't give two shits about her (or anyone else's) secrets and just doesn't ask companions about their lives until they speak about it themselves. So Shadowheart haven't got a chance to tell him anything about her worship or herself. That makes her distant to him, which makes him not give much of a shit, considering nightsong is not only the key for Thorm's immortality but also a potential strong ally. The attempt to kill Lae'Zel also doesn't do Shadowheart any favours in Vice's eyes, as he enjoys company of those who are more straightforward like Lae'Zel, because if you want something from him — you better tell as it is, and not dance around the subject. That is why he's most close to Minthara and Lae'Zel, while being more prickly to Gale, Shadowheart and Jaheira.

Vice is yet another durge who doesn't care much about their lust for blood, nor concerned by their own actions. The only thing he strongly doesn't like about it is losing control, but he is curious about his past.

Concept of romantic relationship is a bit alien to him, as is any sexual relationships. Yet again, it's not like he's not capable, considering how it is with Bhaal, I'd say Vice probably was a huge horndog before amnesia, but after the incident he just didn't give much of a thought to it, since there are bigger problems at hand. His level of understanding the romance will actually depend on if he kills Isobel or not. If Vice won't do it, and my favourite durge camp scene happens — Vice will be kinda pushed to think about it for a moment, when Skeletaris make comments on whatever companion that will be. That would make him dig deeper into his everyday time with that companion and consider what his feelings are and does he even have them.

If Vice kills Isobel and gets power — he gets more emotionless and aloof, mindless killing will be much easier, just like it would be easier to betray close friends for power or just for his own fun. (And the latter even Minthara won't approve of, considering her opinion on killing without purpose).

Would've probably went with the whole Bhaal biz if it wasn't for losing control over his body (After Karessa, he unconsciously grown to absolutely despise any sort of helplessness and lack of control over his own body). So he most likely will be the most questionable "redeemed" dark urge.

#original character #oc #durge oc #durge #bg3 dark urge #dark urge #tiefling

45 notes · View notes

stjohnstarling · 3 months

Text

Alright, so: I want to explain a little more about this connection between the Twilight fandom, Fifty Shades of Grey, and seemingly, the self-publishing industry as a whole. It's a lot, so I'm going to have to chip away at it a bit at a time, and I think the best place to start is by describing the scene in late 2000s Twilight fandom.

In 2009, Twilight was one of the biggest fandoms in the world, although it was nearly invisible to outsiders because it

Was about a straight couple, while most other fandoms were predominantly gay, and

Was conducted almost entirely on fanfiction.net among a group of people who had little other background in fandom. (x)

That meant for many Twilight fans, Twilight was fandom. It was all they knew, and many had no path out. That also made it a corked champagne bottle with the pressure building.

Because of these community dynamics and the declining quality of the Twilight books themselves, Twilight fanfiction evolved to be mostly AUs so alternate they were more-or-less original romance novels that used Bella and Edward as broad character templates. (x)

Seriously, Twilight fandom got really crazy big for a few years there. It was not totally uncommon to get multi-million clicks on a semi-popular story. It's weird looking back on it and calling it "Twilight fandom" because it was really more like "Romance Novel fandom". For real, for a period there, calling a Twilight fanfic author a 'Twilight fan' would be the ultimate insult. But they never stopped writing about Edward and Bella! It's so weird. (x)

If you were in 2000s era fandom, you're probably aware of the phenomenon of Big Name Fans and the various social-climbing dynamics that happened around them. The Twilight fandom took this social power game another level:

This wasn't even just an author thing. There were Big Name Authors (BNAs) but there were also Big Name Readers. These were basically like... full-time rabid fans of a BNA. They devoted so much of their time to helping out the BNAs, reviewing their chapters, making them fanart, promoting their fics, kissing their asses with cringe-worthy intensity, you name it. Which is why you saw what looked like BNAs having 'employees', such as Moi, tby789's Director of Marketing. (x)

It became apparent that these power games weren't just for fandom clout. The fandom was proving that that social power could be translated into real-world dollars. You see, the Twilight fandom used to organize charity auctions where big name authors would auction off custom fanfiction, and the money generated was substantial:

Mostly authors would auction off stories. So if you donated in my name, I'd write you 10,000 words of porn in my Tattward universe, or something new, etc. That's how it worked. The 2009 auction raised $80,000. The 2010 auction raised $140,000. The 2011 auction raised $20,00. [NOTE: this is likely a typo] (x)

A lot of these dynamics were not unique to the Twilight fandom, but it was the combination that created a perfect storm of opportunism. This would end up changing not just fandom dynamics but the publishing industry as a whole.

#original post #fifty shades liveblog #Working on the rest of this #Part one of not sure how many

6K notes · View notes

antikosm · 4 months

Text

Aro/Ace Terms Masterlist

Please let me know if I forgot anything

NOTE: There is a distinct difference between someone's personal orientation versus how they feel about sexuality/romanticism as a whole. Someone who's sex/romance repulsed may be in favour of open sexual/romantic expression or even vice versa (shoutout to @sowearecleariamhere for informing me of this!)

Types of attraction

Sexual - I wanna have sex with that

Romantic - I want to date that

Sensual - I want to hug that

Platonic - I want to be friends with that

Platonic crushes do exist. They are called “squishes”. You go through the same process of having a romantic or sexual crush but instead of landing them in bed, you’re on the floor at 2am with pizza rolls, Shrek in the background, talking about eldritch monstrosities (or whatever your shared interest is)

Aesthetic - that looks so heckin’ cool/pretty I love it

Intellectual - the desire to engage with another in an intellectual manner, i.e. having a conversation, picking their brain, and finding out how they think

Terms describing degree of attraction

Aromantic - lack of romantic attraction

Asexual - lack of sexual attraction

Aplatonic - lack of platonic attraction

Aroace - lack of both sexual and romantic attraction

Demi - attraction only forms once a strong emotional bond has been formed

Grey/gray - rarely/seldom experiences attraction

Allosexual - someone who experiences sexual attraction

I think I’ve also heard/seen it referred to as ‘arosexual’ but that’s honestly a bit confusing

Alloromantic - someone who experiences romantic attraction

I personally shorten both of those to “allo” (pronounced ‘aloe’)

Apothiosexual - sex-repulsed

Apothioromantic - romance-repulsed

Apothiaroace - often shortened to just ‘apothi’. In addition to being aroace, apothis are repulsed by romantic/sexual scenes, items, displays, etc. to varying degrees

Sex-neutral and sex-positive/favourable aces exist as well

Not all of us have the same level of comfort with sexual and romantic activities so please check. I mean that applies to everyone anyway, but please check and don’t assume that just because someone is aro/ace, that doesn’t mean they are sex/romance repulsed

Queerplatonic - Queerplatonic typically refers to a relationship that bends the lines between a romantic relationship and a non-romantic relationship. A queerplatonic relationship (QPR) often goes beyond what is socially acceptable for a platonic relationship but does not fit the typical notion of a romantic relationship.

Alterous attraction - a type of emotional attraction to someone that isn’t entirely romantic or platonic.

Chastity - actively refraining from sexual activities. This is NOT part of the ace/aro spectrum, though it is a common assumption when someone says they are ace/aro. Thankfully we’re getting a bit more representation in media now so it’s not as common of an assumption as it used to be, but it’s still there, especially in those communities.

An absolute FANTASTIC addition by @heyftinally in case anyone doesn't see the repost

Gonna expand on sex favorable/neutral/repulsed, since this is a masterlist after all: - Sex favorable - regardless of your sexual orientation, you personally want to engage in sexual activity with someone (significant other, one night stand, friends with benefits, etc) - Sex neutral - if you're with someone who wants to engage in sexual activities then you may or may not, depending on a variety of factors, but you have no strong inclinations for or against engaging in sex itself as an activity. Basically it's "alright" Sex repulsed/averse - the idea of personally engaging in sexual activities makes you want to hurl/cry/claw your skin off/spontaneously combust. If someone suggested doing sexual activities together, you would probably vehemently say "No!" before they even finished the question. You would rather do anything else - Sex positive - refers to your attitudes about sex in general. Regardless of where you fall in the above three terms, you recognize that other people want to, and should have the freedom and right to, engage in consensual sexual activities, even if you personally don't like or want those activities. Essentially shorthand for "I respect the right of other adults to have gay sex, have gender-weird sex, have sex with multiple people in and out of monogamous relationships/marriages, and have weird, wild, freaky kinky sex, so long as all participants and consenting adults". You can still personally want zero sex for yourself or think a particular kink is weird/ick, but you can, in tumblr speak, be normal about consenting adults doing consenting adult stuff - Sex negative - conservative purity culture, basically. You think nobody should have sex ever, or at least not until marriage, and when they do it should only be the "right" or "good" kind, as arbitrarily decided by you/society/some collective. You think badly of, look down on, and may even treat badly anyone who doesn't have the "right" kind of sex in your opinion. You are not normal about consenting adults doing consenting adult activities (even though they don't involve you in any way)

A wonderful addition from @overlord-of-chaos Sex aversion is not the same thing as sex repulsed.

If you are sex adverse, you personally have no desire to partake in any of those actions but seeing or knowing other people partake in that doesn't bother you.

Sex repulsion is when you can't stand doing it yourself, seeing/hearing about/knowing that others partake in it, or even just the idea of it.

Microlabels/Terms describing flavour of attraction

Note: -sexual is used for many of these so we don't have to deal with duplicates confusing things. All of these prefixes can be used with -romantic, -sexual, -platonic, and I imagine -alterous as well

Abrosexual - orientation fluctuates between a variety of orientations

Aceflux - similar to abrosexual, but orientation is contained to asexual spectrum

Acespike - someone who is asexual but may experience intense, brief, and random bouts of sexual attraction

Aegosexual - disconnect between oneself and the target of arousal

Amicusromantic/sexual - only experiences romantic attraction to those who they have formed a platonic relationship with (subset of demi)

Angled aroace - the same as oriented, but for those who are demi, grey, flux, etc.

Anthrosexual - someone who is attracted to humans and alterhumans regardless of gender identity/expression

Bellussexual - has interest in the aesthetic/aspects/certain sexual actions, but does not experience sexual attraction or want a sexual relationship

Caedsexual - previously allo, but now ace due to past trauma

Cupiosexual - wanting a sexual relationship but not experiencing sexual attraction

Finsexual/gynesexual - attraction to femininity

Fraysexual - opposite of demi. Attraction dissipates once an emotional connection has been formed

Linsexual - attraction to androgyny

Lithosexual - experiencing sexual attraction but not wanting it to be reciprocated

Loveless Romantic/Lovelessromantic - those who cannot feel love or feel disconnected from love but can feel romantic attraction/don't feel disconnected from the concept of romance

Minsexual/androsexual - attraction to masculinity

Orchid - the opposite of cupio; experiences ____ attraction but has no desire for a relationship of that type

Placiosexual - not wanting to be on the receiving end of sexual activities but wishing to perform them on others

Quiosexual - unable to distinguish between sexual attraction and other forms of attraction

Qui(r)oromantic - inability to distinguish between platonic and romantic attraction

Reciprosexual - not experiencing sexual attraction towards someone until you discover they experience sexual attraction towards you

Requiessexual - similar to caedsexual, but rather than trauma, ace identity originates from a state of emotional exhaustion, usually from a past sexual experience

Oriented aroace - an aromantic asexual (aroace) individual who experiences a form of tertiary attraction, that they feel is significant enough to warrant a place alongside their aroace orientation. (i.e. gay aroace, bi aroace)

Angled aroace - someone who is on the aroace spectrum (grey, demi, fray, etc) who experiences a type of attraction significant enough to stand alongside their aroace orientation

Examples of mixed orientations

Heteroromantic asexual biplatonic

Poly greyromantic pansexual

Apothi abroplatonic

Placiosexual aromantic finplatonic

Aroace cupioplatonic

Pan lithioromantic

Fraysexual biromantic aplatonic

You can get WAY more specific than what these cover, but just to give a general idea

Amatonormativity

Amatonormativity is the assumption that all human beings pursue love or romance, especially by means of a monogamous long-term relationship. The term was coined by Elizabeth Brake, in her book Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law (2011).

4K notes · View notes

paperclipninja · 6 months

Text

Middle of the night GO thoughts after reflecting on a couple of comments that the 'you're being silly' scene is actually not just the adorable soft exchange I have been caught up in. I mean it is, but it also isn't.

And it got me thinking that the whole of season 2 is like this, almost the entire time we have two truths in play. The whole season is one of duality.

A few examples (there are many more woven throughout but just to illustrate the point):

Right off the bat, the opening scene, it's both ominous and hopeful. Aziraphale is restrained while angel Crowley full of abandon; one angel is aware of the danger of questioning, the other is naïve. Both are experiencing the same moment in rather different ways. It sets the tone of the season immediately and puts in motion this layered truth within the story.

The minisode with wee Morag and Elspeth, the entire graverobbing premise presents us with the dual truth that digging up the dead is bad but the selling of the bodies to the surgeon, thus contributing to saving lives, is good.

Aziraphale grapples with the duality here, justifying the actions of Elspeth by convincing himself that one truth is greater than the other. We also see that Crowley is far more able to recognise the complexity of multiple truths being valid depending on circumstance. This whole minisode feels like Neil showing his hand a little bit, the duality is so explicitly addressed, meanwhile we, the audience, are engaged in a larger unfolding story in which we are observing similar layered truths playing out in different ways.

Now the scene that made this whole thought process unravel, still one of my favourite scenes and will remain so, is the "smitten, I believe...you're being silly" exchange. It is both tender and awful.

Here we have Crowley, expressing his very real fear of JimGabriel, opening up to Aziraphale that he doesn't feel safe in the bookshop because of the constant fear he will wake up, and Aziraphale just looks at him with heart eyes and tells him he's being silly. This flags so loudly that we're watching two characters who are experiencing very different versions of their current reality, due to past experience, yes, but also, Aziraphale and Crowley each have their own idea about the right way to react to the current situation.

It's been pointed out by many before me, but the ball is another example of incredible juxtaposition and an extraordinary display of two truths existing at once. It is both incredibly romantic and an actual nightmare.

It is reflected, once again, in the way Aziraphale and Crowley are experiencing it, we know one character is caught up in the romance, the other in the horror show, but as a viewer, we are being tasked with holding both truths in our mind simultaneously. And both are true.

Aziraphale the entire season is both giddy in love and completely dismissive of Crowley. It is adorable and infuriating at the same time.

And yes, it is a reflection of the very duality the entire premise of Good Omens presents us with - that something can be good and bad at the same time, pure and corrupt, that the entire binary of Heaven and Hell/good and evil is flawed because those concepts can and do co-exist.

But the way it is seen in the interactions on a personal level this season is what has leapt out at me. It's why I think we see people falling into different interpretations of a lot of the scenes and moments, because they are more than that, they are observations. We are often observing two sides of the same coin, and both are true. The sheer genius of it and the way it is a mirror to the characters and the entire concept of the show we are observing is, quite frankly, mind boggling.

And it all comes to a head in the final fifteen™. There is so much duality in play here that it is no wonder there are hundreds of posts untangling bits of it and trying to extract the meaning from within the many layers. It's because we are given two truths in this final scene that are both heartbreaking.

Crowley loves Aziraphale and wants them to be together, free at last. Aziraphale loves Crowley and wants them to be together, free at last.

BUT

Aziraphale wants to use the system to keep them both safe. Crowley wants to escape the system to keep them both safe.

And then all the moments of duality between them throughout the season reach a critical juncture: Aziraphale in love but dismissive, Crowley understanding that Heaven = good is too simplistic and trying to compel Aziraphale to remember the lesson from Edinburgh ("when Heaven ends life here on Earth, it'll be just as dead as if Hell ended it"), Crowley trying to use the notion of romance to counter the nightmare with a desperate kiss.

It's a complete inversion of those two truths in the opening scene of the season, the entire scene is at the same time ominous and hopeful, but it is Aziraphale who largely being naïve and Crowley who is aware of the danger.

I mean, it was all spelled out for us really, this duality and the fact that those multiple truths in play were always going to come to a head. It was all there, wrapped up in this quote:

"What does your exactly mean, exactly? I feel like your exactly and my exactly are different exactlies".

#good omens #good omens meta #aziraphale #crowley #aziracrow #honestly don't know if this even makes sense #middle of the night thoughts and all that #good omens thoughts

977 notes · View notes

magnus-rhymes-with-swagness · 9 months

Text

OKAY who wants to hear about why i think nimona challenges amatonormativity? you do! 🫵

one of the main ways this is accomplished is through ballister and ambrosius’s relationship. it’s arguable that it doesn’t necessarily fit the traditional model of romance - not only are they a queer interracial couple, and not only is their relationship ambiguous in the book, but there are certain instances, especially in the movie, that subvert traditional ideas of romance and friendship.

one instance that really stands out to me is when the director asks ambrosius what’s on his mind and he goes on his imagined rant about how arm-chopping isn’t a love language - you know the one. when he mentions ballister, he refers to him as “the man i love, my best friend.” and not just one or the other, but both! the man i love, and my best friend. he places equal emphasis on both the romantic and platonic aspects of the relationship, valuing ballister in both a romantic context and a platonic context without treating either one as more important than the other.

and even moments such as the first “i love you” and the kiss manage to subvert tradition. both of these things are generally seen as a pretty big deal, especially in fiction - if the characters are kissing or saying “i love you,” it’s usually a moment in which everything changes. a line is drawn, dividing the story into after and now. sometimes it’s dramatic and climactic, with fireworks and a swell of music, but even when it isn’t it’s still seen as a turning point of sorts. now it’s official, now it’s real. but this isn’t the case in nimona. both moments are certainly significant - they do a good job of showcasing the character development and where ballister and ambrosius are on their respective journeys, and are certainly important in terms of representation - but neither one follows the path that most fictional romance does.

another way in which nimona challenges amatonormativity would be the emphasis on friendship! in the tavern scene (in the movie) when ambrosius suggests killing nimona, ballister disagrees and says “she’s my friend.” ambrosius replies with “aren’t i more than that?”, implying he’s more important than a friend - thus upholding amatonormative ideas. ballister becomes angry at that and leaves - challenging this idea and prioritizing his platonic relationship with nimona over his romantic one with ambrosius, as nimona is the one he wants to defend.

additionally, a big part of this scene is the way ballister deliberately rejects institute values while ambrosius unintentionally upholds them. and because the story challenges homophobia and transphobia (and other forms of bigotry) through the lens of the institute, it would make sense for it to challenge amatonormativity too! it’s something that’s become incredibly normalized, to the point that lots of people don’t even know it exists, and this is reminiscent of the institute brainwashing, especially when it comes to ambrosius - he’s been manipulated his whole life and probably genuinely doesn’t understand the level to which he’s internalized institute beliefs.

ballister prioritizes nimona many times, actually. when he tells ambrosius she’s “smart, kind, and quite sophisticated,” when he’s overjoyed to see her again at the end, when he refuses to kill her and saves her instead. over and over, he proves how much he cares about her, even when this involves directly going against what ambrosius wants - which, of course, is really what the institute wants. a core tenant of amatonormativity is the false notion that romantic relationships are more important or valuable than other types of relationships, but ballister actively goes against this!

to conclude, as a story that at its core is about identity and challenging societal beliefs, nimona defies expectations and traditional ideas of what it should or shouldn’t be. it’s possible that amatonormativity wasn’t what the creators had in mind, but the story still manages to challenge it with grace and elegance. just like its main character, nimona refuses to conform to what others want it to be.

#nimona #nimona movie #ballister blackheart #ballister boldheart #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #ambrosius x ballister #nimona netflix #nd stevenson #nimona spoilers #i could go on tbh but i think this is a digestible amount #often when i’m writing a meta i’ll walk around in circles talking into my phone recording my thoughts out loud #and then i’ll play it back and put the most coherent stuff into a list which eventually becomes paragraphs #and the combined recordings for this one are about half an hour in total lol #i’m just. absolutely in love with the whole story. both the book and the movie mean so incredibly much to me #changed my life shaped me as a person etc etc :’)#OH i almost forgot. this analysis is dedicated to the person who sent me aphobic anon hate about it before it even existed lol #i know i said i wouldn’t post anything if people couldn’t be normal but idc actually. seethe with rage! <3 #my words #meta

939 notes · View notes

the-fluff-piece · 5 months

Text

"Invisible: chose your own romance

- Law or Sanji?

This is a "choose your own adventure" type continuation of "invisible", if you haven't read that, start here. You can chose at the end if you want to be with Sanji or Law, click on the link to get to the corresponding story

Being friends with Sanji went better than expected. He was still the most handsome and awesome man you knew and it would take a while until your feelings would adjust, but it was good as it was. You helped him often in the galley where you talked and joked.

But he didn't stop swooning over Nami and Robin. When he served them, you were still invisible to him. From one moment to the next, they became his entire focus. His shouted praise and confessions of love still hurt, everyday.

But there was something new to occupy your mind: when Law realised that he had fucked up and spilled secrets that weren't his, he apologised sincerely. He also spotted your stamp collection while standing in your door.

"Wow is that an alabasta crowning special edition?" His whole being changed in a second. His usually squinted eyes opened, his mouth formed a little smile and he disrespected your personal space to squeeze past you and inspect your collection.

With care, he looked through the pages and showed he was also a stamp nerd. It was an unexpected bond that formed and he was still a little frightening, but you promised to look at his coin collection as well.

The two pirate ships anchored side by side for the day and everyone met for a big BBQ on the sunny.

You helped Sanji with the grill, handing him things and goving out food for everyone. Helping him out with his duties on the ship had become your favorite pastime. The moments spent together in the galley where moments of privacy, just the two of you.

When you could at least pretend that in other circumstances, he might have chosen you instead of literally any other girl.

You loaded your arms with plates and brought it to your crew and guests all around the ship. As you approached Law with some grilled fish, he patted the seat next to himself.

"Y/n-ya, I got something for you" He looked excited, showing you a rare smile.

Sanji

Sanji was pretty happy. He resolved the issue with Y/n like a man and gained a friend in the process. It was still new to him to have a lady friend that was just his friend, but he liked it. She helped him in the kitchen and kept him company, he could vent about Zoro or even swoon over Nami. The book she had made just for him had a special place in his kitchen and his heart. He felt seen, appreciated on another level than Luffy or Nami appreciated him.

And right now, he grilled tasty food for all his friends. Life was great. He couldn't help but to whistle a tune.

"Wow what's going on there?" Nami pointed behind Sanji.

He turned his head and saw Y/n, sitting on a picnic blanked with that tra-guy. They were awfully close, looking at some kind of thick book together.

Sanji stared as Law produced a magnifying glass and both tried to look through it at the same time, bumping their heads together and laughing.

"Sanji, you OK?" Nami asked.

"Why wouldn't I be?" He asked through, as he now realised, gritted teeth.

"You just kind of bit your cigarette off" She looked at the crumbling stump on the floor.

"Must have been in my pocket for too long" He mumbled and pried his gaze from the scene behind him to resume his grill duty.

Throughts raced through his head: why were they so friendly all of a sudden? What were they looking at? How long as this been going on? Why didn't she tell him? They shared everything.

He tried to breathe deeply. She had a right to hang with whomever she wanted. Sanji respected the heart pirates captain for his strength and skill. He was a good guy. This was OK.

He snuck another glance - fuck, are they holding hands?

He turned a bit to fast, throwing a piece of meat in the air with his momentum. Luffy sailed past and caught it with his mouth ("tasty!")

They inspected a small coin on Law's hand, she traced it with her hand - it looked like they were caressing each other - like lovers.

"Sanji, you're turning red" Nami commented.

"It's just really warm at the grill" He groaned as he felt his body tense with anger.

You

It was a great evening, finally you have found a fellow collector who valued a piece's beauty as well as its history.

He was willing to trade an especially ornate coin from a flower island for one of your incredibly detailed Sora stamps.

"This was enjoyable, let's do it again someday!" He eyed the stamp with pure joy in his eyes. You could almost see the boy he must have been once.

"Do you like machines?" He suddenly asked.

"Well, I think they're interesting, but I'm not a machinist" You didn't know where he was going with it.

"You want to see the inner workings of the polar tang?"

He lead you away from the party to the strange submarine he called his home. With a quick "shambles" he transported both of you inside.

He didn't warn you or prepare you in any way - it was like losing your sense of direction and being spun around, condensed into one second. Landing and not knowing where the floor was made you sway and fall directly onto Law's outstretched arm.

He gently pushed you backwards until you were upright again.

"Warn me next time, please!" You huffed.

"Apologies, I should have known" He chuckled. You were pretty sure he did know and he did tease you.

It was pretty dark, there were sparse, little lamps illuminating the hallway. Tiny lights and dials seemed to make up the walls of the ship.

Sanji

Angry puffs of smoke surrounded Sanji as he smoked like a nervous chimney. His thoughts were glued to one subject alone:

What was she doing with that guy? Were they secretly dating? Did they fall in love just now? Did he touch her?

Almost swallowing his cigarette from his gasp, he decided it was his duty to protect her from that guy's tattooed hands. She was so innocent and sweet, the thought of any man groping her made Sanji's legs itchy. If he so much as looks at her in a lusty way, Sanji would kick that gut all the way back to the north blue.

He stomped around the ship in a foul mood.

"Have you seen y/n?" He asked around, "or law?"

"They went back to the tang I think" one of Law's crew indicated the weird submarine.

"Alone?" Sanji grabbed him by the collar.

"I mean, just the two of them!" He said.

Letting him fall from his hands, sanji sprinted as fast as he could toward the ship. If that bastard did something to her he would sink it.

He ripped the door open and ran down the first corridor he could see, crying our her name.

With relief, he heard her answer "I'm here!" And Sanji ran towards the sound. Bending a corner, he saw the most horrifying thing.

Y/n was practically trapped by Law, shoved against some kind of rattling machine. He looked malicious. She looked so small and helpless against him.

"Hey you dirty bastard, let her go!" Sanji challenged the surgeon of death.

You

The polar tangs inner workings actually were quite interesting. The engine and life support were to complicated to understand, but you got the basic principle of the ship. You absolutely had to tell franky about this when you got back.

Law was way taller than you and easily leaned above your head to explain some of the dials and meters to you.

It was kind of exciting. It was hard to deny that he was good looking, in a bad-boy kind of way. But underneath the stoic surface was a nerd for collecting, machinery and medicine. He was so different from Sanji in almost every aspect, but just as appealing.

Keep it together, you can't have your heart broken by another stupid crush. He's out of your league, you told yourself. He's just happy to meet another coin enthusiast, that's all.

In the wrong moment, you looked up at him, and he smiled just right. He looked gorgeous. Dreaded infatuation was driven through your heart like a spear and you blushed, thankful for the cover of darkness.

The rest of his explanation went by in a blur, you both hung on his lips and didn't get a word he was saying.

"Y/n!" Someone screamed. Footsteps could be heard throughout the ship.

"I'm here" you answered, hopefully loud enough.

Not even a second later, Sanji slid around a corner and immediately began shittalking Law.

"Get your dirty hands off her, you bastard!" He screamed, fist raised.

"I'm not even touching her" Law stated calmly.

"He showed me how the submarine works." You told Sanji, demonstrably taking a step back from Law.

Sanji was there in a heartbeat, grabbing you around the waist and dragging you behind him.

"Guess you're leaving. But think about my offer, will you?" Law waved at you and stepped back into the hallway.

With a yank, you landed in Sanji's arms and you were back at the sunny before you realised he had carried you all the way.

When he finally set you down in the safety of the galley, he sighed and began to inspect you.

"Did he touch you? Did he hurt you?" His voice sounded distressed.

"Did he....force you to do anything?"He grabbed your chin and looked into your eyes.

"No, we just looked at the engine and the electronics" you mumbled out from between his long fingers.

"He's our ally, calm down" you grabbed his hand to reassure him.

"Tss" He threw his blonde hair around like the diva he was. Anger has reddened his face and squeezed his mouth into an adorable pout.

"Just don't be alone with that guy anymore" he said.

You just rolled your eyes, knowing better than to correct him while he was really on edge.

"What offer was he talking about?" Sanji began chewing the end of his cigarette.

"To join his crew" you stated as sanji flinched.

"Cannot wait to see that guy's face when you turn him down" he grinned maliciously.

"Who said I would?" You looked at his surprised face as the cigarette almost dropped from his gaping mouth.

"Uhm what? You're..You're not seriously considering that. The guy is a weirdo" He gestured wildly, "unpredictable!"

"Don't talk about him like that! He's been a great ally to us. So he's a little introverted, he still has a kind heart" you stated, demonstrably calm.

"He cuts people open! He's...he treat you well!" Sanji's voice morphed into a shriek.

"He's a surgeon, his crew is so nice. Why are you like this?" You got louder as well. It was your decision, not his.

"Promise me you won't go!" He shouted.

"Who do you think you are?" You retaliated, "you can't give me orders! Maybe I want to join his crew? What's it to you? A few weeks ago you didn't even talk to me - now you're aching like...like..." You were so angry, words eluded you.

"Like a man protecting a woman?" Sanji's voice was flat, without emotion.

"...like an overbearing father" you corrected him. The nerve -acting like you suddenly registered as a girl to him.

His face became cold and unreadable, scary.

This had no use anymore.

"Good night Sanji" you didn't wait for his answer and left him in the galley.

After your little argument with Sanji, you packed your bags with the motivation of anger and hurt. But you mostly threw your belongings in without plan or order. A half packed bag, total chaos.

The next morning - the heart pirates would leave and you had to decide if you wanted to go with them. You already talked to Luffy about this - he only told you to follow your heart.

You stood on deck, you bag over your shoulder. When Law saw this he smiled and nodded, Bepo was nervously fumbling and blushing behind him.

You turned back to your old crew to say goodbye, you were sure they would understand. Frankly cried, Luffy looked serious and wished you all the best. Sanji was nowhere to be seen.

As you approached the heart pirates, who were already shouting Greetings, you saw Law nod behind you.

Sanji stood there with a small package in his hands, wrapped in cloth. His cheeks were fiery red as he tried to keep his composure.

"I made you a last bento" His voice was hoarse, breaking, "everything you like. All your favorites. Just promise that you'll eat proper over there." He handed you the box and as his fingers brushed against yours, he couldn't keep it together anymore.

You didn't move, your were both holding the box as he wept and whispered his goodbyes:

"I am sorry I didn't see you. I'm sorry I was so stupid. I wish I could turn back time and make everything right. I didn't know what love meant until I lost you. I... I am so sorry." He whispered so softly that only you could hear it.

------

What's going to happen? Will you stay or go?

--> chose Law and go to the heart pirates

--> chose Sanji and stay

Taglist @sophsgloom @nim-rose @iloveartofcartoons-blog @caffeinated-chicken-nuggets @mugiwarasoul19 @yeeeeezly @atanukileaf @rosemaplefairy90 @carpinchootaku @corvinalitbitina

#one piece fanfiction #one piece x you #trafalgar d water law #trafalgar law #trafalgar d law x reader #vinsmoke sanji #trafalgar law x y/n #law x reader #law x y/n #one piece sanji #vinsmoke sanji x reader #sanji x you #sanji x y/n #sanji x reader

394 notes · View notes

vidavalor · 6 months

Note

Ah, I remembered!

My question was: what are your thoughts on Crowley saying ‘I lost my best friend’ when he’s directly talking to Aziraphale’s non-corporate ghost in season 1? I always thought that line was strange. Is it that he can’t say ‘I lost you directly’ because others might be listening?

Hi @procrastiel ooh, nice! I *love* this scene so I'm super happy to share an opinion on it. Thank you. :)

Meta on the meanings behind what they call each other, what they intentionally *don't* call each other, how they actually said they loved each other and came up with a shorthand for it in 1941, and why they still don't just use those damn words already...

This goes everywhere, just FYI lol. I think I started with "no nightingales" and took a scenic route through 1600, 1941 and bits of S2 before coming back to the scene you asked about but I've been told it makes sense. Thanks for indulging me. :)

There are certain things that Crowley & Aziraphale feel that they can't call one another and can't say to one another directly. It's not just because they could be overheard if they're in public, though that's always a concern. They don't say them when they're alone, either.

It's because it hurts too much.

They've always tried to be optimistic about surviving Armageddon and being able to be together somehow but they're terrified that they won't and the odds, in their minds, aren't great, being that it's the whole will of God and all. As a result, they've lived their whole relationship expecting it to end in tragedy. They could both live for all of time, forced apart by Heaven and Hell. One of them could die and leave the other alone for eternity with nothing but the memory of the other. Meanwhile, in the now? It's not a great situation, either.

They can't really be together. They are together but not openly and they can't promise each other everything and they absolutely would if they could. Heaven and Hell could literally murder them if they got caught together so they have to be careful and keep it a secret. This means that even as the human world they live in opens up and starts to change to a point that queer humans like them are living more open lives with one another, Crowley and Aziraphale still cannot at this stage in the story.

So, it all becomes then an unspoken question of: what would make this easier? (As if it could ever really be made easier?) They don't wish to cause each other any additional pain. What would make it easier, they think, is if they don't say certain things so that what they can't have now or what might be lost to them in the future is and will be easier to bear.

This is delusional but they're doing it anyway because it gives them some measure of control over things they can't totally control.

They think it is easier to deal with not being able to be together if they just never say directly aloud what they are in terms that are surface-level undeniable. They speak in a coded language with one another and they say all the things in those words. But the doublespeak gives them some cover. Not to ever deny any of it but it softens the edges of it.

It's also because they live with the fact that they can't fully be together but they also both are fundamentally optimists and want to think that maybe, someday, they could find a way to have what they want to have with one another. That's also why they don't say the things fully. A part of them thinks that if they just don't right now and they wait until some time comes when it seems like they could have a life together, then they still get to have those moments. They're almost saving some of it for a life they hope they get to have but aren't sure if they will.

As a result, they are romantic as all fuck towards one another but they don't use words like romance or love aloud. If they do find they have to talk about it, they've shorthanded it in a way that they both understand because it's based on their past together. We already can see bits of it uncoded-- nightingales, dining at the Ritz-- but there are more than that that we can see if we deep dive a bit here so let's do that...

What's evident in the scene in 2.06 wherein Crowley decides to try to abandon the doublespeak is how deeply ingrained this way of speaking is for both of them. Also, how they don't abandon it when they're alone (the 1967 scene also illustrates this.) Crowley actually reverts back to their doublespeak *three sentences* into his proposal. He doesn't get much further than establishing that they've both been on this planet for a long time before he starts evoking coded messaging. He flicks his hands between them during the "you and me" line in a way that is echoing how Aziraphale gestured at him to mean "couple" in 1941. He winds up using coded language all over the place, peaking with the "no nightingales" moment that is actually coded language twice over because of "nightingales" being their word for romance and the asking Aziraphale to listen for birds evoking the Job minisode and the moment in the courtyard when they came up with the doublespeak.

Part of why Crowley can't get through the proposal without it is because he doesn't want to do it like this. Both the doublespeak and the idea of someday loosening it a bit mean things to them. They like their private language. Maggie and Nina are not exactly correct in assuming that they never say how they really feel. They're not wrong, either, but they're not fully right. Crowley and Aziraphale do talk. They just do it in a way that hurts them less because they can't bear to hurt each other because they're batshit crazy in love with each other. Maggie and Nina are correct in saying that Crowley and Aziraphale don't say how they truly feel if saying how you truly feel means using traditional language but they are wrong to say that they don't express these feelings at all because we have literally been watching them do so this entire time.

Notice how Crowley, even risking more with breaking their code in 2.06, still doesn't say some things. Amazing how he said all of that and he didn't say I love you, isn't it? He could have. He is, in what else he's saying, but the words they don't say are still there on the table. Aziraphale, later in the scene, almost does. He almost does because he is a mess over the situation and he wants to give Crowley something but then he doesn't and he spits out a self-aware I forgive you instead. That horrid, complicated version of it that he's used before and is code they both kind of hate. He's angry that this is all happening the way it's happening because it's taking some of the things they leave unsaid for hopeful, better days and it's saying them in a less than ideal moment.

That they both leave out that I love you, though, is the most I love you thing they could have possibly done.

They think it will be easier to not be free to be together and unafraid in the present-- and to maybe lose one another in the future, if they eventually have to-- if they pretend they're not a team or a group of the two of them and one way to do that is to never say words like the one we were all silently screaming at Crowley to say in that scene in 2.06 lol: "couple."

Are they a couple? Yes. Are they lovers? Yes. Are they partners, the term Nina used? Yes. Do they refer to their relationship using any of the terms in this paragraph? Oh God no...

That is why Crowley freaks out when Nina tries to get him to use uncoded, normal, human person language to help her understand what Crowley and Aziraphale's relationship is. She calls them partners and this is Crowley:

We're in agreement with Nina then when she responds with:

Nina isn't wrong here. She's just from a different world than Crowley. Nina lives in a world like ours in the year 2023 and she's puzzling Crowley and Aziraphale out through that filter. She doesn't know at this point that they are an angel and a demon who could be murdered by Heaven/Hell for being together. Her best rationale for why she's never seen Crowley and Aziraphale in her cafe together and didn't know until this week that the bookseller has a fella is her theory that Crowley is married and that he and Aziraphale are having an affair. To her, it explains why they've got chemistry for days but they're secretive. Crowley denies that-- defending Aziraphale's honor like the good old fashioned lover boy he is :)-- but the reason why he quickly denied that he and Aziraphale are partners, even if they absolutely are, is twofold. They are used to hiding it, it's dangerous for them to get caught out, and he probably feels uncomfortable with the idea of telling someone what they are exactly without talking with Aziraphale about it first-- that's all one reason.

The other reason is that he and Aziraphale don't use that word. It's not that it's an inaccurate one; it's probably the most accurate one, actually. They have a word, as we'll see, but partners isn't it because partners is the same thing as a couple and these are embargoed words to them. They don't use those phrases, even if that's what this is, just as they don't say I love you because if they don't call it love directly, they'll never lose that love, in their minds. If they don't know what it's like to hear the other say it, they don't ever have to bear the pain of never hearing it again. Better to hold those words back and only use them if they ever can somehow really be fully, openly together without fear. If Crowley doesn't use those words with Aziraphale, then he's not about to use them with the Coffee Shop Human he's only just recently met.

Along these same lines, they refrain from traditionally romantic terms of endearment on the surface. No my love, no darling, no sweetheart. Angel was there at the start and it stays because while it's always really angel (romantic), it's also angel (species/occupational), so it works well enough with their code. But its equivalent in reverse is Crowley. It's intimate, in the sense that only Crowley and Aziraphale know what it means. Only they were there in Job's courtyard. That's the coded layer of it-- it's Crowley's name to everyone else on the surface but it's that and a pet name to Aziraphale. It's why Aziraphale just calls him that constantly. Crowley changed his name to something only Aziraphale also really understands, making the use of it by Aziraphale then a way of expressing affection. When Nina asks them both separately about their relationship, both Crowley and Aziraphale actually revert to using what they call one another in an effort to explain it, even though they know that it doesn't translate fully in human terms without more words. Crowley says Aziraphale is an angel he knows; Aziraphale says:

Ironically? They are actually making it all *more* intimate by speaking in their own, private, coded language. They can't give each other everything but this they can, right? The language is their own, little world and not being able to explain their relationship to humans that well in 2023 doesn't mean they don't know what they mean to one another, which is more important. Since they can't make each other promises of forever that they can't keep and they can't have a life in the present that they'd choose for themselves, something they can do is use their little language to be sweet towards one another and they do. By having to work a little harder at conveying meaning through doublespeak, they wind up with something ironically actually at least as romantic as the traditional words, if not more so.

Anyone can call a lover darling and it can be lovely but can just anyone make my dear fellow romantic? Aziraphale can. This one was all him. He loved standing there in front of a dozen deadly human soldiers in the Kingdom of Wessex in 597 A.D., getting away with a pet name under the guise of stealing the "old sport"-style of male, moneyed, British speak and turning it romantic. This scene is great with the pet names because it opens with Aziraphale being a bit of a tease with "is that you under there, Crawley?" which he only does so that Crowley will roll his eyes and correct him. Aziraphale loves that Crowley changed his name to something coded between them based off of the moment they started their doublespeak. It was very romantic and this scene shows that Aziraphale sometimes, in earlier days, would call Crowley the old name just to get Crowley to correct him, which is all just a coded way of getting Crowley to say that, yes, he still feels the same way and yes, he still wants Aziraphale to call him that. This same scene, a few sentences later, then has Aziraphale's my DEAR fellow-- heavy emphasis on the 'dear'-- which is then answering Crowley's admission by just skipping any and all of Crowley's names entirely lol and calling The Black Knight my dear in front of a bunch of bloodthirsty soldiers and mercenaries.

The my [] fellow is perfect in their little language because of how it sounds all "I say, old chap!" on the surface but contains words that are romantic to them in their doublespeak. It's intentional that it's *not* "old chap" or "old sport" that they appropriated for their own purposes, it's my [] fellow. Fellow as in human, which is how they see their relationship (because it is) and that's something that comes up when Crowley uses a variant of this in 1941, which we'll get to in a second. My adds an intimate element to it of admitting that they are each other's in whatever ways they can be.

Aziraphale, like we said a moment ago, will sometimes sauce Crowley with the pet names a little and he does in S1 when he calls Anathema my dear when reassuring her in a scene in which he and Crowley are having a playful coded argument over Crowley's driving. Aziraphale miracles a bike rack onto the back of The Bentley and unnecessarily codes the word "bicycle" ("a perfectly normal velocipede"), smirking when Crowley grumbles "bicycle" at him. It's joking with him a bit at the lunacy of their little language *in* their little language. (Crowley playing back during this sequence is also calling Aziraphale angel (romantic) in front of Anathema, which was also a strategic decision to signal to her that he might look like a murder hornet but he's really just long-suffering gone on the sunshine-y one. Very we're just an old gay married couple, hen. We won't hurt you. in tone.) Anyway, Aziraphale using my dear with Anathema-- and his little smirks towards Crowley around it-- was really just underlining the way he uses my DEAR fellow with Crowley by using the same core phrase with a human in normal, uncoded, human conversation.

Other than this and the big one we're going to get to, there are really only two other things we've seen them use to refer to one another. In S1's Eleven Years Ago/2008, there's the moment when Crowley and Aziraphale have arrived back at the bookshop and Aziraphale is flirting with Crowley and says this, tongue firmly in cheek:

I mentioned this in another post about the wall slam in Tadfield but this is a very much intentionally blasphemous specific sexual request that is more at home in the sex meta post you all have me working on lol but for the purposes of this conversation, "foul fiend" is Bible for "wicked demon", so this is Aziraphale just kind of flirtily, jokingly calling Crowley a wicked demon in the one area in life where Crowley would probably happily own that description lol. It also has the other layer of humor in it in that Crowley calls Aziraphale angel (romantic) all the time, more often than he uses Aziraphale's actual name, and you'd think he wouldn't want to because Heaven hasn't exactly done right by Crowley and he's not especially fond of it. By calling Aziraphale angel with love behind the meaning of it, he's calling Aziraphale a good angel. He's saying that Aziraphale is what an angel is *supposed*to be, something that Aziraphale struggles with. It's both sweet and reassuring at the same time. As a result, Aziraphale has never just started calling Crowley "demon" for the same reasons-- he thinks if being a demon is being demonic and truly evil, then Crowley is a terrible demon because he's a lovely person. He is, however, positively wicked in bed, and Aziraphale likes to mock their whole situation with blasphemous Bible innuendo when requesting a little hellfire.

The other thing to briefly mention before we get into the friend discussion is a scene not long after the one we just talked about, when they're both smashed in the bookshop in S1. When he's drunk and attempting to say "bouillabaisse", Crowley gets distracted staring at Aziraphale for a moment and calls him baby before going back to his attempts at saying a word (in French, their romance language, per S2) and we get the "fish stew-- anyway!" segue back into the rest of the scene. Aziraphale was too drunk to notice enough to react so this opens up the question of whether or not the rules can get slightly more lax in bed. Does Crowley call Aziraphale baby in more intimate moments or does he just want to and it slipped out when he was drunk? It's a fairly normal phrase so it both would and would not be a surprise either way but it's still something of a question mark by the end of S2.

But there's one thing that they use that pertains to your question from the Discorporated!Aziraphale scene (told you we'd start to get here eventually lol) and that's how they use the word friend.

The rules of their language apply-- what is said on the surface is what one of the meanings of what they are saying is. It has to be what it sounds like on the surface to also be a coded thing. Aziraphale is Aziraphale's name and angel is what he is and Crowley is the name Crowley chose for himself. That angel and Crowley have hidden meanings-- that angel is given a tone that turns it from referring to Aziraphale by his species and more into angel (romantic); that Crowley is the name everyone calls Crowley now-- from angels to demons to humans alike-- but only Aziraphale knows that it's an in-joke referencing Crowley having to playact at being demonic and evil to hide his truer, sweeter nature... this is what makes these terms acceptable in their mutual language. My [] fellow is then also meeting the rules of the language because of the humor of taking a non-romantic phrase and using it for this romance of theirs that they don't refer to as one. It sounds like a perfect common thing for British men of any kind of relationship to use in conversation on the surface but it's romantic to them underneath.

So when they say friend, by their own rules of this language, it has to first contain the surface meaning. It has to be true on that level to reoccur in their language. So 'friend' does mean 'friend' in a friendship sense. They are friends. They are good friends-- best friends. Using the word is an admittance that they are each other's closest friends, which is both lovely in its own right and healthy in a romantic relationship. You want to be friends with your romantic partner. It doesn't mean you can't have other friends, of course, but if you're not friends with your partner, it's not really going to be a terribly satisfying relationship and since that is what they are-- the longest-running of long-term relationships lol-- that they are friends is important and a good thing. It's also a big deal for them to admit to it, since they are actually *supposed* to be mortal enemies. Their whole enemies-to-lovers thing never really got off the ground because they adored each other on sight but that they're friends despite the danger and the conflicts is a big thing in its own right.

But that's not the *only* meaning of friend to them, so let's look at how they evolved that bit of their language.

From what we've seen so far, it started in 1600 in The Globe Theatre scene with this:

In 1600, Burbage drops some human, queer coding into the secret language. Friend, the way Burbage is using it, is something that's actually implying lover. The surface word is technically related to friendship but the tone changes the meaning of friendship in this context to be that of a sexual relationship. Burbage's tone implies that he thinks Crowley and Aziraphale are fucking (which Crowley, laughing, silently agrees with is obvious, since he's been ignoring Burbage in favor of buzzing around Aziraphale and clearly trying to flirt his way into his bed).

Burbage is pissed that these two-- who, as we know, are basically the entire audience-- have been ignoring his monologue in favor of flirting with each other so when Aziraphale tries at a modicum of politeness (that somehow is even bitchier subtly than Burbage lol-- "I love all the... talking" is the best he can come up with), Burbage slings back by trying to drag Crowley into it by calling him Aziraphale's friend, with that loaded tone that makes the question really: 'and what does your lover think?'

Aziraphale gets the innuendo-- he's not exactly a novice at this in 1600-- but his immediate response is just to panic at the idea of anyone noticing him and Crowley together and, as Aziraphale does when stressed, he lies in increasingly absurd levels of untruth. (See also: the scene with Shax in The Bentley in S2, when he spirals up into ludicrously claiming to *not even know who Gabriel is* in an effort to say that he has nothing to do with his disappearance.)

Crowley is bemused by Aziraphale's increasingly desperate attempts to deny what is abundantly obvious to everyone around them and by Burbage's attempt to make a thing out of them to try to assuage his bruised ego. He chooses a little violence with this particularly amusing bit of go fuck yourself, you insecure little twerp:

Anyway lol what this scene then does is give us a moment in the story wherein we see them in a situation where friend (loaded) is defined as friend used euphemistically for lover and they both know it. This isn't coding they came up with but that they will wind up appropriating from the humans around them and repurposing for themselves, though they won't for awhile still to come yet.

What's worth noting here is that friend (loaded) in this human code is euphemistic for a pretty wide array of loaded friend relationships. There's no separation in it for friends with benefits versus someone you're seeing but aren't comfortable admitting that versus someone you've been with for awhile versus the person that is basically your secret spouse, etc.. All of these things are friend (loaded) in human code because the main purpose of it is to identify a pair of people who are involved as such without directly saying so on the surface, even if it's implied heavily via tone.

So what happens when Crowley and Aziraphale eventually decide to repurpose it for themselves?

They've got to be clear on what it means. They'll need to define it more specifically amongst themselves in order to use it.

For awhile still after 1600, they just aren't defining their relationship. They don't need friend (loaded) because they have things they call each other, right? They've got angel and Crowley and my dear fellow and the like. They're not usually around a lot of other humans together that are going to do what Burbage did and try to force a definition of it. (This changes, as we know, in the modern era-- especially S2-- but back in the day, it was true for them.) As a result, they've never had to define this and that's absolutely fucking perfect, as far as they're concerned.

Not defining this? Lovely. Yes. More of that. Makes the fact that they can't just call each other my love hurt a lot less, they're convinced. It helps now for sure and it'll make it less painful if they lose each other. They totally will not at all continue to spend thousands of years wondering what it would sound like if they said the things. They don't each have fourteen million fantasies about being able to use the traditional words and how they'd do it-- absolutely not lol. *Not* using the traditional words isn't at all making both the allure of those words-- and the ones they *do* use-- hotter and more romantic or anything. Not in the slightest...

So then we eventually get the Holy Water Arc, right, and in the middle of that scene, we see them run into a definition problem. In 1862, what actually causes them to fight isn't the holy water request. It's Aziraphale giving it all a word and that word being "fraternizing." First rule of We Don't Say It Club is that we don't say it... but it's also that if you're going to say a word that means the two of you and what you have, maybe don't use the one that Heaven would-- the one that means 'socializing with the enemy.' In Aziraphale's defense, they're both a mess and half-broken up in this scene and there's more going on it than we're going to get into here but the point is that suddenly not having a word caused big drama and caused the whole holy water conversation to de-evolve into an argument that broke them up for the eleven or so minutes that they can stay broken up.

But they still hadn't really resolved the whole holy water argument debacle by 1941, even if there is evidence in the show that they saw one another between 1862 and 1941, and the reason why they haven't is because holy water is irretrievably linked to defining what they are.

Crowley asking for it meant they had to consider what they are to one another and talk about it and 1862 proved their language didn't have words for that at the time. There is a level of panic to it because the request contains a certain level of acknowledgement about how they feel about each other. Aziraphale jumps onto holy water being a suicide pill not just because he's terribly worried that that's why a visibly anxious and depressed Crowley wants it but because if it's not what Crowley wants it for, then Crowley is saying he wants it for defense and whose defense, right? Not just his own, potentially. It's very much saying that he wants it to protect not just himself but Aziraphale from Hell and now we're talking about Crowley being willing to risk the wrath of Hell and maybe get himself killed trying to protect Aziraphale from harm and now, we're closer than ever to that I love you under the surface and they panic and they avoid it for 80 some odd years entirely until World War II...

...and then we arrive at The Blitz in 1941. We are now a scant one hundred years or so until 6,000 years being up since the creation of Earth and Armageddon was always going to happen in "*about* 6,000 years" so, for all they know, this is it... and Crowley in 1600 told you how he feels about sad endings:

So while rescuing Aziraphale is nothing new, Crowley turned up in 1941 with the intent of making a better ending, in case they had now found themselves at the start of the end of the world. They were almost out of time either way and he didn't want it all to end without them having said the things but also they didn't know *for sure* if this was it... and they still can't be together if it isn't... so Crowley can't just show up and be like so, angel, I've been meaning to tell you in the actual words for the last six millennia-- I'm madly in love with you. He has to find a way to do it in their language of doublespeak. And so, here's Crowley using friend (loaded) in front of the Nazis in 1941:

By using my friend in the church, Crowley is then actually euphemistically calling Aziraphale my lover by calling back to The Globe Theatre and stealing the human coded term that Burbage used. Crowley does not care what the Nazis think. The comment isn't for them; it's for Aziraphale. So is letting Aziraphale find out about his first name, which is also calling back to The Globe Theatre. ("Anthony", pronounced "Antony", as in Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra', the play in which Shakespeare put the love poetry he stole that Crowley wrote for Aziraphale.) So is referencing the unguarded holy water in the church, which is then trying to talk about it a little by connecting it to this romantic grand gesture here and acknowledging why they panicked over it all those years ago. It's all saying I'm in love with you in their little language in the best way Crowley can in this moment.

But what did we say about friend (loaded)? We said they have to define it, right?

Because it can mean different things. Crowley isn't wrong to use it and Aziraphale understands it the way he does in the church. He understands it to euphemistically refer to them as lovers, which they are. It's just that all of this combined with Crowley saving the books then makes Aziraphale realize that it's one thing to say my friend (loaded) but if you say it and then there's holy water referencing and then there's more of the Shakespeare scene in there with Anthony and the little "you don't like it?" pout and then there's the entered a church for you and... you put all of that together with little demonic miracle of my own and saving the books...

...and Aziraphale realizes that Crowley is taking the thing that they always were-- my friend (loaded)-- and using it in the middle of saying that he's in love with him.

Crowley is trying to give it a word.

The word he's using meets all their language rules. It's from a moment in their past. It has a true surface meaning and a loaded undertone and subtext for days. He's not asking Aziraphale to use it. He's not saying the actual thing, as that would be breaking their rules, but he is absolutely saying it in their language.

He's not asking Aziraphale for it in return. He's just saying that this could all be over soon and he needed Aziraphale to know and in some ways, it's an apology of sorts. He's sorry they fought. He's sorry they lost years over it. He's sorry for the pain of it. He was in love, you see. The sex while pining got to be a lot. All of this got to be a lot. You get it now right, Aziraphale? Yes? Good. Lift home...

The phrase my friend (loaded) takes on a different meaning after Crowley saves the books and after their conversation inside and outside The Bentley. That's the point of the two "shut up"s-- the one from Part 1 and the one right after it where Part 2 picks up. Why have this conversation twice? Because it's actually two different conversations.

The first one outside The Bentley is Aziraphale in a love stupor, just telling Crowley that saving the books was a nice thing and Crowley responding with a half-effort "shut up" while he cleans his glasses. It's the only scene in the entire series to date in which Crowley is cleaning his glasses and he is in this moment to give Aziraphale his eyes for a moment. But The Blitz, Part 2 shows us this again... and then gives us the scene in The Bentley with what starts out sounding like the same conversation on the surface to start. It is, though, not the same conversation *under* the surface...

There's a reason why Aziraphale says a second time that saving the books was a nice thing. They're now in The Bentley, which is a little more private, and Aziraphale can't let this drop because he needs to know for sure what Crowley is saying with this and if Crowley's sure he wants to be saying what it seems like he's saying. This is basically Aziraphale's version of Crowley's "are you sure? are you sure you're sure?" in the magic shop later on. Aziraphale knows Crowley just said he's in love with him but Aziraphale also knows *Crowley*, right?

He's been with Crowley for a long time. He knows him very well. He knows that Crowley is anxious and emotional and hopelessly romantic and that the world is literally ending around them as they're driving through bombs raining down over London and part of Aziraphale is thinking of the fact that even in this seemingly apocalyptic Armageddon that could be starting here, Crowley was coded in what he just did. He left the traditional words on the table. He said the things in their language and that is, in some ways, even more romantic, but he's left them the things they leave out of hope for a better future, just in case. There's a caution to that and while Aziraphale appreciates the caution, he also can sense that Crowley was nervous about doing this. He is a little concerned that Crowley's going to have said he loved him and then regret it and pull away from him again and Aziraphale can't do the first bit of the Holy Water Arc all over again. He's really wanting to start to move into a lighter era here lol. He also really wants to be sure that he's understanding what Crowley is saying entirely.

And he wants to hear it again.

If Crowley isn't going to shut down on him entirely now, Aziraphale very much liked all of this and would like more of it but he first has to be sure he knows for sure what Crowley means and he can't just ask directly or he's both saying the things they leave unsaid and he'd be undoing Crowley's effort so he has to find a way to ask without directly asking and in such a way that an already sensitive about all of this Crowley won't take offense or be embarrassed and that gives them a way back from this if Crowley shows signs that he feels like he might have gone too far.

So Aziraphale offers Crowley an out.

He tells him again that it was such a nice thing Crowley did for him. He means this and it was a nice thing but this is also saying that he heard that I'm in love with you that Crowley was saying by saving his books and that he liked hearing it, that it was nice, that it was okay that Crowley did that, but that it's also okay if he feels like he made a mistake with it.

Crowley's response to again being told that it was nice is to again tell Aziraphale to "shut up", this one a bit more emphatically than he did outside The Bentley a few moments before. It's unclear to what extent this language, at this time, is sexualized, but by 2019/S1, this back and forth of Aziraphale calling Crowley "nice" and Crowley responding with some bite is a self-parodic sex game that they're playing in Tadfield.

Much of what happens in Tadfield is playing on other parts of their story-- think about the paintball bit with the gun but now with knowledge of The Bullet Catch in The Blitz, Part 2-- and there is a big difference in the ways Aziraphale calls Crowley "nice" in 1941 and in 2019. In Tadfield in 2019, Aziraphale is literally smirking in a way that implies that this is a little game they play and he's saying a series of things that he knows will prompt this intentionally outsized reaction from Crowley, who is playing it with him. The game is likely tied *to* this bit of 1941 that we see in The Blitz, Part 2 in S2, in that it's referencing it a bit (if very obviously going in a different direction lol), but also because Aziraphale's phrasing and tone in 1941 is not smirking. It's softer and quieter and not designed, through their language, to prompt a certain response out of Crowley. It's not yet a sex game, it's still a kind of conversation they've had in the past that will serve as inspiration for said sex game in the future.

While it's a bit unclear if a version of this already existed in 1941 or if 1941 is part of the evolution to what it becomes by 2019, there's a tone to it in The Bentley in 1941 that says that, at the least, Crowley suspects that Aziraphale is trying to lure him towards sex by calling him nice and that's reinforced by the next thing Aziraphale says, which continues it, but is also doing so to provide Crowley with an out to his confession of love, in case Crowley wants to take it.

Aziraphale's out comes in the form of offering him sex, which is absolutely what this is:

Oh, gee, Aziraphale, whatever could you do in this moment here in The Bentley? You aren't at all telling him you'd do literally anything he says he wants right now, right here, in his damn car, are you?

But while Aziraphale would so absolutely yes because lawd, 1941 Crowley is sldjwkejele... look at what he's *really* saying as well...

What he's saying here is we can pretend you just did all of that for sex, if you want to. I know you didn't and you know you didn't but we are good at pretending and if you're silently having an anxiety attack behind your glasses over there, we don't have do this...

Crowley's response?

The quiet "forget it, will you?"

Meaning: I don't want to take it back. I'm in love with you. I wanted to say it. I meant to say it. Everything might be going to go pear-shaped and I wanted to have said it somehow. I don't need you to say it. I don't know what I expected but I also maybe kinda didn't want the response to be 'aww, you're sweet... do you want a blowjob?' so maybe let's just drop this. We're going to never speak of this again now. Moving onto spreading the demon drink...

Crowley turns down Aziraphale's offer to make it about sex and, in doing so, Crowley says indisputably that it's about love. If he had taken up Aziraphale's offer in that moment, then it would have been agreeing to pretend that he's never said he's in love with Aziraphale and to instead pretend that the romantic-looking things were all an effort to get into Aziraphale's pants. When he turns down sex, Aziraphale smiles softly because, to him, *this* is then really the moment that Crowley said he loves him.

Aziraphale knows for sure now what Crowley was saying and my friend (loaded) now has a definition between them that means the whole deal. Since Crowley said the thing that meant lovers euphemistically as part of saying he's in love with him, then my friend (loaded) is now forever part of the night during The Blitz in 1941 when Crowley said he was in love with him, which means that they can't use any version of friend (loaded) with each other without that being part of it. Friend (loaded) always meant lovers (sexual partners) but now it also means lovers (romantic partners) as well. It's not that they just suddenly became romantic partners because it's been a romance all along but now they're acknowledging it in a way they can't go back from and they do so by giving what they are to one another a word in their secret language.

Aziraphale then wants to return the feeling. Crowley is saying that he doesn't need him to by telling him to forget it about it and wanting to move on from it but Aziraphale can't accept that. Crowley might be right-- this could be it-- and like Aziraphale's going to let Crowley potentially soon go to his grave without telling him he's not alone in how he feels. That's not happening. However you think the events happened to give Aziraphale the opportunity to rescue Crowley from the wrath of Mrs. H-- divine fate, Aziraphale miracling the bottles broken, The Bentley shipping it and helping Aziraphale, all of the above, etc..-- he gets the chance not ten minutes later and he takes it... and, of course, what does he use?

My good friend (loaded af lol).

They've already just redefined my friend (loaded) by this point, so to turn around and use it is to tell Crowley I feel the same way. I love you, too. This is Crowley's change in expression in reaction in that above gif. It's one thing when Aziraphale volunteers to help-- that is sweet and Crowley's all eyebrows raised in intrigued surprise. His whole expression then slips from that into being stunned when he hears my good friend and he realizes that Aziraphale is now grand gesturing *him*. He's realizing that the bit in the car really was just an offer of an out, not just that plus Aziraphale saying he was uncomfortable with what Crowley had said and needing it to stay a lot more hidden beneath a cover of sex. It was Aziraphale needing to be sure he understood and needing to be sure that Crowley was sure he wanted to make this change in how they are but now that he's sure on those things, Aziraphale is actually all in for it.

Worth mentioning that my good friend (loaded) is a mashup of my friend and my dear fellow, which makes it extra sweet. Just as Crowley started this by calling back to The Globe Theatre by using my friend (loaded), Aziraphale is calling back to the my dear fellow rhythm of what he's called Crowley for centuries. It says I love you and every 'my dear fellow' was not just fondness but an 'I love you', if you didn't already know. I've loved you forever.

It's also quite literally calling Crowley 'good', which is not something that he really believes about himself but is something Aziraphale believes about him. His good friend, as in close friend, but also his good friend, as in good person. He also does nothing to discourage Mrs. H's inevitable understanding that he and Crowley are a couple. He gestures between them to indicate it. He uses my good friend in such a way that it's just the same thing queer humans of the time would have said to someone low-risk (a theatre person) in London during WW2. It's completely inverted from his response to Burbage in a different theatre in 1600, in the moment this whole friend thing became a thing for them, which is also intentional. It's telling Crowley he understood all the things Crowley was saying in the church and he feels them, too.

Then, there's this, once they're back the bookshop:

Here, we're acknowledging what friends means now by pausing and emphasizing it. "That's what friends are for" is not a phrase that would require the pause and the tone on friends if friendship was all "friends" meant to them. It's not now and this is acknowledging that.

Note Crowley's little lip twitch/almost-sad-smile at what Aziraphale is saying. It's agreement. It's assent. This is them confirming that they understand what the other is saying and giving this new word a home in their language.

This is then what they call each other now when they need to talk about it and it's my friend on the surface and it's my love underneath.

There's a sadness to it. How nice it would be to just be able to say it... It's also a moment of realizing that they aren't sure they can use this word all the time. It's good to have a word and a shared understanding of what it means and they have no desire to take back these confessions of love here but while it's lovely to have said this now, it's also a bit heartbreaking.

Aziraphale's heartbreak, his little Crowley move of putting on his (transparent lol) glasses, his brave smile, and then how quickly they both transition from this conversation into The West End, The West End and I'm a lonely G.I... and The farthing *has vanished*! It shows you how accustomed they are to burying the pain under trying to live in the moment for one another.

A few moments after this, Aziraphale will be showing Crowley some of his human magic tricks in preparation for performing on stage and when they get to the point where Aziraphale is telling Crowley about Goldstone's Magic Shop, he then tells him that it's not for him because it's "for professional conjurers only."

This is somewhat unintentional metaphor on Aziraphale's part that Crowley then acknowledges and turns into coded language in his response. Aziraphale's love of human magic is metaphorical for his love of humanity and living in a way as to indulge his humanity in a way that angels have been taught not to do. The reason why Aziraphale's love of magic is this metaphor and not, say, his love of books or music or food, is because all of the other things that Aziraphale likes about the human experiences can be dismissed by him as relating to understanding the human experience *so as to be a better angel.* He's really not a student of humanity just to learn how to better guide them. He admits to Adam in front of Crowley in S1 that he thinks that humans are the ones who get it when he tells him that he hoped Adam would be good and worried he'd be evil but that he's something better than either of those-- he's human incarnate. Aziraphale can justify most of his indulgences as being related to learning human ways to relate to them to help them-- food, books (his home and his book collection can be justified as necessary cover for his angelic embassy), music, etc.... but the love of human magic?

Aziraphale just loves it. It's for him. It's his hobby. He thinks it's a little selfish and probably a lot unbecoming of an angel. He'd completely just want this for a job and he's not supposed to want a job other than to be an angel, which is supposed to be the bestest job imaginable lol. What kind of angel wants a silly human job? What kind of angel with actual magical powers is obsessed with human magic? Aziraphale is. He's endlessly fascinated. It makes him happy. It brings him joy. It's the part of living as a human that he's done in such a way that it's just for him and in such a way that it conflicts a bit with his role as an angel. The only other way Aziraphale loves like this, in this human way? The only other thing he studies at to be a better human over being a better angel?

Crowley.

So when Aziraphale says that he can't go to Goldstone's because it's "for professional conjurers only", Crowley knows that what Aziraphale is really saying is that the shop is "for actual humans only". He knows Aziraphale is admitting that he's sometimes insecure about his ability to be human because of how his humanity is tied to being an angel. Crowley knows that they're talking about Aziraphale and his human magic love on one level but that they're also talking about them and their relationship on another level. This is Aziraphale saying that he loves human magic with a passion but he's not sure he's as good as it as he could be or as he wants to be because maybe he doesn't know everything about being a human in the way that the "professional conjurers"-- humans-- know... and everything we just said he's unsure about with relation to human magic is also how he feels sometimes about loving Crowley.

This conversation is happening in an overlapping way with their friend confessions and Crowley hears that Aziraphale is saying in there that he loves Crowley with a passion but he's not always sure that he's studied enough, that he knows enough, about being human to be what Crowley deserves. He would love to go to this magic shop but he's afraid that it's not meant for him. He struggles, as Crowley already knows, with how he's not supposed to want it but oh he wants and he can't help but love magic and he can't help but love Crowley... all of which prompts Crowley to reassure him, using a now-familiar bit of their language:

"You, my Nefertiti-fooling fellow, are about to perform on the West End stage. If that doesn't make you a 'professional conjurer'... I don't know what does."

Meaning:

You, my human-passing man, are so good at this that you fooled the Ancient Egyptian Queen. You're about to perform your human magic on stage-- to make yourself vulnerable in a way that scares humans. You are always willing to take risks like that and try something new and learn more about being human and that makes you human. It's human to not totally know how to be human, I think. You're doing all of this tonight because you love me. It doesn't matter if you're a good magician or not. This love of ours is human and you're very good at it. You love me very well. If loving me doesn't make you a 'professional conjurer'... I don't know what does.

Crowley uses my [] fellow to emphasize my friend (loaded) by using the term of endearment that Aziraphale himself started that has human connotations to make the point that their love makes them human and to tell Aziraphale that he's very good at their love.

Aziraphale, understandably melting over that:

And then? They just keep using my friend. For decades. Through S2.

What makes it work for so long is the fact that it's human-coded in origin so if they run into a situation where they need to refer to one another like this, they can use it and it doesn't get a lot of questions. After the partners scene with Nina, Crowley uses my friend without thinking twice about it, telling her that she'll be safe in the bookshop because "my friend would never let anything happen to you." Nina already gets that they're friend (loaded) and she doesn't know what using friend means to them because only they know about 1941 but it's a phrase that they can use with the outside world if they need to but that mostly stays between them because only they know that, in their language, my friend = my love.

So when Crowley says I lost my best friend in the Discorporated!Aziraphale scene in S1, he means that he lost his best friend but he *also* really means I lost the love of my life.

The first thing my best friend means is just the actual, uncoded definition-- what the words really mean as they are. Aziraphale is Crowley's best friend. Whatever else they are to one another, they've always been that. The idea that he'd have to go through the end of the world and whatever came after without his best friend devastated him. In a lot of ways, it's sweeter than saying anything else, even if they weren't in a public space, because it's saying that what he'd miss the most is just having his partner in crime in life. The other layer of it is the coded layer. Since they are a couple that uses my friend in an euphemistic way for my love, then Crowley's my best friend in 2019 is the same thing as Aziraphale's my good friend was in 1941. It is my best friend on the surface and it is that but it's also my love beneath it.

This scene is also then the same thing in meaning:

And by S1's present of 2019, they're at a point of using it in an argument, which provides them the means to talk in a way they didn't have in 1862. Yeah, they have their dramatic little breakup spats but this is actually a marked improvement over where they were before the holy water mess. So now watch this bit of the bandstand again here below for the friend (loaded)...

Remember that Aziraphale lies increasing bits of absurdity when stressed and that Crowley knows that. He dismisses what Aziraphale says with that "you doooo" when Aziraphale tries the *utterly ridiculous* "I don't even like you" lol. They're both panicked about the end of the world here in Ineffable Divorce: Round One and Crowley's trying to get them to run away again, which is a terrible idea, but in the process of suggesting it, Crowley is calling them friends (now eternally loaded, as we just spent this meta proving lol) and...

...*how long* have they been friends does he say?

So, how long have they been in love, per their language, per Crowley in the bandstand scene?

Six thousand years.

Since the start.

Vavoom. Sorted. :)

#ineffable husbands #good omens #crowley #aziraphale #good omens 2 #good omens meta #good omens 1941

374 notes · View notes

writingquestionsanswered · 7 months

Note

Hey this is pretty out there but I'm a virgin who's trying to write sex scenes and my biggest concern is I won't be able to convey the emotions and feelings right... any tips?

It would be super helpful 💖

Writing a Sex Scene Without Experience

The thing about sex is it's not just one thing that's experienced one way. No one can say "write it like this" and you're good to go. The whole act--the build up, the actions, the feelings, the emotions--all depends on the specific people involved, who they are, what they know, how they relate to one another, exactly what happens, past experience, even personality and mood. And to top it off, all of those things matter for the person writing it, too.

This is why experience is really helpful if you're trying to write a sex scene, because you can take that experience and knowledge and put them through the filter of your characters' personality, mood, experience, etc. And obviously, you can't really do that without experience because you have no baseline to filter through your characters' own point-of-view.

So... that said, there are two alternatives you can fall back on if you need to write a sex scene without experience:

#1 - Get Fictional Experience - Believe it or not, fictional experience does make a difference, and by "fictional experience" I mean watching TV shows and movies with sex scenes, reading books and stories with sex scenes, and reading informational articles about sex scenes. You don't even need to read or watch anything explicit... there are various "spice" levels to all of it. How explicit you get into things is entirely up to you, so you can match the level of fictional sex scenes you experience to the level of what you want to write. Just be sure to pay close attention to build-up (including what the relationship and interaction are like beforehand), body language, facial expressions, actions, etc. (And when reading these scenes, pay special attention to word choice, pacing, and sensory detail.) Also: although I'm not going to write such a guide, there actually are writing guides out there (including whole books) that go into detail about how to write these types of scenes. You'll still want to filter the information through your own characters' POVs, however.

#2 - Fade to Black - Some writers without sexual experience choose not to write sex scenes at all, instead using some form of a "fade to black." I talk about different ways to do that in my post Non-Explicit Sex Scene. There's still plenty of opportunity for exploring the deep romantic feelings that lead up to and follow intercourse, but you don't have to worry about fitting those feelings into the actual sex act. I have a lot of posts in my Relationships: Romance master list of post that can help you with all of that.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

LEARN MORE about WQA

SEE MY ask policies

VISIT MY Master List of Top Posts

COFFEE & COMMISSIONS ko-fi.com/wqa

#writing tips #writing help #writing advice #wqaadvice

290 notes · View notes

riminiscensce · 8 days

Text

I CAN SEE YOU ִ ࣪𖤐

Wriothesley

SYNOPSIS … “and we keep everything professional, but something’s changed, it’s something I like.” “and I could see you being my addiction, you can see me as a secret mission.”

NOTES … happy ttpd day (was hurt when listening to robin and peter)

CONTENTS … sfw , romance , slight angst , minor kissing scene , mentions of power difference , gender neutral reader

Word Count … 1469

Genshin Impact (Taylor’s Version) Masterlist

Feelings and work never go well together. Wriothesley knows that better than anyone and does exactly what he should be doing; avoid mixing the two together.

Matters in the fortress were already quite a lot to bear, a lot can be added with something such as personal affairs. He doesn’t play into favorites, the idea of it was unfair and overall cruel to think about from an outside perspective.

He doesn’t want anyone in his workplace to paint him as something so horrid as that. It was all to avoid internal conflicts between the work environment of meropide to ensure things go as smoothly as possible.

As much as Wriothesley does what should be done; he also does what shouldn’t even be considerable in this environment.

He only realized this when he found himself paying more attention to another person rather than the rest. If anyone were to read his thoughts, he would defend himself that he genuinely tries to not further it more.

But sometimes when you gesture to each other a small nod along the hallways, Wriothesley really can’t help but think what would happen if it were more than that. More than just simply respect out of a higher up. Whaf would it be if it were something personal.

So he starts watching you; he watches your cooperation with the other guards, your assistance towards the convicts, and even the way you'd sometimes slip in the slippery, wet pipes during your shifts.

But he should’ve given you more credit, not realizing how easily you must have spotted his watchful eyes. He hears you hum, “His grace being out of his office at this time of the day, has something happened?”

“Yes, well…” he ponders for a while. “I thought I heard an explosive.”

“Ah,” Wriothesley looks at your confused expression, somehow noting how level-headed you are. “That's odd, I haven't heard nor felt anything of the sorts…”

If it were anyone else hearing Wriothesley's words just then, they would have panicked at the word “explosive”, yet he felt like laughing a bit at how you weren’t that. “Maybe it was just in my head,”

“Hallucinating? May e you should visit Miss Sigewinne.” Despite your words that were meant to deliver worry, it felt indifferent to your normal tone; something level-headed and calm.

Wriothesley immediately rejects the idea, somehow convincing you that he didn’t feel any headache of any sorts.

“If not, perhaps you just need a meal?” You smile at his stubbornness regarding this hallucination of his, to which Wriothesley felt slightly embarrassed that he let someone think that he’s starting to lose his mind.

“That's probably it,” He admits, shaking off the sudden tension he felt with his previous actions. “Then join me for lunch? you’ve been working for a while,”

“Ah, so his grace was watching me. Thank you for confirming.”

Now he felt genuinely caught.

-ˋˏ✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

Ever since the first time Wriothesley has ever gotten to speak to you properly outside of professional matters, he has been talking to you a whole lot in and out of his office.

Whenever you would get suspicious of his sudden visitations during working hours, he’d always excuse himself to merely seeing how everyone was doing and that you weren’t the only one he’s seeing. Which at first you found to be believable.

If it weren’t for the outside glances, you would have kept believing that.

It didn’t take long for the quiet rumors to turn into loud ones, which bothers Wriothesley. Has his “i don’t play favorites” persona died?

He wonders if he should stop making cuts in his schedule to see you. If this word continues to spread, who knows what mistreatment you might receive from both the convicts and the guards. He grumbles at the thought.

But he always seemed to give you less and less credit, he remembers just that when you were the one who felt more astray from him. The one who was supposed to treat you indifferently was the one being treated indifferently, by you.

Sharing a conversation with each other starts to happen rarely and eventually never, and if it did happen it would have been kept short and professional.

Lunch breaks were once again spent inside his office, all by himself with only stacks of paperworks to accompany him instead of your calm musings.

Passing by one another in the hallway felt wrong. You merely send a simple nod to him, like how you would to another one of your coworkers.

Sometimes, Wriothesley just hopes that you weren’t so nonchalant about it all. He just hoped that you weren’t thinking that it was for the best for the both of you, and his title. He just wonders if it doesn’t bother you how you two never talk the same way before?

He only wished that you would come knocking in his office, claiming that you had missed your shared talks with one another. How you’d missed the lunches you shared together. How you had missed him.

What would he do if it ever happens?

“Your grace?” Wriothesley turns to see you, in his office. Just you and him in his office. “I’ve been knocking for a while and thought you were asleep so,”

Why are you here? Did his unspoken wishes somehow come true? it felt stupid and childish but really, Wriothesley felt amused by the thought of it.

“I was sent to deliver these.” Ah, he watches as you pile some files on the table. So that's why.

“Thank you,” You were done with your task, but neither you and him did nor say anything.

Which somehow felt weird considering you two haven’t properly talked for a while.

“You should…” You drag out with a smile, “Get some sleep.”

He returns your smile, the way it would usually be. “Don’t worry, I usually nap every so often.”

“I meant sleep, Wriothesley.”

He likes the way you say his name.

“Those are two different things.”

He knows— well he does now that he was reminded of it. “Surely you knew what you did,”

“Would you like me to address you as ‘your grace’?”

“Not really,” It was almost embarrassing how he responded immediately to your question, as if offended that you would even ask him that.

You laugh at this, and he figures that he likes the way your voice echoes in his empty office.

“You should be leaving now.” Yes, you should be.

“I should,” So why aren’t you leaving? “I simply want to apologize.”

He stays silent, reading his quietness as a way of asking why.

“I shouldn't have indulged in those conversations of ours, I wouldn't want to ruin your image.” Usually he would like your words, but he finds himself hating the way you were apologizing as if it was your fault for his self-indulgent behaviors. And to top it off, he felt put-off at the way you said it so formally.

“That was my decision,”

“I know,” You say. “I still feel the need to apologize.”

“Why?”

“Considering you’re my boss and the longer we talk in a personal manner the more it would lead to unfairness. Something you don’t really… like.”

You’re right. He doesn't really like unfairness, usually playing by fair laws more than anything. And with this… relationship, the power difference between you two felt very apparent.

“You’re right,”

You nod.

It was easy to find yourself out of Wriothesley’s office after that conversation. Because it made sense. It was fair.

But none of those happen when you are up against the wall with him, feeling your lips numb and sting from the rough kisses of his own. If you were to allow him, he would bite your lip hard enough to draw blood.

But that doesn’t happen, instead his hands find their way under your jaw, nudging your head upwards so he can taste you better. Both you can only hope that no one else trudges inside of his office in the middle of the night.

He should probably stop, you should also maybe stop. But the echoes of your breathy huffs from the kiss and his desperate grunts felt too addicting to intervene. It would feel wrong to stop when you two had gotten too far.

Oh, what would the others say when they found out that you’d been smuggling up to the boss? You’d be lying if you were to say that the thought doesn’t bother you.

Somehow, Wriothesley interrupted the moment by pulling away yet still too close to have you feel his breath against your bruised lips. “Behave and don’t tell anyone.”

You laugh, maybe because both of you know better that he was the one who needed to be told to behave.

From that time and every night in his office, it was all a secret.

rimi’s notes …

if it wasn’t obvious enough, i am not used to writing rough kiss scenes. (kissing scenes in general but i try) very sorry haven’t updated this for those who were looking forward to it😭 once i finish writing thoma’s, hopefully the schedule would return back hhh

Next in line would be Thoma for RED!

hearts / reblogs / follows are very much appreciated ★

Hey Stephen by Venti (previously) ִ ࣪𖤐 Stay Stay Stay by Thoma (coming soon)

#genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #wriothesley x reader #genshin impact tv 🫶🪽

141 notes · View notes

waltricia · 21 days

Text

Happy Polin Day!! 💛 I accidentally wrote an essay about the lighting in this two second clip. I guess I found my Roman Empire.

Nicola said in an interview that the theme of the first season was passion, the second was longing, and the third is romance, and I fully agree and believe her because everything about this clip SCREAMS romance.

As perfect as they are, I have to put aside costume, hair, and makeup, and just praise the lighting right now bc it really deserves to be discussed.

Anyone who has ever read a romance novel knows that when the leading man looks at the leading lady ~lustily~, his expression darkens and he has a devilish glint in his eye, while she has a soft, open expression and stars in her eyes. That is EXACTLY what they achieved by angling a single soft fill light on Luke from below, while having him kinda backlit/ side lit by the key light (the moonlight), and angling that harder accent light on Nicola from above and back, while having the full key light on her from the front.

In classic horror cinematography, characters are lit from below because it casts sinister shadows on their faces. Hell scenes often have characters lit by fire from below (because obviously). This kind of lighting is also great for portraying lust (see Kanthony in the library, season 2 ep 4, both scenes). Lustiness and the devil go hand in hand (because religion lol), and that’s why this slightly sinister lighting looks so good here.

Colin is every bit the romantic hero, and the way the lighting portrays that is subtle, but intentional. His eyes are shadowed and he has that glint. No doubt he’s about to do something bold and scandalous. Just the way Colin is approaching Pen pretty clearly indicates his intentions, but I really like that you can also derive those intentions from the lighting because it evokes such freakin classic romantic imagery.

And in the same perfectly subtle way, she is also classically lit, but representing the other side of the coin. As he’s lit from hell, she’s lit from heaven. The yellow (😉) light on her has an angelic effect. It’s also a soft spotlight, like how they would light Old Hollywood starlets.

When you combine that light with the key light (the moonlight) that fills her face and makes her eyes sparkle, you really see her, and she is meant to be worshipped. That’s what Colin is seeing. And, obviously, being seen terrifies our wallflower. Which just adds another layer to the significance of Colin’s lighting because not only does the lighting tell us what’s he’s about to do (😘), it also makes sense to have him in the devilish lighting because she’s scared. But it’s the good kind of scary of course.

And what’s so god damn beautiful about the whole thing, is that the opposition that I’m seeing between the lighting of Colin and Pen in this moment exists so harmoniously with the equivalence that I also see between the characters. The feeling of connection between them is stronger than it’s ever been. And I’m guessing she’s literally on some kind of platform, like a doorstep or something, because their lines of sight are more level with each other. So the contrast between Colin and Pen itself contrasts with the closeness between them.

I just love how wonderfully complex that is. I am so impressed.

And that’s just the lighting y’all.

THAT’S JUST THE LIGHTING

💡🤯👏🙌😍🐝🌼🪞💛🩵💚✨

#thanks for coming to my ted talk i guess #this scene will be my oppenheimer #i would ace a bridgerton-specific film studies course #polin #penelope featherington #colin bridgerton #nicola coughlan #luke newton #bridgerton #bridgerton season 3 #bridgerton s3 #lighting #romance #colin x penelope #penelope x colin #love #lust #netflix

90 notes · View notes

nyikondlovu · 10 months

Text

Chefs Kiss (Sydcarmy) fans stay with me, Chefs!

I’m not taking anything Ayo, Jeremy and Christopher say against sydcarmy, aka Chefs Kiss, seriously.

They purposefully kept Carmen and Sydney as separate as possible this season, which is a big mistake in my opinion.

The show is about the characters and their relationships with each other. Food is a part of it, but it’s mostly the relationship each character has with one another that makes the show.

The writers trying to dispel the rumours by keeping what I would call our male and female leads apart is nuts because Jeremy and Ayo play so well off of each other but by separating them Jeremy gave his weakest acting (which is still very good) during Carmy/Claire scenes?

They keep saying The Bear doesn’t need romance then give Carmen a whole relationship that was so boring to watch for like 7 episodes and felt like watching paint dry because Claire isn’t engaging.

I’m expected to care about her, what she supposedly means to Carmen and hear about how great she is but don’t get to see it? She’s an ER resident for gods sake and she’s running around town giggling every 5 minutes without a semblance of the hard work and exhaustion that comes with being a doctor.

And for the reason stated above, I believe she’s a manic pixie dream girl. She’s there to change Carmen’s view on life, be different and quirky and the one who got away when in reality Carmy forgot who she was and had to be reminded which took him a whole 5 seconds to remember the supposed love of his life, purposefully gives her the wrong number and she says “You’re the Bear, of course I remember.”

No one was gonna take her seriously as the person to keep up with Carmy and help keep him sane.

Meanwhile Sydney does. She anchors him, she keeps up with him and she calls him out on his shit. Sydney isn’t perfect. She’s terrible at stating what she needs at that moment, she slightly short tempered and she is passive aggressive.

She also is working on her impatience and passive aggression. She eventually tells Carmy she needs his attention as her partner. She speaks up for herself to her dad and she’s not letting her ambition be treated like a bad thing anymore.

Carmen and Sydney would make sense because they are flawed. Carmy stops going to group therapy as soon as he starts dating Claire because she’s ‘fixed’ him and they don’t work because of that.

Sydney has ‘levelled up’ in her professional life, she’s more assertive and willing to listen and has just grown as a person and that type of continuous strive for self growth is what Carmen needs to see in order to do the same HIMSELF.

Sydney isn’t there to fix Carmy, she’s someone who he can grow alongside.

Claire was used as a kids bandaid to a gaping wound; the wound being Michael. Claire represents a life where Mikey was alive and Carm’s fucked up family was as whole and happy as it’s gonna be. She represents the past and everyone PUSHED him to want to date her in the past.

There is too much between our two chefs for simply business partners:

S1 shows Carmen scrubbing the floor of the restaurant when in turmoil while Sydney does the same in S2;

She’s spliced into the montage of Carmy and Claire as though she’s a silent part of their relationship;

She has the three dagger heart tattoo which typically represents romantic heartbreak and turbulence;

Carmen remembers her interest in his whites from three months prior even though she didn’t say anything and gets her her own custom whites;

The imagery from their conversation under the table? Him asking her to screw the other side and “say more, please” as he holds up the table (and Sydney) while she finally shares her fears;

“You’re not alone.” “Neither are you.”;

The memories of Sydney being what calms him from his panic attack;

During said panic attack, the song that was Claire and Carmen’s plays in reverse and any flashes of her are accompanied by memories of his dysfunctional family while the moment he thinks of Sydney? The song starts playing correctly. He calms and flashes of his family (and Claire) disappear;

Them constantly cooling an argument with the ‘I’m sorry’ gesture;

Him constantly being in tune with her emotions and body language.

Sydney represents a new beginning. The chance to build a healthy family with the staff of The Bear, Sydney, Natalie and Richie. She represents a future. She represents good change.

I’m fully convinced Ayo and Jeremy are just doing what all actors do with a ship that’s not yet canon: downplaying or dismissing it.

C’mon if you’ve been in The High School Musical The Musical The Series fandom and shipped Rina from the beginning, you know how it feels to be persecuted and gaslit by other fans and the actors for seasons.

TL:DR, Chefs Kiss is literally a super slow burn and no one of the team will confirm it until it actually happens.

Also, never let your girlfriend (Claire) stop you (Carmen) from opening a restaurant with the love of your life (Sydney)

And if you think they should “stay platonic”, ask yourself WHY every swirl ship with a white male lead and black female is hated by fandoms and the argument is “they’re best friends” or “they’re like siblings”. WHY can’t black women be desired? Because you can’t self insert? Check yourself before claiming a character who was so underwhelming I skipped so many scenes is a better match than the character who has seen him at his worst and told him he cannot and will not talk to her like that. The first person he thought to open a restaurant, that means so much to him, with

#sydney x carmy #syd x carmy #carmen x sydney #sydney adamu #carmen berzatto #the bear #claire the bear #the bear s2 #the bear fx #the bear hulu #chefs kiss #I’ve seen this film before #I never lose with my ships #trust me #y’all platonic bitches so transparent you might as well be a window #the category is: hating when black women are in the spotlight #fandom racism #different fandom same shit

228 notes · View notes

descendant-of-truth · 1 year

Text

Y'know what maybe I'm not done talking about Journeys queercoding actually. maybe I do wanna work out my literary analysis muscles for the sake of Pokemon protagonists. why not

To clarify, this isn't about me personally enjoying the ship between Ash and Gou. I do enjoy it, but I'm making an argument for potentially deliberate queercoding in the writing, I'm not necessarily just here to gush (though that may be a side effect)

I'm also a firm believer that actions or behaviors that we typically think of as romantic are only made romantic if that's how the people involved feel about it. I don't think romance is the only possible way to interpret their relationship.

But when it comes to predicting where a story might be going next, or figuring out what the writers are intending to hint at us, I gotta pull out my textbook of Romantic Tropes first to see what fits the bill.

And I'm sorry, but even if it's not the intended interpretation, you can't include all of these scenes:

...and assume no one in your audience will think there's anything romantic happening here.

Of course, those are just the obvious visual interactions between them that can come off as romantic, to say nothing of the symbolic visual hints; the no less than four rainbows they've been under (one of which was reflected in Gou's eye), the two sets of heart-shaped pokemon that swam past them in a single episode which also had them falling under a rainbow, stuff like that.

But even all of that is pretty surface-level stuff. If the writing doesn't support a queer reading very strongly, then my argument for the queercoding being particularly intentional would fall flat.

Thankfully, the writing does support a queer interpretation, so I'm in the clear! Since breaking this part down will take a lot longer, I'm putting it under a cut.

So, right off the bat we've got the basic setup for the show. For the first time, the focus is primarily on Ash and one other person, as opposed to two or more people... despite having a third person in Chloe, who could easily make this into a trio dynamic, considering she's friends with Gou from the start. But they choose instead to make the core of the show about Ash and Gou.

This is even reflected in promotional material, where they'll often be placed closer to each other than Chloe:

Them being roommates is something I usually bring up as a joke, but it is worth noting anyway simply because it's another way the writers have decided they're going to spend almost all of their time together when they really didn't have to.

But now we gotta get into the real Writing Choices(TM) that are the meat and potatoes of this analysis, such as: making brief allusions to the idea that they might like other guys, too

One way to build up a character's orientation is to show them being attracted to people in shorter instances before giving them a main love interest. Think Luz from The Owl House; she had expressed attraction to both boys and girls before she got a girlfriend or started wearing a bi pin.

Likewise, this is Ash when he's thinking about Leon after seeing him battle for the first time:

I kid you not, he keeps up this blush and zoned-out expression for a solid minute, so caught up in thinking about how cool Leon is that he doesn't even think to eat the scones in front of him.

Now, Ash is a person frequently characterized by his love for food, and in previous episodes he had expressed a particular adoration for Galar scones, so this is pretty unusual behavior for him.

So unusual that it's. literally never happened before, to the best of my knowledge?? I don't think it takes much analyzing to realize that, even if it was brief, you could easily take this as Ash having a celebrity crush on Leon.

(There's even pink flowers in the background but that's probably less important)

Meanwhile with Gou, his "setup crush" in this scenario would be Horace. These two have a whole episode dedicated to their first meeting and the bond they forged, and how that turned bitter on Gou's end when he gets stood up right as he thought he was finally making a friend.

What sets this up for a romantic interpretation is largely the framing of things towards the end of the episode:

"Why do I keep thinking of him" is historically not the most platonic thing you could be bitterly thinking to yourself while you remember stargazing with someone, even if I do stand by my statement earlier of nothing being inherently romantic by itself

The end of the episode also implies that the feeling is mutual, if this shot is anything to go off of

(It's just a very shoujo manga-esque frame okay there's no way I wasn't going to point it out)

And the ending scene is two Celebies looking down happily at the two of them while the narrator talks about how pokemon form "many different kinds of bonds"

Many kinds of bonds, huh? Wonder what he could possibly be implying there

Okay so we've got orientation buildup, next in line is this. suspiciously consistent trend of characters who are close to Ash telling Gou to take care of him, or even going out of their way to test him to make sure he's good enough to be his rival or friend.

Gou himself even echoes the sentiment completely unprompted once, which says even more to me that they're trying to make a point out of this:

And here's the thing. None of the other companions have ever undergone this sort of treatment. Nobody questioned whether or not Ash's friends were good enough to hang out with him before, so why now? Why Gou? What makes him different?

Kiawe is relatively easy to explain because (from what I can tell) he's just Like That about rivalries, but why the addition of describing a rival as "the person closest to Ash"? Why does Gary suddenly care about the quality of Ash's buddies when that was never really a concern for him before?

Well gee I don't know about you guys but to me, this feels like the trope where someone's friends and family all start scouting out the guy they're interested in (or who is interested in them) to make sure they won't like, break their heart or something. And despite my best efforts, I'm struggling to see how this wasn't the writers' intention behind these plotlines.

Gou telling Ash's mom that he'll look after Ash on two separate occasions as opposed to the initial one also feels like an easy parallel to someone promising their love interest's parents that they'll be a good partner.

To my understanding, that isn't traditionally something friends also have to promise, even if there's more justification here as Ash and Gou are traveling around and getting into chaotic situations regularly.

So, with all this in mind, it kind of reframes the stuff I mentioned earlier, doesn't it? The blushing, the hand-holding, the spin hug that I'm never getting over, the frequent appearance of rainbows and the heart shaped Pokemon (Luvdisc if you were wondering)... it feels a lot more intentional once you take into account the bigger themes in the writing.

And once you start looking, it keeps piling up. The way Gou hurriedly says that he totally didn't want to help Ash out or anything after Scorbunny gives him a knowing look, like how most tsundere tropes tend to play out:

Or the specific way Gou is taken aback by one of Ash's compliments before trying to play it off by looking cool, only to be comically shocked when Ash gets distracted by something else:

I could go on but I'm running out of image space and I think you get the idea.

Ash's side of this whole thing is admittedly a lot more subtle than Gou's (*cough* because he's arospec) which is why I haven't gone over it much - my aim with this post was not to go too far into speculation territory - but we at least have marketing on our side for that

Gee Ash how come Animedia let you feed Gou two pastries

Anyway, in conclusion: I ran these two through the literary queerometer and the results were positive, thanks for coming to my TED talk

#pokemon #pokeani #anipoke #pokemon journeys #ash ketchum #pokemon gou #journeyshipping #satogou #analysis #meta #Can you tell I started this at a reasonable nighttime hour and finished at 3am #XD #TAKING THESE SCREENSHOTS TOOK SO LONG #especially since I had to backtrack and edit for a lot of them #Finding the animedia posters in decent quality wasn't exactly a cakewalk either

820 notes · View notes

emotionallychargedtowel · 10 months

Text

Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters: "I had no wife in the year six"

There's a thing, I guess it would be considered a trope, that is one of my favorite such things in any form of media but especially any sort of romance-centered story. I don't know of an existing term for this and I'm terrible at being concise so I'm not sure how I could put it briefly. Basically, it's the thing that happens when a larger interaction is happening with a group of people but there's a subtext to it that means something very different--and generally, much more meaningful--to the central characters. You could call it something like Intense Subtext in Front of Oblivious Side Characters.

I've been thinking for a while about possible parallels between BLs and Jane Austen novels and/or adaptations. This is my attempt at taking a small, specific example of a parallel I sometimes notice and talking about it. Austen's novels do a lot of this trope I mentioned. That's in part because of choices Austen made in what she wanted to write about. But it's also because of the social context of her time. There was a lot going on that people couldn't be explicit about, for a variety of reasons. I think one reason why I see similar things happening in some BLs--and maybe one reason for the appeal of certain types of BLs--is the fact that being queer in a homophobic society makes openness complicated in a way that doesn't come up as much for hetero relationships these days. Especially when we get into things like office romances, in which appearances have higher stakes. These complications around openness have a kind of similarity to the reasons Austen's characters had to play a lot of things close to the chest.

Fellow Old Fashion Cupcake fans will remember an example from that series that I think really fits here. Nozue and Togawa agree to attend a goukon, or "mixer" as it's sometimes translated--basically a group hangout intended to help men and women meet for the purpose of finding people to date. Nozue is hitting it off with a cute younger woman, which is bad enough. But then he mentions his "anti-aging" efforts, and because of the mysterious way he words it, the woman asks, "Does that mean you're in love?" which of course catches Togawa's attention even more. He's clearly affected when Nozue answers, "If I were, I wouldn't be here."

@jdramastuff did a great screenshot post of this scene if you want to see what this looked like.

After Nozue's comment, Togawa starts knocking back alcoholic drinks like it's going out of style, ensuring that Nozue will have to help him home instead of going home with the woman who's been flirting with him.

(You could argue that this isn't so much a case of subtext as it is the significance one person assigns to what another is saying. Subtext really requires some degree of communication between more than one person. But while Nozue doesn't fully grasp what's going on, I think he does understand in some ways what he's communicating. I don't want to go on too much of a tangent, so I'll just say that having just read the manga the series was based on, it strengthened my belief that while Nozue is repressed, insecure, even deluded at times, he has glimmers of awareness of his feelings for Togawa and even suspicions of Togawa's feelings for him, and on some level he knows what he's saying, though I don't think he knows in this moment how much these words will hurt Togawa.)

I have another favorite example of this, a scene from Persuasion. It's rendered really well in the 1995 adaptation of the novel with Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root. (The whole thing is phenomenal, by the way--I think it's the best Austen adaptation ever made, personally.)

A bit of background for anyone not familiar with the story: Anne Elliott was engaged to Captain Frederick Wentworth in 1806 but was convinced by Lady Russell, her neighbor/family friend and a kind of surrogate mother to her following her mom's death, to break off the engagement. She has regretted it ever since. Wentworth was deeply hurt and angry when she broke things off, not surprisingly.

More than eight years later, Anne is visiting her sister and her sister's in-laws, the Musgroves, when Wentworth comes to the area and starts spending a lot of time at the Musgrove place (and with the Musgroves' eligible young daughters). Wentworth acknowledges Anne, but just barely, while paying enough attention to both the Musgrove girls that everyone is gossiping about which one he's going to marry. Anne's sister Mary was away at boarding school when her previous relationship with Wentworth happened, so neither Mary nor the Musgroves are aware Anne and Wentworth were involved and think they were only acquaintances.

At a dinner party, the Musgrove girls try to look up the ship that Wentworth first commanded, the Asp, in the Navy List, a book that chronicles the various ships in the British Navy, their commanders, and so forth. Wentworth tells them not to bother--"she" is not in the current version of the List because "she" no longer exists.

Louisa and Henrietta Musgrove are suitably horrified.

Admiral Croft, Wentworth's brother-in-law and superior in the Navy, remarks that Wentworth was lucky to get a command so early in his career at all, no matter how seaworthy (or un-seaworthy) the ship was.

(Remember, 1806 was the year that Anne and Wentworth became engaged and then un-engaged.)

Gut-wrenching. And nobody else sitting at that table has any idea what just happened. I love it.

I have some more thoughts about this languishing in an excessively long post in my drafts, which I'll try to get out one of these days. I know I've talked to a few people about trying to do some BL/Austen posts and had meant to tag them but the only person I remember talking with about it was @absolutebl. If you're reading this and you want a heads up next time I write about this stuff, let me know!

#austen & BL parallels #jane austen #persuasion #persuasion 1995 #wentworth x anne #old fashion cupcake #togawa x nozue #ciaran hinds #amanda root #takeda kouhei #kimura tatsunari #intense subtext in front of oblivious side characters #tropes #I need a better and shorter name for this

181 notes · View notes

madonnamadeofasphalt · 1 year

Text

All this talk about how Gideon the Ninth is “genre-busting” but I’ve just read it and the only thing it’s busting is medium, because it’s a very by-the-book jRPG (or at least, the first act of a larger jRPG) written as a novel

opening on an obvious fighting tutorial and an unwinnable boss fight

immediately after that, Gideon gets an obvious downgrade (switch from longsword to rapier) to justify why she’s suddenly level 1 despite having studied the blade her whole life

the entire middle section of the novel is a straight-up dungeon crawl with a series of elaborate puzzles and boss fights, interwoven with dating sim elements up in the Canaan House

the relatively chill high school AU atmosphere gets abruptly broken by people starting to die horrible and mysterious deaths

despite all the dramatic historical magic shit, the subplot you actually end up caring most about is the slowly evolving romance between the jackass himbo protag and the mysterious tsundere deuteragonist

multi-phase final boss fight with a heroic sacrifice downer ending and a post-credit scene that teases the sequels (they never found the bodies and Harrow serves God now, oooo!)

judging from the spoilers I’ve read, it’s very probable the entire series will culminate in one team of anime lesbians or another fighting and killing God (for good this time), probably with more heroic sacrifices

#gideon the ninth #locked tomb spoilers #gideon the ninth spoilers #locked tomb #the locked tomb #i loved it tbh

460 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

str1ders

wendy130

g/t & g/t vore mcyt

simp-lyy

SIMPly simple

nefarious-nepenthe

Nefarious Nepenthe

incre-ment

incre.ment